You’re ambitious with a lot of drive. You want to make your mark in the metaverse and make some big bucks doing it. You obviously have big dreams!

Join us on this journey through the best metaverse business models to date and start making your mark on the virtual landscape while raking in millions.

The Metaverse, in a Nutshell

Sometimes, it’s hard to pick which metaverse business model is best for your startup. You can get so caught up in the virtual reality buzz that you lose sight of the focus: your metaverse business model.

From creating games and apps to selling virtual land or even fashion, there are a lot of options for entrepreneurs. The metaverse is full of opportunity. Hop on the bandwagon now and jumpstart your future digital business before even a limitless virtual landscape gets congested

The future of connectivity is here. It’s time you joined the ecosystem.

Let’s start with the basics: What is the metaverse? Is it new?

The Metaverse is a term used to refer to an immersive, 3D computer-simulated environment that can be shared and navigated through virtual reality headsets. Similar to the World Wide Web, it’s an online platform where people connect with each other.

The term “metaverse” derives from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In this book, the word refers to a virtual reality-based successor to the Internet. While virtual reality remains an active area of research in the real world, we’re still far from being able to build anything resembling the fully immersive worlds described in Snow Crash. Since then, many other books, films, series, and games have popped up that expand on the concept. Ready Player One, Roblox, and Fortnite are just a few examples.

The metaverse is one of the most popular virtual worlds that exist today. It allows users to design their own avatars and explore a number of different environments. The platform offers hundreds of games for users to play, as well as thousands of different stores where they can purchase unique digital goods.

The recent changes to Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant, Facebook, recently may have led to some confusion due to the name change, Meta. However, metaverse is not just from the company, Meta. It’s any virtual world/platform. Meta’s metaverse is the latest and could become one of the most popular social networking virtual reality platforms due to its reach. However, there’s also Decentraland, High Fidelity, Second Life, and Sansar, just to name a few.

Each of these platforms offers equal and different opportunity for growth and profit.

What are the seven business models of the metaverse?

We’ve got 7 of the best metaverse business models right here, outlined and ready for you to take on your next venture.

1. Advertising

Advertising as a Metaverse business model is the most well-known of all models. It works directly on the Metaverse platform and gives developers a cut from the income generated from it. The Metaverse advertising model can be used in applications (including defi-apps), or on external websites or web pages for games.

Metaverse advertising works much the same as it does in the real world. You don’t even need to have digital, metaverse-only goods to advertise. So, you can think of it as fresh grounds for marketing whatever your current products are. This is especially good for businesses that simply can’t offer service in the Metaverse or are on the fence about what’s possible and want to get a better feel before diving in.

2. NFTs

The most successful NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are not merely virtual representations of real-life objects. They are unique, interactive, and often have a low supply.

Pets — CryptoKitties, CryptoPuppies and CryptoCelebrities — are the most popular collectible NFTs. CryptoKitties increased awareness of the possibilities of blockchain technology and helped to expand the Ethereum network. It also demonstrated that people were willing to pay for virtual goods in cryptocurrency (Bitcoin and Ethereum).

However, you can create whatever NFT you feel like. It doesn’t have to follow the current trend.

3. Digital Land

Selling virtual real estate or other virtual space in the Metaverse (especially on Second Life) on the open market is by far the most popular business model for virtual worlds today. It has many variations such as land speculation, developing and selling “ready to build” lots, and renting land. Many people also work with real estate companies or brokers in SL to list their property or develop it for them.

This is how it works: the Metaverse lets users buy into their own island, which they then use to build a business on. The revenue model for this type of project is similar to a traditional online business model. Users pay a monthly fee to rent their space in the virtual world.

4. Avatar Customization

Avatars in the metaverse are customizable objects that may be used by its users to represent themselves in virtual worlds, online games, and other online communities.

The customization service allows these avatars to be customized by the user with different appearances such as hair style changes, skin finishes, clothing, and accessories. These services can be offered by the owners of the virtual world, or they may be offered by third parties with which the owner has a revenue sharing agreement.

5. Virtual Goods

Virtual goods and services have been a major source of income for many successful metaverse companies. A wide range of virtual goods can be sold online such as weapons for gamers, characters, clothing, furniture, and more.

The most common way to sell virtual goods is via your own website where you provide the goods directly to customers. Examples of companies offering such services include Second Life’s Inworldz, There, and Red Light Center, as well as the video games World of Warcraft, Sandbox, and RuneScape.

Another option is to sell your products through a specialized virtual goods marketplace like Second Life Marketplace or Sansar Store. These marketplaces allow you to sell your products without having to set up and maintain your own website, while also enabling you to reach a wider audience than would be possible with your own website alone.

6. Business Services

Businesses that sell their services in the metaverse are often called “metaverse service providers”. Individual creators may start out as metaverse service providers and then grow their businesses into full-fledged “enterprises”, which are similar to other companies that exist outside of the metaverse.

The business services model involves selling a service to visitors in your virtual world, whether it be land development services, avatar customization, furniture and decor, or similar services. These services can be sold either directly from your store or through the use of a shopping cart; commonly referred to as a “cart system,” “shopping cart”, or “storefront”. The most popular shopping cart systems are MetaCart and Floobo.

7. Tourism

One option is to start a vTime business (see below). Another option is to offer guided tours of your own location. If you have a particularly beautiful building or piece of land, or even just a well-designed city district, you can attract tourists and other visitors from around the metaverse by offering guided tours of your digital world to other users for a fee.

One of the biggest features of the metaverse is how expansive it is in space and possibility. In the sense of tourism, that means users from anywhere in the physical world can explore areas they would otherwise never see in person through digital experiences. It also means you can create impossible lands only possible in a digital space.

Chosen your metaverse business model? Good. Start getting paid for your digital goods.

With the introduction of blockchain technology these and other business models are now possible. Also, new players have entered the marketplace that could become game changers in the metaverse space with their value propositions, such as not being limited by centralized servers.

This is creating a hotbed of innovation that could lead to many more examples in leveraging blockchain, decentralized networks and digital assets while continuing to build on immersive, new technology and presence.

The potential for growth and the scope of the metaverse opens up a myriad of opportunities for anyone with a competitive advantage. As people learn more about the Metaverse and its capabilities, we will see competitors begin to sprout from every direction. The key to success will be adapting a strategy that enables companies to compete successfully in this new era of digital/augmented reality. This can only come from foresight, ingenuity and understanding the potential for rapid growth in the metaverse market.

Keep in mind that crypto, the metaverse, and any digital good is still considered a high-risk asset which means you are a high-risk business. As such, you will have difficulty finding a payment processor to keep operations profitable and steady as you grow.

This is where DirectPayNet comes in. We specialize in high-risk merchant accounts, linking you with payment processors that will take you on. Don’t miss these opportunities the metaverse is bringing to the table. Get in touch with us today.