327 Beau Button

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Beau Button has been actively involved with software development since he was 11 years old. He got a start learning about computers around age nine, digging into the hardware side of things first, and eventually picked up software development at age 11.

Having spent the majority of his career as a serial entrepreneur working in the government space,Beauhas now transitioned into the mobile gaming space through his company, Atlas Realty, Inc.

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Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, you heard it in the official introduction. We have a fellow entrepreneur in the house, a post exit entrepreneur, and someone who is way out there doing some incredible things that we're going to learn all about today. So Beau, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast.

An absolute delight to have you with us. And Beau, I'm curious because there's always a story behind the story. What's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Beau Button: Curiosity insatiable. Even as a child, I was really curious about how things worked. Not always electronic things, but anything that had moving pieces. I loved taking things apart. Spent a lot of time doing outdoor stuff with my dad, small engines. And then eventually around probably the age of eight or nine, I transitioned to electronics and the rest is [00:03:00] literally history.

Just computers since then, all day, every day.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. So talk to me about that because, you know, as entrepreneurs, we all walk a different path and we come into this world with different skill sets. So the curiosity, it sounds like just growing up, you were born like that. Or is that something that you picked up along the way because you've done very well.

And I imagine the curiosity is really a large part behind that.

Beau Button: Yeah I can't say that there was an influence in my life, someone that I, saw that was also curious, that kind of motivate, motivated me to be curious, but from what I gather I don't know much about my great grandfather or my grandfather since they were deceased, my grandfather passed away when I was really young, but from what my mother tells me, they were also very curious very big into like radio because in their day, radio was a really big thing.

So I think some of it might be genetics. I'm, I just have an insatiable appetite to understand how things work, but you know, as I got older, obviously, I did, come across some inspirational people that did continue to motivate me to remain curious, even though, as you get older, you go through puberty, and it's you've got all these different [00:04:00] influences, but, yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

It's probably partly genetic people around me, I guess, as I aged.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Atlas Earth. What's going on with that? What's the story behind the story with that? How did you even get going in that whole industry?

Maybe for the benefit of our listeners, why don't you take them back to when you started the company, why you started that and what's been going on? 

Beau Button: Yeah, so, the original name of the company was Cerberus Interactive Incorporated. We renamed it several years ago for a multitude of reasons. The most common issue with that name was nobody could pronounce it or spell it. So, just getting someone to go to your website took an act of Congress.

But, we started that company because we wanted to build games for other companies. I was a software engineer. I'd spend a lot of time as a consultant owning and operating ISVs, independent software vendors, building software for other companies, mostly enterprise software or, line of business software.

So when I was approached by the younger brother of a high school friend with the idea of creating a game development company, I [00:05:00] was very intrigued. However, that, that was short lived. The company remained active, but we pivoted from building games for other people to building our own games. I probably should have seen the writing on the wall, building software for other people can be kind of entertaining, it can also be, murder, and I naively thought that building games for other people would be absolutely fun because games are fun, but I was even more wrong about that than the line of business software.

So, this is right around the time Pokemon Go came out, Niantic was big in the location based games, and my partner. He had aspirations of being a game designer, he had a lot of experience in marketing and, user experience, so we said, let's do it. And we came up with a game it was originally called Tower, T O W A R, it's now called Atlas Empires, it's in both Google Play and the App Store, iOS App Store.

But yeah we basically pivoted, we were both enamored with this location based gaming concept. I had a lot of experience in the geospatial sector because of another company I started called Archon Information Systems. So, it was a natural kind of just [00:06:00] mating of, my relationship with GIS and Sami's relationship, Sami my current business partner with gaming.

And then Atlas Earth. Atlas Earth is kind of just the evolution of, our location, you know, base gaming routes. But much like Atlas Empires was inspired by Pokemon Go. Atlas Earth was kind of inspired by this virtual real estate metaverse kind of movement. We saw what other, developers were doing in that space, in the Web3 space with crypto and the blockchain, but weren't convinced that it was the right time for us to do anything on chain, but we love the idea of Selling virtual real estate and allowing the owner of that real estate to earn some type of income.

So we basically built it, but we built it off chain, meaning there's no crypto tie ins, there's no blockchain, none of that. It's a regular, call it if you will, a Web2 game that pays players in fiat currency. Metaverse, but you let me know where we want to go with how deep into the Atlas Earth story.

