The Whole Metaverse

The Whole Metaverse - Episode 1

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Pierre Gervious: Olivier Moingeon thank you very much to be on the NYU MetaCast, the podcast about the metaverse from New York University. Dr. Elizabeth Haas and myself, Pierre Gervois are the cohost, and we're thrilled to have you. You are the chief commercial officer of Exclusible is, uh, an amazing web 3 company that is really a game changer for beautiful virtual reality spaces and I would like to start by, uh, asking you the question. You come from the luxury industry background. Explain us why you choose to work with Exclusible coming from Cartier or prestigious physical brands and now you are in the metaverse. What was the difference for you?

Olivier Moingeon: First of all, thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here. I always love to talk about . Web 3 and the, and the metaverse. So you are right. I have been living in New York for almost 20 years, and I have spent 18 years in luxury. Working at prestigious Maison like Cartier, Goyard or even Bastide, which is a beauty brand. and so I,

I am one of the co-founders of Exclusible and we started building the company, in the spring of 2021, which was pretty early because Facebook was still called Facebook at the time. And for me, the reason why I joined my associates to start Exclusible.

It's because I really wanted to exit the corporate environment and really be at the, like a pioneer in this new movement that's called Web 3 because I formed my thesis very early on about how NFTs and the Metaverses could offer gigantic opportunities for brands and especially luxury brands and how it would be the natural evolution of the internet and that it would be an absolute, obvious reality in the 2020s that every brand would tap into the opportunity and the potential of web 3 so I wanted to be part of this movement. I met my associates on LinkedIn, the importance of networking and having a public profile, I guess. and we embarked on this adventure. History has proven us right because since then when we started building the company we have raised money twice. We did a seed round in August, 2021. We just closed a bridge to a Series A, in the summer of 2022. And we are building at the speed of light and adapting at every step of the way to the market conditions.

Pierre Gervious: Something that really strike me and the. I heard about Exclusible I think it was on LinkedIn, and I saw a post about this penthouse that you created, and I was so shocked by the beauty, by the photorealism of this metaverse compared with what all your competitors were doing and I immediately wanted to do research asking myself, who is doing this? This so much more beautiful. So, Do you think that the aesthetics, the pure aesthetics of the metaverse is going to make a difference versus other type of design that a less photorealistic.

Olivier Moingeon: The easy answer is yes, absolutely. Photorealism is very important it's actually very interesting because I have a lot of friends in the video gaming industry. So they are quite puzzled by the fact that now all of a sudden there is a craze about the metaverse, whereas it's nothing more than a 3D environment, immersive and multiplayer. I guess a new component is the relationship to the blockchain and to the idea that is decentralized. And so this concept came to life really to prominence with Sandbox and Decentraland which were the two most famous web 3 metaverse platforms, both of them based on land.

So there is a, it's a finite amount of lands available that people can buy. Anyone can buy and build and monetize on top of that. So this value proposition is very new compared to the rest of the video game industry Where like Roblox, Fortnight, Minecraft are closed platforms, not linked to blockchains, and so you have to stay within the confines of this platform. That's the, what was new is that all of a sudden anyone could monetize within a video game platform. So there was kind of like a first wave when it's before and after the renaming of Facebook to Meta that news sent, all the tokens linked to those metaverse platforms, booming. All of a sudden there was a craze to basically go into that type of platform, test, create experiences.

We Exclusible actually rode that wave because we bought $2 million worth of land in The Sandbox which we then developed as luxury villas and luxury islands. and

We sold all of them in January of 2022, and it generated more than 4 million dollars worth of net revenue for our company.

It'll be impossible for me to replicate this model because number one, we are in a bear market so the exposure to the relationship to crypto, is real in terms of pricing those assets and then, The Sandbox is not necessarily the platform of choice for some of the brands that we work with, or a lot of the users. We also worked a lot with Decentraland. We are very close to all of these metaverse platforms.

