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Speaker 2: Right, guys, Going back, E y L the edition.

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Speaker 3: Fitting very fit, very fitting.

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Speaker 4: So we got a very very exciting episode something that

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Speaker 4: we haven't covered yet. Every every time you think we

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Speaker 4: cover something, it's always something.

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Speaker 2: Else to cover.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this this, this is a big one. So the

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Speaker 4: gaming industry the gaming industry is a multi billion dollar

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Speaker 4: global industry that has turned into a real just everything exploded,

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Speaker 4: It's really exploded. They got the World Series of Fortnite,

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Speaker 4: the World Series. It is the world.

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Speaker 2: To man.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I was there. I was all right, all right, sixteen.

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Speaker 4: Crazy, unbelievable, unbelievable. So we're gonna do this episode justice. Yes,

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Speaker 4: Austin Woolrich, who is the CEO and founder of the

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Speaker 4: Players Lounge, So this is a really.

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Speaker 2: Cool co founder shout that we forget them Players Lounge.

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Speaker 4: So Players Lounge is a platform where gamers play their

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Speaker 4: favorite video games against others for process. So long story short,

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Speaker 4: you're doing what you're already doing, but you can actually

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Speaker 4: win cash prices, and it's for everybody. It's not like

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Speaker 4: you don't have to be the best player in the world,

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Speaker 4: like you don't have to be the top twenty five,

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Speaker 4: like the World Series of Pokers, like you got to train.

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Speaker 4: It's like, you know, it's a platform that's actually opened

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Speaker 4: up for everybody and low barriers and entry as far

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Speaker 4: as money is concerned. But you actually can make a

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Speaker 4: lot of money. So they've paid out over twenty five

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Speaker 4: million dollars in twenty nineteen, tens of thousands of users.

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Speaker 4: It's a really big thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, all them days that your mom and dad would

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Speaker 3: tell you to turn the video games off, they might

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Speaker 3: want to start telling you to turn the video games on.

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Speaker 3: Man is it is a huge industry. And like I said,

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Speaker 3: I'm just so I'm so upset that this wasn't around

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Speaker 3: ten years ago.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So this this is a new world. This is

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Speaker 4: a new world that we live in where it's like,

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Speaker 4: you know, you don't have to work in corporate America.

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Speaker 4: You can play video games and make money, and you

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Speaker 4: can create a company where you can make money and

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Speaker 4: have other people play video games and turn into a

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Speaker 4: lucrative business. So, first and foremost, thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 4: Appreciate it.

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Speaker 6: Orse of course I love what you guys do. Thank

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Speaker 6: you so much for.

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Speaker 2: Having me, no problem.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, let's get right into it. So players lounge,

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Speaker 4: all right? So what is the process? I I kind

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Speaker 4: of know because I read, but I think it's an

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Speaker 4: interesting story. How do you get because you was at

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Speaker 4: Wesleyan If anybody's not familiar, that's one of the best

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Speaker 4: colleges in America.

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Speaker 2: I think it's the most expensive one.

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Speaker 3: Definitely the most expensive.

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Speaker 2: It cost It costs a lot. It costs a lot

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Speaker 2: of money, so big money. You you you go to.

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Speaker 4: You know, this extremely prestigious university. What made you want

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Speaker 4: to really go into video gaming as a career.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think video games has just always been a

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Speaker 5: part of my life since I was a kid.

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Speaker 6: I always been playing since a young young age, and

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Speaker 6: to fund my.

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Speaker 5: Video game addiction, I would actually sell my old video

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Speaker 5: games that I finished on eBay. And I was actually

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Speaker 5: just looking at my eBay account recently, and I made

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Speaker 5: it in nineteen ninety nine, so I was ten years old,

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Speaker 5: so it was ten years old.

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Speaker 6: I don't even know how. I couldn't even.

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Speaker 5: Explain how I was doing it back then, but I

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Speaker 5: was like literally going on the computer, selling like my

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Speaker 5: N sixty four games, my PlayStation games, and getting the

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Speaker 5: money somehow via PayPal, and then going to the game

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Speaker 5: stop or whatever and buying.

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Speaker 6: The next game that I wanted. And so it's always

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Speaker 6: been a part of my life.

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Speaker 5: And even a few years later, actually got paid twenty

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Speaker 5: dollars an hour to help some family friends children like

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Speaker 5: beat the games that they were stuck in so they

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Speaker 5: had their own PlayStations or whatever, and they were stuck

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Speaker 5: in i don't know, like Spiral the Dragon or some

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Speaker 5: game like that, and I would just come over and

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Speaker 5: get paid like twenty an hour to just help them

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Speaker 5: beat these games.

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Speaker 3: So you like a video game tutor.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

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Speaker 6: And I think it was more.

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Speaker 5: So my family friends kind of engaging and putting some

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Speaker 5: some fuel onto my entrepreneurial spirit and like kind of

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Speaker 5: driving me to continue to go down that path more

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Speaker 5: so than like it actually being a wise investment for them.

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Speaker 5: But but yeah, that's definitely been Biggins has always been

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Speaker 5: a part of my life. And so when I was

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Speaker 5: at Wesley in my freshman year, I actually came across

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Speaker 5: the site that is now a competitive Player's launch. I'm

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Speaker 5: not going to say their name, but they provide similar

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Speaker 5: offering where you can play video games against other people

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Speaker 5: for money. You're betting on yourself playing vide games against

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Speaker 5: other people around the country for money. And so I've

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Speaker 5: always been really big into FIFA as one of the

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Speaker 5: games that I've invested at, and so I was playing

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Speaker 5: on the site and one summer I won a couple

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Speaker 5: of brand on your FIFA and the money actually hit.

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Speaker 3: My account, and I was like, I'm the man.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's made more than some kids making in the

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Speaker 5: internship over the summer just playing FIFA for a couple

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Speaker 5: of weeks. I just found like a guy and just

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Speaker 5: took his money, Like fell a little bad. I took

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Speaker 5: that money and went to went to Florida, went to

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Speaker 5: Miami with my boy.

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Speaker 3: So you know, the crazy part is that, like you said,

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Speaker 3: you were ten in nineteen ninety nine, So like for

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Speaker 3: the kids that are listening now, it's like before you

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Speaker 3: could play online, you had to go to your friend's

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Speaker 3: house to take his money, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 3: So once you got online with it, it's like, all right,

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Speaker 3: well this is a new game, right.

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Speaker 5: So it how I see it is that like you

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Speaker 5: have your certain circles that are wanting to play video

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Speaker 5: games against you for money, and then over a course

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Speaker 5: of course of time, like they're not down to play

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Speaker 5: you anymore because clearly you're better if you got to

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Speaker 5: give odds and stuff like that. And so this platform

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Speaker 5: really expands the pool of people to play against her money.

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Speaker 6: Exponentially.

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Speaker 5: It's like every single circle that comes into this one pool,

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Speaker 5: and now you have like thousands and tens of thousand,

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Speaker 5: one hundred thousands of people how to play with for money.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so yeah, so you say so use that all right? Yeah,

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Speaker 4: so you say that you was playing a FIFA, you

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Speaker 4: won a couple of thousand.

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Speaker 2: What happens after that?

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Speaker 6: So that kind of opened my eyes, like looked like

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Speaker 6: this platform, it works, and there's a big opportunity here

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Speaker 6: we could build our own. And so.

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Speaker 5: I was at Wesleyan playing soccer there and my eventual

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Speaker 5: co founder is Zach and I actually talked about this

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Speaker 5: idea because we played PIFA pretty competitively at college.

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Speaker 6: We would go into each other's dorm room before a game.

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Speaker 5: We couldn't be going out on like a Friday because

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Speaker 5: we had a game on Saturday, and so the whole

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Speaker 5: soccer team would go to someone's dorm and just like FIFA,

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Speaker 5: like for money for sure.

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Speaker 3: So they started they started out as little tournaments in

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Speaker 3: the dorm rooms.

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Speaker 5: Uh no, that was just like for fun. It didn't

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Speaker 5: have to do with players on. We didn't start players

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Speaker 5: on back then. But like the idea was kind of

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Speaker 5: an inceptualized in that environment where like I just did

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Speaker 5: it on a site for money, and then we're also

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Speaker 5: like experiencing those circles.

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Speaker 6: I was just talking about in the dorm rooms at college.

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Speaker 5: And so we started spitball on the idea, but we

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Speaker 5: had soccer, we had school work to do, and it

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Speaker 5: never really evolved beyond just a couple of conversations.

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Speaker 6: But I can fast forward a little bit.

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Speaker 5: And so we graduated college in twenty eleven, and then

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Speaker 5: Zach and I ran into each other in twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 5: and that's kind of when the ball got rolling.

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Speaker 2: So you start, you start.

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Speaker 4: You got the idea and you want to take it

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Speaker 4: and make it a real company, Right, So what's the

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Speaker 4: first step as far as that is concerned, Like the

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Speaker 4: blueprints that you kind of sitting down with Zach and like,

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Speaker 4: all right, this is the framework on it.

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Speaker 5: So we had our initial like spitballing of the idea

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Speaker 5: when we were sophomores, and nothing, it didn't really come

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Speaker 5: in fruition. And then graduating twenty eleven and three years later,

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Speaker 5: I'm watching the World Cup and I'm like, damn, I

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Speaker 5: really miss playing FIFA, and so I immediately ordered an

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Speaker 5: Xbox and my friend and I just started playing a

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Speaker 5: couple of games with FIFA, and I was like damn,

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Speaker 5: Like I really missed playing FIFA with my friends and playing.

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Speaker 6: FIFA for money, and like like just the whole vibe

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Speaker 6: of that.

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Speaker 5: I really miss that. And so I was thinking, like, Okay,

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Speaker 5: so how can I recreate that experience? Because in New

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Speaker 5: York people have small apartments, and people are working a

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Speaker 5: lot and have conflicting schedules, and so it's not as

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Speaker 5: easy to get people into like a room to play

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Speaker 5: like a bunch of FIFA together as a I was

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Speaker 5: in college, and so I thought of an idea where.

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Speaker 6: Why don't I just go to bars and say, hey,

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Speaker 6: you guys have.

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Speaker 5: A Bengo nights, have a trivia night or whatever to

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Speaker 5: bring patronton on a traditionally slow night like a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

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Speaker 5: Why don't I introduce a FIFA night? And so I

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Speaker 5: partnered with a bar in Williamsburg and I had maybe

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Speaker 5: like fifteen or twenty or so of my friends ready

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Speaker 5: to come to this event. And the day before I

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Speaker 5: run into Zach, my college soccer teammate, at the gym.