Jeffrey Feldberg: One of the things that we're [00:07:00] really big on here at Deep Wealth in our nine step roadmap. And again, these are the same strategies that I leverage to take my e learning company to really take it from zero to hero. And in step one, big picture is taking a look at, Hey, what's going on around me?

What am I not aware of? What am I not aware of that could potentially put me out of business? Or if I understand it, I can leverage that to put myself out of business into a bigger business. So I know right on your website, when you come to your homepage, building a metaverse on top of the real world. So let's assume nothing here.

It's a clean slate. Some of our listeners are saying, okay, a metaverse, I heard of the company meta and all the billions of dollars that they lost and we won't go there and that's a whole other episode. But Beau, for our listeners who are new to this, what is the metaverse and what do you mean by, well, we're building a metaverse on top of the real world?

What's going on there?

Beau Button: yeah, it's gonna take a minute to unpack all that, and if anybody's listening is a Metaverse guru, they're [00:08:00] not gonna like my definition of the Metaverse. It's really just the evolution of the Internet, if you think about, we went from desktop computers with desktop browsers, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, to the transition to, we had mobile devices, the Internet has evolved from basic desktops to mobile to some degree, augmented reality and virtual reality, we're not there yet, clearly not everyone owns an Oculus or any type of AR, VR headset, but the metaverse, in my opinion, is really just the three dimensional internet, so it's another way for you to engage with brands, with, SaaS applications, social media networks, et cetera, like you had mentioned, Meta and Horizons World.

It's just a way to interact with content and ultimately interact with other people through some type of augmented reality or mixed reality headset or device. As we'll see in the next couple days, Apple's going to be releasing theirs. I think that's going to be a huge shift in the industry because their device is so tightly integrated and so streamlined, it's going to be [00:09:00] really compelling despite its price tag.

But yeah that's, basically, in my words, what the metaverse is and what we're doing. I'm not convinced that I want to live in a future where everybody just comes home or doesn't even leave the house and just puts a headset on, so like that Ready Player One mentality where you're just living somewhere and you've got to put on your headset in order to interact with humans.

I think some of this comes from the pandemic, being forced to shut our office down and work from home. It's like, I really, it's not as enjoyable as being around people, so what Sami and I have always kind of committed to is bridging that gap. Like, how do we connect the dots between the real world going to an actual brick and mortar store, but also the virtual world?

And that's what we mean, by building a metaverse on top of the real kind of universes. We're connecting those two dots and we're doing that through a platform that we built called the Atlas Merchant Platform. And you can think of it as kind of a a rewards network where players can use their You know, standard credit cards, Visa and MasterCard to go [00:10:00] make purchases at brick and mortar merchants.

But they're rewarded with in game currency. So that's the dovetail. Since we are location based, it makes a lot of sense. There's things you can see in the game. You can see Auntie Anne's pretzels or a Burger King or a Jamba Juice, but you can go there in the real world, get yourself a smoothie, but get a reward in the game and then use that reward to actually purchase something in the virtual world.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Bo, let's unpack what you just said because there's a lot there, and actually I may date myself somewhat here. They often say that science fiction, whether it be in the form of a book or a movie, oftentimes it's decades ahead, even centuries ahead of where things are heading, but it really predicts the future.

So what we're talking about here, I don't know if you're familiar, it was the 2009 movie called Surrogates, and this is where you had everyone who Like you were saying, they were at home, they went into this special contraption and they were out there in the world, but it wasn't them. It was almost like a robot that they were controlling, for lack of a better word, that they were [00:11:00] seeing, feeling, everything that was there.

But for police officers, people in the military, it was great because if they got shot, if they got blown up, it was just a machine. It wasn't them. They were back in the comfort of their own home. But in the movie, as they depicted it to what you were alluding to, People really weren't interacting with each other.

They're just at home in a room. They're out there with their surrogate doing whatever they were doing. So, step aside for just a quick moment. Are we heading there? Is this the first step of where we are today to eventually going somewhere like that? Or are we just going to leave that for the movies and the books?

What do you think?

Beau Button: It's 100 percent plausible. I don't, I mean, I'm 40 years old, I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime where that's the norm, but, we're seeing it today, not necessarily with bipedal robots humanoid like robots, but we're not far, I mean, we're pretty far, if you look at the Tesla humanoid robot, the thing's pretty janky but if you look at Boston Dynamics, you look at their dog based, I can never remember the platform's name like, they're very fluid, but the idea of me [00:12:00] just disconnecting from, reality, putting on a headset and controlling a robot that looks like me, talks like me and interacts with humans like me, I think we're very far off from that.

