Host: Blair Zhu, Brand Director of Mint Ventures
Special Guest: Marco, CEO of Another1
Youtube: WEB3 Founders Real Talk with Another1
Podcast: WEB3 Founders Real Talk with Another1
Blair: Hi everyone, welcome back to Web3 Founders Real Talk. Today we have Marco, the CEO of Another1 to shed light on the Web3 and fashion crossover along with his own Web journey. Welcome Marco!
Marco: Hello Blair, thank you for having me here. This is Marcos Stagliano from Another1. Nice to meet you, everyone.
Blair: Thank you for joining us today. Can you just briefly introduce yourself and Another1, please?
Contents
Founding Story Behind Another1
Marco: Of course. So as for myself, I’m an entrepreneur. I have a background in Corporate Finance, so I’ve been a professional in this field for 15 years. I moved to Asia in 2015 and this is how I got in touch with the crypto industry. And also, in 2019, I first heard about NFTs and I found it was a very interesting use case. Our NFT could be a link between the authentication of physical products with digital certificates.
Remember I was in Shanghai and I met the founder of CryptoKittes that was selling about NFT, and as you probably know, I’m a big sneaker fan. I’m a sneaker collector as well, so that was the first link that I made between NFT and physical goods. Because I wanted to create a platform for authentication of sneakers and facilitating the the trending of secondary market of sneakers, that was the origin of Another1 and then we spin off into a deeper approach for Phygital fashion products, and that’s stands to also the spike of the NFT and the metaverse in 2020, in 2021.
And as of today, Another1 is a Phygital fashion platform that provides products for brands, for fashion… fashion enthusiasts, and also for gamers to create crowdsourcing of design. And we have modules currently, one is the Another1 Drop Offering that is launched, but where we create the Phygital offering for brands we allow the user to have redemption of the physical asset, and also we create the factory features to embed the NFC chip in all the product, and the NFC chip together with the connection of the NFT leads to the other features that are called the Flex2Earn. Flex2Earn is a way to reward users when they wear the product, so essentially is a loyalty and reward scheme that we propose to brands and also to Web3 companies to create engagement in offline events, that’s rewards users when they wear our Phygital products. The last feature is they become a creator that is a crowdsourcing platform as essentially a competition that we launch every month where we ask designers to submit their designs depending on the type of competition. We can work with sponsors, they can be brands or partners or we can work with the university. So currently we’re working with some of the most famous Italian design schools to create a module for them to have submissions from students and also certification every time they submit the design because every submission will trigger a transaction on blockchain, so it can be a certificate for them to participate in the competition.
Blair: Wow that’s super cool, very impressive and we’re gonna deep dive into every single aspect of your project today. But my first question would be what inspires you to accelerate the collision between the fashion industry and Web3? um…since Another1 sounds like a Web3 one-stop shop built for fashion in particular, um why did we establish Another1 in the first place?
The Reason for the Collision Between Web3 and Fashion
Marco: Well…, as I mentioned before, I’m a big sneaker collector who saw the sneaker industry. It was one of the first modules for me to create this connection, but then in the past, I also worked with a lot of fashion companies and fashion brands in the capacity of either investor or advisor, and I noticed that one of the main problems with the brands was engagement in the after-sale process. So just imagine you going to buy a pair of shoes or jacket or whatever item you experience offline shopping, so you go to the boutique, you buy your product and you get out of the boutique or you do the online shopping, so you buy the product you receive the box(unboxing)and that’s the end of your shopping experience. There is no reason why you need to be connected with brands, and the only reason why the brand wants to be connected with you is because they want to sell you something more. So this was the first reason, like the problem of the after-sales engagement of the user.
