Real Vision x Sui: Can Building a Web3 Community Save Your Business? (Ep. 2)

0:05The level of disruption that is coming to businesses is gigantic and the only way of building emote this community. I'm Damien Horner, the co-founder of Real Vision. And in this four-part series, I'm on a mission to explore why and how businesses should be thinking about making the transition to Web3. In episode one, we looked at why Real Vision has started on this journey with suey. Now I want to meet companies who've already made the move. But first, let's go back to Raoul to understand the big picture and the wider opportunities that can come with building in Web3. So in the last episode, you talked about Real Vision's transition to Web3 and the benefits it's going to bring for the members.

0:57But help me understand how Web3 can help other businesses. How does Web3 change the world and what opportunities does it bring? It changes the world in so many ways, but at its broadest level, you're breaking down barriers between businesses and their consumers and they all become part of the same thing. So right now, businesses generally are built on like a push only. I sell you something, you buy a product and you either complain or say thanks or buy something else. But when you've got community as the core business model, you're now able to create an exchange value within that community. So let's say we take Taylor Swift.

1:39Taylor Swift's economy is so big that the Bank of England talked about the Taylor Swift effect, as did the Federal Reserve. So imagine then that you've bought her music, you've gone on tour, you've bought merch, you've been part of community exchanges, and you start earning points that allow you to get front row seats. Or maybe you've seen four of her concerts, six of her concerts on one tour. Well, the next tour, hey, you're going to get first dims because you're a super loyal fan. So your fandom has created value. That will work for football clubs. It will work for anything that has these large communities, cultural communities.

2:19It creates huge amounts of value and connection between fans, each other, and the creator. That's the creator economy that you hear a lot about. And does it have to be just about creator economies? Or can it be any community where, you know, I think of Nespresso. Nespresso buyers are pretty loyal and fanatical about Nespresso. You know, they're not fans, but they feel connected to the brand and they're loyal to the brand. Do I have to be a fan or can I just be a consumer who's loyal to that brand? Well, look at Nespresso is a good one. Apple's another one. Everything I've got is Apple. Yeah. So I'm a very loyal Apple person.

2:58Do I get rewarded for that? No. If I did, I'm more likely to be even more loyal. So the incentive then is for brands to build closer relationships with their audiences, with their consumers. that are authentic and let the community build relationships with each other. But that's just some of Web3. The whole finance industry is going to change too. How does that change? Because again, there are creators, asset managers, or fund managers, investors, community. That is one of the big parts of Web3. The other part is social media at scale. Social media is this melting pot of screaming voices of which you have no idea who people are.

3:41You could be a mod on Reddit, so you've been somewhat credentialized, but nobody else is rewarded. I can't tell whether Damien has really engaged in a community, given great ideas, people like what he does. If we can start attaching Web3 credentialization to what you do, you build status in a community, much like you do in all communities, the community you live in, your workplace. That becomes really interesting in itself is what can you do at scale in Web3? Because you're also about to bring in all these fake humans, which is AI. And they could add value too, but it needs to be proven that they add value.

4:23Right now, we can't prove. Number of followers is not a proof because you can buy followers. Or you might have got followers for something you did in the past, and now you're not adding value. So there's so much that we can do that also protects us in this new AI world where we don't know who we're dealing with. What Rel's saying there is that the arrival of Web3 isn't just about a new technology. It's actually a new way of thinking about the ways brands engage with their audiences. And a big part of this is a rebalancing of their relationship with one another. One where brands need to work much harder at enriching the experiences of their audiences by empowering them in all sorts of different ways.

5:10And where customers and audiences can engage much more deeply with the brands they love and be rewarded for doing so. Now this all sounds like heady stuff, so I spoke to four companies who've already started down this track with Sui to try and understand what they do and how Web3 has changed the way they operate. okay Nikhil thank you for joining us we're really trying to understand the wave of web 3 that's about to hit the world and how companies are engaging with it so just first of all just tell us what sector are you working in and what does your business do in a nutshell one championship falls in the sports and entertainment sector you know we are one of world's largest martial arts organization we differentiate from other MMA promotions by not only featuring just MMA you You know, when you come to a one championship event, you get Mewtha, you get kickboxing, submachine grappling.