But, humans as an extension of, or not humans, robots or, mechanisms as a, an extension of humans is here. We're doing it today with pilots, with drones. You're not in the cockpit, so that same kind of novelty of, someone shoots down your drone, obviously this is for warfare and it's not a very attractive subject, but I think it's definitely in the future.

I'm not convinced that everybody is going to have one of those, but I do think in certain industries, and you mentioned a few, like law enforcement although frightened, frightening as a citizen, I do live in Texas, so it's will absolutely Love, robots running around, you won't need a permit, no concealed carry, they'll have bazookas, shoot on sight kind of deal.

But I think it's definitely possible. And the things that we're building in the gaming space absolutely going to be leveraged in that space. We share a lot of [00:13:00] technology. If you look at what they're doing in the space war industry or just space in general, a lot of the technologies that they're using are the same technologies we're using to build games.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's so fascinating in terms of what's there. But what I heard you saying, what I like what you're saying is, hey, Jeffrey, yeah, sure we can go there, but we have a different take and correct me if I'm off base with this, but what I'm hearing you say is, why don't we take the meta world or the virtual world and let's just call it the real world and let's put the two together.

So it's an interactive, it's more human friendly, if I can use that term. And so, how are you doing that exactly, Bof? I'm a listener listening in, I'm not really, familiar with the metaverse or what's going on here or there. I understand virtual, obviously, I understand the real world. How are you combining the two and what brought you to that conclusion or to that starting point?

Beau Button: Yeah, so, we're not combining the two Meta's trying to do we're not big enough, we don't have enough revenue or funding to really, that full immersion, you're putting on a bodysuit and a headset and you just feel like you're [00:14:00] actually out and about but you're really in your living room maybe playing a multiplayer game with somebody in a different country.

That's not us. What we're focusing is commerce. I've seen a lot of mom and pop shops just die unfortunately because of the big boys it's obvious, Amazon's killing a lot of small companies, but Sami and I have always remained committed to trying to make sure that there's a balance between the two.

So, Atlas Merchant Platform is kind of what we're doing. That's our contribution to that effort. We'll let Meta and all of these other big boys continue out on the hardware side, but how do you incentivize people who are fascinated with playing video games to continue to shop in person?

I enjoy walking around the grocery store, and I think a lot of people do. I hope that people will remain intrigued by being able to walk around, not necessarily to talk to people, but just the experience.

It's kind of fun to me. Maybe I'm the oddball out here, but yeah, the Atlas Merchant Platform is our contribution, and then that's that kind of What I had mentioned earlier, metaverse, connecting it to the real, we call [00:15:00] it creating a virtuous cycle between the real world and the virtual world, so going to purchase something in person, getting the actual goods, but being rewarded world, and right now the only world that exists that supports this is Atlas Earth, but we are opening up our platform to other games, and that's kind of what we're focusing on, is trying to, share the wealth there and let other companies incentivize players to go out and purchase things real life.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So let's talk about the consumer side on this for just a moment because it's fascinating. And then we can circle back and look at the business side. So if I'm understanding you, there are certain retail shops or chains that you're associated with. So I'll go to that store, I'll buy something and somehow through, I guess, is it through your app that once I buy something, it shows up on my account, I get some kind of points or credits.

How am I doing so far with that?

Beau Button: Pretty close our special sauce is we have direct integrations with both Visa and MasterCard, so that's kind of what sets us apart. There have been attempts to do QR codes on [00:16:00] receipts, scanning receipts to be, rewarded for your purchases, but that puts the onus on the consumer to remember to do it, and it's just an inconvenience to actually do it.

You have to open an app, you have to scan a QR code, plus it's, unfortunately it's, potentially, can abuse it. So what we've done is both Visa and MasterCard have rewards programs, so you've seen this, points, miles, anything you can think of, and we sit on the same exact rails as all of your rewards programs, but instead of giving you flight miles or any type of credit, you can think of, We're converting those into in game currency, so you don't have to do anything other than give us, when you install a game, let's say, in the future there's a game that is a participant if you've already enrolled your card and this is probably the biggest obstacle for this tech, is people have to enter their 16 digit PAN, there's their credit card number, we don't take an expiration date, we don't take a zip code, and we don't need to know your name.

