HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.
I’m a tech futurist, speaker, and author.
What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?
It’s called Metapunk - We are a new agency helping brands and organizations navigate this revolution, building out new monetization and marketing opportunities to become part of this new online universe, and creating new ways to lean into rapidly evolving engagement models.
What is the origin story?
I’ve always been interested in future and emerging technologies and I see the metaverse as a convergence of a few leading trends right now. Metapunk is essentially the culture and societal revolution for the Metaverse much the same way Cyberpunk, Steampunk, etc exist for their own genres.
What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?
At the moment I’m building the business from scratch so it’s just me, however, a number of people are collaborating on a book project of the same name and it may well spin out into a full-service agency.
If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?
Probably some boring marketing job.
At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?
We want to be one of the few agencies right at the start that can guide organizations and individuals to successfully navigating and engaging in the metaverse. If we’re there first we’ll be the household name.
What’s most exciting about your traction to date?
Knowing that nobody else is using the term ‘metapunk’ to describe the movement - meaning when it’s adopted we will be right on everyone’s lips.
What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?
Mostly excited about the real potential for machine learning and AI - leading to automation that allows us more free time, not to be more productive.
What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?
The reach and simplicity.
What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?
I wouldn’t, I need to make these mistakes and decisions to lead me here. It’s been a journey but I wouldn’t change it.
What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?
It’s ok to pivot your career at any point in your life, even approaching 50.
Vote for metapunk as the best startup in Edinburgh.