The second point is there is no access for emerging brands on new designers to create a production into the public offering because it’s so hard to compete with established brands and also to get it into the official distribution channel unfamiliarly. Initially, we have the so-called “Showroom Mafia” the way we call because if you’re not in the secret of the showroom, you won’t be able to reach certain distribution channels and in order to be in the showroom you have to, of course, give very advantage pricing toto those people all you have to be connected. So we wanted to create also a platform to give visibility to new designs for showcasing their product, but this is just like the initial intention, the goal of connecting the physical product and the digital products to create also an immersive experience for the user. So as we say, brands can be connected to the consumer, and the consumer becomes more like a community, so we do. That’s changing the paradigm of the fashion industry where brands just feed consumers whatever they want. But it’s more like consumers are interacting with brands and slowly they will also have a saying about the new trends that will come from fashion brands because by becoming a community member, there will be better interaction and that’s also the fashion brands to create engagement for consumers in the way of how we thought Flex2Earn.
So Flex2Earn is a way to reward consumers, so you can repurpose your fashion items and you can monetize also from your purchase of fashion items. But the other way is also a way to create a little gamification offline, so that once I organized an event as a partner brand, I know that the people that went to the event were wearing my product at least a physical product, and that is traceable because every time I get scanned my featured product that triggers a transaction that is on the blockchain, so it’s a public record.
Blair: Yeah, I think that’s the beauty of digital, like NFT, users were able to build sustainable long-lasting customer relationships with the customers, and also help them to retain them with us. So it’s gonna be reshaping the whole…even for the marketing industry, it’s gonna be a new go-to marketing strategy. That’s been really impressive. I’m just wondering do you encounter any pushback or challenge or resistance? Cause this kind of question probably would be the go-to question for every single entrepreneur on Web3. I mean with all those dynamics, how do you put yourself together?
Challenges & Resistance
Marco: I have to say that with all the brands that we’ve been connected to…they were pretty open because they understand that there’s a big movement, as you know, major brands like Nike, Gucci, LV, and Tiffany. They’re all going on this road because they understand that this is the future of the fashion industry. But the problem that we have… Even big brands don’t understand the power of this tool, but they also don’t understand the value of the Web3 communities because I say it’s NFT. If you talk about NFT, you talk about community, so you need to be able to build a community. You cannot just drop anything and then hope that everyone buys it out of your position in the industry. You also have to adapt your brand to the community, so I would say everyone is super engaged in creating a Phygital offering or creating an NFT collection, but they don’t know what that means and what that brings together in terms of…in terms of…let’s say requesting and constrain, and efforts to build something. um…, as you know, we did a collaboration with Casadeia, a very traditional Italian women’s shoe brand, a shoe wear brand, and I was talking with the founder. He was really engaged because I have to say it is a…even though he’s a very big gamer and …he is passionate about the “Blade Runner” movie and environment. That’s why he called the shoe “Blade”. This is the iconic shoe “Blade”.
So it was a good connection because it was already in the mindset of gaming and that’s really close, let’s say…vicinity with the NFT in Web3 world. But you didn’t know anything about the Web3 communities, we said we need to create an experience in the central land, we need to create perks and benefits for the holders, and that was the most difficult part I say. Because again everyone is super excited about life creating a Phygital offering, creating an NFT offering, but they don’t know what that brings along with…with all the excitement, that there are a lot of things that we have to put in place. So I would say there is not much resistance…, but many times there is not a concrete knowledge of um…what are the efforts and what are the tools that you have to put in place in order to create a successful offering.
Blair: Yeah, for sure. I mean it sounds like you’re bridging the gap in between, especially I guess the industry is still nascent and somehow we just want to educate more brands, more designers more creators. Why we do want to have this collision, why we do want to make this happen? I guess my next question is since you mentioned that you don’t really have liked to encounter any challenges, but it’s more for educational work. How does Another1 approach each brand differently to ensure a really unique but effective strategy for each client? Because…I assume it’s going to be like a lot… a different type of brand you will be dealing with, right?
Strategies Sharing for Brand and Web3 Collaboration
Marco: Yeah, that’s correct. So one thing that is important for us is to approach brands that have the potential to have a community, because again, as we say, community is very important in the NFT market. So that is one of the prerequisites that we asked brands with whom we collaborate.