And the reason because, the reason we don't need any of that is because [00:17:00] we provide that number to either Visa or MasterCard, and then what they do is they tokenize it. We don't secure, we don't store your number, but the reason we need that number is when you use that card at a participating merchant, that's what ties you to the game, to the transaction, so we can reward you.

But yeah, weren't far off. Basically, you swipe your card, and in real time, and this is the kicker, you get a push notification that says something to the effect, thank you for spending 20 at Burger King, you've just been rewarded X amount of virtual currency, and then you can instantly go into that game and use it.

So instead of having to buy Through an in app purchase a bucket of virtual currency, you can just continue doing what you're doing in the real world and get rewarded, and then you can use those, in game currencies to buy things. The crux here is we need a lot of merchants, and right now that's what we're working on, is getting more merchants.

Jeffrey Feldberg: sure. Well, listen, it's early days, but you're really way ahead of the curve. And I know if some of the listeners are like me, I'm wondering and I'll ask on their behalf. Okay, so I go to a store that you're associated with. I put it on my Visa MasterCard. Soon as I pay, I [00:18:00] get a notification. I have virtual currency now.

So what am I doing with that virtual currency? Now that I'm in Atlas Earth and down the road, other apps that you're coming out with, other environments. How does that work? What does that look like?

Beau Button: Yeah, so in Atlas Earth, the virtual currency is called Atlas Bucks, and what you can do with Atlas Bucks is buy virtual real estate, and that real estate generates virtual rent. Everything's prefixed by virtual or with virtual, but the real interesting thing about our approach here is that virtual rent accrues every second, so the more pieces of land that you own, the more virtual rent that you can accrue, when it gets to five dollars, You can cash it out in fiat to your check in account.

And we've cashed out over a million dollars to our players. And this is the only platform that does this in fiat, not crypto. And that's really where we separate ourselves from the other players, is they give you tokens, and those tokens can be worth one cent, or a millionth of a cent, or nothing. So, yeah, I mean, ultimately, that [00:19:00] virtual currency today is really just Atlas bucks, but that's what we're working on, is trying to integrate our technology into other games that use virtual currency.

So maybe your big Candy Crush Fan. And, I forget what their in game currency is to unlock certain levels. So, you can go buy groceries instead of buying a bucket of, Candy Crush tokens. You just get those and you can exchange them and you can go on and unlock your level without spending any additional cash.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it, okay, so I'm out there, I'm purchasing land in your Metaverse, in Atlas Earth, I'm getting rent with that, and so Bo, what's the endgame, for people that are now part of this community, the more they spend, the more money they get, the more virtual currency they have. It almost sounds like, I don't want to make it too crude, and if I'm off base, tell me, almost like Monopoly in a sense of, okay, I'm going to go for some land grab, I'm going to try and get as much as I can, I'm going to be a landlord, and are people renting this out for me, my virtual land?

How does that all work?

Beau Button: Not yet. So, the only thing that we have launched is the primary market, but [00:20:00] You know, my previous venture, Archon Information Systems, was in real estate, so we're modeling this off of the actual real estate market. There's going to be a secondary market. You're going to be able to buy and sell, you're going to be able to improve, and that's kind of the phase that at now with Atlas Earth is, we've sold a lot of land.

People, they own a lot of land. If you go to Las Vegas or New York or Los Angeles and open the game, there's tens of thousands of individual users who have land and their profile picture shows up on it, but they can't do anything right now. They can't build anything on it. They can't make it different than anybody else's of land, other than their avatar.

So being able to build on that land, build structures, we call this user generated content. So allowing players to buy. Several pieces of land together, build a castle, and then sell that castle, not for the value of the land that's underneath it, but for the value of the land and its improvement, much like in the real world.

So, there is going to be opportunities for our players to make more money than just that virtual rent, because maybe they're really good at [00:21:00] designing structures, maybe they have an architectural kind of knack. But yeah, I mean, again it's gonna be modeled after the real, you know, kind of real estate market.