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Speaker 5: He just moved back from Brazil because he was at

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Speaker 5: the World Cup, and so I'm like, yeah, we should

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Speaker 5: come to this event, like you're gonna love it.

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Speaker 6: We're gonna be playing FIFA for money.

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Speaker 5: It's a tournament, just ten dollars entry fee, and like

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Speaker 5: the wind will get like two hundred.

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Speaker 6: He's like, damn, that sounds really dope, Like you need

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Speaker 6: help doing it, Like I want to help, And I

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Speaker 6: was like, yeah, for sure, Like this shit is a

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Speaker 6: lot of work.

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Speaker 5: Setting it up, so I could definitely use some extra hands.

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Speaker 5: And so the first event was it was a great success.

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Speaker 5: We had like maybe fifty people packed into a dive

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Speaker 5: bar in Williamsburg, and we realized that, like there was

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Speaker 5: definitely something here. We recreated that environment that we had

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Speaker 5: playing FIFA in college, where like there was money on

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Speaker 5: the line, everybody was friends, people were meeting new people,

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Speaker 5: we were playing good music. And so before starting Player's Launch,

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Speaker 5: I was like a full time rap producer. So at

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Speaker 5: these events played like all the music that I wanted

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Speaker 5: to hear, like all the newest rap and all that shit,

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Speaker 5: and so it really made it to like a party

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Speaker 5: at the same time. And that's kind of how Players Lounge.

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Speaker 5: That's how it really started. It was just an event

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Speaker 5: company that hosted FIFA tournaments at bars with cash trucks.

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Speaker 3: So you guys went from Brooklyn, you killed the city

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Speaker 3: right in Manhattan, then you started spending expanding west, right,

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Speaker 3: didn't you go to San Francisco.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, we did a couple events in San Francisco.

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Speaker 5: We went through an accelerator program out there at UC

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Speaker 5: Berkeley at the Business School, and so we threw a

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Speaker 5: couple of events out there, and then we did a

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Speaker 5: partnership with Anheuser Bush and they flew us out to

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Speaker 5: Toronto to do like a big event out there. So

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Speaker 5: we were touching different parts of the country and North America.

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Speaker 5: The Anheiser bushdy was kind of cool just to kind

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Speaker 5: of like explain the value behind that on both sides.

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Speaker 6: So for us, the value obviously was cash. They were

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Speaker 6: paying us money and they gave us more validity.

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Speaker 5: And on their end, the value proposition was, hey, we

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Speaker 5: have this screw players lounge and we could present them

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Speaker 5: to bars as a way to bring in more traffic,

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Speaker 5: and in return, the bars will get rid of a

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Speaker 5: millerte tap and add another Anheuser Bush tap.

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Speaker 6: And so that was kind of the partnership that that

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Speaker 6: we'd drawn up with them.

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Speaker 3: So as you kept doing it, are the crowds going

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Speaker 3: what are they looking at you say, at in the

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Speaker 3: Brooklyn one you had fifty What are the crowd sizes

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Speaker 3: is looking like? As you keep going around out the country.

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Speaker 5: So we had different types of events. We had big

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Speaker 5: tournaments with hundreds of people. We had events where like

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Speaker 5: we found a group in Washington, d C. That we're

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Speaker 5: doing similar type of things PIPA tournaments, and we had

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Speaker 5: them come down. They got hotel rooms, and we had

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Speaker 5: a whole World Cup like New York versus DC. So

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Speaker 5: our whole our whole squad that the regulars that came

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Speaker 5: to the players on the events in New York played

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Speaker 5: against the regulars in d C. So that was a

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Speaker 5: really really fun event. That's probably the funest event we

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Speaker 5: ever did. And then the one in Toronto was pretty big.

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Speaker 5: We had like over one hundred people there, but the

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Speaker 5: majority of it was just like very consistent weekly tournaments

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Speaker 5: or leagues. And so we had a website built where

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Speaker 5: like you had a leaderboard you can see where you

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Speaker 5: were at any given time. The leaderboards updated in real time,

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Speaker 5: so you could pull out your phone and check the

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Speaker 5: website and see like, oh, you just lost the match,

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Speaker 5: like where'd.

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Speaker 6: You go up or down? Or whould you go down

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Speaker 6: on the leaderboard.

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Speaker 5: So it's more like the consistent league and turnament and

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Speaker 5: flow that was really the bread and butter g.

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Speaker 4: So at what point does this really start to scale

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Speaker 4: and go from because it sounds like, all right, you

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Speaker 4: were doing like in person experiences in Brooklyn, Toronto, La,

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Speaker 4: different places, and with that it kind of grew and

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Speaker 4: became bigger than just the in person bar experience. So

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Speaker 4: at what point does it grow to having you know,

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Speaker 4: the first thousand people that are all over the world

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Speaker 4: using it, And it's really no longer the focus is

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Speaker 4: no longer in person. The focus is more just on

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Speaker 4: the internet.

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Speaker 5: So after about eighteen months of doing events, uh, there

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Speaker 5: wasn't really that much growth happening, and there was a

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Speaker 5: lot of work, a lot of like sweat, and it

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Speaker 5: was a large capital investment to continuously grow events because

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Speaker 5: you have to buy consoles, you have to buy gains

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Speaker 5: by controllers. Every time you had more people, you needed

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Speaker 5: more of that, and the expenses and revenue weren't growing linearly,

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Speaker 5: and so we decided to pivot. And the pivot was

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Speaker 5: going back to our conversations that we had in college,

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Speaker 5: like yeah, let's build a digital platform where anyone in

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Speaker 5: the country, anyone in the world can play anyone else

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Speaker 5: online for money. So it's basically expanding that circle that

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Speaker 5: I was telling you about earlier. And so it was

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Speaker 5: around November of twenty fifteen we decided, look, we're gonna

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Speaker 5: pivot from events and focus all of our efforts into

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Speaker 5: a digital product. And the digital product is gonna have

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Speaker 5: the DNA of the events, which was like a community

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Speaker 5: environment where you can see what's happening, you can see

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Speaker 5: who's playing. It's not like a casino or anything where

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Speaker 5: it's like people are siloed off in their little slot

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Speaker 5: machines and not really interacting. Like no, it's an environment

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Speaker 5: that we create that's popping, and you want to know

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Speaker 5: what other people doing, how much money.

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Speaker 6: Other people are playing for.

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Speaker 5: You want to transfer that DNA over into the digital products.

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Speaker 5: And one thing that's really important that I definitely want

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Speaker 5: to share it with everybody is that pivoting is very

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Speaker 5: normal and its majority of startups and successful startups have

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Speaker 5: pivoted at least one time. And so you take kind

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Speaker 5: of what you learn from your initial build your MVP,

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Speaker 5: so you can call the event our minimum viable products.

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Speaker 6: The event Company.

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Speaker 5: And so what we learned from the event company was

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Speaker 5: that one hundreds or even thousands of people were willing

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Speaker 5: to travel all across the Trystate, from all across the

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Speaker 5: Try State area to a random dive bar in Williamsburg

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Speaker 5: to play FIFA with the with like minded.

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Speaker 6: People for five hours until two in the morning. That

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Speaker 6: happened twice a week. So we knew that people were

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Speaker 6: really really trying to do this, and we knew that

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Speaker 6: people were given that people were traveling from very far away,

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Speaker 6: there weren't that many options out there for them. And

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Speaker 6: then we started talking to our customers in person, like

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Speaker 6: what would you want from a digital product, like what

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Speaker 6: would translate.

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Speaker 5: Over to make you want to use it? And so

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Speaker 5: we learned a lot there and interviews are very key.

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Speaker 5: And so we took all that information that we learned

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Speaker 5: and the clear desire that there isn't a feasible product

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Speaker 5: to allow people to do this from their own homes

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Speaker 5: as opposed to driving like two hours. We took that

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Speaker 5: information said all right, let's scrap the event stuff and

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Speaker 5: go fully digital. And so.

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Speaker 6: We needed money to build the digital products. And so

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Speaker 6: this is a great story. My co founder Zach.

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Speaker 5: He got word that a Wedsley and grad probably one

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Speaker 5: of the most successful Wesdy grads. This guy named Strauszelnik.

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Speaker 5: He's the CEO of Take two Interactive. They make grant

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Speaker 5: to photo NBA two K and he's also like.

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Speaker 6: The chairman of this Viacom CBS conglomerate.

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Speaker 5: So he's like a real real big dog and he's

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Speaker 5: a Wedsley group. And so we got when that he

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Speaker 5: has these workout classes at six am every Thursday. And

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Speaker 5: Zach could tell anybody like when we were on the

356
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Speaker 5: soccer team, I hated working out, I hated going to gym,

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Speaker 5: hated lived in weights. I was just on the field,

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Speaker 5: just cooking. But I didn't want to like do any

359
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Speaker 5: like workouts and shuff like that. But Zach, Zach enjoys it.

360
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Speaker 5: And so he's like, fuck it, I'm gonna go to

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Speaker 5: this workout class. I got a friend who invited me,

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Speaker 5: and I'm gonna go every Thursday, which ended up being

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Speaker 5: from like April to November, every Thursday until he's down

364
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Speaker 5: to have.

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Speaker 6: A meeting with us. I'm like, all right, go for it.

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Speaker 6: And he was very successful. He went like.

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Speaker 5: Two three thursdays in a row, didn't get a word

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00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:10,760
Speaker 5: with him. Five six thursdays later, maybe said hello, maybe

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00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:14,399
Speaker 5: got an introduction, and then eventually he was able to

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00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:16,840
Speaker 5: build up enough rapport to be like, hey, look, me

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Speaker 5: and my co founder from Wesley and we started a

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Speaker 5: company and esports company and NBA two K is part

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Speaker 5: of our vision. We sit down with us and hear

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00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:28,959
Speaker 5: about it, and he was like, yeah, for sure, and

375
00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 5: we went to uh we went to a brunch spot

376
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Speaker 5: in the upper east side of Strauszonik, and we were

377
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,960
Speaker 5: so naive at the time and we didn't really like

378
00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:46,520
Speaker 5: know all this terminology of like evaluation caps and all

379
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,200
Speaker 5: this stuff, and we and he was just like very

380
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:52,760
Speaker 5: polite about it and very understanding. But he was asking

381
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Speaker 5: us to do like a bunch of like napkin math.

382
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Speaker 6: And we're just like, oh shit, like uh, like look

383
00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:02,400
Speaker 6: at bluster U. And then he ended up investing.