The second thing is because we are a one-stop shop, we also offer a different type of service that can be 0 to 1, from the prototyping to the concept design to the storytelling, to production manufacturing and shipping. So every brand has different requests, for example, because today as they mentioned before, they have their own production, and I saw it is amazing. I saw how they build…they call in Italian, they call it “Manovia” is like… that handmade shoe production, and it’s amazing how you see like the velocity of… and in the speed of that shoe-making of very high-quality shoes. So when you encounter a brand that has this IP and high value in production, of course, we can not add any value, but there are other brands. For example, now we’re launching a project with snowboard outfit brands and they never made shoes. As you know…, I am passionate about shoes, but we also have a high skill in shoe-making. And in that case, we are helping them not only in their prototyping but also in the design of a product that is a shoe, um and we’re helping them in terms of manufacturing, in terms of searching for the right suppliers, searching for suppliers of all materials. So that’s how we approach brands because we…also the industry and we can help them to enlarge the scope of their product offering.
In Another1 cases, we can also create storytelling. We can create a brand or so brand that can be Web3 native for… the person players as we’re doing with Omtex, which is a factory that creates textile fabric for outdoor jackets. So every time you wear a Burberry Jacket, a Fendi Jacket, or an LV Jacket, you must probably have an 80% chance of having those jackets, the fabric of this company. So they have this high capability, but they don’t know the market, they don’t have distribution channels, and they don’t have concept organization. So what we’re helping them is creating a collection that will come out soon and it’s called “Drip Lab” that has a concept as a story behind a brand image, and then this is the help that we also can supply to a potential brand and consumer. A potential brand to create a B2B2C offering where there is a strong IP skill and quality of product, but there is no possibility of creating a distribution channel. So I would say we’re very flexible in terms of creating and offering brands and we’re very happy to talk with them. The most important thing is that they have in their DNA, the possibility to reach out to communities and communities to identify the brands in that offering. So that’s to share the same value of Another1.
Blair: Yeah… I mean the community is definitely the key to all those Web3 projects, especially if you want…you do want to create engagement and proper interactions with your community. And it sounds like Another1 is able to help any kind of fashion brand build everything from scratch, which is really amazing, and since you mentioned designers like Design2Earn in the beginning, we do want to know more about this program. Is there any standard or preference for potential candidates in this Design2Earn program? What kind of designers are you looking for?
Preferred Designers from Another1
Marco: Becoming a Creator is a module that they have open calls for designers, of course, each open call will have different requirements. So we want to have all designers, but sometimes there are specifications that reduce the audience of people that can can join the competition, for example, right now we have a competition going on with UnionAvatars and ImmersiveKind. UnionAvatars is an Avatar service provider and ImmersiveKind is a community of designers. So in this case is a design of an outfit that could be wearable by the avatars of UnionAvatars, and of course it has some prerequisites in terms of the design and the creation of those digital assets. It’s something that is a highly intense request in terms of design, and it also has some specification that is not for everyone um… to every capability. But in other cases, we will have competition that will be possible to join for a bigger audience, and also we’re collaborating with schools.
We’re currently talking with some fashion schools and design schools in Italy to have their students and their audience join our competition and eventually create a module for those schools to get into the curriculum, because every time you join our competition every submission as I say before, trigger a transaction on the blockchain, so it will allow you to showcase that you join the competition, and in the event that you win the competition, you will be officially rewarded with poap. Eventually, you can use it in your career service with the university or with schools to boost your visibility with brands.
So to answer your question, we want to be visible to all the fashion, the designer, and the designer in general, and give them visibility and eventually, once we have enough Token holders, the Token will be distributed enough. We can generate voting polls to help those designers to create their own collections and sell the collection through the Another1 platform.
Blair: Wow, that’s very impressive! I mean, I wish I could be one of the designers, but sounds…I mean sounds like we are trying to build up a really comprehensive product for fashion designers and here we have a program for them, helping them to monetize their art. Since you mentioned sneakers a couple of times, my next question would be sneakers involved. So we noticed that Another1 just launched the creative NTR1-META sneakers with…benefits in both the digital and the physical world, and since NFT utility could be another substantial pain point, I’m just wondering if we are looking for any other kind of utilities or fun ideas for those NFT holders in the near future?
