There’s a roadmap to a future where technology serves humanity in all its diversity, fostering financial, social and creative inclusivity, and it’s all in Once Upon Tomorrow: Harnessing the New Opportunities the Metaverse Creates (Forefront Books; March 5, 2024) by Xsolla founder Shurick Agapitov.
Agapitov envisions a future where every consumer-facing industry, from fashion to healthcare to entertainment, is transformed. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re kicking yourself because you didn’t grab the opportunities that existed during the rise of e-commerce and the mobile internet, there’s good news for you too. The opportunities that exist today in the Metaverse are even greater.
Just a few years away from widescale adoption, the digital revolution of the Metaverse will be more powerful than the internet or mobile phones and will not be dominated by big Silicon Valley companies. Anyone with a brand to sell, a story to tell, can use the Metaverse now to build a hugely successful business.
Since its start in 2015, Xsolla has been the gaming industry’s leading platform, now worth, according to Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, as much as $3 billion. Agapitov has accelerated its growth (operating in more than 200 countries and territories and in more than 20 languages) with innovation after innovation. His latest innovation is X.LA, with the goal of ensuring that the concepts of Web3 are within everyone’s reach. Shurick is a visionary, creating frontiers for investors and entrepreneurs and showing how, in the Metaverse, everyone can create their own.
Agapitov delineates how:
– In the Metaverse, we will immerse ourselves in a growing global community that will change forever how we work, play, shop and explore, and engage brands, and how we interact and literally live our lives.
– While large companies such as Nike, Adidas and Gucci are already creating their digital footprints across the Metaverse, as technology continues to become a commodity and its price declines, anyone can get into the game. Anyone has the chance to create his or her own mega brand.
– The opportunity to own “real estate” in the Metaverse is like buying land on a nearly empty beach today, developing it, and watching a massive community build around you.
About the Author
Shurick Agapitov grew up in Perm, Russia, where, at age 15, he started an online currency exchange service, transitioning to digital gaming and aggregation. He studied mathematics and computer science at the University of Perm. Moving to the United States with his wife, Yana, in 2009, he did post-graduate work at Harvard Business School, Wharton and UCLA Anderson School of Management.
