Style in the Metaverse

Marina initially founded a company called Candice, which sells natural desserts. Candice grew considerably under her leadership and now distributes its products to more than 1,400 locations around the world. 

However, Marina eventually started looking for a new challenge. She exited Candice in 2020 and began laying the groundwork for Seamm.

Marina explains that Seamm works with fashion companies and consumers to create “digital twins” of real-world brands that people can use for their avatars in video games and virtual reality environments. 

“Imagine you came to your favorite store … and in this store, you purchase sneakers,” she says. “The sneakers have a QR code on them that you can scan with our app, and you get a 3D copy of the exact same sneakers that can be transferred to, for example, [the virtual environment] Decentraland. So if you play Decentraland, you can have it instantly in your account.” She adds that marketers also can market new products to people inside virtual worlds – people who are likely customers because their avatar is “wearing” one of the company’s products already.

Given that we already have VR and that brands are already creating real-world products, what problem is Seamm trying to solve? “Fashion brands … are seeking for a better way to connect with the existing customers, meaning that they want to know [more about] their preferences or how [much they like] their brands,” she says. “And they want to connect in a new way, meaning not using SMS or emails, but… something more creative.” One way to do that, she says, is to enter the digital spaces where customers are already hanging out.

Seamm is also keen to help people express themselves in VR through the brands they use. “If I own a Louis Vuitton bag, [without Seamm] I'm not able to show it to my friends in the virtual world,” she says. “I cannot express myself really well.” Although most consumers still value real-world items, “We see more and more use cases where people value digital items over the physical ones. And we see use cases in the fashion industry where companies are selling, for example, NFTs, and then they're selling something physical in addition to it.”

Marina reminds founders and early-stage entrepreneurs that success in the startup business has a lot to do with your state of mind.

“Keep working on your mindset, meaning that you should always expand what seems to be possible for you,” she says. “You should always expand the ways you think about the world, the questions that you ask yourself and you ask other people. Just be proactive in terms of growing your mindset … The most important thing is just to expand your mind and to be able to think out of the box to question things. Because if you don't ask questions, then you just simply have an answer, and then you just work in the same direction, and you keep making the same mistakes, and you keep just doing what you used to do a long time ago.”