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The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below.

00:00:18:01 – 00:00:41:05

Richard Carthon: What’s up, everyone? Your host here, Richard Carthon And I’m excited to bring you another episode of Crypto Currency. We have a really special guest working on and a really cool project. I’m excited to learn more about and I’m sure you will be as well. Today we have Aanant with Virtual, who is the exercise to earn game that is doing some really cool things. How are you doing today?

00:00:42:07 – 00:00:43:25

Aanant Sony: Good. Good. I’m doing good.

00:00:45:19 – 00:00:52:19

Richard Carthon: Excellent. Well, happy you could join us before we get started. First one to learn a little bit more about you. Can you give us some background on yourself?

00:01:41:12 – 00:02:15:19

Aanant Sony: Hello everyone. I’m Aanant and my background has been in marketing for most of my terms. I’ve been doing community marketing events, marketing and technology, community building, internet links, which is one of our start up in tech in Thailand. So from there I move into a company called the Blue James Venture. So I’m a co-founder over here, so with my friend James, who is another co-founder. So when we started this off, influencer marketing agency doing agency for client based on code hacking.

00:02:16:06 – 00:02:54:17

Aanant Sony: So when we started doing this, we found out that when you’re doing a growth hacking or you’re doing a marketing for clients, we could see that when you want to propose something or you want to take the company to the next level on the client’s to the next level, there’s always a gap time where you actually see that you need approval from the clients. There’s a budget constraint that is there from the clients. So we decided that we wanted to do something exciting and see that how to project on a brand that we create can go higher and higher at a very fast rate.

00:02:55:00 – 00:03:29:27

Aanant Sony: So we took what was my co-founder, Passion James in sports and his vision in you know he always has this vision of going into a game will something like ready player one since university days. So we took something over there and we researched the market and found out that, hey, there’s not really like an actual commercial run platform at that time. So we thought that we would create a platform that allows people to do the American idea running from anywhere and compete with each other.

00:03:30:23 – 00:04:13:13

Aanant Sony: When we launched this product, we found out that the users actually were not B2C. The customers, it was like big companies, big brands like Pepsi, Mitsubishi, Bosch, Schneider. This brand was using us to organise an event for the employees because our app could do everything for them. So we took a feedback from them that, you know, we could see the data that, you know, out of 100% at 50 to 60% of people would actually complete the marathon. So we took this and we took feedback from them for the reason why, and they told us that people who are serving, who get the prize actually complete the marathon on a challenge.

00:04:13:20 – 00:04:46:16

Aanant Sony: Why are those who feel like they’re not, you know, not so much capable of getting the reward or the medals or anything? They don’t finish them at home. So we found out one of the main reason that people actually go for exercise and complete the exercise and are motivated for exercise is the reason being under rewards. So we took this feedback and application that we had. We just already success turned it into a web treat, and then we launched it.

00:04:48:06 – 00:05:18:10

Richard Carthon: That’s really cool. So you use your background and with working as a marketing agency, trying to figure out how to go to that next step. You built out a use case and you figured it was going to be going directly to business, to consumer. So you’re in consumer. But instead, you had these big brands who came out and in trying to get their their workers to go out and use this. But the workers were incentivized by rewards. So that kind of sparked what has now become virtual.

00:05:18:12 – 00:05:34:03

Richard Carthon: So the way that ritual is described is as a workout to get rewards. It’s simple. You earn work full through exercise and be able to exchange them for store purchases or discounts. You kind of explain, you know.

00:05:35:19 – 00:05:44:04

Richard Carthon: When you were initially released this and I believe you, you first started this in a in a couple of Asian markets. How has this been received and how are people currently using it?

00:05:45:16 – 00:06:15:22

Aanant Sony: Okay. Yeah. So we actually started like, like I said, the application was already there since 2019, but it was not on the pre blockchain. So our application was always there and then we started moving towards our blockchain into it. Also in 2021, by the middle, 2021, we start moving towards this. And then by November we started to, you know, like roll out some of the PR news that we were about to release.

00:06:15:24 – 00:06:45:24

Aanant Sony: This something never been seen before. At that time there was the exercise to an app like we ran with the word like Chance just swept into my knee. So when we really when when we went out with that. So it was a very, you know, like the social media just like went crazy at that time. Like they were like the impressions are crazy. And the number of shares that were going up in the social media was crazy.

00:06:45:26 – 00:07:21:03

Aanant Sony: It was trending at that time. Yeah. And then we launched a product actually in February. So our strategy is, you know, not to hype it for too long without the product, because we actually want people to actually use the product because that’s what our vision is always there. So we launched a product in Fab Four Beta launch, and by March it was a full launch. And then I think on the first day we were listed, on the first day we got on to Pancakeswap, we had $37.5 million in trading volume.

