 |
|
|
|||||
Crypto is booming again. Bitcoin is near record highs, Walmart and Amazon are reportedly exploring stablecoins, Robinhood is tokenizing shares of public and private companies, and NFTsonce left for deadare stirring back to life. Even crypto-powered network states are inching toward reality. But one star from the last bull run hasnt joined the rally: the metaverse. Back in 2020 and 2021, the metaverse was the tech industrys favorite toyan immersive digital frontier where wed work, play, and shop. Facebook rebranded to Meta, VR headsets flew off shelves, and internet searches for metaverse jumped 7,200% in a single year. JPMorgan called it a $1 trillion opportunity that would likely infiltrate every sector. Decentraland was among the breakout stars of the metaverse, a bustling virtual city with casinos, concerts, branded events from Dolce & Gabbana to Nestlé, and even a JPMorgan lounge. But now, in 2025, the future of the internet looks far from the Ready Player One-esque revolution once promised. Once-booming world hits record low Built on the Ethereum blockchain and powered by its own cryptocurrency (dubbed MANA), Decentraland allowed users to buy and sell land as non-fungible tokens and customize avatars with tokenized wearables. Blockchains, NFTs, and Web3 overall are similar,” says Matthew Ball, CEO of the venture capital firm Epyllion. “There are those who believe these technologies and/or systems will be needed to build the metaverse, others who say its the best way to do so, and some who believe that these technologies are irrelevant to the metaverse and in general. While some saw Decentraland as a financial opportunity, most used it to socialize, attending concerts by artists like Grimes, Ozzy Osbourne, and Björk, or gambling in a virtual casino that reportedly generated $7.5 million in just three months. But last year, reports surfaced claiming the once-thriving world had become a ghost town, with fewer than 50 active users during a 24-hour period. Other blockchain-based worlds have also struggled to maintain engagement. The Sandbox, another decentralized platform, has attracted just 5.7 million usersin totalsince its founding in 2011. Decentraland refuted the low usage claims, asserting that it had 8,000 daily active users instead. Still, user sentiment paints a complicated picture. One Reddit user shared their early excitement but noted they “lost interest for a number of reasons,” citing poor user experience, low engagement, and abandoned projects. I wanted it to work, perhaps it still could, but not without an enormous overhaul to the overall design and leadership approach. Others had similar experiences: Some made money and left, while others simply moved on. Made a shit ton of money from it,” one Reddit user said, “but when crypto winter came in 2021, that shit died. Another added: Used to log in during COVID and play in the casino for fun. There was never anyone around even then. Crypto-based worlds taking the back seat When asked for more recent figures, the Decentraland Foundationthe nonprofit overseeing the open-source platformreported 2.3 million unique visitors to platform properties and 24 million all-time unique visitors. At Decentraland, we believe success in a virtual world isnt measured by how many people log in every day, Decentraland Foundation marketing chief Kim Currier tells Fast Company. Daily active users is a metric borrowed from social media and gaming platforms that are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling or grinding. Thats never been our goal. Instead, the foundation emphasizes engagement. More than 274,000 friendships accepted, 19 million chat messages exchanged, and over 616 million Emotes [actions for your avatar like dance moves or a wave] expressed to date, Currier shared. These are signs of real presence and connection. To improve user experience, the foundation has continued to build. In October, it made a major shift from a browser-based platform to a downloadable desktop version. It also removed the requirement for Web3 wallets, aiming to make the platform more accessible. According to the foundation, the desktop version has been downloaded over 196,000 times. It added that third-party usage trackers can no longer reliably measure activity. Any numbers they share today are outdated and incomplete, a foundation spokesperson tells Fast Company. Changing expectations While blockchain-based metaverse platforms havent taken off as once expected, others have succeeded in offering immersive digital experiences without relying on VR or cryptocurrency. Theyre thinking, like, way further in the future, Currier says. The misconception is that the metaverse is something where you put a headset on and youre fully immersed in a world that is photorealistic and completely different from your physical experience. Many see the metaverse as VR, because when Zuckerberg renamed Facebook, their sole produt in market was a VR headset, Ball notes. Still, he adds, the technology isnt advanced enough yet, and its not essential for the metaverse to exist. I think now we are in a place where people have more realistic expectations about whats physically possible and technologically possible, Currier says. Todays metaverse may look more like platforms such as Roblox or Minecraftvast, user-driven spaces where social interaction is central. The clearest market leader is Roblox, a virtual world platformand one which described itself as a metaverse company long before Facebook or Microsoft ever declared for the same ambitions, Ball says. He points out that during Roblox Corp.s IPO, the word metaverse appeared in its SEC filing 16 timesmore than it ever had before. As the dust settles on early hype, the concept of the metaverse is also shifting in how its meant to fit into peoples lives. At Decentraland, we really, firmly believe its not meant to replace your real life, Currier says. People are spending a little bit more time in the physical world with their real families, their friends, and thats okay.
