Meterium: The Tokenized Marketplace Solution Empowering Brands with Web3

Welcome to gossip about gossip, powered by Hadera Hashgraf. In each episode, we'll cut through the hype of blockchain promises and explore real world examples of organizations creating the next generation of decentralized applications which will bring trust back to the internet for a soul. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of gossip about gossip, the podcast where we talk about real world applications of distributed ledger technology. As you know, my name is Sanerbia Godschalk, and I'm the SVP of Communications here at World Labs helping to grow the Hadera ecosystem. Today, I am joined by lawton Hogan, who is the senior product manager over at Metarium. Hi, lawton. How are you? Hi, Zenobia. I'm doing great. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the podcast. I'm I'm really excited to do the episode. Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and also about materium. Sure. Absolutely. Let me start with materium. So, our journey really began, with Toco, which, as you'll know, I'm sure is, DLA Piper's enterprise grade tokenization engine. And, so TOCA was really primarily, aimed and and still is aimed at, financial services and regulated activities, but some you know, as we were speaking with clients and potential clients, we realized that there was a a real untapped opportunity, at the retail level as well. So, obviously, corporate adoption of web three, you know, it's still really in its in its infancy. And at least part of the reason for this is down to concerns about, you know, bad actors and the lack of solution that really take a kind of a compliance first approach. So, yeah, I was really to address this that we created material, which is white label token based marketplace solution, and it empowers brands to own and operate their own marketplaces, where they can issue tokens that represent specifically physical products, experiences, and also collectibles, and they can issue those directly to consumers and then it also allows those consumers to, buy sell and trade with one another. And, so Yeah. That's Material. And I'm working there as the senior product manager, and I'm essentially, essentially in charge of overseeing the developmental road map. Okay. So I am a brand. I am hearing that my competitors are, you know, tokenizing things Hey, they're making a lot of money for creating these digital assets. How would someone start working with you or what, you know, a lot of times they don't even know where to begin. So it sounds like you're really helping them. They they know the their products, they know their brand. Can you walk us through, like, how do they work with you and how would you help them? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, that's a really good question. Our our kind of initial outlook had been that we wanted to create a platform that that was you know, super easy to set up, super easy to use, and be able to just kind of pass it over to, the marketing team team or the sales team for a given brand and kinda let them run their own campaigns right away. But actually what we've what we found as we've engaged with some of our current clients and some some of our potential clients is that, actually a lot of brands kind of do need a little bit of help in thinking about how they they can use this technology, and how they can use tokenization, to really kind of, you know, increased awareness, up their brands, increased revenue, and all of those things. So, the way that we're working with people right now we're taking a little bit more of a of a hands on approach. So, essentially, somebody gets in contact with us, and, you know, we'll start a conversation. And as long as they're interested, normally, what we will do is run them through a few training sessions and make sure that they're comfortable, with with the technology itself. And like I said, we did, you know, really intentionally set things up to be kind of as intuitive as possible. It really follows a pretty basic kind of e commerce type of user journey. And so setup is really simple, but we will all also try and take an active role. If the client wants, we'll take a real act a really active role in kind of helping them design their first campaigns. And then I think ideally what we would love to happen is, you know, what once we've helped them run their first campaign, then at that point, you know, we're kinda ready ready to say, you know, okay. You've got the technology. You know how this works now. You know how to use it. So, you know, go out there and and use it. So, yeah, that that's kind of how we're engaging at the moment. And so without, you know, without naming any names, maybe if you can walk us through what, you know, what have some of those campaigns looked like or what are they what our kinds of campaigns are brands working on? Yeah. Sure. So, interestingly, what we what we found recently is that the tokens that represent experiences. So really you can think of this almost as a, you know, a blockchain enabled or a hash graph rather enabled, ticketing kind of solution. That has actually gotten, you know, a lot of traction with, with clients that we're talking to And we we do have clients that are that are focusing a little bit more on the, on on the tokens, the sort of digital tokens. So tokens that represent actual physical products. We do have, some clients who are going more in that direction. So creating tokens that represent ownership of, generally quite rare to very rare items. But, yeah, like I said, really, we we've gotten a lot of traction on the experience side. So brands that are For example, we're we're working with an artist who, is using tokens to represent, actually lessons that he's giving. He's a pretty well known artist. He has a, a large following and there are people that are interested in having, you know, being able to have a lesson with him. So he's he's using tokens to represent those lessons. And then we we have a couple of potential clients that we're working with who are looking to do things like enable a user to actually like, take a ride, in a Formula One car, and some things like that. So these are the kind of these are the kind experience is kind of physical products that, the clients are are are looking to to create dopants for right now. Very cool. And how did you decide to build on the Hadera platform and work with Toko? Yeah. On that's a great question. So, I mean, you really, we we kind of have Hadera to thank for materium in the first place because, you know, as as I had mentioned, toco, the the beginning of materium really it started in conversations within, toco. And so, material, I should