Context
Influence’AR is an augmented-reality application built around 3D NFT objects linked to popular influencers. Buyers can place the objects in the real world, film or photograph them, share the content, and later resell what they own. The stated vision was a metaverse. The stated mission was to redefine reality.
Neither of those tells anyone why to buy something.
Diagnosis
The market was crowded with marketplaces. OpenSea, Binance, VeVe. Entering as another place to trade NFTs means competing on liquidity and fees against companies with far more of both.
The useful problem was somewhere else, and it took one sentence to state: an NFT is an asset sitting in your wallet with no way to interact with it. People had bought things they couldn’t use.
That reframes the whole venture. The AR layer stops being a feature and becomes the answer. Not another marketplace, but the only platform where ownership does something visible.
The audience resolved the same way. Nobody needed persuading to like an influencer. The buyers were three groups wanting different things from the same object: a young generation adopting new trends, investors following one that makes money, and an existing fandom looking for a way to be closer to somebody they already support.
Decisions
- Led with the interaction gap rather than the technology, so the pitch answered what a buyer gets instead of what the platform does
- Defined three segments explicitly: the young generation adopting new trends, investors chasing returns, and influencer audiences buying to feel closer
- Made the influencers' own channels the acquisition route, because their audience will promote a platform that features someone they already support
- Built the revenue model on resale as well as sale, so every asset earns more than once and adding an influencer adds a revenue stream
- Paid the influencer half of every first sale and 3% of every resale after it, which turned the acquisition channel into a party with a reason to keep promoting
Results
The engagement produced the positioning, the segmentation, the canvas, and the investor materials. The app shipped to the App Store with the full flow working: an influencer announces a collection on their own channel, the audience installs the app, the object is shown in AR, bought, filmed with, posted, and later resold between fans.
The objects themselves were the sharper decision. Not the celebrity, but the things around them: pets, interior pieces, accessories, personal items. That’s what makes the content shareable rather than strange, and it’s why a fan wants to be photographed with one.
The economics were set at 50% of the first sale to the influencer and 3% of every resale afterwards. That’s what made the acquisition plan work. An influencer promoting the platform is promoting their own annuity, so the channel doesn’t need to be bought.
The durable part is the problem statement. Most ventures in that category described what the technology could do. This one described what a buyer couldn’t do, which is harder to write and much easier to sell against.