Category:
E-Commerce
Appliance-maker SharkNinja has a reputation for creating smart, viral appliances, from a frozen slushy-maker to an LED cryo-mask to an indoor-outdoor fan with an ingenious cooling mist attachment. Key to SharkNinjas success is its ability to create both ultra-functional products (vacuums, air fryers, blenders) and ones that take consumers by surprise, especially on social media. And despite the challenges posed by President Trumps ever-evolving trade deals, the company continues to grow: Net sales were up 16% year-over-year in Q2 2025. I spoke to SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas about where his teams find the company’s next big idea, how quickly it can move from idea to being in stores, and which category SharkNinja’s expanding into in September. SharkNinja has been expanding its product portfolio. The company went from selling blenders and vacuums to the beauty category, launching hair stylers and more recently an LED face mask. How do you decide which categories to enter? Our innovation comes from identifying known or unknown consumer problems. You could be a consumer products company and you could build your product roadmap off of a core technology. If you do that, it will lead you only to the places that core technology is applicable to. We think there’s an endless number of consumer problems to be able to solve, which is why over the last 17 years we’ve gone into 37 different product categories. On any given day we’re focused on making robots, on skincare, on outdoor cooking, on haircare, on cleaning, on air purification, on fans. [Photo: SharkNinja] Does that mean you have customers coming to you and saying, I want something to curl my hair and I also want a slushy machine? We have a team of consumer insights researchers that are constantly looking at online reviews, negative sentiments, social media sentiment. We have people that are in consumer homes every day, they’re in restaurants, they’re in commercial environments. And we’re constantly mining the next problems to be able to solve. On any given quarter, we will run things called hack weeks where we’ll set up a team of 8 to 10 people and we’ll have them go and hack on a particular problem or idea that they have. That could range from the consumers doing something outside the home that they’re not able to do inside of the home. The consumer used to have to go to a med spaso we developed an LED infrared cryo mask for them to be able to do that at home. SharkNinja’s planning on introducing 25 new products this year. How long does it take between having an idea for a product and putting it on the market? We launch 25 new products a year. Thats not a new color or a new knob. That’s a new, ground-up, from-scratch product. We’ll start with a pipeline of anywhere from 50 to 60 ideas. Ideas will eventually weed themselves out because the technology is something we might not have right now, the product might be too expensive, or the consumer might not be ready for it. We just launched our first FDA-approved product, the Shark Cryo Globe mask. That took two and a half years for us to develop. We take anywhere from 12 to 16 months to bring technology we already have to market. If it’s a completely new technology, we think that two and a half years is about the time for us to be able to do that. Whats an example of a product that consumers werent ready for? In New York, they passed a law around composting. That’s a new thing for the majority of New Yorkers, and it’s not something that exists really in lots of other areas of the country today. We think that as consumers start composting, there’s going to be some real challenges. They’re sitting there with a plastic little bin full of fruit flies and dealing with the smell of six days worth of food scraps. Our team got really motivated and excited about wanting to solve that problem. The challenge is that the problem is not yet well understood by the consumer. They’re going to need to compost for a year. It’s going to have to get beyond just New York. It might be something that is a great idea, but we might be too early on the cycle for it right now. Maybe as we get into 2026 and 2027, we pull it back out of the roadmap and say, now is the time where the consumer will really be able to listen to this story. SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas [Photo: SharkNinja] What’s an example of a product that you wanted to make, but the tech isn’t there? We believe there are lots of unmet needs in the lawn care space, but from a technology standpoint right now, we don’t have a solution that the world needs us for. Its important to recognize, when we go into a category, that we have to answer the question: Why does the world need us? Why does the consumer need us? Are we doing it cheaper? Are we bringing something to the consumer that they’re not able to get anywhere else? If we can’t answer that question, then it’s not a category for us to expand into. Is the same team of engineers coming up with all of these products across categories? We have 1,300 engineers around the