384
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Speaker 5: He ended up investing sixty thousand on the spot and

385
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:08,680
Speaker 5: he was like, I love what you guys are doing.

386
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Speaker 6: I think guys are very committed.

387
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,399
Speaker 5: And the digital product is definitely with the way to

388
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:16,199
Speaker 5: go kill the events. Digital product is how you make

389
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,760
Speaker 5: this a billion dollar business. The ceiling on the events

390
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:24,320
Speaker 5: side is very low and very capital intensive, and you

391
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Speaker 5: have a much scalable business on the digital side. And

392
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Speaker 5: so I'm gonna leave, here's my gym bag. I live

393
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,119
Speaker 5: at this address, take my gym bag back to my apartment.

394
00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 5: And then we got a deal. So we basically have

395
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,400
Speaker 5: to like find out where this guy lives and take

396
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Speaker 5: his gym bag to a spot to secure the money.

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Speaker 4: Why was why was it was that like some kind

398
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:53,360
Speaker 4: of just the ritual, Like it was a moment exactly.

399
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 6: That's probably the best analogy. It is definitely a Diddy

400
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:57,960
Speaker 6: cheesecake moment. All right, you guys just take my bag,

401
00:20:58,040 --> 00:20:58,800
Speaker 6: figure out where.

402
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,520
Speaker 2: I live and uh oh he didn't. He didn't give

403
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 2: you his address. He oh, okay.

404
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 4: It was still kind of weird, weird vibe before we go,

405
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:10,600
Speaker 4: before we get to the next thing.

406
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 2: I really wanted to.

407
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:12,560
Speaker 4: I want to, I want to double back on what

408
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 4: you just said, because there's a lot of valuable information

409
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 4: in that. And the thing that I liked was Okay,

410
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:20,720
Speaker 4: So he found out that he worked out at this

411
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:23,400
Speaker 4: gym at six o'clock in the morning, but he went there,

412
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,199
Speaker 4: but he didn't just approach him the first time. It's like,

413
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:29,480
Speaker 4: all right, it's like the guy that's like the real

414
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 4: creep and he finds out the girl like works in

415
00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:34,840
Speaker 4: the coffee shop. If he's like really really like you

416
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:36,439
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying into it, he's not just going

417
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 4: to go and the first time, he's gonna make himself

418
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 4: a regular kind of like, oh, I randomly saw you,

419
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,000
Speaker 4: like you know what I mean, you kind of hate Sometimes

420
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 4: you got to create, you got to create the moment.

421
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,720
Speaker 4: So I love that because it's like he's intentional about

422
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,560
Speaker 4: what he wants to do, but he understands that the

423
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 4: first time. If he just went and just spoke to

424
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 4: him the first time, it's obvious the only reason why

425
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 4: you're coming to this class is to speak to me

426
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,639
Speaker 4: now to hear what you're talking about. So now you

427
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 4: just you don't even speak to him for like five weeks,

428
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 4: but he sees you. He kind of is familiar with you.

429
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 4: At that point. Then you say hello, Hey, what's up? Hey, Okay,

430
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:11,919
Speaker 4: I acknowledge you. Then you might just say hey, you know,

431
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:14,160
Speaker 4: like you know, it starts some small talk and then

432
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:18,400
Speaker 4: like a couple months in coming out, it's a conversation.

433
00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of times, especially with networking,

434
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,400
Speaker 4: This is why I'm bringing this to this point. Networking

435
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,199
Speaker 4: a lot of times people it happens to us all

436
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:28,120
Speaker 4: the time. People hit us in the DM and they

437
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 4: it's a very selfish like can you help me? Like

438
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 4: there's no rapport, there's no trying to bring any value,

439
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,719
Speaker 4: there's no like can I in turn, it's just like

440
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:39,120
Speaker 4: I have an idea.

441
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 3: Here, this is going to be the idea.

442
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's like it doesn't work like that. Human

443
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,920
Speaker 4: nature is going to reject you nine times out of ten,

444
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 4: even if it's a good idea. You have to take

445
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 4: the time, you have to build rapport, and over the

446
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 4: course of time, it's like chipping away the iceberg. Then

447
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 4: you strike. You wait for the right moment to strike.

448
00:22:57,560 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 4: You just don't go in off the rip.

449
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 3: Exact, wait for that right moan to say, yeah, I'm

450
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 3: a Wesleyan grad too, and it's like, oh wait, hold on,

451
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 3: let me have this conversation. Right. Sometimes the power of

452
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 3: being that commonality like yo, we went to the same

453
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:09,639
Speaker 3: school is going to get you in the do it.

454
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 3: I couldn't have said, y'all went.

455
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 5: You need to have proper icebreakers, you need to have

456
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 5: you have a plan, like as you were saying, like

457
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 5: just going in guns blazing with no plan other than

458
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:27,159
Speaker 5: to ask for something like ninety nine percent of the

459
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 5: people do that.

460
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 6: So immediately that person's gonna write you off because he

461
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 6: sees it or she sees it.

462
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 5: Every single day. And so you have to really consider

463
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 5: the angles that you're trying to approach people with. And

464
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 5: if you come with the right angles and you actually

465
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 5: like to think more about it, you increase the likelihood

466
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 5: that you're going to get that beneficial result they're looking for.

467
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I like the fact that he told you

468
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 4: that the scalable model is not in physical events. And

469
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 4: this is even obviously pre Corona, but I think everybody

470
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 4: realizes that now. I say this whole the time, like,

471
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 4: you don't have to have a strictly online business to

472
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 4: be successful. You can't have a brick and martar. It's

473
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 4: just a tremendously harder But if you don't have some

474
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 4: kind of revenue stream that comes from online, I don't

475
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 4: think you have a successful business at this point because

476
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 4: there's too many variables that go into play if you're

477
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 4: just relying on live events or brick and martar. And

478
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,400
Speaker 4: this just accelerated that to me and should show everybody.

479
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 4: Any type of business that you're starting at the very

480
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 4: least should have a strong online presence with an online

481
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 4: revenue model. And you probably want to look at a

482
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,160
Speaker 4: business that's just strictly online. It's a lot less overhead.

483
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 4: Then it's a lot easier.

484
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 3: Brick and Martys will close. Right, that happens, right, It's

485
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,160
Speaker 3: tough to shut down the World Wide Web.

486
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 2: You can't impossible what I'm saying.

487
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,880
Speaker 3: So obviously you need to have online presence exactly.

488
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 5: Think about all the all the stores, the mom and

489
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 5: pop stores that put off We're going to.

490
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 6: Open up our e comm store later, keept putting that off,

491
00:24:56,240 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 6: and now like that could be the fact of life

492
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 6: and death for those businesses.

493
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 5: And you got to rush to gravitate to a shopify

494
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 5: or a platform like that and rush to create a

495
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 5: three pl your third party logistics platform to handle your

496
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 5: shipping and all that stuff. So it's a little too

497
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 5: it might be too late for a lot of these companies,

498
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 5: and something that you really have to always engage in

499
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 5: as a business owner entrepreneurs, like where is the industry going?

500
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 6: And if you don't do that, you're gonna you're.

501
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 3: Gonna dare your company is on a complete opposite end

502
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 3: of that, specially where it's like everybody's home, plus kids

503
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 3: are in front of video games a lot of the day,

504
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 3: Plus they are going to play online another plus that's

505
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 3: not going anywhere, so that I could imagine how crowded

506
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 3: your space be came. We're going to get into that though.

507
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

508
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 4: So we're gonna go into the next segment. We're gonna

509
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,920
Speaker 4: talk about break down a companies and also talk about

510
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 4: the VC side. But yeah, before we go, I just

511
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 4: wanted to just like you said, as far as the

512
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 4: mom and prop grocery stores, and it's like a lot

513
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 4: of times, like I said, you can be a hybrid.

514
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 4: I want to just because the show is for entrepreneurs

515
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 4: in it because everybody but we have a lot of

516
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 4: entrepreneurs I listen to it. So it's like think about

517
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 4: ways to be creative. And I look at Amazon. We

518
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 4: referenced Amazon a lot, but Amazon when they when they

519
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 4: purchased Whole Foods a few years ago, it was kind

520
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 4: of baffling to a lot of people because it's like

521
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 4: Whole Foods, if you really know the business, they were

522
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 4: struggling and they've been struggling. But now they've recently turned

523
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 4: six Whole Foods into what they call dark stores, which

524
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 4: is pretty much just drop shipment centers where people order

525
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 4: groceries online now during the pandemic and they're skating ships.

526
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 4: So now it's like, okay, this is the play all along.

527
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 4: So now they're emerging. Amazon does that a lot. Where

528
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 4: they brought a bookstore, they got Amazon Go grocery store

529
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 4: Whole Food So they're a perfect example of like I said,

530
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 4: Brick and Martin isn't completely dead, but you have to

531
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 4: you have to be able to merge it with some

532
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 4: kind of online presence if you still want to have

533
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 4: a Brick and Marter situation.

534
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 3: I mean, they started out as a bookstore. Look what

535
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 3: they've turned into.

536
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 4: Yeah all right, so yeah, in the next segment, we're

537
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 4: going to go into the details and break down the business.

538
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 4: So okay, so you got the company up, up and running,

539
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 4: so it's interesting business model. I had a couple of questions,

540
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 4: So how do players get paid? Like, let's just break

541
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 4: this down. So all right, so let's say I'm a

542
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 4: gamer and I play Fortnite, right, and you know, I'm

543
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 4: just I'm not like, you know, a champion. I'm just

544
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 4: a regular gamer. So I go on your platform, I

545
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 4: created user name whatever, and I played like a five

546
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 4: dollars Fortnite game.

547
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 2: Is this how this works?