say specifically, material uses the toco eight uses Toco APIs to do our tokenization. And, so Toco, actually was able to, to get a grant from Hidera to develop those APIs that we now use. So, yeah, so so really we have Padara to thank, for the the beginning of the beginnings of Material, really, going all the way back, you know, to the start of the project. And really, yeah, I have to say that It's been one of the the eye opening things to me. Just what a big impact saying that we're working with Toco, you know, tokenization engine, owned by DLA Piper. And, you know, specifically the protocol we're using is HaderA Fast you know, very, cost friendly, eco friendly platform. This has gone, you know, a really long way for us in getting getting into the more, get getting past the first step of conversations because In so many in so many companies at this point, you know, the marketing team might be really interested, but as soon as you hit compliance, you know, that can be a real wall But using go and using Hadera, it's really helping us to, you know, push push through, that barrier. That's fantastic. And on the, on the product development side, can you walk us through a little bit of that experience and how that has been? Yeah. So, really the the product development has has gone great. So, I've I've worked on a number of products, in my career. And I have to say that this one has been really refreshing for me because, I think vision for the product was really clear, really early on. And it it really had it really hasn't changed much. Yeah, for any other product development teams out there, you know, everybody knows that scope creep is a real issue. It's it's an issue for every for every product, but, you know, I think as long as your vision is is clear and tight. It makes it much easier to kind of prioritize. And, you know, that's that's what we have really been striving to do, make sure that we're prioritizing the most important features, and, and making sure that we get to those first in the road map. So, so, yeah, I mean, at this point, the development is going exceptionally well. And we're in the process of looking to secure funding to, to fund the rest of our roadmap, which I have to say is pretty ambitious, and includes a lot of things like additional wallet integrations, ecosystem development, and also education related modules, One of our one of our missions and visions for, formaterium is to really be onboarding people, onto web three and it's providing to be providing some education. You know, in that process. And, yeah, so we're we're gonna we're looking for funding to, to help us fund that road map. And, yeah, so so far, the pa we the positive responses that we've had, from potential customers, yeah, has been really encouraging. Fantastic. And if you were to go back, if you were to tell a developer who's just starting out their journey, any tips or tricks or recommendations, Yeah. Absolutely. Probably several, actually. I think the the first tip that I would throw out there is to make sure that you understand the difference between a proof of concepts and an MVP, and know that go at like, taking that leap can be more difficult than you think. It's one thing to have put something together where you can demonstrate that hey, look, this is something that we can do. It's another thing to then take that to enterprises and say, you know, hey, let us do this for you. That's a that's a much larger jump than I think people appreciate sometimes. And, you really do, have to have to understand kind of the those compliance barriers that that you're gonna run into. So that would be one piece of advice is don't underestimate, those challenges. Another one would be, you know, basically don't don't fall into the trap of kind of over promising and under delivering. You know, I think a lot of us particularly when when you're in a new space, everything is really exciting and, you know, you see it as the sky is the limit, and it really is, but you have to understand that, you know, keep keep in mind what you can do within a reasonable period of time and, Yeah. Make sure you're not, make sure you're not selling the mood if you can't deliver that, because then at the end of the day, that doesn't make anybody happy. That's right. And I think, you know, there's been, such a the a rebuilding of credibility that has been required for this entire history. And so the first time you go to an enterprise and engage with them, you know, you need to make sure that they believe that what you can do is realistic and then deliver on it. Right? And that's how you rebuild that trust both for our whole industry as well as for your individual project, you know, build that from day one. Yeah. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. And, Laden, tell us a little bit. You've already talked about some of the, you know, exciting things and and projects that you are having conversations with a little bit about the roadmap and where you all see, developing out the platform. You know, you talked a little bit about wallets, but other things that you're starting to hear from customers that you plan to build in within the next, say, twelve months? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let me do that. So, Yeah. As I mentioned, wallet integrations, and, like I mentioned, some education related features helping people on board into web three. Like I said, I I think I said, we're also looking to expand the ecosystem. So we're we're getting more directly involved into ticketing. So like I mentioned, those experience tokens, we're, yeah, we're seeing really, a lot of interest, on that side particularly. So we're looking to continue to build that out, and improve those user journeys. We're also talking to a number of large clients around, loyalty and loyalty programs. So we're looking to develop out that piece of the of the ecosystem as well. And then more kind of on the the business side, think in the next, in the coming months, so let's say the next two to three months, I think that you can expect to see multiple, material powered brand market places, and strategic partnerships popping up. We're really excited about those. And, yeah, guess the the only other thing to mention is, we're looking to expand our distribution network and, enhance our ability to engage with corporates. So Yeah. I think the, those are the main items that we're looking to tackle over the next, let's say, three to twelve months. Fantastic. Well, a lot, when we are rooting for you all on your journey, we hope you'll come back and continue to share your progress with us. And thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sonobia. Really appreciate it. It was great to be here.