Solana Spaces store to bring 100K people to Solana per month — CEO Vibhu Norby

cointelegraph.com:

Solana Spaces CEO Vibhu Norby said the new physical Solana stores will introduce up to 100,000 people per month to the Solana ecosystem while also signaling plans to open a virtual storefront in the near future.

Utilizing a grant from the Solana Foundation, the first Solana Spaces shop opened in the swanky Hudson Yards New York shopping center on Thursday. 

Addressing the community in an impromptu Twitter AMA on launch day, Norby explained the store is meant to teach new users about how to use decentralized applications (DApps) and noted that it would be introducing thousands of people into the Solana blockchain:

Speaking to Cointelegraph in a phone interview following the AMA, Norby said the shop had 400 visitors, hinting also that new United States-based physical stores were in the works, and that “the store was designed for people who are brand new to blockchain.”

Solana is home to over a thousand DApps, ranging from trading platforms, gaming and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to social media.

Solana Spaces NYC is now open: https://t.co/jZcZ99l5CjWe’re the world’s first retail & educational space dedicated to Web3.Brought to you in collaboration with @solanafndn, and partners @phantom, @stepnofficial, @orca_so, @magiceden, @metaplex, @degenapeacademy and more. pic.twitter.com/VoKnrIMmWP

While it is technically a store that sells a limited series of Solana-based merchandise, it mainly serves as a retail-as-a-service tutorial hub where new users receive free instructional sessions on how to set up a crypto wallet and connect to various DApps:

Retail-as-a-service refers to stores that serve as showrooms for the products that customers can buy online. This encourages the demonstration of the products and reduces the inventory