548
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's similar to fandor or DraftKings or even

549
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 5: online poker, even though we're not we're not gambling. We

550
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 5: are skill based competitions. That's important, Yes, very important. Going

551
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 5: through a lot of legal UH invested a lot in

552
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 5: legal opinions to ensure that what we're doing is legal

553
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 5: in the majority of states in the US. So, but

554
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 5: it is similar to those models where you make an

555
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 5: account and you posit funds into your player's launch account,

556
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 5: and so let's say you deposit fifty dollars, then you

557
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,199
Speaker 5: have a fifty dollars balance in your account that can

558
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 5: be used how you see fit on the platform. And

559
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 5: so whether that is playing a ten dollars head to

560
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 5: head game that instantaneously matches you up against someone of

561
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 5: equal skill for the game type that you want to

562
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 5: play for, or a tournament that's like a five dollars

563
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 5: entry free and first place gets one thousand dollars, and

564
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 5: so you can just kind of spray your balance however

565
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 5: you see fit on the platform. And so let's say,

566
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 5: for your example, you want to play a game of

567
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 5: Fortnite for ten dollars. You use our matchmaking software to

568
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 5: find an opponent of similar skill, someone who has performed

569
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 5: similarly on the on the platform, whether they've beaten or

570
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 5: played the same players that you have, are in the

571
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 5: same wager, average wager amount that you had, their winning percentage,

572
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 5: their p and L, and so all these factors are

573
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 5: included in our matchmaking system to ensure that you're playing

574
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 5: so on of equal skill and so on. You never

575
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 5: you don't feel grossly overmatched against. And so once you

576
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 5: find an opponent, then a match lobby is created between

577
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 5: the two of you where there's like a match chat

578
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 5: where you say, hey, I'm ready to play. There's an

579
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 5: informational area where you see their gamer tag and other

580
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 5: relevant information that you need. And once you're ready to

581
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 5: play your opponent, then you go to your PlayStation or

582
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 5: your Xbox and you play that person in the game

583
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 5: that you're playing. So in this case Fortnite, it's a

584
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 5: very specific way to play for money. But for those

585
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 5: who know how Fortnite works, you drop into a duo's

586
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 5: match with your opponent on players lounge, and then whoever

587
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 5: gets the most kills in that game wins the money.

588
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 5: And so once the match is over, both players report

589
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 5: the score back to the app.

590
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 6: And so, Troy, let's say you win.

591
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 5: Five to two, then you put that into the app

592
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 5: and the opponent has to confirm the score, and once

593
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 5: they do, the money is automatically dispersed in the winner

594
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 5: and added to their account. In this scenario, if it's

595
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 5: ten dollars per person, we take a ten percent fee

596
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 5: from each entry fee and the winner would be getting

597
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 5: eighteen in total.

598
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 3: All right, So here's the thing, right, because I'll used

599
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 3: to play games a lot, right, and when you're really

600
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 3: good at it, and a couple of things. When you're

601
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 3: really good at it, there are people who will quit

602
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 3: during the game. So what happens then if somebody quits

603
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 3: the match, or if there's a lag with the connection,

604
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 3: what happens then?

605
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 5: So we've built a massive rule set for every game

606
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 5: on our platform for what happens in fairly common situations

607
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 5: like a disconnection or throwing lags out, and so we

608
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 5: have protocols in place for all of that and in case, so,

609
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 5: for example, if the disconnection happens, we tell users to

610
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 5: play the rest of the match based on how much

611
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 5: timers remaining. So like if you're playing Madden and the

612
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 5: disconnection happens at halftime, then we say start a new

613
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 5: game and play the first half, and then you just

614
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 5: add up the scores.

615
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 3: And so.

616
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 5: Naturally one would think what happens if someone lies, what

617
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 5: happens if X, Y and Z happens.

618
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 6: Or someone says that they won when they really didn't,

619
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 6: And so we.

620
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 5: Built a very robust dispute protocol and functionality in the

621
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 5: app that basically handles those situations.

622
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 6: And it's very easy to prove that you want to match.

623
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 5: These days, you're one button away from screenshotting a match

624
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 5: or recording the last hour.

625
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 6: Of your gameplay.

626
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,479
Speaker 5: And so if a dispute happens, we just ask our

627
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 5: users to provide some simple evidence to showcase.

628
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 6: Who won that match.

629
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 5: And for what is worth, only one percent of all

630
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 5: our matches end up in disputes anyway, and so it's

631
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 5: not a very common occurrence.

632
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's two ends to the spectrum, right, there's

633
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 3: the person that gets on a hot streak, and if

634
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 3: you've ever had a a sports competitive game, you've gotten

635
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 3: on a hot streak. Does it make it harder for

636
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 3: people to want to play that person knowing that a,

637
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 3: you have twenty six wins in a row, what does

638
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 3: that person doing? And then on the opposite end, the

639
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 3: person who is had a seven game losing streak, is

640
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 3: there analytics to match them with somebody who's doing the same.

641
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 5: Yes, we consider all those factors when it comes to matchmaking.

642
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 5: So there's two ways to play on Player's Lounge. You

643
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 5: press a button, it's kind of like calling an uber,

644
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 5: and we match you up against the best possible person

645
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 5: for you, which includes a lot of those factors that

646
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 5: you just mentioned.

647
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 6: And that's basically our users trusting us to tell them.

648
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 5: Look like, you don't play video games for a living, clearly,

649
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:44,959
Speaker 5: and we want to make sure you don't go up

650
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 5: against a pro who's playing on Players' Lounge like ten

651
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 5: hours a day, because I just wouldn't make sense and

652
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 5: you would probably leave the site after playing that person

653
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 5: like a couple or playing a couple of those people

654
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 5: in a row. And so that's the number one way

655
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 5: to play on players Lounge. The majority or matches happened

656
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 5: that way, just pressing a single button and getting matched

657
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 5: up against somebody within less than thirty seconds. And then

658
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 5: the other way is if you know the person you

659
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 5: want to play, you can just send him a direct challenge.

660
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 5: So like, hey, this guy is one of the best

661
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 5: FEVA players or Madden players.

662
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 6: On the site.

663
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 5: I'm feeling like I'm cooking these days, so I want

664
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 5: to see if I can match up against some of

665
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 5: the best players. I'm gonna send him a DM and

666
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 5: then he could see my rating on players Lounge. We

667
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 5: have a player's Lounge rating, which is score between one

668
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 5: and five. So the best player is probably going to

669
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 5: be a five, and if I send him a challenge,

670
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 5: I'm a two. He's like okay, Like bet a major lunch,

671
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 5: send me that.

672
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 3: Challenge, get this money.

673
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we do have things in place so to

674
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 5: make sure that like the Sharks, the best players don't

675
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 5: necessarily like eat up all the all the minnos and

676
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 5: like the majority of the players who well not only are.

677
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 6: Playing to make money, but also.

678
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 5: From our user interviews, and I really want to emphasize,

679
00:33:57,840 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 5: like interviewing your customers is the best thing you could

680
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 5: do in your business because you are literally getting like

681
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 5: feedback on from the people who are using it the

682
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 5: most and you iterate on that information. But one thing

683
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 5: we've learned from our users is that a lot of

684
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 5: people don't really care that much about making money a

685
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 5: lot like I would think half of our users care

686
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:26,959
Speaker 5: about the extra value and excitement that comes from playing

687
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 5: video games for money.

688
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 6: Even if it's a dollar. It's a totally different experience.

689
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:34,800
Speaker 5: Your body feels totally different playing that game with a

690
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 5: dollar online than if there's nothing on the line.

691
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 2: So we interviewed Mike Brown.

692
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,320
Speaker 4: He's a former NFL player that had an equity crowdfunding

693
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 4: campaign for a He has an interesting platform where it's

694
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 4: what's it called win Win. It's called win win, and

695
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 4: it is like esports, but it's for charity. So it's

696
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 4: like fantasy sports with for charity. So he was saying

697
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 4: that you know a lot of people that play fantasy sports,

698
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 4: they don't necessarily play it to win money, like you

699
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 4: just said. It's more so the competition, the camaraderie, the

700
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 4: whole thing. So he was like, okay, Like, if you

701
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 4: can have the same feel of playing fantasy sports, but

702
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 4: you can actually do something good and give to a

703
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 4: charity and then you get memorabilia, you get to hang

704
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 4: out with an athlete instead of getting paid physical cash.

705
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 4: Would that be appealing to you? And a lot of

706
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 4: people like that idea and it became really popular. So

707
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 4: it's interesting that you that you said that because that

708
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 4: that reminds me of what he said. I had a

709
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 4: question as far as on the business side. So you're

710
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 4: you're getting you're getting paid, and you're paying people from

711
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 4: playing these games like Fortnite and all these other types

712
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 4: of games call of Duty. I assume in all these games,

713
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 4: are there licensing agreements that you have to have with

714
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 4: these individual companies that you're profiting on for ved?

715
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 2: How does that work?

716
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 6: No, there isn't.

717
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,359
Speaker 5: We check with that legal counsel on that, and it's

718
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 5: more of like using their names and fair use because

719
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 5: we don't end up right with the platforms.

720
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 6: We're totally second screen.

721
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 5: Experience at this time, and so what people are actually

722
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 5: doing are just like seeing the words like NBA two

723
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 5: K and Call of Duty and then just agreeing to

724
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 5: play with each other for money on players Lounge with

725
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 5: the contract that we essentially create, and then the actual

726
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 5: games happens off players Lounge and on their consoles, and

727
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 5: so we're not like integrated with the game at any

728
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 5: at any point at this time, and so it's kind

729
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 5: of the equivalent of like you're trying to sell your

730
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 5: BMW on Craigslist, and so you have to use BMW

731
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 5: in order to like give people an understanding of like

732
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 5: what you're selling and the type of product and the

733
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 5: type of like car you're selling. So it's similar in

734
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 5: that vein where it's like we have to tell our

735
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 5: users that we offer NBA two K and they want

736
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 5: to play two K for money or else they just

737
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 5: wouldn't be like a viable product.

738
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 3: We said this earlier, and I don't know if everybody

739
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 3: really understands that term game of skill and how that

740
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 3: helps an illegal mass, right, because this isn't really good sembling, right,

741
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 3: This ash esports is a game of skill? Can you

742
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 3: talk about the battle to fight for that term?

743
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 6: For sure? For sure?

744
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 5: I definitely want to like shout out like FanDuel for

745
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 5: kind of paving.

746
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 6: The way here.

747
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 5: Nigel Elis is one of my advisors, who's the who's

748
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 5: the founder of FanDuel, and so a lot of kind

749
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 5: of like the first iterations of players was modeled after that,

750
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 5: and so FanDuel they for those who know FanDuel is

751
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 5: like daily fantasy sports.

752
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:32,479
Speaker 3: It took a lot of my money.

753
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 6: I love the product, but me too. But real quick,

754
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 6: what it is is that you basically set a lineup

755
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:42,959
Speaker 6: of players who are.

756
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 5: Playing that day, whether it's in the NBA or NFL,

757
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 5: MLB and so, and then they accumulate points based on

758
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 5: their performance. And then the more points your team acquires,

759
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 5: the more likely you can be in the money, like

760
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 5: win money in a tournament. And so they went through

761
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 5: a massive legal battle for years with the federal government

762
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 5: and like a lot of states to argue against that

763
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 5: they were not gambling and that they were a game

764
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 5: of skill. And so the skill argument comes from like, hey,

765
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 5: like I can do all my research.