Our end goal is some type of social feature, so I joked about not wanting to be like Ready Player One where put on your headset and go into some alternate universe and play a game, but we do want to have some collaborative features in the game. Right now, it's pretty much a solo experience, you can't communicate with other players, despite they might be your neighbors, But that's really the goal is to allow players to build on their land and then ultimately socialize and potentially play games and things like that together. So it's a platform, but right now there's not a whole lot other than buying virtual real estate and. A lot of our players are doing that solely for bragging rights one of the things that we do in the game because we are location based and we have a, I guess, a preference for modeling our game and our technology after, the real world is we have the president of a country, the mayor of a city, and the governor of the state, so if you own the most land in a country, everybody who logs [00:22:00] in that country sees you, if you're the mayor, they see you if they're in that city so it's a leaderboard of sorts and people are just, If Fascinated with being on the leaderboard so they can be at the top.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, fascinating. So let me understand this. As people are coming into your app, into your metaverse, your virtual world, through what they're spending, they're able to then go on land, and it sounds like we're very early days. You're still building this out, and you'll be able to do other kinds of things.

I'm curious, Beau. Firstly, congratulations, what a forward thinking idea, and also, it wasn't that far back where The app, having an app, everyone and his or her brother or sister were doing this, they're trying to get into the business. We saw a lot of companies come, a lot of companies go, and you're still standing, so that's huge.

How are you monetizing this? What's your business angle here?

Beau Button: So, most video games monetize in one of two ways. So, in app purchases, so, and, your in app purchase can unlock anything. More often than not, the in app purchase is to buy [00:23:00] virtual currency. So, the game doesn't use USD, it uses gems or rhinestones or runes. and obviously The way it's most often done is you can get one or a hundred for 99 cents, you can get 200 for, 1.

49, and obviously, the more you buy, the less expensive it gets. So, our first kind of monetization tactic is just in app purchases. People want to come in and they want to buy real estate. And they ultimately just want to go from cash to Atlas bucks, they buy it, the more they buy, more they get or the less expensive it gets.

The second is ads, and this is where I think a lot of people who play freemium games or free to play games, familiar with. Watch an ad in exchange for virtual currency, or in some games, you're just going to watch an ad and you're not going to get anything because it's an interstitial ad.

So in order to continue playing the game, the developer said, I'm going to force you to watch an ad, and then in exchange for that ad, watch, they get paid a few pennies, and that's a revenue source. That's where most gaming companies, kind of stop. [00:24:00] Some of them will have subscriptions. And that's really it.

So, we do four things. We do the first, which is in app purchases. We do the second, which is advertisements. Our third is our merchant platform, where we get a commission for driving those sales at those brick and mortar locations. And that's really, it's not there yet, but that's what we're building, and that's where I think, our primary line of business and our source of revenue will be in the next probably 12 to 24 months, the commissions we get off of convincing players to go to buy something at a local store, even if it's a chain restaurant.

And because we have that direct attribution through Visa or MasterCard, there is no uncertainty. It's guaranteed. We get it from Visa. We know you spent 10. We can bill the customer, and we can get an invoice, and we get paid. And the fourth is subscriptions. This is kind of a new thing. It's been around, obviously, subscriptions, but in games, these passes that, that unlock certain features in the game.

We rolled out our Atlas Explorer Club probably about eight months [00:25:00] ago and it's doing remarkably well, despite the fact that it's a 50 a month subscription. But if you're a power user of Atlas Earth, and you buy a lot of land, by being a member of AEC, there are, Price cuts on certain things and there's a few other kind of, rewards that you get that are exclusive to the AEC club.

But those are the four kind of pillars and the four kind of strategies we use to monetize.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, that's fascinating. And for our listeners, for some of them, this is a whole new day as you're hearing you talk about this. And let's help them get around the mindset of your customer base. And so one of the questions I have is someone who's a member of the AEC through Atlas Earth, they're having these subscriptions, maybe 50 a month, maybe less, maybe more.

What's their motivation? I mean, why are they doing this? I can imagine a listener saying, wait a minute, you've got to tell me that someone's spending 600 a year, possibly minimum, maybe even more than that, for something virtual. They can never really touch it per se, and it's really not real. It's in the virtual world, and they're spending this money.

I mean, what's the motivation? Is there some [00:26:00] kind of new trend going on here, or a new way that people are approaching this, that this is going to become? Really locked in as part of society of what we're doing. Are we on the precipice, on the cusp of something really big here? So why are people doing this?

Beau Button: Not on the precipice of anything new. It's a different flavor of what's been, kind of circulating for, I don't know how long, in app purchases have existed. I don't remember when Apple introduced their first iOS SDK so we could build our own games, but it's no different than folks buying costumes in Fortnite.

this is not our entire audience, the folks that are subscribing are more than likely looking at this as just an outlet, a place to have fun and they are very competitive, but they also probably have a bit more disposable income than our average user. I'll describe the polar opposites of the spectrum when it, comes to our player base.

