MetaDojo & OKX Blockdream Ventures AMA Recap

1st Segment: QUESTIONS FROM HOST 

Q1: Can you please give a brief introduction about yourself?  

Echo: Hello everyone. My name is Echo Guo. I am CEO & Co-Founder of MetaDojo. A proud Chinese-Kiwi, meaning I’m originally from China but have lived in New Zealand for over two decades. I have a 9 month old fur baby named Meta.  

I have a Masters Degree in Marketing with first class honors and I spent the early years of my career working for a global market consulting company specialized in the FMCG sector. After that, I had broad experience in a variety of areas such as personal coaching, international trading, real estate development, and started a beverage brand back in 2017. I got into tech when I bought shares of a SaaS software company called Aimy Limited and became its CEO in 2018. Aimy serves over 70% of New Zealand’s out-of-school care and education service providers and has gone into 5 overseas countries in the first 3 years of founding. It has over 100K end users and processes over US$40M of bookings annually. Since taking over, I have successfully turned it into a profitable business with steady growth.   

Q2: How did you get into Web3?  

Echo: I was aware of cryptocurrency from quite early on through Bitcoin investment. But it was not until I heard of the job opportunities the crypto game Axie Infinity provided to people in the less developed parts of the world, I became obsessed with the Web3 movement. I studied what decentralization was about and the benefit and limitless possibilities it brings. I was convinced Web3 is an inevitable future and was particularly interested in its role in wealth redistribution and inequity elimination.  I registered the company MetaDojo in Singapore in July 2021, with the mission to contribute to the transformation of the internet economy and social interactions from Web2 to Web3. Our vision is To provide affordable and ready-to-use solutions for scalable metaverse land development. To empower metaverse landowners with tools of MetaFi utilization.  To assist Web 3.0 mass adoption by offering website-integratable 3D virtual worlds to individuals, businesses and organizations.   

Q3: Could you explain in more detail how you plan to achieve the mission and vision?   Echo: Sure. Let’s start by looking at some of the problems we have on hand. Firstly, virtual economy.  Almost all metaverse projects have centered their virtual economy model on land ownership. A plot of land in the Sandbox was sold for a record high price of $4.3 million USD in November 2021.  On the other hand, our initial market research indicates that mainstream virtual real estate owners lack clear development plans and options for their lands. They do not possess resources professional digital land developers such as Republic Realm does, nor do they have the guaranteed traffic that celebrities, opinion leaders and bigger corporations enjoy.  Turning their bare land parcels to vibrant, prosperous and fantastical 3D worlds takes time, financial investment and certain expertise (for example, animation design and game development). Furthermore, to stay competitive, they need ongoing support and constant upgrades. MetaDojo aims to deliver purposely-built 3D spaces equipped with In-Dojo Economy to help metaverse landowners to monetize their virtual real estate, increase the value of their digital assets and strengthen the communities they belong to.  Secondly, socialization. Despite being one of the fundamental characteristics of the metaverse, socialization is not a stronghold of most metaverse networks to date. Taking the leading metaverse world Decentraland as an example, hosting events with over 100 attendees has proven to be challenging.  We believe our Dojos provide the perfect place for metaverse socialization because being present in the same virtual space, the visitors naturally share things in common for example acquaintances of the Dojo owner, followers of the same celebrity, customers of the business, members of the same community, etc. Therefore, the MetaDojo team endeavors to develop tools to help facilitate socialization and virtual friendship.  Lastly but not leastly - the gaps between Web2 and Web3. Following Mark Zuckerberg’s firm belief of the future of the metaverse in shaping our society, mainstream business sectors such as retailing and sports clubs have started seeking innovative ways of gaining Web3 presence to be future-proof. Unfortunately, the costs and relevant blockchain knowledge required when it comes to metaverse land acquisition can be prohibitive. In some territories and regions, ownership of digital goods on the blockchain is not legally recognized and fully protected.  To speed up the mass adoption of the metaverse, our team recognizes the importance of having an interim solution that links a brand new world with the more familiar Web2 platforms such as websites and online stores. For instance, non-crypto customers can taste the enticing elements of the metaverse such as 3-dimensional animation, avatars, and social interactions, but being redirected back to the Web2 eCommerce platform when it comes to making payment.  

Q7: Finally, let’s talk about where you guys are at with product development. Any exciting events taking place soon? 

Echo: We started the recruitment process late last year at the same time of undergoing fundraising, which gave us a head start in 2022 with the majority of team members starting by the end January. There are three areas of high significance for us right now. First of all, we aim to have a collection of 30 Dojos ready for our partner metaverse protocol Bit.Country by the end of Quarter 1. Our design team is well on track with this goal. Here is a teaser video showcasing some of the Dojos built.  {Tiger catwalk video}  The second important avenue of development is in-game experience and the user portal. Our team is doing lots of research and working closely with Bit.Country to ensure a seamless integration and great user experience for our Dojo owners as well as their visitors. We will have something ready to share with our community very soon.  Last but not least, a constant focus for us is our community. We ran two NFT competitions in December last year and the past February. Our Twitter followers grew from merely 800 to almost 25K. We have some exciting prizes and events in the pipeline for the coming months, so join our Discord or Telegram channels to make sure you don’t miss out!  On the token side, we have a public presale planned for Quarter 2 before our TGE with a target of June 2022. This will be followed by product launch and exchange listing in Quarter 3.  