766
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 6: On the teams and the players and the data.

767
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 5: Like if I'm a data scientist, I have a huge

768
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 5: upper hand against someone who just like watches sports leisurely.

769
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 6: And they won that battle because it's true it's a

770
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 6: game of.

771
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 5: Skill, like if someone really knows their sports, they have

772
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 5: a much higher likelihood of beating someone who doesn't really know.

773
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 5: And so they paved the way for players Lounge because

774
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 5: they spent millions of dollars lobbying and basically state by

775
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 5: state getting the conversation going to the point where like,

776
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 5: all right, the States are like, Okay, you guys want

777
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 5: to making a shitload of money, so we're gonna open

778
00:38:59,520 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 5: it up.

779
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 6: But two, you've proven enough that you are not gambling

780
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 6: and you are a game of skill.

781
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 5: And so I'm definitely fortunate for Daily Fantasy kind of

782
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 5: paving the way because I didn't really have to go

783
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 5: through that, and the landscape was kind of like already

784
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 5: the legal and regulatory landscape was already laid out for me.

785
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 5: But that said, I still had to get invest a

786
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 5: lot in legal opinions because the key here is like payments,

787
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 5: and so the payment processors are really on the front

788
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 5: lines when it comes to the government, because like you

789
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 5: got to deal with anti money laundering and like all

790
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 5: the Patriot Acts stuff, And so when you're moving money

791
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 5: in the way that Players Lounge and Daily Fantasy is

792
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 5: moving money, you have to be extremely compliant with anti

793
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 5: money laundering laws and policies.

794
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 6: And so not only do you have to get your

795
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 6: legal opinions straight for the.

796
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 5: Payment processes and the government, but you also need to

797
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 5: make sure that you have the right protocols and the

798
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 5: right policies when it comes to anti money laundering and

799
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 5: the right.

800
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 6: Technical systems.

801
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 5: In place like geofencing and age verification in order to

802
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,800
Speaker 5: truly be compliant as a business like ours.

803
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 3: So there is an age requirement for play songs, right,

804
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 3: it is eighteen years old?

805
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 5: Eighteen okay?

806
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 4: So okay, So like what's the what's the revenue model

807
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 4: for you guys? Like do you charge like you take

808
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 4: a percentage out of winnings? Do you charge for everybody

809
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 4: that plays?

810
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 3: Like?

811
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:30,879
Speaker 2: How does that work?

812
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 6: So it's pretty simple.

813
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 5: We take ten percent from each entry fee, and so

814
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 5: if you play a ten dollars match against someone else

815
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,879
Speaker 5: in the site, then we take one dollar from each

816
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 5: entry fee and then the winner will get eighteen.

817
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. That's just playing very very model.

818
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. So what's the retention rate? So if so the

819
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 3: first person that the person that comes to the to

820
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 3: the site, what's the retention rate of people who stay

821
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 3: and decide to play more and more.

822
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 6: I would say it's.

823
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 5: In the range of It depends on the game for sure.

824
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:10,919
Speaker 5: The game is the type of game that they play.

825
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 5: So like Madden NBA two K users retain a lot

826
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:18,959
Speaker 5: more than like a Fortnite user, But yeah, I would

827
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 5: say like around like twenty over.

828
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 6: Over eight weeks, I believe.

829
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 3: So right now, you guys are in the console, right,

830
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:32,479
Speaker 3: so Xbox PlayStation, have you moved over to the PC side?

831
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 3: Because I noticed that's I mean there's a lot of

832
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 3: games there, counter Strike, League of Legends that are huge.

833
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 3: Are you guys in that space as well?

834
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 5: Uh?

835
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 6: Not yet? For various reasons.

836
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 5: One like there just isn't that much representation in console esports.

837
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 5: Like the majority of esports as it's known, like mainstream

838
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 5: wise are PC games, and.

839
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 6: Like the people that are using our platform.

840
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 5: Really love NBA two K and Madden, and like the

841
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 5: esports culture around that of those games like hasn't really

842
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 5: been created yet, Like it's still like the foundation might

843
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 5: be there, but like the structure hasn't been.

844
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 3: Earners, what's up? You ever walk into a small business

845
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 3: and everything just works, Like the checkout is fast, their

846
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Speaker 3: seats are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out

847
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848
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,880
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849
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850
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851
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852
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879
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Speaker 7: We know small businesses are dealing with rising costs and

880
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 7: looking for ways to boost their bottom line. On our show,

881
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 7: you'll hear from our customer experts with our small Business

882
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 7: Engagement team, who will show you effective ways to improve

883
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 7: your operations, find important resources, and most of all, save money.

884
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 8: I ride the RAND analysis for the emergency flop ink

885
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 8: and based on their usage history, by just making a

886
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 8: simple rate change at no costs, it was a twenty

887
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 8: five dollars annual savings.

888
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 7: So listen to Real Talk with Pgenie and find more

889
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 7: resources for your business by visiting pge dot com for slash.

890
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 6: Real Talk.

891
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 5: Built on top of that, and we want to build

892
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 5: that structure like we want to be the go to

893
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 5: brand to play in competitive console esports for money. And additionally,

894
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,760
Speaker 5: like we want to represent the underrepresented because the PC

895
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 5: market there's a huge barrier to entry there. So like

896
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 5: if you want to be like a quote unquote esports

897
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,800
Speaker 5: player on the highest level, it's like kind of like

898
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 5: golf or a sport like that, we got to invest

899
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 5: like a lot. You gotta buy a PC, a crazy PC.

900
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 5: It's like five thousand dollars and you have to invest

901
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,439
Speaker 5: all that time, and like for a lot of people,

902
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 5: that's not an opportunity for them.

903
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 6: And so the consoles are like the the.

904
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 5: Way that they can really play video games. And so

905
00:45:54,600 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 5: we want to like represent the console crowd because the

906
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 5: a voice or a brand like associated with that. And

907
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 5: then secondly, sorry, the other reason is that PC is

908
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 5: pretty rampid. The rampant cheating on PC and it runs pretty.

909
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 6: Rampid, and.

910
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 5: Like it's not trustworthy enough for us to really get

911
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:19,839
Speaker 5: into at this time.

912
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:20,839
Speaker 6: That's another big reason.

913
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 4: Okay, so what are the biggest games that people are

914
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,800
Speaker 4: playing on your platform? Like what's the top three games?

915
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 6: Top three in terms of.

916
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 5: Like wagers are Madden has a sizeable lead NBA two.

917
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 6: K and then the third game.

918
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 5: I think that this time is Call Duty, but it's

919
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 5: really close between Call Duty and people.

920
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 2: What's the most somebody has? Do you know, like the

921
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: most a person has one on your platform?

922
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there's a there are a few people

923
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 6: of one, like.

924
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 5: At this point, hundreds of thousands of dollars on one game,

925
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 5: not like one they didn't like put up one hundred.

926
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 3: We gotta watch that's that's cable television.

927
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 2: Like what's the what's the most you can put on

928
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:07,879
Speaker 2: one game?

929
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 5: Like if you just wanted to just say out the Gate,

930
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 5: out the Gate as like a new user that's verified

931
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 5: their account and like uploaded their ID because we just

932
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 5: we didn't make sure you are who you say you are.

933
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 5: Out the Gate five hundred. But as you continue to

934
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 5: play on players Lounge and like you show that you're

935
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 5: like a reputable member of the community, you don't really

936
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 5: like try to cheat, people will up your wager limit.

937
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 6: And so there are a.

938
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,320
Speaker 5: Handful of people who are betting like five thousand dollars games,

939
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 5: but I would say like the majority of the larger

940
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 5: tier bets are between like five hundred and two thousand.

941
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 3: So what makes somebody a professional game because a few

942
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 3: years back, I won't say how many, I had an opportunity.

943
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 3: I was playing this NBA Live and this is when

944
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 3: they had the Madden Bus and the NBA Live Bus.

945
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 3: I got invited to the bus, and that was based

946
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 3: on win percentage. Like I was like ranked No. Five

947
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:01,399
Speaker 3: in the world, right.

948
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:03,720
Speaker 6: You weren't playing before we started.

949
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 5: You were really hooping in live.

950
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 3: I was really, like seriously like I would. People were

951
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 3: paying me to play for them, and I got up

952
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 3: to like number five in the world. I played the

953
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 3: number one dude. That's why I talked about the lagging thing,

954
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 3: because I was beating them. He lagged and it got

955
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 3: disconnected and so I got invited to the bus. But

956
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 3: now in this day and age, right, how is somebody

957
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 3: considered a professional game? Is there amount of money they've

958
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:25,319
Speaker 3: won or is it based on their skill set?

959
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 5: There's a lot of ways it's gonna be a professional

960
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 5: gamer these days. So the most traditional way is you

961
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 5: get signed to a pro team.

962
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 6: So you get signed to.

963
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 5: Like one hundred Thieves or PAYS or NRG and you

964
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 5: represent them on their Legal Legends team or their Call

965
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 5: of Duty team or their Counterstrike.

966
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 6: Team, So that's the most traditional way.

967
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 5: Or you can be a content creator that's a professional

968
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 5: gamer now too, because like these guys might not be

969
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:58,759
Speaker 5: the best in the world, but they're definitely the top

970
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 5: one percentile. But they have a charisma about them that's

971
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 5: like attractive on camera and people like watching them not

972
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 5: only because they're good to have video games, but they

973
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 5: have like a persona that resonates.

974
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 3: With a lot of people, like a guy like Ninja.

975
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 3: Ninja would be there exactly.

976
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 6: Ninja is a perfect example. Cyber PK, myth tsmd Kwon.

977
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 5: All those dudes, like they're really good. They're like some

978
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 5: of the best in the world, but they're not good

979
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 5: enough to be pros. But the combination of their charisma

980
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 5: on camera and their video game skill set, I would

981
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:34,919
Speaker 5: label them as programer doing it for a living.

982
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 6: Your programer.

983
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 3: He's got a million dollar contracts man, that's a pro.

984
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 2: No, it's crazy, but real quick.

985
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 5: Part of the Players Lounge mission is to add a

986
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 5: third way. You can be a progamer and like you

987
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 5: may not be signed to a.

988
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,880
Speaker 6: Team, and you may not be like have to.

989
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 5: We want to provide an opportunity for people to just

990
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 5: make money. Enough money to pay their rent or like

991
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 5: supplement a primary salary or maybe.

992
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 6: Do it full time.

993
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 5: But they're making like fifty sixty seventy one hundred K

994
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 5: year instead of like.