globe. They’re based in Boston, London, and Asia. And I think one of the exciting things about being an engineer and working at SharkNinja is that you can find your next job at SharkNinja. If you’re an engineer that’s working on haircare andyou’re interested in thinking about outdoor cooking, you can go on the outdoor cooking team, you can switch to the robotics team, you can switch to the slushy team or the air fryer team or the air purifier team at SharkNinja. We’re constantly cross-pollinating ideas across the global engineering teams. There’s mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, software engineers, people working on IoT (internet of things). Were bringing all of those pieces together to bring as much technology as possible into a product that could sell for on average for $199 to $239. How have you been affected by tariffs? That process started for us way back in the first Trump administration. When tariffs went into effect five years ago, 35% of our products were tariffed at that time coming into the United States at 25%. Prior to that, 100% of our production was made in China. Four and a half years ago, we started making our first product outside of China, and by the end of Q2, we moved primarily to Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia. There really isn’t any necessarily safe haven other than manufacturing the products in the United States, but four and a half years ago is when we started making our first product outside of China. By the end of this month, we’ll be able to make nearly 90% of our production outside of China. By the end of the year, we will have nearly 100% of our production outside of China. So has it had an impact? Of course, it’s had an impact, but I think that we’ve got a highly diversified supply chain. I think we’ve developed a really high-quality, fast-turn, low-cost supply chain that’s been a real competitive advantage for the business. Have you passed any costs onto consumers? We have had to pass some costs onto consumers. We’ve tried everything possible to keep that to an absolute minimum. So much of the way we think about our business is what we call affordable, accessible innovation. We really want to make products for almost everyone. You could buy a Ninja product for $49; you could buy one for $999. You could buy a Shark product for $59 or buy one for $899. What’s so core to the Shark or Ninja brands is you could be a Walmart shopper and be a SharkNinja consumer. You could be a Sephora shopper and be a SharkNinja consumer. I don’t think there’s another brand out there that has as large a socioeconomic group of consumers as us. At least on TikTok, there’s a widespread perception the Shark hair products are an affordable dupe for Dyson products. I actually think that’s probably helped you sell quite a few units. How do you respond to those comments? In every industry, a brand has to find their white space in the market. For us, that white space is market leading performance, great quality, and great value. I think that the products that we bring to market are much more versatile. You bring up our haircare. We looked at products in the market and we saw that products were really single-use products. You had to buy a hairdryer, you had to buy a styler, you had to buy a brush. We don’t think the consumer wants to have four different products to be able to do their hair. We saw that unmet need and we developed a product called the Shark FlexStyle. If you have a great experience with one of our products, you’re willing to try us as you go into [a different] category. I think that really helped us get into the beauty business. [Consumers thought] they had a great experience with a Shark vacuum or a Shark air purifier or a Shark steam mop. Let me now try them in haircare. You have products across categories, price ranges, and retailers. How do you market them? We sell our products in every major retailer in every major market. We’re one of the most searched brands on Amazon. We have a robust direct-to-consumer business. We want to be relevant wherever the consumer chooses to shop for our products. It’s our job to create consumer demand through viral marketing, and ultimately, it’s up to the consumer to decide where they want to shop for the product, whether they want to shop at a brick-and-mortar store or online or they want to go direct-to-consumer. We just want to be relevant wherever they choose to shop. On the marketing side, I think what’s so interesting is we were a company 16 years ago that only marketed [via] long-form infomercials. I mean, my partner and I at the time didn’t have any money. We would run 30-minute TV infomercials. Fast forward to today and we have seven times more social media engagement than our nearest competitor. Our products not only go viral on social media, but they generate a tremendous amount of user-generated content. What’s the next category you want to get into? In September we’ll be launching a new outdoor category. Weve publicly stated that we feel like we can enter two new product categories a year as we move forward.