We actually organized the first dance competition in the metaverse during the fashion week in March, 2022 in Decentraland.

We also opened some popup stores. We did some treasure hunts and quests. We brought some DJs. We did a lot of wearables for digital fashion. So we have been very active in Decentraland as time passes by, brands, luxury brands, and every brand is getting more and more comfortable with Web 3 They understand what it is both on the NFT side and the metaverse side. And we are, we are past this stage of fomo, fear of missing out where brands are going into The Sandbox or Decentraland or other games, other platforms without really knowing why.

They're doing it because everybody's doing it. So they're just following. Now I feel the, the landscape is much smarter and we see a lot of these brands are kind of posing to assess what is the best strategy for them. And that gave rise to another platform called Spacial which is also a 3D immersive environment.

But it's not, it doesn't have a concept of land. it doesn't sell land, It doesn't have a token. It's accessible on mobile phone and also on desktop, and anyone can create an experience and make it available for users around the world to access. So we decided to create a really beautiful experience that we called the penthouse.

And so we indeed replicated a beautiful photo realistic Parisian penthouse, and we sold 2,500 units in June, 2022. We are actually now launching a new product, which is we are renting these pen house and other, uh, showrooms. We are renting them by the months for brands that wants to test the water. Get their fit wet in the metaverses without having to engage, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to build experiences.

Elizabeth Haas: You said that part of what got you started here was the belief that NFTs were a huge opportunity for brands. Can you define what that opportunity is?

Olivier Moingeon: Sure. we have to put the discussion back in the con the global context where if we look at the luxury landscape, let's just focus on luxury. Every brand has a store in primary, secondary, and probably tertiary cities around the world. Every country has a presence. Every major city has a store.

Most brands are reducing the footprint in wholesale to focus on retail and, e-commerce because they sell directly to the clients. They control the experience they sell at full margin, and they capture the data of the client to then keep that client for life. there's also a trend in conscious consumerism, which is.

Where the new Generation Gen Z, Gen Alpha asking for transparency in terms of where products are made, how they are made, who made them, and how the brands are responsible for the entire life cycle of the physical products. Then we are also in the context of a global economic recession or like a slow down in the economy.

So if we put all of these back to back, The next decade, points to a direction where it's gonna be harder and harder for brands to generate double digit growth. Year on year. Web three becomes a new opportunity because with NFTs, brands can sell digital products which do not exist in the real life.

And those digital products could be. Digital fashion skins, avatars, collectables, access pass they can unlock a new source of revenue and they can unlock a new type of product that did not exist before. In that sense, for us, it's an absolute certainty that it's just a matter of time before every single brand in the world has a digital product division.

That will sell and release collections very regularly and people will be happy to buy them because that's currently what Gen Alpha is doing in video games, spending money to buy skins for their avatar.

Elizabeth Haas: You also said what's really important is that, luxury brands they're really thinking about this strategically. If you were advising a luxury brand, going back to for example, Cartier, what are the strategic questions they need to ask to best position themselves moving forward?

Olivier Moingeon: Yes, very good question. I would say, why do you wanna go in web three? What are the objectives that you're trying to achieve? And can those objectives be achieved in web two, meaning without any type of blockchain, nft or even blockchain based meta. Components. when we ask these three questions, usually it's, it allows to really filter the brands that have real and authentic ambitions in web three compared to the ones that are seeing it from a distance and maybe just trying to make money or trying to create a PR moment.

Which are usually not the, the best conditions of success. when you go into web three, the objectives can be very different from capturing the attention of a younger audience that you cultivate over time. creating a marketing push, creating a moment that will, support. More major moment. For example, reopening of a biggest, a big flagship store, with a big media plan, a metaverse experience could be one component of that reopening plan.

It's not the main component, but it's just a new addition to a, you know, standard media, launch plan, customer acquisition loyalty. Driving revenue. All of these are very, standard objectives that we discuss with brands pretty often.