995
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,479
Speaker 6: The millions that like sign pros are making.

996
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 5: And so Players Lounge is really creating the infrastructure for

997
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 5: like a third way for people to become pro gamers.

998
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, shout out to my guy Marquis too. With

999
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 4: the seventy sixes, I just made me think of something.

1000
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 4: So we were supposed to do something with the seventy

1001
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 4: six is before this whole Corona thing happened, and I

1002
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 4: was in Atlantic City, so he invited me to the

1003
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 4: training facility that they have in Camden, New Jersey, which

1004
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,719
Speaker 4: is right over the river from Philly. So he's given

1005
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 4: me a tour of the Sixers training facility and he's

1006
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 4: showing me a room and he was like, you know,

1007
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 4: this is our room for gamers. He was like, so

1008
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:56,360
Speaker 4: every NBA team they have a team of gamers that plays.

1009
00:50:56,560 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 4: I think it's a two K competition. He was like,

1010
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 4: you know, around March, we get a bunch of gamers

1011
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 4: and they come and he was like it's like training camp,

1012
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 4: Like they come in all day and they train in

1013
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 4: the morning and then like they take a lunch break

1014
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 4: and then they do different skill work. And he was

1015
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 4: explaining it to me, and there was a whole boardroom

1016
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 4: that was dedicated to the gamers for like eight weeks

1017
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 4: out the year because I guess the NBA has their

1018
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 4: own tournament. I didn't even know that, but the NBA

1019
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:25,320
Speaker 4: has their own tournament.

1020
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, they just ran their tournament during Yeah. Yeah, well

1021
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 3: I think Devin Booker won.

1022
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 2: The two K tournament, right, No, but these were just

1023
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: random people.

1024
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,040
Speaker 3: The random people are doing one now, yeah, yeah.

1025
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 5: So the random people are like actual two K the

1026
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 5: best players in two K. So like what you were

1027
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 5: talking about before about like getting signing on on the

1028
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 5: bus like now these days, in twenty twenty, the NBA

1029
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 5: has actually partnered with NBA two K to create a

1030
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 5: professional NBA two K league where the Warriors, the Knicks,

1031
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 5: the Nets. Like I think, I think it's like almost

1032
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,800
Speaker 5: twenty teams now. They all draft pro two K players

1033
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 5: and they play five on five two K against each other.

1034
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 5: And we actually had our two K specialist who was

1035
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 5: working for players on he got drafted in the most

1036
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 5: recent draft. So now like one of our boys places

1037
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 5: for the Hornets as like a power forward in this

1038
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:21,399
Speaker 5: two K league.

1039
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 3: That's crazy. And I see him thrive shout shut out

1040
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 3: to day That's that's crazy.

1041
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 5: Man.

1042
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 3: Yea, those those five on fives are pretty intense. And

1043
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 3: in the event of live sports not being here right now,

1044
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 3: this is what ESPN is showing. They're showing the five

1045
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 3: on five two K games. I was sitting there watching

1046
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 3: the game and I'm like, Yo, this is crazy, Like

1047
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 3: you were, like, each individual makes their player into my

1048
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 3: player zone, right, and then as you get skills and attributes,

1049
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 3: that's how you get drafted. Is that Is that what

1050
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 3: you're saying that you boy did.

1051
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:54,359
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a there's like a specific mode in two

1052
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,919
Speaker 5: K where you eventually, uh you actually just I guess

1053
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 5: present yours as being willing to be drafted and there's

1054
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 5: a whole competition around it. And then like the top

1055
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 5: like I don't know, one hundred like go to a

1056
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 5: draft and they may not get drafted, kind of similar

1057
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 5: to the NBA. Yeah, I think my boy got drafted

1058
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 5: in like the first round, like the first fifteen picks

1059
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:16,319
Speaker 5: or something.

1060
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 2: It's pretty sad. Yeah, it's the whole it's a whole culture.

1061
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:21,480
Speaker 3: It's a whole coach of I gotta get back into it.

1062
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 3: I'm convinced who coaches man. It is.

1063
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:29,720
Speaker 6: The landscape for EST sports is crazy.

1064
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 5: Right now, and it's exciting. I mean, it's great for me,

1065
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 5: great for players. But kind of foresaw this happening back

1066
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 5: in twenty fourteen when we were hosting the events, and

1067
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 5: so it's crazy to see how fast the landscape has

1068
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 5: evolved since then.

1069
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 4: Sure, so all right, in the last segment, we're going

1070
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 4: to bring it home. We're going to talk about the

1071
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 4: VC process and then also the vision to expand going forward.

1072
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 4: So in this segment, we're going to talk about something

1073
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:59,320
Speaker 4: that we've covered before, but not from this angle. So

1074
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 4: if you're a lawyer listening to the podcast, you know

1075
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 4: that we've had John Henry. Shout out to John good guy,

1076
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 4: you know him, John Henry. Okay, he's a he's a

1077
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 4: superstar VC young Dominican out of New York.

1078
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 3: Don't get the Dominican.

1079
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:20,359
Speaker 4: Shout out to John Henry. Shout out to Kwame at

1080
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 4: Black Star Fund. They both are venture capitalists and they

1081
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 4: explained the process of venture capitalists from that side of

1082
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 4: the table. But they we haven't covered it from somebody

1083
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 4: that's actually been in the process of like receiving venture

1084
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:40,280
Speaker 4: capital money. So a few years ago, you guys raised

1085
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:43,839
Speaker 4: a few million dollars from a lot of big names.

1086
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:47,799
Speaker 4: You've talked about one to take to ceo what's what's

1087
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 4: the gentleman's name against Strauss Strauszungner and then also I

1088
00:54:53,239 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 4: believe the former Yahoo CEO uh Marissa mayor uh Meyer

1089
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 4: and then uh Marco Ventures, a lot of big names

1090
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 4: and then biggest name of the big name, the six

1091
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:13,720
Speaker 4: God himself or be Graham Drake.

1092
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 2: Drake is an investing in your company.

1093
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 4: So it's interesting because it's like, you know, a lot

1094
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 4: of entrepreneurs, you know, they they don't really they're not

1095
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 4: seasoned as far as like how Silicon Valley works or

1096
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 4: how to you know, go about asking for money or

1097
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,279
Speaker 4: what's the process to even audition for these type of

1098
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 4: you know, the venture capital Yeah, exactly, So.

1099
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 2: Can you walk them through that a little bit? Like

1100
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 2: what what what was?

1101
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:39,320
Speaker 5: What was you?

1102
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:41,279
Speaker 4: You guys you kind of explained the first one as

1103
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 4: far as with the take two that was like just

1104
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 4: the in person rundown, but as far as like the

1105
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:50,800
Speaker 4: other kid, the moment the other venture capital money that

1106
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 4: you've received, how'd you go about doing that?

1107
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:53,320
Speaker 2: Like, what's the process?

1108
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's definitely multiple steps to this process. And so

1109
00:55:59,719 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 5: for us, the first step was just trying to raise

1110
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 5: any money to let us do us let us do

1111
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 5: this full time, because one thing that I really want

1112
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 5: to advocate is like, if you have a product and

1113
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 5: idea that you believe in and you have some proof

1114
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 5: of concept there, you've got to dive in full time

1115
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 5: because the just balancing like your regular life. I know

1116
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:22,800
Speaker 5: it's not the easiest thing to do for everyone, but

1117
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 5: I'd highly recommend trying to figure out how.

1118
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 6: To do it full time or invest more hours into it.

1119
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 5: And so we really were trying to like extend our

1120
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:35,399
Speaker 5: runway to do players on the first time full time.

1121
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 5: And so the first investment we got was actually from

1122
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 5: another member of our Wesleyan soccer team, Mark Murphy, and

1123
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 5: he was at Goldman and we just told him about it.

1124
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 6: He was like, Yo, it's really dope, Like I think

1125
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 6: I believe in this, and just gave us twenty grand.

1126
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:53,840
Speaker 6: With that twenty grand, I quit my job and so

1127
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 6: at that point Zach and I were doing it full time.

1128
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 6: And then from then on.

1129
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 5: That was that was in May of twenty fifteen, and

1130
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 5: then from then on, we're trying to like extend this

1131
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:08,399
Speaker 5: twenty grand as long as we can, and we're trying

1132
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:10,279
Speaker 5: to raise from family and friends. Like, look, we got

1133
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 5: this idea, like we're going to build a digital product

1134
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 5: of this event company, and.

1135
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 6: It wasn't really working, Like we weren't raising.

1136
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 5: Money from brimily and friends just off the deck, and

1137
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 5: so we had to like really figure.

1138
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 6: Out how we were going to build.

1139
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 5: The first version of the MVP to be a proof

1140
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 5: of concept in order to raise some more money. And

1141
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 5: so that's when Strauss came in and we were able

1142
00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 5: to convince Strauss to invest. We took that money and

1143
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 5: we hired our cTTO Dan, and then we built the

1144
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 5: MVP and we.

1145
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 6: Launched the MVP of Players launch in February twenty sixteen.

1146
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:52,840
Speaker 5: And so for the next year and a half, we're sweating,

1147
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:55,959
Speaker 5: we're killing ourselves to try to raise some more money

1148
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 5: to not only pay our rents, but also like invest

1149
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 5: more in the big business so be able to test

1150
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 5: marketing strategies and hire people for customer service, because we

1151
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 5: have customers, but we aren't able to focus on like

1152
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 5: growing other parts of the business that we have to

1153
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,920
Speaker 5: spend twenty four to seven handling customer service.

1154
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 6: So we really had to like invest in the company.

1155
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 6: And after we launched the MVP, we were able to

1156
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 6: raise some angel checks here and there.

1157
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 5: And so I would recommend if you're at this point,

1158
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 5: reach out to your friends and family and other relevant

1159
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:33,439
Speaker 5: people who are investing in you as a person more

1160
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:36,360
Speaker 5: so than the business or the products or the idea,

1161
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 5: because off the strength of you as a person, hopefully

1162
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 5: have enough social capital. Then like if you have at

1163
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 5: least something tangible and a vision and like a business plan,

1164
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:50,959
Speaker 5: hopefully you'll be able to convince some friends and family

1165
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:52,840
Speaker 5: to cut you with one K check, two K check,

1166
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:55,760
Speaker 5: three check, three K, five k. And we were just

1167
00:58:55,960 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 5: every month just getting those checks in the door in

1168
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 5: order to pay our rent because we weren't going to

1169
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 5: go back to getting a job. We had to continue

1170
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 5: doing this full time, so that was really difficult, and

1171
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:09,800
Speaker 5: we were trying to get like the larger checks in

1172
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 5: the door, like the one hundred K two hundred and

1173
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 5: three hundred and I must have met with this one

1174
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 5: specific investor like fifteen times with different materials, different reports,

1175
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 5: different reviews of our CAC to LDV ratio and like

1176
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:27,920
Speaker 5: all this stuff and just wasn't willing to pull the trigger.

