Written in Partnership with Amir Bakian
First it was brick and mortar, then along came the internet. Now a group of companies are looking to make Web3 the next technological leap forward and Syntribos, the founder of Web3 project Quirkies Originals, believes they are positioned to be on the forefront of such a shift.
Web3 to many is a dark magic of crypto and blockchain, words which many of us bauk at the first sight of. Like any new innovation many of us either fob it off until it invades our day to day lives or just assume it will eventually fade away into nothingness. However, in the past 12 months we have seen more mainstream businesses either partnering with web3 brands or entering the web3 space directly – Adidas, Nike, Puma just to name a few – possibly giving us a glimpse of what is yet to come.
As traditional established brands look to enter the space, a new generation of brands look to make the transition back the other way, from Web3 back to Web2 expanding their footprint. One such brand is Quirkies Originals, a brand born from the street and beaches, inspired by the skate, surf and snow lifestyle. With an already sizable social media following built through their web3 community, their business model is inverting what we are used to seeing in a traditional business model.
Quirkies founder Syntribos mentions “Historically, brands would follow a traditional go-to market strategy by creating and designing the product, testing the market and then look to build a following and community around the brand. Web3 has enabled us to invert this. As a brand we already have an extremely loyal following which has translated to extremely successful limited edition apparel launches”.
Quirkies are working towards becoming a true hybrid between the web2 and web3 worlds. “We have seen several examples from the likes of Supreme creating exclusive limited edition items which have created enormous demand”, Syntribos explains. What they lack in some cases according to him is the ability to reward their long term supporters with those limited items. “Through the creation of our Web3 tier system we are able to actively reward our community members with exclusive access to seasonal items and experiences”.
As interest in cryptocurrency and NFTs ebbs and flows, more and more web3 businesses will need to look to more traditional sources of revenue in order to prosper. We have seen the likes of Bored Ape Yacht club move into the gaming space with their metaverse play ‘The Otherside’ and Doodles enter the music space with their partnership with singer/producer Pharrell Williams. With Quirkies looking to take on the cultural holy grail of apparel, it is likely we will see more of these web3 brands in our day-to-day lives.
Only time will tell whether brands like Quirkies will be able to make the transition to cover both web2 and web3. However, they are many steps ahead of a brand coming to the market fresh out of the blocks. With a strong community behind them it seems that they might be in a great position to take advantage of a cultural movement in the web3 space.
Quirkies Website: https://quirkies.io/
Quirkies Twitter: https://twitter.com/quirkiesnft
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