6:07When you're inside a stadium, 20 ,000 people, right? Two athletes going at it. You have pyrotechnics, you have lasers, LED screens. It's like a rock concert. We are a new video platform, short form video platform, where people post video responses to videos and anyone can monetize instantaneously. So let's say someone posts a video talking about, okay, guys, give me your top 10 market predictions where crypto is going to be in the next five years. And then people post video responses, video reactions to that video. And you can see all the video responses in the form of a feed. So think of it like video retweets or video threads.

6:52We work in the movie industry and we work at the live end of it, the cinema and actually the going to the movies. We were the first theatrical subscription company. Sometimes people describe us as Netflix for movie theaters. You pay a monthly fee and go to the theaters as often as you want. So we focus on super fans and people who really go to movies as a lifestyle choice. Ryan, you're another business in a really exciting sector. Just tell us what is that space and what is your business in a nutshell? Often people say crypto gaming or Web3 gaming, but we like to think of ourselves as just gaming.

7:34It is obviously in the Web3 space using blockchain technology to enable players to have unique experiences, ownership and everything that comes with that. Have you ever wanted to trade Bitcoin but haven't dared try? With Plus500 Futures, you can trade crypto without the hassle of opening a wallet. With just a few clicks, you can register and start practicing with their free and unlimited demo. See a trading opportunity? You'll be able to trade it in just two clicks. Feel ready? You can move to real money with as little as$100 once your account is approved. And the great thing is that in addition to crypto, Plus500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments.

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8:44Oh my goodness. Mixed martial arts event. video platforms, gaming and movie communities. These are such diverse companies working across completely different sectors and they're from all over the world. Singapore, Dubai, South Korea, New York. I had no idea that Web3 was spreading so fast and so widely. And I guess the obvious question is, what made these companies decide to build in Web3? What was the trigger for them to make that decision? When we originally built the platform, we hit a ton of users very, very early. So it was growing quite considerably. The advertising was switched on. People were actually monetized.

9:33But what we found was people were stealing other people's content and monetizing content. So when we were looking at different tech stacks to solve it, that's what led us down the blockchain rabbit hole. It unlocks opportunities because now I have the ability to control my IP. And if I could control my IP, I could also monetize my IP in ways that's never been done before. So the way we utilize the blockchain, we use it for IP ownership and distributing payments to unbankable countries. so if someone in let's say the congo you know gets a video it goes viral how am i going to pay him right in the traditional web 2 format and then that's how web 3 got weaved in and because it unlocks opportunities everyone has been trying to kind of create a new way to monetize and helping these creators monetize and and so on so what blockchain allows you to do is the ability to sell your content.

10:37I just posted a video, it's slowly going viral, a media page can pick it up, give me$500, IP gets transferred directly to them, and I still get a cut of the revenue based on the royalty that I've designed. So that's a new form of monetization. And everything is done on-chain, and it's transparent, and it's seamless. One really easy example to kind of understand is longevity and perpetuality. If you're a gamer like me, you've probably sunk hundreds of hours into particular games on particular gaming systems. You know, the amount of hours I gave away to Halo on the Xbox, the Xbox 360. And that all lives in a little isolationist bubble.

11:18It doesn't follow me from there to PlayStation. I'm now a PlayStation gamer. With Web3, you can actually have an ID that moves across gaming platforms, across games, and records that history of what you've done, the hours and hours you spend playing one particular game, or you can really show off that you were that number one person, that top Call of Duty player for that brief period of time. So actually what we're talking about here is you're enriching the gaming experience. It's not just about the game itself, it's about my experience of that game and how I can collaborate with others is very much enriched because you're on Web3.