You've got the folks that are in here subscribing 50 a month. They're not looking at this like I'm going to be able to cash out more than 50. We're not an investment platform, although we do have people. Who watch a lot of [00:27:00] ads, who go out and use our Atlas Merchant Platform and don't put a lot of money into the game, but they're able to cash out because they're basically leveraging the free to play mechanics and watching a lot of ads, converting their time.

But yeah, I mean, this is no different than any other video game. If you buy a console game, it's 80 bucks, they have all kinds of upgrades in the game itself, difference here is that virtual real estate aspect. That's really the only difference. It's, it is something that is tangible, you can go out and see the virtual piece like you can see it, I own the land around my house.

But no, I'm not convinced that virtual real estate is the next thing. It's not an investment. This is really just game. kind of skinned it a little differently because it's location based and it's based on real estate. But your analogy kind of with Monopoly is probably the best way to describe it.

It's nothing more than a game. Virtual real estate, in this instance, does indeed generate virtual rent. And you can, if you grind or if you play the game, wisely, you can cash out real money.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Fascinating. And so for our listeners, for our community, they're hearing this, they're saying, okay, this is something new. This is perhaps a [00:28:00] different spin on things that's been around for a while now, but we're just moving forward with this. If somebody is saying, Bo, this sounds really interesting, I want to see how my business perhaps could become part of your community, or I can myself get into this whole metaverse action of what's going on, I want to be one of the pioneers on the bleeding edge here to, like yourself, really get here today and have the benefits coming tomorrow, what should they be thinking about?

How should they be looking at this?

Beau Button: So I would be looking at it, from like an advertising perspective, but this is another medium, a lot of folks really We're caught off guard when Facebook just like, from a digital advertising perspective, Facebook audience network is king. If you're a small business and you either don't know someone who can manage your Facebook audience network, advertising campaigns, or you're not paying for a platform, you're gonna find it very difficult to get in front of, customers, especially if you're an online shop.

If you're doing Etsy or anything like that, Facebook is absolute king. Now, there's a bunch of other ones, TikTok, Google [00:29:00] AdWords, all of those. But, the metaverse is really just another opportunity to have a billboard or an advertisement. It's a placement. So, and that's something that we're working on.

We want businesses, we've got a bunch of people in this virtual space. They're, looking at their phone, they're walking around, they're seeing virtual real estate. They should also see, not just the pop up ads that you're used to that are advertising fill in the blank, organic, grass fed, dog food, or whatever.

I see a bunch of crazy ads, and look, those are great, but like, if you own a small business, I think the metaverse, at some point, once these platforms mature, It's going to be another opportunity for you to target specific, types of users. If your demographic is young, technology inclined and AR enthusiast, or maybe it's just digital service you'll be able to run ads in the metaverse.

I'm not convinced that having like a representation of your business in the Metaverse is useful yet. I know there was this huge there's a competitor of ours that's on chain called [00:30:00] Sandbox. Companies, big companies, were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay virtual architects to basically build these interactive experiences that were branded by their brand in an environment that only had, 2, 000 daily active users, which is not enough to really do much with.

We're at around 70, 000 daily active users, so I think for now, small businesses should just keep an eye on advertising opportunities. We don't have anything as of right now that's a self enrollment where you could just come in and, subscribe and start advertising in our games, but we are looking for merchants larger nationwide merchants, franchisees, obviously we want to be able to have as many locations as possible, but, yeah that's the angle I would be looking at it for a small business owner right now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so again, tell me if I'm on base or off base, because what I'm hearing you say is this is really a new medium that's up and coming very early days. And in many ways, if you go back to the mid nineties, there was something called YouTube that Google had the vision at the time they paid, I [00:31:00] think a billion dollars or something crazy like that.

And people were saying, well, this is crazy to watch someone at home, put a home recording online and to watch it, it's never going to go anywhere and fast forward to today. YouTube has become huge. And so in your estimation, and it's really anyone's guess, I get that, Beau, early days now, but is that the potential of what we're looking at, that this is a new medium, get in on this early, understand it, be a part of this community, it has some potential business applications, you to get out there, get a new customer segment, perhaps get in on the early days, really brand yourselves as one of the pioneers in this medium, that you'll grow along with it and see where it goes.

Thoughts about that? 

Beau Button: I have to be careful. I would argue as a participant in, this kind of movement, I don't wanna say it's not going to be as big as YouTube, but my gut instinct is, the content, like the purpose of YouTube. At least for me I love DIYI love to use YouTube to learn how to do new things.