00:07:21:19 – 00:07:53:04

Aanant Sony: Like we went a bit higher than Etherium on Pancakeswap and it was like it was something we didn’t even expect that would happen for us. So currently we are currently we are also very active, especially in Southeast Asian markets. Yeah. So we are very strong in Thailand around this area like Bangladesh, India. Japan or here we are quite strong and apart from like I said, we exercise too.

00:07:53:06 – 00:08:02:06

Aanant Sony: And so we have running, walking, bike, swimming, dance and without indoor gym. So you can do all of these activities and earn

00:08:04:05 – 00:08:30:21

Aanant Sony: about from that. When you actually download and register to the app, you get one hour. So this avatar determines how much you can earn points per day. So basically, if you are free users, you don’t want to like pay, you can also earn. No, it’s a minimum amount and you earn, but you want to earn more than you can actually like with an NFT and I you know when in in-app items that would allow you to earn more.

00:08:32:01 – 00:08:57:05

Richard Carthon: Yeah, that’s cool. So you already have a way for for people who are coming into the space where some other companies, they basically make you pay to play and you have to pay to be able to come in. You can come in for free, start to use this. How have you exercised whether that’s running, skating, biking, etc. and you can, you know, start to earn some of the virtual money, which is really cool.

00:08:58:01 – 00:08:58:16

Aanant Sony: Yeah.

00:09:00:00 – 00:09:24:19

Richard Carthon: So as people have been exploring and using this, what have you seen? What has been the feedback from the initial? Customers that you have that that that use this. So have you seen a spike in people being more active? Have you seen just organic growth through people being able to explain like, hey, I’m doing all of these exercises anyway. Now you have a way to get rewards from it. Like how? How has that interaction been so far?

00:09:25:25 – 00:10:01:18

Aanant Sony: Okay. Yeah. So I think people have been more active when they it. I have to go back a bit and say that our one of our main mission is to get people to be active with their lifestyle more. So we know that, you know how we work in today’s world. Everybody is like in front of their computers, especially like during Kuwait time. Everybody is like at their home in front of their computers. Like all day long, nobody actually goes out. Even myself. So, you know, do we want that to be diminish? And we want people to go out and have a better and active lifestyle.

00:10:02:00 – 00:10:35:28

Aanant Sony: So that’s why this is our vision. But we also have to realize that this vision that we are creating is going to attract a lot of non-crypto users and non blockchain users, which for them to get into the space is very, very difficult. And if they, if they don’t like study or look at it, it takes time. It takes a lot of time in understanding. Yeah. So we have feedback on board the sides from board like they use the crypto site and the non-crypto site.

00:10:36:16 – 00:11:12:04

Aanant Sony: So these feedbacks have been like very positive for us because every feedback we take it to make our application better for the crypto users, to make them for it to make it easier for them to be able to like transfer the coins, which is the NFT and for the NON-CRYPTO users to onboard them into the blockchain more to make it the easiest possible way to make them into a blockchain world. So from all of these feedback that we had to attract new users non-crypto people, we created another simple challenge in the app itself.

00:11:12:18 – 00:11:45:02

Aanant Sony: So this is called Walk to Earn, but this Walk to earn is different from the walk to earn challenge in the app. Because this walk is like you don’t need any device, you can just carry your phone and you don’t even have to do anything. You just carry your phone and go walking all day long anyway. So at the end of the day, you can do anything for just walking. Everybody get the coin for walking. Like even a new users, paid users, everybody get same amount of coins for this particular stuff.

00:11:45:08 – 00:12:00:03

Aanant Sony: So this is to be able to onboard different people to come in and join Washoe, participate, to get the feel of our using it and having new onboard experience to put them in to be able to use the app easier.

00:12:01:21 – 00:12:31:00

Richard Carthon: And I think it’s good that you’re trying to go off to such a wide range of audience and especially those who, you know, are only looking to to go and walk. Something that I think is really cool and it’s a differentiator for y’all is that y’all can sync to, like, smartwatches and fitness wearables, you know, and like firms like Strava, Garmin, Apple, whole Apple Health, Fitbit, Mapmyrun and Google Fit that that is amazing that you have so many different ways that words will can integrate into a lot of these other apps that people are consistently using.

00:12:34:15 – 00:12:56:21

Richard Carthon: So with that, you went to the initial core of when you created this business. It was a B2C model and it looks like this app in a lot of ways. If someone who’s listening to this right now goes and download this app, they can start using this and start earning rewards. But you also have a way for if businesses want to be able to incentivize, they can still do that as well. Can you kind of tell us a little bit more about that?

00:12:57:24 – 00:13:28:10

Aanant Sony: Sure. Yeah. So basically, like from the B2B sides and the business sites that are looking to use into our app is mainly to organize EDA internal there, but they are in internal events or even like the maritime audit events that they want to organize are all public. So what we have seen is that I know businesses, they feel like to have their employees have more engagement with each other and also a better health.