Category:
E-Commerce
Morgan Stanley projects the space economy will hit $1.8 trillion by 2035. Yet most companies still dont have a strategy for it. Last quarter alone, multiple space startups secured seven-figure funding rounds. NASAs Artemis program also hit a major milestone. This is a very real, trillion-dollar economy forming in real time, and the window to get in early is closing fast. Critically, space is the first truly infinite domain of commerce. Unlike Earth-based markets, it offers endless potential for new infrastructure, new services, and new economies to emerge. And while many are distracted by AI or supply chain chaos, the next massive growth platform is quietly taking shape above our heads. Its not just rockets and rich guys. Its agriculture, R&D, and your next competitor When most people think of space, they picture billionaires in zero gravity or cinematic sci-fi. But the reality is that its becoming a critical infrastructure layer for future business, just as the internet did 30 years ago. The parallels are striking. In the early 1990s, many leaders saw the internet as a novelty. Today, its the backbone of the global economy. Space is on the same path, but with even broader implications. From biotech to agriculture to cybersecurity, space is already critically transforming industries. Biotech companies like Redwire and Varda Space Industries are leveraging microgravity for drug development and bioprinting, enabling breakthroughs not possible in Earth-bound labs. Agriculture firms are using real-time satellite imagery to optimize water use, detect crop stress, and improve yield forecasting. Platforms like Planet Labs and Descartes Labs are making precision agriculture scalable and climate-resilient. Cybersecurity providers have also been looking beyond Earth for years, as satellite networks become part of critical infrastructure. Companies like SpiderOak are pioneering zero-trust security models for space assets. The market is heating up and capital is flowing in In 2023 investors poured $12.5 billion into space startups globally, despite broader tech market pullbacks. Startups focused on in-space manufacturing, small satellite constellations, and launch technologies are leading the charge. The Artemis program is unlocking new lunar and deep space opportunities, while commercial players like SpaceX and Rocket Lab are slashing launch costs. Public-private partnerships are expanding rapidly. The Department of Defense is investing in space-based logistics and mobility. NASA is funding space-based solar power and commercial space stations. Private equity firms are acquiring ground infrastructure and launch supply chains. The smart money is building and pivoting, quickly. Four ways to make space part of your growth strategy Meanwhile, too many companies and policymakers remain tethered to earthbound thinking. The point of tapping into this market isnt to become a space company. Most companies wont build satellites or spacecraft. Instead, theyll find new ways to leverage the unique conditions and infrastructure of space to improve their products, services, and operations on Earth. Or theyll take existing products and services and fid ways to adapt them for space. Heres how to ensure youre positioned to lead in this rapidly expanding trillion-dollar market: Start thinking like a space vertical. You dont have to build rockets to benefit from space, but you do need to understand how the industry works. Study space value chains and learn where your products, services, or capabilities might fit in. Even surprising players can break into the market. For example, a small watchmaker in Albuquerque was tapped to build components for space-bound hardware. This wasnt because they were in aerospace, but because they solved a unique precision problem. Tap into satellite-enabled insights to optimize operations. If youre not already, look into ways your business can uniquely leverage satellite data for actionable insights, whether its tracking supply chain bottlenecks, improving precision in agriculture, or identifying untapped markets with geospatial analysis. Codevelop with space startups tackling niche challenges. Consider partnering with startups innovating in microgravity manufacturing, on-orbit servicing, or space-based energy solutions. Explore shared R&D that aligns with your industrys specific needs, like 3D-printed components or novel materials. Train your teams on space-driven opportunities. Upskill your workforce by collaborating with universities or space-focused research institutions. Equip your employees to identify how advancements like quantum communications or hypersonic transport could create revenue streams in your sector. The cost of waiting? Irrelevance. Its time to adapt, innovate, and lead. The companies that embrace space as a critical business opportunity will not only future-proof themselves but also define the next chapter of economic history. Every major technological revolution has created winners and losers. Space will be no different.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||