One of the biggest problems I see as a Gen X looking at the later generations is they came into the game with their hands out begging someone else for something. They come in wanting to work at Facebook or Twitter, they come in wanting to get VC funding, they come around wanting to be featured in a writeup, they come in wanting likes and views. These are not bosses, these are rent-seekers and clowns.

You, on the other hand, I see exactly what you are – you a wolf, you a go-getter, you got ambition and you know you getting yours because that’s what you living for right now. But you have to know how to use your vision to pursue the big prize, not just be there a part of the club. We are in a new paradigm of technology disruption and you have to think big and there is no other way you need to move.

With that said, in part 1 of a 2-part series, we are going to discuss the metaverse and how you should approach it as a boss. See, the way to approach metaverse opportunities is actually easier than you think – if you think like a boss. For weak-minded rent-seekers, their metaverse mindset is to put on some VR goggles and start smiling as they navigate some VR world twisting their neck to look left and right.

But we all know you a boss - you not weak-minded like these other folks out there. Your mindset towards the metaverse is you create the world to accommodate the rent-seekers and monetize your metaverse from the consumers of your domain. Let’s go over some key points to consider how to approach the metaverse like a king or a queen or Rick the Ruler.

Focus on Next-Gen Game Consoles. The majority of qualified users are not using the metaverse on desktop computers or mobile devices. The metaverse needs to be experienced on game consoles like the latest PlayStation or Xbox model on a 75-inch screen TV. This means you need to understand how to create universes and spaces using game engines like Unity and Unreal. Now a caveat, there may be a need to use PCs in case you doing some underground stuff where the PlayStation or Xbox store will pull your metaverse from their proprietary stores, keep this in mind.

Focus on Space Making the Framework. You don’t need to build out a detailed landscape of your metaverse. You just create the bare-bones foundational framework and let others come and build it up. If you create a metaverse city, you lay out the streets, street lights, sidewalks, green space, and community areas and allow developers to buy plots of land from your ecosystem. You can create space stations; you can create an 1800s American Western town or Medieval village or 1920s Harlem 125th street metaverses and just focus on the theme and have your specifications for how a developer builds within your ecosystem.

Developers Bring Their Own Building. If you decide to go with a Harlem-inspired metaverse for example, then you may require buildings that look like Brownstones. It would be the developers who architect the buildings according to your Harlem specification and you can charge them to host their building within your metaverse world. Your pricing cost to host a 3D building is the x (width), y (height) length, and z (depth). Your goal should be to zone and plot where these buildings can be built and strategize on making some places more of a premium location than other places in your metaverse. Might want to read up on some city zone planning books and websites to lay out how to create structures. Please note you can build an empty galaxy and let people host their space cruisers and space stations.

Take Ownership of the People. This means you control all the profiles of the people in your metaverse. People register to become a “being” in your metaverse. This is very important to be able to engage/market your audience to your specifications. It is also important as you going to need to create a social credit system to identify those of value and those of detriment to your metaverse. It should be easy for users to self-register and if you want to be boss, you can create a multi-metaverse profile identity and allow people to register themselves as any metaverse and charge licensing for a portable avatar.  

Monetize Everything. Learn to create signage both fixed image and moving digital. You can charge for advertising as a way to generate revenue. You can also share ad revenue with buildings in your metaverse that accommodate signs to host advertisements as well. Think of Times Square in New York and build 3D signs everywhere with “your ad here” until someone buys a sign. Also, look at premium access to some buildings and some areas where you charge an access fee. Also, remember that you can engage in geofencing and charge access to xyz coordinates in your metaverse as well. A lot of this is already built-in in-game engines when creating open-world environments.

Don’t Be Boring, Model After Video Games. You are going to have to model your metaverse like successful open-world games. Your users are going to need a home pad, need a car or transport to drive around or fly around or just get out and walk. Remember, you build out the open space and let other vendors design cars, rideable dragons. Another element is loot crates people can discover that can offer coupons, charms, avatar wearables, and more. You can also create challenges such as virtual drops.

Pin-Drops. This is important and I want you to understand this technique. Let’s say you create a neo-Harlem metaverse. As part of my marketing campaign for Brooklyn Queen and the Blockchain, I buy “corners” and “lots” for each chapter series to set a storyline up in your metaverse. Each story will be a pin drop those users go and discover a “mini-story” about Brooklyn Queen and the blockchain. Now imagine unlimited pin drops for a podcast series, a fashion drop, a news or blog series, life lessons, and more. You can have your metaverse allow people to add pin drops that would operate like Bluetooth LE technology that can alert them of nearby pin drops they can explore. Or let’s say someone like soul food, you can create a collection of pin drops to send to the user map to drive around and discover new spots to eat and order takeout.

Overall, I hope you get the insight to focus on the big picture. You can definitely get lost in the sauce dealing with the minute details of the metaverse. Be mindful most of the folks trying to talk about the metaverse usually engage in bike-shedding. That’s where they talk about how to paint a bike shed but cannot comment about how to do the real work of building a bike shed, they get confused and stick to the simple stuff about arguing what color a bike shed should be. Avoid these conversions on the metaverse.

Instead, look at the big picture and big concepts. Learn how to build an empty canvas of an open world with xyz coordinates. Then learn how to drop pins in spaces, learn how to create the land and skies, and remember to work with a team of chooms and work together as a squad. But you all have to remember the possibilities.

See, we can do a lot as African-Americans with the metaverse. For example, you can charge to host UAW union pickets and BLM marches in your metaverse to spread awareness. You can create a hunting game, something like Republican rabbits to hunt and capture to bring back to the Democrats to get nothing back in return because they don’t care about Black voters. Or you can create a metaverse world where brothas and sistas avatars fly butt-naked on Pegasus and dragons as part of a single and mingle dating metaverse.

Years ago, this Dream and Hustle had an article on the Black steampunk movement and how we can create universes and themes from eras such as the Victorian and Edwardian period – these are things we can now create with metaverse technology. This is a major event and opportunity and we cannot afford weak and small-minded folks around dabbing and just talking – we need real folks willing to create worlds with no limits to their vision and imagination and be able to approach the new technology like a Gen X boss.