Domain: Blockchain
Stage: Demo
When: April 2022-Nov 2022 (after fall of FTX)
Team Skill Set: Four cofounders – Tech, business, and repeat entrepreneur in gaming.
Thesis
The idea was to create a platform where content creators for games – people doing graphics, game play, etc – have their piece of the puzzle signed so that the money can be divided between the content creators. How do you make sure the division is fair? Blockchain’s smart contracts feature, which is completely transparent, would allow you to do that. We started with games, but it could work for any content creation realm.
Investments in Blockchain happen via VCs, but also through other things, like Blockchain angel investors.
We spent a lot of time on research, but did get to a demo and PoC. We had a game creator who built a game for mobile and Oculus and wanted to cooperate with us. We also created a Blockchain PoC that demonstrated our capabilities.
Validation
- There was a big law firm that wanted to represent us and connected us with Blockchain experts.
- We created an in-depth Tokenomics document. It was important to us since we were concerned about the potential shadiness of Blockchain and gaming and wanted to be able to explain why our idea was net-good and not shady in any way.
- We helped another team work on a project to learn more about Blockchain.
Why it didn’t progress
1. We were very engaged, but realized we needed a lot of money to start so needed a significant investment, including for marketing that would help create hype.
2. Following FTX, the crypto market fell, Blockchain investors went away, and no VC wanted to lead. We realized it would take a long time to raise money. A partial partner suggested putting in seed money, but the group decided against that – it wasn’t enough money and we didn’t want that type of commitment to him.
Insights
1. The idea is still viable/interesting.
2. Make sure the team is complimentary in its skill set
3. It’s hard to raise money in an industry you aren’t expert on, since people won’t want to talk to you.
4. If you aren’t from the Blockchain world, it’s a good idea to join an existing project to learn the industry, but also the Blockchain community, which is a little different.
5. In retrospect, in order to be a good entrepreneur, one needs to be ready to take real risks in order to succeed. If the team is risk averse by nature, it will be very hard to succeed.
6. Timing is everything, and sometimes things happen that you don’t have control over.