11:54That's exactly it. Yeah, we're enriching the experience, not just in terms of how a game is played, but by knowing that what you've done is recorded and can be shown off. And that's before we even talk about the traditional Web 3 version of play and earn, being rewarded financially for your time. We can have lots of different layered endorphin-inducing experiences. And for us, gameplay is paramount and giving you that sort of recognition and enhancement for gameplay is core. We're one of those crossover companies where we actually built first in Web2. But the reason we've been migrating into Web3 is there's so many new technologies, especially in the fandom and reward capability.

12:40So when you think of NFTs or POAPs, which are proof of attendance protocols, so sports teams can reward people that came and are in the stadium different than a fan watching on TV. In our case, I can reward people who are coming out on opening weekend, but maybe I don't want to do the second, third, or fourth week. I don't have to ship merchandise. I don't have to send signed autograph posters to the movie theater. So I can reward fandom remotely and fast and instantly. we saw all of these emerging tools that really help engage fandom in ways that web 2 hasn't really been able to progress yet and so that's why we started building in the space so if you think of any sports league right what's at the center of the sports league it's fans right and what's important is to build an amazing relationship with the fan base now how do you build that right it's about giving them a voice and empowering them now this might sound familiar right like trust and ownership.

13:45Two words that you would completely, the first thing that would jump to your mind is Web3 and blockchain, right? I think that's what we believe is a unique take that you can empower fans, you can get them involved, right? And I think that is what would lead to true fandom. I'll give you an example, right? We have an event that's happening in the next quarter that's there. It's one of our 10-pole events, right? Now, what if I want to empower fans to choose, you know, which bout should we do, which world-class bout, right? Now, if I did that in a very web2 way, it's not transparent, right? How do you know behind the scenes?

14:17It's not me changing the numbers. With blockchain, it's fully transparent, right? There is trust. It's not us who determines it. It's fans who determine. Each person gets a vote on chain and anyone in the world can see it. It's not temperable. And I think that's what's amazing about blockchain. Fans can see that. They feel that, hey, they feel the trust that, hey, we can see all of this happening in front of us, right? There's no hidden agenda or a hidden layer. I think the trust that comes with that is what will unlock true fandom. Trust and loyalty, user engagement, ownership of IP, payment systems, proof of provenance and authenticity, entirely new business models.

15:00It's clear that Web3 delivers all sorts of opportunities. And we're seeing that different businesses are cherry picking those that give them the biggest edge in their own market. But how difficult is it to make that move to Web3? So I would say there are parts of it that are, I would say, simple and straightforward and parts of it that are complicated or nuanced. That's there, right? See, from a tech perspective, right? Any new technology, you know, it's simple to start, but the deeper you go, the more complicated it gets, right? And this is not something specifically for blockchain. If you look at AI or any other place, it's a deep rabbit hole, right?

15:40The deeper you go, the more intricate it actually gets. We really did our due diligence. We've done a huge tender process and we spoke to a lot of chains. So we had to really kind of increase our knowledge within the space. When we decided to go ahead with Sui, it was like, you know, they really hand-holded us through and through. And obviously the founders are all ex-Facebook and so on. So it was just a natural fit. And thankfully we did because that chain can hold our user base. I think now we're sitting around 1.2 million daily active wallets on the platform and we haven't even started yet.

16:16It's actually very reassuring to know that moving to Web3 isn't a complete nightmare and that companies like SWE will be by your side to help make it happen. It kind of feels like the tech hurdle isn't that big a problem, no more than any other tech upgrade. So if I'm interested in the idea of Web3 and I want to know whether it's right for my business, what should I be focusing on? I think like any business, it needs to solve a problem. Before you even think about Web3, you think about the product. Now, Web3 is the future. It's the driving force that solves those problems. So if you can derive what core problem you're solving, there's like a million business ideas that blockchain solves for.

17:08In my honest opinion, you have to first think, you know, what does Web3 do for you, right? It's not just about building Web2 businesses in a Web3 way. It's about how the transparency, the trust, all of these unique factors that are something specific to blockchain, how do they add value to the business? Who is your consumer, right? I think that's really important to think about before you went out and did your adventures in this. As a startup and to kind of have the mindset of just, oh, I'm going to make it a Web3 platform. I think that's the wrong way to go, right? Personally, it's a really, really, really.