2nd Segment: QUESTIONS FROM GROUP 

Q1: Are you a global project or local project? At present, which market are you focusing on, or is it focused on building and growing to gain customers, users and partners? 

Echo: Hi, we are a global project and to be honest, there is no territory limit in Web3. Our focus right now are early adopters of the Metaverse, individuals and businesses alike. We have two streams of customer attraction. 1. Through the users and land owners of the metaverse partners of ours. 2. Through mass advertising and PR to gain attention from anyone keen to add Metaverse experience to their website. 

Q2: According to the roadmap, what are your most important next priorities? Does your team have enough funds and a strong community to achieve those milestones? Echo: Hi, we are a global project and to be honest, there is no territory limit in Web3. Our focus right now are early adopters of the Metaverse, individuals and businesses alike.  We have two streams of customer attraction. 1. Through the users and land owners of the metaverse partners of ours. 2. Through mass advertising and PR to gain attention from anyone keen to add Metaverse experience to their website. 

Q3: According to the roadmap, what are your most important next priorities? Does your team have enough funds and a strong community to achieve those milestones? Echo: Hi, thanks for the question. We raised 3M USD in 2 months with a 70% over-subscription. We have enough funding right now and can easily get more if we wanted to. Our immediate priority is on product development. Our team is in the process of designing, modeling various Dojo designs. We are also working on in-game features for our Dojos. 

Q4: What is the biggest near future challenge for your team to solve? How are you gonna drive adoption of your service on a larger scale? 

Echo: Our biggest challenge I think will be driving up adoption. To solve that, we have what we call Web2 solution where our Dojos do NOT need a metaverse environment to be enjoyed by your community and visitors. You can have them embedded easily on your website, Instagram, Twitter, Weibo etc… 

Q5: Do you have any plans of integrating with other metaverse projects? 

Echo: Very good question! Yes, we will be a cross-chain dApp so most definitely we are going to find more partners. 

Q6: Can you give an overview of your Tokenomics, and the UTILITY of Token? 

Echo: Hi, I think I have done that in a rather brief way for today's time. If you are keen to find out more, check out our whitepaper here https://metadojo.io/MetaDojo_Whitepaper.pdf 

Q7: MetaDojo managed to raise $3 million USD for the initial round.  How many rounds are there for the sale?  and what is your target?  How did you achieve that success? 

Echo: I like your thinking Boss. Our next step is to have a public token sale for our early supporters because we want to reward them as well, not just the VCs. Timeline is looking like May this year. 

Q8：What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team leading the market? 

Echo: Another amazing question! Here are 3 competitive advantages of MetaDojo.  1. Ready-to-use for all open metaverse networks  One of MetaDojo’s primary goals is to collaborate with all open metaverse protocols, to give their landowners an economical way to jumpstart their MetaFi journey by monetizing their virtual real estate, increasing the value of their digital assets, and strengthening the communities they belong to. 2. Web 2.0 integration to accelerate metaverse mass adoption We want to bring the metaverse to all individuals, businesses, and organizations. If you currently own an online presence, whether it’s in the form of a website, an online store, or a social media account, our Dojos allow you to enjoy the new dimension of Web 3.0 without the upfront costs and technical skills related to metaverse land acquisition. 3. Job opportunities through the Creator Economy The metaverse belongs to digital native creators! Our dream is to facilitate an open and inclusive ecosystem where community members not only enjoy visiting but also can make a living from it, so they become true residents of the metaverse. 

Q9: Currently from where I can buy ? 

Echo: Thanks for your interest! I know our Dojos are hard to resist huh 🤩 Our plan is to have a beta launch in Bit.Country when they are ready, likely to be Q2 this year. But our Web2 embeddable Dojos should have an Alfa launch earlier than that, so stay stunned! 

Q10: How many team members do you have? Do they have enough experience in the blockchain field? Do they have any experience on working in crypto and non-crypto projects? 

Echo: Currently there are 10 of us, all based in beautiful New Zealand. Yes, our team members have a broad experience with software development, 3D building architecture & modeling, blockchain commercial projects, marketing and PR. 

Q11: We have seen that many projects are coming with the concept of Metaverse. How will MetaDojo compete with other Metaverse projects? 

Echo:  we don't compete with them, we work with them and serve their users and community by providing them with an affordable and efficient way of stalling virtual space on their land parcels.  Thank you everyone for your time. I had fun and hope you did too! Huge thanks to OKX BlockDream Venture and host  for this wonderful opportunity! I’d like to ask for your continued support for our project. Our Community & Partnership Manager Ida will post our social links again - hope to see you there soon!    Click onto this link and make sure to follow us ❤️ https://linktr.ee/metadojo