I'm not so much like, occasionally I'll do some doom scrolling and watch funny videos on other [00:32:00] social media networks, but, I just think the opportunity for businesses right now is really just ad. But I don't think it's, we've got some time. It's not like, oh, you have to act now or you're going to miss out.

I think we're probably two or three years away from this being really mature. The hardware really needs to mature before any of this makes a lot of sense. We need really inexpensive mixed reality glasses. The Apple device is 3, 200, clearly not marketing to your average user. Now if they finance it, everybody and their grandma is going to buy one, but that's another podcast in itself.

But yeah, I mean, look, for now, I think it's going to be big. I think this is going to be a really important element of humankind in the future for collaboration. As the hardware improves, our tools to be able to interact in three dimensional space. I was just at the Consumer Electronics Show and I saw some really cool haptic feedback gloves, some Spatial computing, so you can, in three dimensions, reach out and touch something that's really not there, but you feel it on your fingertips, and [00:33:00] that's Again, looks like RoboCop.

It's very unsightly, but in 10 years, maybe it's just a glove you slip on, and if you want to, model something, if you're an architect, and instead of doing it in cardboard or an AutoCAD, you just put on your headset, and you start dragging things on your coffee table in three dimensional space, and you get tactile feedback.

I'm excited about that. as a maker, and I'm excited about its implications for being able to make things in three dimensional space virtually, but then ultimately make them in reality. So I do a lot of 3D printing. I could connect those two dots and I'm super stoked about those opportunities.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Bo, really what I'm hearing you say, and actually it's interesting because we started this episode, you're talking about your curiosity growing up. This is all about curiosity and really taking that now to our community. I mean, let's go back and again, I'm going to date myself. Some of our listeners aren't going to know what a VCR is, but if you go back to VCRs, if you go back to the first personal computers, to your point, Bo, like the Apple Glass is 3, 200 today.

Back in the day, [00:34:00] VCRs were close to 2, 000. That was real money back in the 70s. Or computers worth thousands of dollars for really these clunky things that didn't do a heck of a lot, but as we all know, they shrunk in size, they shrunk in price, and again, the people who got in on that very early, they understood the technology, they understood the communities around that, they are able to, if they chose to leverage that, and so I'm hearing you say, well, look, Apple's now here, so I'm hearing you say, well, Maybe meta isn't the best example because they failed miserably so far, billions of dollars, nothing to show for that, layoffs, all those other kinds of things, we'll put that off to the side, but the fact that we have some of the titans of business.

Who are here today with the hardware, with the technology, with the software, you know, again, I'm going to go back to the nine step roadmap, step one, big picture. This is an inflection point. This is a blind spot for a lot of businesses, just like AI is. They don't know what that is. We hear more and more about this.

Med is kind of in the background. It's there. It's going like gangbusters. AI is crowding that out. But for our community, hey, [00:35:00] why not get involved in this? Well, what you're saying is for really 600 a year, not a lot of money. Why not experiment in a whole new medium? If you don't like it, stop the subscription.

If you like it, keep on going. And as it goes mainstream, Well, you're right there. You're actually ahead of the curve. You can now begin to incorporate this into your business. I mean, let's think of AI, which is still new. Most of the population doesn't know about this. They know about it through the headlines, but they're not using it yet.

Can you imagine if they got involved 10 years ago with AI and they put AI into the business today? Wow, that would be huge for them because what we're hearing with AI, the companies today that master AI Just like the countries that mastered the seas, they controlled the world for the next century, the next 100 years, and I suspect there's something very similar here.

So, Bo, you've given us a peek inside of the metaverse and what's going on, and I love your angle of how you're taking the real world And in, right now in a small way, but really [00:36:00] coming up in a big way, what you're going to be doing, you're building the metaverse into the real world, that it really becomes interchangeable, the two, as technology changes, as society changes, you're right there with it, and really, you're on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, really paving the way for us, so thank you so much for doing that.

This is fascinating. 

Beau Button: It's an exciting time the only thing I can say is if anybody who's listening is a creator and they love creating things, now is the time to start learning the tools. This is a huge opportunity for people to create things, specifically 3D things and the tools are getting easier to use day by day.