00:13:28:14 – 00:13:58:19

Aanant Sony: They want to promote this active lifestyle into the corporate. So they use our app because it’s easier for them. They don’t need, like a lot of people to manage just because everything is done within the app. You can see the ranking, how the frequency and everything and around frequency, how much your people ran and stuff all completely in the app itself. So it’s a way for the businesses to. Bring people in.

00:13:58:29 – 00:14:36:04

Aanant Sony: Get them active, get them engage. And some brand new ones like have a CSR program that, you know, they create a challenge that we are going to, you know, into. Everybody is going to help our company reach like 1 million kilometers together. So if they reach 1 million kilometers, they’re going to donate the same amount in an entitlement to fund a CSR program during the call win. So with that kind of CSR, we are engagement of the employees with people from external also wanting to join the internal events like that.

00:14:36:06 – 00:14:49:20

Aanant Sony: They allow like their families to join the employees. It’s a good engagement that the corporate are having and not just engagement, but also actually having the employees to be a having a better health.

00:14:51:24 – 00:15:06:27

Richard Carthon: Definitely. And I think that’s really cool that they’re putting things in place to to do that. And it’s it’s really cool. Also, just how vast works really is. I mean, going over 179 countries and have, you know,

00:15:08:20 – 00:15:28:13

Richard Carthon: hundreds of thousands of people who, you know, come in and utilize this. For for someone who’s listening to this right now, they’re like, you know, this sounds awesome. I’ve been looking for something like this so that I could go and compete with, be able to earn rewards, etc.. What are some of those first steps that they can start taking to learn more about this and potentially, you know, utilize virtual.

00:15:30:14 – 00:16:05:12

Aanant Sony: Yeah I think are saying that obviously you can download the app already and bought app store and Google Play Store. We have designed a on board experience, a great onboarding experience for everyone to go through it. But if you want to know more about what show the white papers and you know everything about it it’s on our will show about SEO. So w I opted out of SEO. So in that we already have white paper in three languages currently English, Thai and China and sorry, English, Thai and Chinese.

00:16:05:21 – 00:16:36:03

Aanant Sony: And also we are in process of translating more. So it’s going to allow we we really want like every people to feel like it’s not something far from them. It’s not something like, you know, just kind of your comprehend best in that country. And, you know, it’s far from us. We want to. The reason we can escalate into different languages, we want people to actually feel that you’re connected to it because it is going to be something that’s going to change your habit and also change your lifestyle.

00:16:36:11 – 00:16:38:21

Aanant Sony: And we want that to be with you all the time.

00:16:40:11 – 00:16:56:10

Richard Carthon: Right. So it’s really cool. You guys, your first action items that you can do if you’re listening to those right now, they’re on the Google play in App Store. So make sure you go check that out. And you have a lot of really cool things on your roadmap. You have some really cool new features that are coming up. Can you kind of give us some more information on that?

00:16:57:14 – 00:17:28:25

Aanant Sony: Yes. Sure. So, yeah. Currently, we already are in the process of launching an e-commerce section. So what is e-commerce action? It does is that, you know, like, like I said, that a lot of our users are non-crypto users. So maybe it’s a bit difficult for them to, you know, take the coins and try it out. So what we design over here is that you can use the virtual coin you earn and actually purchase the products right from the app itself, right from the workshop itself.

00:17:29:04 – 00:17:35:24

Aanant Sony: So currently we are partners with brands such as Under Armour, such as Garmin, Norway.

00:17:37:16 – 00:18:11:10

Aanant Sony: Yeah, these are like a brand partner that we have right now. So you can use this virtual coin in the same amount. You know, the amount is like exactly the same in the market price and use the coin to which is the product. So if you want to buy a product right now, supposedly say there’s a voucher and we also like $100 voucher. So you may use the virtual coin to convert that into a $100 voucher to and then use. And then you can do a code that you can redeem on the anonymous websites right away.

00:18:11:19 – 00:18:36:02

Aanant Sony: So that’s one e-commerce section. In the second is we are going to have Metaverse Bank. So this is where you can like stablecoins get more coins for staking the coins. Yeah. In the third feature, I think this is one of my personal favorite features that came out from our team. This is called IQ Wall. So like everybody,

00:18:37:18 – 00:19:14:21

Aanant Sony: most of the people play games. So you will know that I’m creating a goal. Having your own team is something very exciting because you have to go and challenge other team. But what if you can quit team for exercise? You are. You run now. You recruit people into your guild and you can challenge another team, a run and you actually like win map. There’s a map. So this month, if team wins, your logo goes on the map, and then next month, every other team is going to try and take you down to win, to be able to win that map.