Elizabeth Haas: Those questions are questions you would ask almost in any marketing.

They're not unique to Web 3 I mean, because one of the mistakes I see people doing, I'm trying to kinda catalog mistakes, is that they create a strategy that doesn't align with what the brand is, and then there's a misalignment.

I don't know if you've seen that.

Olivier Moingeon: I have seen that a hundred percent. and you are right, these questions are basic questions that brands are already asking themselves. It shows the misunderstanding or how little a lot of brands know about Web three, because they assume that if you do it, people will come and it's not the case.

If you put in an NFT collection on sale, these guys from Web 3 will buy it. If you create a Metaverse experience, these guys from Web 3 will come in your experience, and it's not the case you need to. As I said, authenticity, the reason for existing is the reason for being. And then, it has to be a long term vision, long term objective, so that because all of a sudden you're gonna have a responsibility and you have to have the resources and the ambition to support this new channel, this new initiative or this new community.

Elizabeth Haas: So my, my sense, and I guess I'm just trying to interpret a little bit too, these are very traditional questions, but how you answer them is different. When you think Web three, Web three gives you new, new vehicles, new space to play in, is that fair?

Olivier Moingeon: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. it's something new that no one has done before. In our company accessible. We hired, we have what, like maybe 30 employees now. And we have a Metaverse team. We have an NFT drop management team. These jobs did not exist a year ago. and so launching a physical product like a handbag, a piece of jewelry or a perfume, brands master the art of launching those products.

The mechanics behind the launch of a an nf. Whether it's for free or for sale, it's something completely new. Because the audience is new, the expectations are different. mechanics, the way a job happens is completely different from e-commerce. and so all of this is new for everyone. You can only know by doing, and you learn the hard way by being in the trenches and, and just doing it and learning.

Pierre Gervious: There is a question when it comes to luxury. For hundreds of years, people who acquired luxury goods, Love the physicality of the luxury goods it's an object you can put on your skin. It's an intimate object that you can wear, you can show you can pass to the future generation.

There is this idea in luxury now with web 3 we're talking about imaterial experiences you can pass to your children a watch and your children can pass to your grandchildren. what about this concept of passing a luxury object to which there's an emotion to future generation in Web Street?

Olivier Moingeon: So this doesn't change and will never change. I come from the boutiques. I learned... I spent, half of my career opening luxury stores and setting them up and training and getting everybody excited in the stores. So the relationship to a physical product, the relationship to the physical experience will never change.

That's why the Metaverse, web 3, NFTs, they are not going to destroy or replace anything, is literally a new addition to a brand architecture and a product portfolio. If we look at, based on what you said, if we look at the essence of luxury, it's true that it's anchored in heritage, craftmanship, and also emotion.

And all of these justify higher prices. But with web 3 the idea that you are purely in a digital and virtual realm you can achieve the same psychological triggers and the same, uh, you know, feeling the same emotion that you can have in the physical world. And that's why I think it's an, it's a certainty because people in the future and it's, it's already there.

We'll be very happy to buy this digital product from Gucci, Dior, Vuiton, Prada and show the world on social media or digital platforms or metaverse that they belong, that they have this item that there's maybe only 50 or a hundred of them, or 10,000, whatever. But it's the idea that you can flex. Uh, much, much, much larger audience on, on, on digital.

you can express the same attributes that you belong to a club, that you have access when others don't, and that uh, you have, uh, you know, certain wealth, and also taste because there's a lot of what we call alphas. So it's basically the idea and NFT drops are not necessarily super expensive.

They are just very hard to get, uh, especially the popular ones, at the launch. And that then they become very expensive. They become very iconic and by the time they reach this icon status, what we call blue chip, they become out of reach for, 99% of the population. So the idea that you were in early, so you have taste is also very powerful.

Pierre Gervious: Yeah, so there is a lot of sociological analysis. I was

thinking to a French sociology when you were talking about taste, about status, so it doesn't change in the virtual environment. That's really very powerful and and very interesting.

