Abstract

Metaverse, whether it is at the height of the Gartner hype cycle, or as at present (May 2025) lingering in the trough of disillusionment, presents significant opportunities for entrepreneurs. First, we present Tiwani’s (2014) signal to noise ratio conceptualization for evaluating new technology. This is especially appropriate for small business and start-ups where major investments amount to “bet your future” deals. Next, we explain what we mean by a “fully-realized” metaverse following Ball’s (2022) detailed discussion stressing current states of technical, economic, and societal issues and barriers for users to participate in a fully realized experience. This is important as a framework for entrepreneurs to anticipate converging technological capabilities and time their potential market entry. We show how such a fully-realized metaverse is likely to result from the continued evolution of discrete technologies like virtual reality and internet of things, along with emergent affordances or opportunities enabled by imaginative applications built on new capabilities. We also examine how new innovations can be imagined by assuming the combined capabilities of technologies through convergence providing potential for conceiving these benefits and retrofitting the needed convergence. We then discuss applications of affordances within various industries, as well as more specific roles and services in which entrepreneurs can develop expertise and plan market entry. This study is based on data gathered from interviews with diverse experts in application areas such as sports management and technology such as cybersecurity that are likely to form a basis for continued metaverse growth. The researchers reference the comments and thoughts of the informants but press further in gathering and extrapolating from them to present a broader picture of plausible future developments. This approach is in line with the spirit of Hovorka and Peters (2021). Finally, we acknowledge and discuss significant cautions necessary to provide a secure and positive experience for those participating in metaverse activities. We base this on Gómez-Quintero et al. (2024) detailed examination of likely crimes that need prevention relative to metaverse.

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