So we ready? We ready! 🚀
First official newsletter of Fly3r is out! As promised, my aim for this newsletter will be quite a simple one: focusing on web2 companies that are able to could join the web3 space and leverage its opportunities. The first take will be about an Italian sports and winter brand called Colmar (yes, like the French city!)
An important disclaimer: this is NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, neither an objective financial analysis of the company. Moreover, is just a personal analysis on how the company addresses has been moving forward overtime and which strategies it can leverage to boost growth into web3.
First and foremost, let me say thank to that strong group of 32 people who happened to hop in even before the launch of my first newsletter.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you 🙏 As much as this will be worthwhile, I took a snapshot of your emails and will try my best to reward you later on!
Moving forward, let me introduce you a bit about the forma. It will be quite a simple one and will be based on 3 main bullet point:
👉 The Company: introduction about the company itself and howt
👉 The Story: what has been done over time
👉 Bridging into web3: which kind of activities it can leverage to boost growth
As this is the first newsletter I'm sending, please feel free to send over comments and ideas while reading this so I can better shape it!
The birth date of the company goes back to the 20s in Italy. To be more precise, the company was born in 1923 from Mario Colombo in a city very close to Milan, called Monza. Since the very beginning, focus of the company has been the one of producing hats, gloves and shirts made of wool plus focus on technical job supplies. This lasted till the end of the 40s, when the end of the II World War brought the company to discover another opportunity: the one of winter sports.
Given the new rise of sports and the capability, for the company, of creating technical and solid winter products, plus the geographical know how given the distance of Monza from mountains, Colmar became rapidly one of the top notch companies producing technical winter sports and, very soon, became the main sponsor of the Italian Skiing team, supporting them through all the Olympics medals won from the team during the 1970s.
Since 2009, the Company decided to launch even an everyday fashion brand, focusing on a younger target market but still leveraging very technical and high quality products.
Colmar has always been on the hedge of creating cool products for technicians, sports addicted and people who are willing to dress in a fashionable and sporty way. For this reason, Colmar has always tried to balance its position by leveraging, on one side, strong partnerships with athletes in different winter sectors and, on the other side, winking to the mass by doing great adv that would become a "must". Italians that will read this newsletter will definitely remember this [probably]:
While, during 70s and 80s, you could only buy Colmar's products in top tier shops or in those ones very focused on skiing (I already own one of them, it was my father's one!), lately the company started opening flagships stores either in Italy either worldwide, so to grow the brand and the positioning.
Right now (beside the hot temperature) you can find a nice surprise in Piazza Gae Aulenti in Milan 👇
Flagship stores have become fundamental not only to grow the brand but, furthermore, to make sure the company could create long-lasting partnerships. Among the most important ones, it's important to underline the ones with Lacoste (distribution for the Italian Market), X-Bionic & X-Socks (Italian brand focused on sports and technical products).
I would have loved to see a bit more about the numbers of the company, so to present how it could grow and boost its positioning, but I wasn't able to do so. Hopefully, from the next one, I'll pick up companies with financials opened to the mass and give you an insight of the company's performance.
This question is for you then: if you have some insights on corporate numbers than can help me create this, please drop me a line by answering to this email and I'll be glad to give an update!
You may ask yourself now: is it worth for a company like this to bridge into web3?
Well, you know it, I would never ever say no (lol) but I'll try to explain HOW this can be leverage from company as Colmar.
In the previous paragraphs, I've addressed 2 main points:
👉 Colmar is a company that has been able to innovate over time
👉 Colmar has been able to move from the Italian market to the Global one and maintaining the main skillset and power of the brand
Lately, we have seen many projects entering web3 in the fashion Industry:
🤝 Gucci has signed up multiple partnership not just to create a new revenue streams but, moreover, to build a presence in the NFT & metaverse industry;
👀 Nike, leading the entire space with the highest revenue from the space, has bought a company in the AI/VR industry (RTFKT) and create a completely new brand, with a clear vision and a solid brand positioning;
🐊 Lacoste partnered with Minecraft to release its first, physical, collection to bridge the gap with NFT and Metaverse space and launched the UNDW3 Genesis Pass, its first pass in the NFT space to create token-gated opportunities
These are just a few of the companies that joined the web3 space starting as physical names (haven't addressed The Fabricant, launching straight out as a web3 company), it's clear to see how fashion is becoming more and more a thing where metaverses and NFTs are guiding the path.
The main know how and feature of the Italian company hereby addressed can be leveraged as a core element to define and create a specific positioning in the environment. I'm talking about the high technical products and the focus on winter sports.
Imagine how this can impact the web3 space:
👉 leading the winter sports in the top metaverses by creating events and opportunities to earn rewards that can just be leveraged on Colmar's environmemnts
👉 launching a token-gated community for passionate about winter's sports and crypto, creating top-notch events in high level locations and launching new trends to be followed on
👉 partnering with companies that allows tracking while skiing (eg Garmin) and allowing users that purchased NFT from Colmar to earn rewards while dressing up with the brand
From NFT to a utility token to metaverses, Colmar can address a specific niche and leverage it to increase either brand awareness either P&L. Even though every company has, in its mind, to grow revenues and make way more solid financials, in the web3 this can't be addressed as a short term solutions. To name a few, see what's happened with companies as Pepsi: if you're here just to monetize, you'd better leave.
You may ask yourself "how everything stated above can be done?". The answer, as we know, is not easy, but surely I'd suggest to:
👉 focus on the overall brand positioning and 5/10 years strategies
👉 make sure the web3 strategies can fit with the physical ones, so to make everything intertwined
👉 create a web3 brand that is related but different from Colmar (because the aim is to be top-of-mind for a new world that is growing strong)
👉 setup partnerships within the environment that can help create a sense of trust right from the beginning
👉 start teasing the opportunity within already estabilished sponsorships that will happen in the winter's sports, so to be the very first one winter related company to talk web3 to the mass
👉 choose the best community from where to start from
👉 choose the most suitable blockchain on where to build from (in my case, I would balance quality of the chain with sustainability issues, so to be aligned with company's values)
The process is not an easy one for sure but, with a step-by-step approach, growth will happen by being the first winter company leading the whole market.
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Thank for staying this me for this read! I hope you liked it, in case you don't please let me know what didn't worked out well by answering me back! See you in 2 weeks for a new wave of Fly3r!
Next week I'll be in Lisbon and London, in case you're there drop me a line so we can catch-up!
For the Italian Fam🇮🇹: drop of my token is still on. It will cost 0 ETH + Gas fees, I'll be dropping something cool when this sold out! If you have a Metamask wallet and want to mint it, you can find it here 👉 https://app.manifold.xyz/c/futura-dechiricoz
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