Olivier Moingeon: Exactly. And so, concrete example, I know someone who has a Ferrari. In his garage, and he has very rare Rolex Paul Newman and he barely drive his far around. And he prefers to wear an Apple watch with his crypto punk because that gives him so much more flex than the Rolex and the Ferrari

Pierre Gervious: That's very interesting.

Olivier Moingeon: Yes, yes. yeah. And of course, the punk is also his profile picture on every social media that he's in.

Elizabeth Haas: If we, move to the, um, recent announcement about, your really partnering with Spatial

Olivier Moingeon: Yes,

Elizabeth Haas: you talk about how that decision happened, um, and what, what's special about it?

Olivier Moingeon: Yes, for sure. So, We started working with special maybe in April, 2022. We are very agnostic when it comes to the metaverse. We have identified more than 150 metaverse platforms. We have tested more than 60. We have a whole like ranking and scorecard, in house. we are agnostic in the sense that we build experiences for others and also for ourselves, and therefore we are always trying to find the best location.

and so very early on we identified Spacial as kind of removing most pain points. You don't have to download anything. You don't have to have a. You know, powerful machine to access the platform. It can be web three, You can connect with your crypto wallets, or you don't, you don't have to have crypto wallets at all.

it's available on mobile phone. It's available on desktop. and it's high, realistic 3D rendering and there's no server cost. The experience can be open 24 7, you know, forever. So these very low barriers to entry and the quality of the 3d. Made us really fall in love with Spacial

and so that's why we developed. I think to this day it's probably the most, the biggest drop that ever happened on Spacial because we sold our 2,500 penthouse on Spacial. they are integrated also with Ready Play On Me. We are very close to really play on as well. We really believe in the concept of avatar.

you know, the, the future of self identity. and so yeah, we have a partnership with Ready Player Me we have partnership with Spacial. We keep building and we think it's, it's really a great platform.

Elizabeth Haas: Given that we're really moving into open space that's never been been there before, like, you know, we're going to the moon or wherever we're doing. there's also lots of lessons of people that tried stuff that didn't work. you know, and my sense is, meta is one of those lessons. There's a lot of smart people there.

I give them a lot of credit for being so bold that they bet the company on this, but I have this sense that they're stuck in not really understanding what's of value. Am I, am I off?

Olivier Moingeon: I think the metaverse already exists. Again, with like Roblox, Fortnight, Minecraft, these environments already exist. And so I was reading one of the, your blog posts where there's a very valid argument. It's the, it's why should people decide to spend money in a metaverse as opposed to Netflix or in a video game where they have millions of players, millions of worlds.

so right now it's really. The very, very beginning of that whole Metaverse journey. No one knows what it's gonna be like. Everybody talks about interoperability as being one of the, like the holy grail. I believe it will happen, but the point is how do we create experiences that basically make people come, stay and want to come back. And, Right now we're more focused on the technological barriers or, ease of use rather than what is the content, What is inside the experience that will make people decide to spend more time there rather than doing something else. So when it goes to meta kudos to them. It's a very big, bold move. and I believe they will keep investing and they will, hopefully, I really hope that their vision will come realized.

I have a VR headset. I think it's incredible. not, but just in general, the concept of virtual reality with a goggle headset. I think it's absolutely incredible. AR glasses are gonna come from Apple, from, Google, Microsoft. I think the idea of adding a layer of digital in augmented reality on top of your physical experience is gonna be amazing.

we're just going towards more and more use cases, more and more democratization, and we have to be very forgiving right now with all the companies that are trying hard to make the best product, It's really complicated.

Elizabeth Haas: When you said you hope their vision happens, does that mean that you think their vision is the right vision or that you hope they succeed?