Future Utilities for NTR1-META Holder
Marco: Yeah, um…this leads to the other feature that is called Flex1Earn. So as you know, NTR1-META was a project that’s made in collaboration with TrustSwap/Swappable, and the original of this project…the original of this project was actually proof of how we can interact with Web3 communities because they told us we wanna create a product that could be an iconic product for our community, but also we want to create a product that can be a product for our partners, and I say okay, how many partners do you have? We have more than 25 partners that would like to have a pair of shoes. So I say okay, let’s make colorways for each partner. So we created colorways from the brands that wanted to create this collaboration with us, and it was a pretty big nightmare, especially for production creating like one model and colorways, because we also featured some of the major coins in the markets as colorways, and once we started production, once we started the project, then that was how we wanted to create the after-sale engagement.
So if you remember at the beginning, the shoe was supposed to have either the digital or the physical, because it was a kind of a challenge we wanted to see how much people will be interested in just owning the physical product, or just having it in the digital world. But then the NFT market changed and we understand that also the utility of NFT is not enough to have a wearable, collectible in this case, in the decentral land. But we need to provide more value to the community and that’s why we wanted to integrate the NFC chip in our shoes so that we go to the IRL engagement tool that we call “Flex2Earn”, so in this case for us the utility that you can have with those shoes with any of Another 1 Phygital product, it’s still access offline events. For example, just imagine there is a concert and we decide to sponsor 100 tickets for this concert if you have an NTR1- META in your collection and you’re wearing one of those during the concert, you’ll be able to get inside and without paying for the ticket or maybe getting backstage because we value you as a community member of our collection and we want to provide you some sponsorship.
I can show you very briefly how it works, unfortunately, I don’t have one pair of shoes with me but… for example, this is the Another1 Flex2Earn, an MVP app in this case, this app will trigger rewards that in Another1 Token, so if I push “scan” I just have to put the font close to that NFC in the Phygital(Physical+Digital) product and that will trigger a transaction that will generate rewards directly into the wallet because we know that NFC is connected to the NFT, we know that the NFT is held by a specific wallet because it’s registered in our platform we can reward directly in the wallet, so every time you do an engagement offline um… with something that we sponsor, we can reward you with an NFT, we can reward you with a paper we can reward you with a game and just imagine as you know…we’re also building a game in the Sandbox with one of our collection “The Sneakerheadz Society”, and we want to have also an in-Game asset. So just imagine creating an in-Game asset that is redeemable in the physical world and then I trigger an action or a quest in the physical world, for example, going to a specific location virtual checkpoint, scanning my Phygital product in that checkpoint and that triggers a transaction that gives me, for example, NFT that is an in-Game asset that I can use in my game experience to access like secret level or having a boost of…or superspeed of flying powers. So this is the connection between online and offline.
We’re also creating…and that will give value to our users. So to answer your question, there are multiple ways that you can create value and benefits, but the connection between physical and digital, it’s essential, otherwise it won’t be tangible for the community and unfortunately, we still need the physical touch of the community.
Blair: Well, thank you for sharing your amazing stories with Another1. But definitely, this is not gonna be my last question, cause we do wanna pick your brain on this, you know, Web3 fashion crossover thing, cause we do …Web3 really allows fashion brands to create a new business paradigm as I mentioned earlier. It’s actually helping all those friends somehow reshape their marketing strategy as well, and also providing customers and communities with all those-brand very personalized experiences. And we already witnessed there are so many luxury brands like LV, Gucci, Tiffany… naming, there are a lot of them. They’re actually giving a shot at Web3, but we haven’t really seen explosive growth from this collaboration. Do you think it would be an ongoing trend and what’s your thought about this? You know increasing recognition of this type of NFT collaboration?