00:19:14:29 – 00:19:57:21

Aanant Sony: So it not only like promote active lifestyle, it also promote like a healthy competition that we are going to do over there. And then by the end of quite a fall, what we’re going to have is we’re going to have a metaverse that’s going to come out very soon. A lot of exciting features in there. And apart from this, we have a lot more coming. We have virtual coach where users can actually become a coach and, you know, spread out how to use virtual and not only just how to use virtual, but actually be able to tell people and give out tips on how to exercise on different way because you also need somebody to keep coaching you over there.

00:19:58:06 – 00:20:07:11

Aanant Sony: Yeah. And then we have virtual business that’s going to be our virtual APIs for brands to be able to connect with are connected virtual in for businesses.

00:20:09:13 – 00:20:39:18

Aanant Sony: You have a lot on the roadmap. I mean, the fact that you can immediately get some vouchers to be able to get some cool gear from like Under Armour and Garmin, etc., being able to compete with other guilds, I mean, a lot of people would probably use this are competitive in being able to have their logo in front of everyone. I’m sure it’s going to be a really good incentive to drive some things forward and looking forward to the metaverse place as well. So it’s like you’re tugging on all the right cords and got some really amazing things on the horizon for virtual.

00:20:39:23 – 00:21:09:09

Aanant Sony: So, you know, a lot of really awesome information, some great action steps that people can take to download the app and do all of next steps to utilize this. But I always like to finish up the interviews with a couple of fun questions, and the first one that I like to start with is you’ve learned a lot on this journey of building this out. And if you could take all the information that you’ve learned and give yourself one or two pieces of wisdom when you first started building out Will, what would you tell yourself?

00:21:11:09 – 00:21:43:05

Aanant Sony: Okay. Great question. I think along the way, I learned a lot from the workshop. There was a time we were like, you know, not not clear on where we want to move on and stuff. I think one one of the wild things that I’ve learned from our show is our first thing is never giving up. Yeah. So basically, we fought a lot to make this thing happen. Like, we we fought a lot to get people to believe in us.

00:21:43:09 – 00:22:21:22

Aanant Sony: Start off with, like, investors to understand what we need to do is something very new because something very new. Investors are scared to get in. Once that was done, we needed to prove to our team members that was already there that we’re moving in this direction and why are we moving in this direction and make them believe that this team is something that we could actually make it happen? Yeah. So, you know, the persistence, the consistency of, you know, hustling every day, never giving up is something I’ve learned in this very short journey.

00:22:22:10 – 00:22:51:27

Aanant Sony: And yeah, I think this is one of the biggest stuff. And of course, apart from that, along the way, you know, a lot of new stuff that has to be learned about like the blockchain industry and how the community work and, you know, changing company the way you market your product from, you know, social media into a completely different journey with telegram and other stuff. That is also another thing that we learn a lot along the way.

00:22:53:26 – 00:23:16:27

Aanant Sony: Definitely. I mean, those are some great lessons. The big one, one take away is the persistence. It’s not always going to be fun and there’s going to be their own set of challenges. But you just keep pushing forward and find ways to innovate and keep the vision alive. Things start coming together, so definitely appreciate those those lessons. But, you know, as we as we wrap up here today, what is a final thought that you want to leave with all of our listeners?

00:23:18:09 – 00:23:42:15

Aanant Sony: Yep. The final thought I would want to leave is that everybody is working very hard to get their life to be better. And what I want really to say is that even though we are working very hard to make our life better, but it won’t be better. And I’ve realized that personally in won’t be better if you don’t have a better helped to be able to enjoy that life.

00:23:44:27 – 00:24:04:25

Richard Carthon: Then that’s a good final thought and appreciate that everyone works hard. We got to keep making sure that we’re taking care of our own selves and take care of our health. And this is a good reminder to do that and a great way to get it done. So of course, everyone listening, you can go check in at work. Wilco, but what are some other ways that people can connect with you and learn more about virtual?

00:24:05:28 – 00:24:34:29

Aanant Sony: Yup. We have our telegram. So every detail in the website, in the first page itself, you can go and join our telegram group, Our Discord. You can follow us on Twitter and social app. We have a Facebook call, our show. So there are two channels that you can follow us. And we have a lot of support team, very active on nearly 24 hours all day long.

00:24:36:19 – 00:24:45:03

Richard Carthon: Excellent. Well, really appreciate it again. And then thank you so much for spending some time with us and of course, for everyone listening state cryptocurrency.

00:24:48:03 – 00:25:11:18

Richard Carthon: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies A Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Education Platform Bridging the gap between the curious newcomers for just discovering the space and the thought leaders for shaping its future. All opinions expressed by Richard Carthon, the cryptocurrency team and their guests on this show are exclusively their own opinions. This show and any other crypto print production is exclusively for informational purposes.