Olivier Moingeon: I hope they succeed

because they are. There was, as I said, there was a before and after. Facebook renaming itself in meta, and so it put the metaverse on the radar of every person on earth. so we, it cannot fail otherwise, it'll impact the entire industry in a very unfair manner. Because there are the Bri, the most brilliant minds are building web three and all the components of that more immersive internet.

And so it'll be a pity if Meta fails and then it drags down the entire industry with it. and at the same time, I understand the vision, which is. Meta wants to be, um, a catalog of experiences. A little bit like Roblox. You go into, Horizon and then you can have thousands of worlds that you can discover and hang out with people that you don't know.

So the problem they have right now is that the quality of the graphics is so poor. it gives a good reason for, people are skeptical about the s it's a good reason for people to criticize them. But the vision of an immersive 3D environment where people can hang out, can shop, can play, can be entertained, for me that's an absolute certainty that it will happen.

Is it gonna be them or someone else I don't

Elizabeth Haas: Recently FTX seems to have stumbled too. Do you have any sense of what happened there and how that will impact?

Olivier Moingeon: So it's quite a, quite a week that we've had because the announcement that FTX was being, I'm sorry, that Binance was acquiring FTX came yesterday. and then they announced that they were actually walking away from the deal. so I think there are two big lessons here. The first one is that web three is not crypto, and crypto is not NFTs or the meta.

It's two different sides of blockchain. Of course they are linked, but we always bet that we always wanted or bet that there would be a decoupling of NFTs and crypto and the metaverse, and that's very important for anyone out there to understand that crypto, it's completely separate industry or pillar compared to NFT technology.

Compared to Metaverse. The metaverse can be web three and web two. You don't need blockchain to have metaverse. NFTs can be, it's a technology. NFTs can be sold or given for free, and they can have the same type of utility. Crypto is a whole different ballgame. And so what happened with FTX is that, of course in the bull market, everybody's happy, everything is going well.

And unfortunately, they used their token FTT as a collateral. The problem is that the token is not backed by any assets or anything, and they used the funds from their users to make acquisitions to deploy capital. in some, through their investment arm.

and so when Binance asked for 2 billion worth of that token to be withdrawn, it created a bank run and this was just what we call liquidity crunch. So everybody wanted their money out of FTX the problem was that there was no money or not enough. And then

it triggered in one day the complete collapse of FTX that Binance tried to rescue.

And, uh, it did not happen. And today I think we don't, we still don't know what's gonna happen.

Elizabeth Haas: You said that, web 2 could also be the metaverse. Define for us, what is the metaverse, What's your definition of the metaverse?

Olivier Moingeon: For me, the Metaverse is a 3D based immersive environment, which is accessible through a mobile phone or a desktop. And I would add one more attribute, which is what we call multiplayer. why, Simply because there is nothing, new luxury brands have been doing 3D stores for a few years. As early as like, whatever, 2015, 16, during the pandemic there was a rush to create 3D stores that would create a more interesting experience than e-commerce.

It's been only a year that we really talk about the metaverse and that of virtual land, NFTs and all of that. But, history has showed that these concepts were already out there. That's why you do not need blockchain or Web three to create a metaverse experience. You can have Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnight are not blockchain based. They are centralized, They are not decentralized platform and don't think there . Is any interest from the founders to make them decentralized platforms. So that's why it already exists. It's already there. And it's another myth I want to say that. Metaverse equals NFTs. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

Pierre Gervious: Thank you very much Olivier. that was really, a wonderful podcast and, and I'm sure I speak also for Dr. Haas we learned really a lot about the future of luxury and this really, magical and philosophical moment when we go from physical to imaterial so it's way beyond just a technical and business definition.

We're also talking about, about philosophical aspects.

Olivier Moingeon: Yes.

Pierre Gervious: So on behalf of NYU, Dr. Haas, and myself a big thank you for being with us today and we the best to you personally and to the future of your company, Exclusible.

Thank you so much.

Olivier Moingeon: Thank you. Thank you so much. It was always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Dr. Haas thank ,Pierre.