Explosive Growth of Awareness for Web3 x Fashion
Marco: I guess that simply goes to the perception that those brands have of their community, because if they keep treating them as a consumer, that won’t last then, there won’t be a possibility for them to keep producing NFT because it’s just like how many products you can fit the market, and your community can absorb. That’s why we also want to create partnerships with brands but also want to help Web3 communities to create their own product in their home. Let’s call it “Phygital special merchandise” to engage their community because it’s literally not possible to keep feeding your audience with new products. If you keep treating them as a client, so the inversion in terms of the big brands as to be creative community… give them benefit, give them rewards, that’s why ah… we also want to push the Flex2Earn as a loyalty program. I said reward program because if you feel part of a community you’ll be more eager to purchase the new product, but also like be engaged in all the activation that they do, that’s why I believe that one of the biggest and most successful examples in this industry is artifact because they’ve been purchased by Nike that was interesting is their IP, not much in their product because, of course, they already made sneakers, so I think it was for the way to create a community. So the value that I think they saw in artifacts was the vision…of course, the possibility to create a community. CloneX collection has a very strong fit into the fashion and Web3 community. This is the right way to approach the Web3 communities for fashion brands and until they keep treating NFT just as a new revenue stream that won’t work, they have to be more engaging and they have to be more open to their audience, so again, not consumers but community members, that’s the way for them to nail down Web3 access.
Blair: Yeah, you’re right. I mean I think there are still a strong…I mean from what I see, I think there are still struggling with the right approach. There are definitely having their own attempt at this like the Web3 Collaboration thing but they haven’t really get the… you know, the nature of Web3, which would be the community. And they’re just…but you know, it’s okay. We will see how it goes with all those luxury brands. How do you see the future of the fashion industry well involved with this kind of Web3 integration, and do you think are there any opportunities or challenges this integration brings to the fashion industry or to the Web3 industry? Are there any insights would you like to share about that?
Potentiality of Web3 x Fashion
Marco: Well, I think the big challenge here we have is the tools that we have right now for crowdsourcing. These will be very challenging for the current operator in the fashion industry. I was just talking with my operation manager YuBin, you probably know, and he got no skills in terms of design, but lately, he’s been working a lot with”midjourney”, which is an artificial intelligence tool for designers, and actually, his crew hitting PowerPoint using images from mid-journey, and I say: “wow that’s incredible, you had the help of our design team?” “no no no I did it by myself”.
So just imagine if someone without a background in design can create something that is 3D. If we combine the power of Web3 communities, and the power of a company like us, that creates an open call like we become a creator, and then provide those designs, and those ideas to brands that literally create a new way of having their creative process. So I think this is the big opportunity that the brand needs to embrace the crowdsourcing of the design, embedding the community value and the community source of ideas into their brands. That’s why again, building a community is important. Because at the end of the day, your product will go to that audience, right? And now there is this element of, let’s say, customization. That’s some brands… Nike has always been doing customization since early 2000. I remember I was still at university and we were looking at the Amazon case at the time. It was selling only books and Kindle, and there was the possibility to create custom sneakers on the Nike website.
So it has always been avant-garde in terms of engaging the community and I guess that’s the real opportunity that all the brands need to embrace because as of today, we have the tools, right tools to help individuals to approach the brands and create something that could be valuable for brands in terms of our product offering. Um…, so I guess that’s the big challenge, but also the big opportunity, and the brands that won’t embrace it. Unfortunately, we probably have difficulties in the future positioning ourselves as lead brands in the fashion industry.
Blair: Yeah, I mean sooner or later we’re gonna see more brands adopt those digital art, NFT things, that’s just inevitable. And it’s gonna be a really amazing ride, and we will see. Thank you for sharing all those insights, Marco. And it’s been really you know illuminating, and I really enjoy talking with you, and hopefully we’ll see more innovations with Another 1. And we’re gonna see more designers, more brands stepping into this amazing world that you guys keep building up. Thank you so much.
Marco: Thank you Blair for having me today. And definitely, there is a lot of news that we are gonna release soon, and as I said… new collection, the sandbox game that will be released hopefully in September with Alpha Season 4 , and just stick with us because it’s gonna be an interesting ride for the next couple of months, and of course, just get Phygital!
Blair: Yeah, get Phygital! Thank you, Marco.