So that's my only, if anybody is obviously everybody's an entrepreneur and they're doing different things, but if they have a knack for creating things and they're interested and they've got some free time, absolutely double down on learning some of these 3D tools.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And we'll definitely circle back to that in just a moment. But let me ask you this. But before we go into wrap up mode, I'm curious. Is there a question that I didn't ask or a topic we didn't discuss? Or is there a message that you'd like to share with the audience before we go into wrap up mode?

Beau Button: [00:37:00] it all goes back to that curiosity. you've got a niche, scratch it. That's kind of like, and it's not just tech now. My wife and I have a house. Like I like to do things like and now with, you know, like you mentioned YouTube. I use YouTube heavily to learn new things.

I don't necessarily have clinically diagnosed A DHD, but I will often listen to audio books on 2.5 speed because it forces my brain to have to listen. But yeah, I mean, the content's there, it's free for the most part, so , if you're curious and you want to learn how to do something, if it's not something you can just watch through YouTube, there's so many communities I'm less on the community side, I'm kind of a, despite me being a social butterfly, I'm kind of a recluse on the internet, but yeah that's really it, if you're curious, go out there, and then.

The knowledge, the information is accessible, and if anybody can't find it, I'm on LinkedIn. do not turn down a message if somebody says, can you steer me in the right direction on, like, how to learn this, especially with AI, because that's a crazy space right now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, you know, what's fascinating [00:38:00] about this and well, before we go into wrap up mode, we're going to have an actionable item. This is going to be an easy one, a low hanging fruit, low effort, high ROI for our listeners. But really sitting here today, I suspect we're going to fast forward two years, five years, 10 years from now.

We're going to look back at what we're saying today and it's like, wow.Beauwas right on the precipice of something huge. He saw things that no one else had seen at that time, and look at where we are today. And again, for our listeners, because as you know, every episode, we want you to take a strategy before you go to your next meeting, your next call, your next activity, and to do something.

And it's going to be in the show notes, but for our listeners, before you go on to your next activity, Go to atlasrealty. com. This is Beau's site. You're going to learn all about what's going on there, and it'll be the Atlas Earth, and how you can get involved, and how really you can start very early on today.

And see where that goes. And again, I'm tying that back into step one, big picture in the nine step roadmap, and even step two, X Factors. Beau, clearly, you're X Factors. You are world class in this area. You're a world class leader. You're in your own [00:39:00] blue ocean with what you're doing. You're very early on with this.

I can't help but wonder, for our listeners, They come into your metaverse, okay, hey, you know what, I can apply my company in this way, so there's lots of exciting times ahead. So for listeners, that's your action item coming out of here. Again, it's in the show notes, but Atlas Realty, go there and see what's going on, set up an account, check it out.

And with that said, Bo, let's go into wrap up mode. And it's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast where every guest, I have the privilege, the honor of asking this thought experiment, this fun question. Let me set this up for you. And actually, it's very appropriate to what we're speaking about today in terms of the future.

Think of the movie Back to the Future. You have that magical DeLorean card that will take you to any point in time. And so, Bo, the fun part is tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean card there curbside, The door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, and you're now going to go back to any point in your life.

Beau, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of [00:40:00] life lessons or life wisdom, or hey, Beau, do this but don't do that. What would it sound like? 

Beau Button: Funny since I'm selling virtual real estate. my previous business, we sold distressed real estate for governments. I would go back to my teenage self, so I started working professionally around the age of 16, so prior to that I worked in a deli at a grocery store, and then I cut grass.

I made money, but it wasn't like a real WII, I was, just under the table cash. But I would go back to my teenage selves and say, invest in real estate and put everything that you can in real estate. That's what I would say, because I've been in the real estate industry, but I failed to really take advantage of the market and invest in it when the time was right.

And if I would have known or appreciated it more as a teenager, it would have been a completely different story in regards to the real estate portfolio.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What a terrific insight, put everything you have into real estate, Beau, I couldn't agree more with you. And what's interesting, Bo, as you think about that, you're now [00:41:00] starting that in the metaverse, in the virtual world, as the listeners can, and you know what? You cut your teeth in the virtual world, earn some dollars, you can now put that into the real world with lessons learned into the real estate here, and off you go with that.

It's a terrific insight. Well, Beau, it's a wonderful way to wrap things up on such an insightful and wise note. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, two things. Firstly, congratulations. This is a wrap. The episode has been a terrific one. Really appreciate all your wisdom and your insights. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Beau Button: Thank you, sir. I appreciate you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. Did you find this episode helpful? Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

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