1177
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:35,480
Speaker 5: And so fast forward to around summer of twenty seventeen,

1178
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 5: we finally got a group that invests in sports teams too.

1179
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna say which teams can make give away

1180
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:47,800
Speaker 5: the people, but their NBA teams and English Premier League

1181
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 5: teams and MLS teams to give us a term sheet

1182
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 5: and it was for a million dollars for twenty percent

1183
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 5: of the company.

1184
00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:58,439
Speaker 6: And that's an okay deal.

1185
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 5: But at that point we're like, we have to take

1186
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 5: this money because like we've been so distracted raising money,

1187
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 5: trying to raise money, we haven't been able to invest like.

1188
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 6: The majority of our time and like actually grow in

1189
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 6: the business.

1190
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 5: And so we have this term sheet and right around

1191
01:00:13,560 --> 01:00:17,880
Speaker 5: this time, Why Combinator has office hours around the country,

1192
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 5: and what that means is that they have the partners

1193
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 5: and even the CEO of hy Combinator travel around major

1194
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:28,400
Speaker 5: cities and provide office hours so entrepreneurs can come in

1195
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 5: and just talk to them, tell them about their business,

1196
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 5: and then they can learn more about why Combinator and

1197
01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 5: so what is.

1198
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 2: Okay?

1199
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1200
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 2: What is so that?

1201
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:39,920
Speaker 3: It's like a workspace for people to come in, like

1202
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 3: creatives to come in and pitch ideas, Like what is that?

1203
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 5: So why Combinator is the most prestigious accelerated program in

1204
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 5: the world an accelerator program for startups in the startup

1205
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 5: since is like they put you through like a quote

1206
01:00:53,680 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 5: unquote boot camp for like three to six months, depending

1207
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:59,880
Speaker 5: on the type of program, and you basically learn as

1208
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 5: much as you can during this time and id eate

1209
01:01:03,320 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 5: your idea, maybe pivot if necessary during this time, and

1210
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 5: then at the end you have a quote unquote demo day,

1211
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,720
Speaker 5: which is you getting on stage in front of thousands

1212
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 5: of investors and pitching your product with the hope to

1213
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 5: raise money afterwards.

1214
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 6: And so Y Commentator is.

1215
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 5: By far the most prestigious. And it's actually harder to

1216
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 5: get into Y Comminator than it is to get into

1217
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 5: Harvard and Harvard Business School. I think it's twice Like

1218
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:32,720
Speaker 5: if you go out the numbers, it's twice as hard

1219
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 5: to get into Y Comedy and.

1220
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 2: You apply, like you apply like online, like it's like

1221
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:37,880
Speaker 2: a school.

1222
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:41,280
Speaker 5: Like you like apply for Yeah, So how it works

1223
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 5: is I'll actually just continue the story, so I'll explain it.

1224
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,040
Speaker 5: We'll get into that, and so, uh, we end up

1225
01:01:47,080 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 5: going out office hours with Michael Sibel, who's the CEO

1226
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 5: of Y Comminator, and he's like, he's like a Silicon

1227
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 5: Valley legend. Him and his team were the co founders

1228
01:01:56,600 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 5: of Twitch and also previously Justin TV if you remember that,

1229
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 5: but Justin TV became Twitch and Twitch sold to Amazon

1230
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 5: for a billion dollars and now he's the CEO of

1231
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 5: Y Combinator. And so we met with Michael in New

1232
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 5: York while we have this term sheheit on the table

1233
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 5: and we tell him about the business.

1234
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 6: We tell him that we're generating money.

1235
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:21,919
Speaker 5: At that time, I think we were making like seven

1236
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 5: thousand dollars in revenue a month. And we told him

1237
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:30,479
Speaker 5: that we've been busting our ass trying to raise money

1238
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 5: and it wasn't really going well. But now we finally

1239
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 5: have this term sheet, but it's not the best deal.

1240
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 5: And he's like, look, I'm gonna hie, I'm gonna give

1241
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 5: you guys some advice. And Michael's a really cool dude,

1242
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 5: and he's very matter of fact.

1243
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 6: And straight to the point.

1244
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 5: He's like, you should not take that deal. I don't

1245
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 5: care if it's for a million dollars. You should apply

1246
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:51,440
Speaker 5: to y Combinator. You're generating revenue, so there's a good

1247
01:02:51,520 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 5: chance you get in. I can't promise you get in

1248
01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 5: because it's very difficult, but you have a good idea

1249
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 5: in a space that is booming. I highly recommend you apply.

1250
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 5: The application deadline is tomorrow, so you better get on it.

1251
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 5: So we're like, we gotta try it. Why not? So

1252
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:12,480
Speaker 5: we apply and the application process is like an online

1253
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 5: The initial application is online. It's a bunch of questions

1254
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:21,200
Speaker 5: about your business, about the market, market opportunity, who your

1255
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 5: team is, why your team should be successful, and then

1256
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 5: you send like a little video, and then if you

1257
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 5: get over that hump, then they invite you to an

1258
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:36,840
Speaker 5: in person interview at the y Combinator campus in Mountain View.

1259
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 5: I think they've now moved to San Francisco proper, and

1260
01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:43,600
Speaker 5: so we didn't take the term sheet. We applied to

1261
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:47,520
Speaker 5: y Combinator, We flew out for the interview, we got

1262
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,680
Speaker 5: proof for an interview, We flew out a week before

1263
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 5: interview and booked a airbnb. So we invested, like, I

1264
01:03:55,240 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 5: don't know, a couple thousand dollars of funds that we

1265
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:02,400
Speaker 5: didn't really have for an airbnb a week before, and

1266
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 5: we just grinded and memorize all the questions that we

1267
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 5: thought that they were able to ask us, that we

1268
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:12,720
Speaker 5: thought that they were going to ask us, like hundreds,

1269
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 5: hundreds of questions. We memorized every single possible answer, and

1270
01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:18,960
Speaker 5: then we walked into the interview, which is like a

1271
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:22,000
Speaker 5: fifteen minute interview, and like, I'll be honest, I'm pretty.

1272
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 6: Sure I blacked out.

1273
01:04:22,720 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 5: I don't really remember what I said, but I knew

1274
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 5: I was able to answer whatever they asked because I

1275
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:33,200
Speaker 5: had to answer prepared like anything in the realm of

1276
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,360
Speaker 5: what they asked. I knew I had to answer prepared already.

1277
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:41,840
Speaker 5: And so we got into y Combinator and that was

1278
01:04:41,880 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 5: a life changing experience and that changed the total trajectory

1279
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,880
Speaker 5: of Player's lounge. We wouldn't be where we are today

1280
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:50,120
Speaker 5: if it wasn't for Y Combinator.

1281
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 2: So through through that, what's it called why Combinator, Yeah, Ye,

1282
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 2: why Comminator, Okay, And that's the they have a website,

1283
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 2: common dot com.

1284
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, And just to like really put in a perspective,

1285
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 5: like I guess the prestige of it and how good

1286
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:12,280
Speaker 5: they are at finding businesses and also supporting their companies

1287
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 5: that they invest in. So when you get approved of

1288
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,120
Speaker 5: why commenty, they invest in you, they invest seven percent.

1289
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:19,320
Speaker 5: They invest like one hundred fifty thousand per seven percent

1290
01:05:19,360 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 5: of your business and then you're a part of the

1291
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 5: White ce network for life. And so some of the

1292
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 5: companies that have come in why common. There have been.

1293
01:05:29,400 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 6: Airbnb, Twitch, Coinbase, Dropbox, Reddit benefits.

1294
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:41,640
Speaker 5: I'm missing a really really big one player's lounge. True,

1295
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:47,200
Speaker 5: I appreciate you, but yeah, like the gravity of these

1296
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 5: companies companies are like crazy, and they have seven percent

1297
01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 5: of all those companies that are all worth like north

1298
01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:56,439
Speaker 5: of fifty billion dollars.

1299
01:05:56,480 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 3: At this point in my mind, I'm thinking, like this

1300
01:05:58,680 --> 01:06:00,680
Speaker 3: is like the ultimate shar tank right now, Like when

1301
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 3: you guys walked in, you made this pitch. So they

1302
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:05,400
Speaker 3: take seven percent to give you one hundred and fifty.

1303
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:09,760
Speaker 3: But do they also find more investors or what happens

1304
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 3: next next?

1305
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,320
Speaker 5: That's how why come an era end? So for the

1306
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:15,160
Speaker 5: first for the three months that you're there, like we

1307
01:06:15,280 --> 01:06:20,680
Speaker 5: flew out to the Bay and we stayed in like

1308
01:06:20,720 --> 01:06:25,280
Speaker 5: East Palo Alto, and it's like a it's like a program,

1309
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:28,000
Speaker 5: and so a couple of times a week you go

1310
01:06:28,160 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 5: to the campus and you learn. They teach you vital

1311
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,320
Speaker 5: information about startups, how to grow your business, how to market,

1312
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:38,040
Speaker 5: what you should be prioritizing, how to build a team,

1313
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 5: how to manage a team, uh, everything that's relevant. And

1314
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:44,760
Speaker 5: they also bring in former why See graduates.

1315
01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:46,320
Speaker 6: So when I was there, like.

1316
01:06:46,800 --> 01:06:49,320
Speaker 5: The founders of Reddit came to talk, the founders of

1317
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:54,280
Speaker 5: Airbnb came to talk. So you're getting some really crazy

1318
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 5: insightful information during this period, but ninety percent of the

1319
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 5: time you're working. And so when you're not like doing

1320
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:05,440
Speaker 5: these like two three hour campus events, you're working on

1321
01:07:05,520 --> 01:07:08,560
Speaker 5: your company. Because you're not working on your company, nothing's moving.

1322
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:10,560
Speaker 5: And they know that. They're really smart about that. So

1323
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:14,480
Speaker 5: the misconception behind why Combinator is that like they handhold.

1324
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 6: You and build your business for you.