17:46really forward-thinking tech stack that you have to integrate just like AI because it's efficient, it's cheap, and it solves problems. Don't do it just to do it. Do it because it makes sense. Is there something that I can enhance my customer's journey? Can I improve it or make it more engaging? I think the number one question that should always be asked is product fit. There's a lot projects that launch out on web3 because they just think okay we set up a discord we set up a telegram we get some people happy we get some hype and then we make a coin and then we'll find out what we're actually doing later it doesn't shake out very well for a lot of them that do that so knowing that you have a product fit and a problem whose solution is enhanced or solved by web3 and blockchain technology that's what you have to do After talking to the people within each of these businesses, what I took away was that the move to Web3 is actually a strategic decision.

18:55I came into this thinking that Web3 would be about coding and tech and software. But in reality, it's much more to do with how you want to engage with your customers and your suppliers. It's about deepening relationships. And that's about trust, loyalty and authenticity, all of which are increasingly important. Indeed, they're essential in our new world of AI, fake news, social media driven information and bots. It seems that Web3 is the solution to exactly these problems and the brands that get ahead of it will be the ones that win. The other thing that's come out of all this, and it's really taken me by surprise, is that I've been guilty, like many people, of thinking that Web3 was just for the creator economy.

19:51But in fact, it goes far, far beyond this, and it's much more about how we identify and connect with our audiences. As soon as I understood this about Web3, it felt like the big unlock, the insight that changes everything. So it's on that thought that I'll leave you with Raoul for the final word. I guess the big part of this is our definition at the moment of a creator leans towards the creative side of that phrase. But actually, it's not necessarily that you have to be creative. And we think of fans or followers, but actually they could be customers or clients. It's just the relationship between these two parties is very different.

20:35It's kind of loyalty and appreciation. so you're creating a loyalty around the product or services that you've got if you're a corporate and what you want to do is collapse all the barriers between you and your community and it's scary for a brand because they they really want to control yes but really the community needs to be in control because they are the people who go out and tell the world about your products the better you look after your thousand true fans or ten thousand true fans or ten million true fans the more they will thank you and will go out and sell for you. So you can collapse your marketing costs because you're not spending money on Facebook, Twitter, Google, hoping you reach somebody.

21:17You're going to reward people who are definitely going to tell their friends about you. This is kind of any business with a customer base has got to start thinking like this. Yes, but they need to make the leap that the community comes first and not their brand messaging, not what they think it is. So it's quite hard for people to jump the web two to web three. But once you do, once you realize your community is everything and that community is the only business model with a moat in a world of AI and a world of robotics, human-to-human connection is everything. Without it, you don't have anything because every business, whether you're a brokerage offering crypto or futures or whatever, if you don't have a community, you're just a price.

22:03Yeah. You know, shall I go to the next experience? With AI, you can build experiences super fast. So the level of disruption that is coming to businesses is gigantic. And the only way of building a moat is community. Next time in episode three, we seek to nail down how entrepreneurs, business leaders, and brand builders can integrate Web3 into their offering. and scale their own businesses, whether to improve efficiencies, save money, or create entirely new business models.

22:43If you like this episode, I'd love for you to head over to realvision.com forward slash join for a free membership. Start your journey today to unfuck your future, just one click away. Have you ever wanted to trade Bitcoin but haven't dared try? With Plus500 Futures, you can trade crypto without the hassle of opening a wallet. With just a few clicks, you can register and start practicing with their free and unlimited demo. See a trading opportunity? You'll be able to trade it in just two clicks. Feel ready? You can move to real money with as little as$100 once your account is approved. And the great thing is that in addition to crypto, Plus500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments.

23:23S &P 500, NASDAQ, gas, and much more. Explore equity indices, energy, metals, forex, and beyond. With a simple and intuitive platform, you could trade anytime, anywhere. Experience the fast, accessible futures trading you've been waiting for with Plus500. With over 20 years of experience, Plus500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit us.plus500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves the risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. Plus500. It's trading with a plus. Thank you.