1325
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 5: No, they just give you the information the tools to

1326
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 5: do so. But then you got to put in the

1327
01:07:20,240 --> 01:07:23,959
Speaker 5: work yourself. So we were working like actual fourteen hour days,

1328
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:29,959
Speaker 5: like waking up, go right to our computers, work, take calls, eat,

1329
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 5: go to the gym, work, take calls, eat dinner, work

1330
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:38,160
Speaker 5: till midnight. Go to bed, do the whole thing again

1331
01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 5: for three months straight and then at the end is

1332
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:43,160
Speaker 5: where you get your reward, hopefully, which.

1333
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 6: Is demo Day. And so Demo Day is probably the biggest.

1334
01:07:49,160 --> 01:07:52,360
Speaker 5: Feeding fest, I guess for investors because y Combinator has

1335
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 5: such a great track record in investing that all the

1336
01:07:56,280 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 5: best investors come out for Demo Day because they already

1337
01:07:58,760 --> 01:08:01,240
Speaker 5: know that if it's vetted by why Comminator, then it's

1338
01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 5: probably gonna be a good company. And so I got

1339
01:08:05,240 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 5: on the Demo Day stage and there were thousands of

1340
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:12,240
Speaker 5: investors in the crowd, and some really big people were there.

1341
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:15,160
Speaker 6: There was like NFL players there who come and invest there.

1342
01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:19,479
Speaker 5: Mersa Meyer was there, the former CEO of Yahoo, and

1343
01:08:19,640 --> 01:08:21,479
Speaker 5: so yeah, I had to get on stage and just

1344
01:08:21,560 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 5: pitch players lounge for two minutes with the hope that

1345
01:08:24,920 --> 01:08:27,519
Speaker 5: afterwards we'll get some money in the door and I

1346
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 5: don't have to worry about fundraising anymore.

1347
01:08:30,240 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 3: I'm in my mind, I'm listening, I'm hearing lose yourself.

1348
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:36,880
Speaker 3: If that's what's playing in my mind, I'm visiting you

1349
01:08:37,080 --> 01:08:40,360
Speaker 3: right now, like this is your moment. You better not

1350
01:08:40,479 --> 01:08:40,800
Speaker 3: blow this.

1351
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:44,479
Speaker 5: More of a drake fan, I gotta definitely shut out

1352
01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:45,960
Speaker 5: more of a Drake fan. I was listening to a

1353
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 5: lot of Drake at that time. But and then I

1354
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:52,600
Speaker 5: guess that came to fruition to some.

1355
01:08:52,760 --> 01:08:55,200
Speaker 3: Extent, you thought it into existence.

1356
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:56,200
Speaker 5: It is.

1357
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 3: The power of the mind is not a joke, no.

1358
01:08:57,960 --> 01:08:58,800
Speaker 2: I mean, but that's that's it.

1359
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:00,920
Speaker 4: This is an interesting conversation because it's like a lot

1360
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:03,200
Speaker 4: of times, like even what we talked about Mike Brown before,

1361
01:09:03,320 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 4: but he put us on to Draper University, which I'm

1362
01:09:07,479 --> 01:09:09,799
Speaker 4: sure you're familiar with that, and so what you're explaining

1363
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:13,240
Speaker 4: it sounds like it's like a boot camp for tech entrepreneurs, right,

1364
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:15,760
Speaker 4: And it's like a lot of times. And that's one

1365
01:09:15,760 --> 01:09:17,280
Speaker 4: of the great things with Earn your Leisure is that

1366
01:09:17,400 --> 01:09:20,640
Speaker 4: it provides exposure to people that have been left out

1367
01:09:20,720 --> 01:09:22,320
Speaker 4: for a very long period of time. And it's like

1368
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:23,680
Speaker 4: a lot of times you don't even know what you

1369
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:26,679
Speaker 4: don't know. And you know, I'm not in the tech field,

1370
01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:28,439
Speaker 4: but you know, I'm in business. I've been in business

1371
01:09:28,479 --> 01:09:29,960
Speaker 4: for a long time and I wasn't aware of this,

1372
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:32,400
Speaker 4: and it sounds like it's an extremely big thing, and

1373
01:09:32,520 --> 01:09:34,680
Speaker 4: it's like it's so many different things, like this that

1374
01:09:35,720 --> 01:09:37,680
Speaker 4: people don't even have any idea of, like you know,

1375
01:09:38,040 --> 01:09:40,880
Speaker 4: aspiring entrepreneurs and stuff like that. Like you never know

1376
01:09:41,160 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 4: what some information could do, Like somebody might hear this podcast,

1377
01:09:44,800 --> 01:09:47,639
Speaker 4: might apply to it might get accepted, it might become

1378
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:49,960
Speaker 4: the next Airbnb. They you never know, like you know,

1379
01:09:50,120 --> 01:09:52,320
Speaker 4: it's like the power of information is extremely powerful.

1380
01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:54,400
Speaker 3: When I saw the word why combinated, I was like,

1381
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 3: what is that? It was mentioned in a couple of writings.

1382
01:09:57,040 --> 01:09:58,920
Speaker 3: I'm just like, yo, what is that? And now you

1383
01:09:59,120 --> 01:10:02,479
Speaker 3: just open the door to thousands and millions of its

1384
01:10:02,560 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 3: man to what it actually is. So kudos to you

1385
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:06,439
Speaker 3: man to open an the door for us.

1386
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm It's definitely my pleasure.

1387
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:10,800
Speaker 5: And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to

1388
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 5: get on the show is because I learned so much

1389
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:16,680
Speaker 5: in a similar fashion, just like absorbing content and like

1390
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:19,840
Speaker 5: figuring out what is what and like you don't know,

1391
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:23,120
Speaker 5: we don't know, as you said, Ford, and like I

1392
01:10:23,200 --> 01:10:25,920
Speaker 5: didn't know about why commentator, Like I only found out

1393
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:27,479
Speaker 5: about it through like a friend.

1394
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 6: And then like when I said, when I told them

1395
01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:34,639
Speaker 6: we got in, they were like, or we got an interview,

1396
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:35,880
Speaker 6: They were like, what are you crazy?

1397
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:39,880
Speaker 5: Like you just that's like a very small percentile of

1398
01:10:39,880 --> 01:10:42,320
Speaker 5: people even get an interview, And I barely knew what

1399
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:45,720
Speaker 5: it was at the time, and so when we got

1400
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:47,479
Speaker 5: in the interview, like I look more into.

1401
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:48,720
Speaker 6: It, I was like, wow, like this is a really

1402
01:10:48,760 --> 01:10:49,160
Speaker 6: big deal.

1403
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:52,680
Speaker 5: And that's why we invested in the house before to

1404
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:55,799
Speaker 5: really study and make sure that we crushed the interview,

1405
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:59,680
Speaker 5: because this is it was a life changing event for

1406
01:11:00,280 --> 01:11:04,840
Speaker 5: myself and my team. And even if players doesn't really

1407
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:10,320
Speaker 5: pan out, which that's not gonna happen, but the network

1408
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:12,439
Speaker 5: that you get from Y Commentator allows you to just

1409
01:11:12,600 --> 01:11:14,400
Speaker 5: like it's like a fraternity, it's like a tech attorney.

1410
01:11:14,479 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 6: So like if I needed if I.

1411
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:19,400
Speaker 5: Wanted to partner with Twitch, I can just go right

1412
01:11:19,439 --> 01:11:22,880
Speaker 5: to the top because it's a Y Combinator company. If

1413
01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:25,839
Speaker 5: I wanted to talk to like the CEO of Airbnb

1414
01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:31,200
Speaker 5: and put like PlayStations and certain airbnbs, I can hit

1415
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:37,080
Speaker 5: up founders of Airbnb because of Y Combinator. So it's

1416
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:39,680
Speaker 5: a very very very incredible.

1417
01:11:40,760 --> 01:11:41,040
Speaker 6: Tool.

1418
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:45,040
Speaker 5: And for sure, like the knowledge, even even spreading the

1419
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:47,479
Speaker 5: knowledge that it exists can be very helpful to people.

1420
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:49,439
Speaker 2: Yeah I didn't not for sure, I didn't know either.

1421
01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 4: And so all right, so now that that makes sense,

1422
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:55,559
Speaker 4: where you get all the these venture capital that come

1423
01:11:55,640 --> 01:11:57,080
Speaker 4: from that, right?

1424
01:11:57,560 --> 01:12:01,000
Speaker 5: Yes, So after demo day, they set up basically a

1425
01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:07,040
Speaker 5: kind of like a speed dating type situation with investors,

1426
01:12:07,520 --> 01:12:10,200
Speaker 5: and so they built tech to basically for investors in

1427
01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:12,599
Speaker 5: the crowds that be on their phones and be like, okay,

1428
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:15,280
Speaker 5: Players Lounge just went I liked them. I see that

1429
01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:18,799
Speaker 5: they liked Players Lounge, and then we set up meetings

1430
01:12:18,880 --> 01:12:22,920
Speaker 5: in this like speed dating environment. And so the majority

1431
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 5: of our vcs came from that experience, but the biggest

1432
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:34,400
Speaker 5: ones came from like relationships beforehand. And so there's actually

1433
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:40,040
Speaker 5: an email mailing list called Stealth Mode, which is basically

1434
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:43,920
Speaker 5: like a network for black entrepreneurs, are minority entrepreneurs in tech,

1435
01:12:45,439 --> 01:12:50,799
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs in tech, and also like relevant business skill sets.

1436
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:55,800
Speaker 5: And so one of my friends actually added me to

1437
01:12:55,920 --> 01:12:59,040
Speaker 5: the group and did a shout out like thank you

1438
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:06,400
Speaker 5: for sorry, not thank you, congratulations. Yeah, congratulations to Austin

1439
01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:09,960
Speaker 5: and Players Lounge for getting into y Combinator. And then

1440
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:15,200
Speaker 5: immediately a VC at Comcast Adventures.

1441
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:18,680
Speaker 6: Kai Bond hit me up and was like, yo, I

1442
01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:21,160
Speaker 6: have a fund that I focus on.

1443
01:13:21,320 --> 01:13:27,880
Speaker 5: Minority investments under Comcast. I'm also a Wesleyan grad and

1444
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:30,720
Speaker 5: so I know it doesn't make sense for you to

1445
01:13:30,800 --> 01:13:33,960
Speaker 5: raise right now because your evaluation is gonna skyrocket after

1446
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:34,800
Speaker 5: a y combinator.

1447
01:13:35,280 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 6: But once it's time for you to raise, like hit

1448
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:38,120
Speaker 6: me up and I got you.

1449
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:39,840
Speaker 5: I'm gonna cut the check. I'm gonna cut the biggest

1450
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:40,800
Speaker 5: check immediately.

1451
01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:44,240
Speaker 6: And so he was a man of his word.

1452
01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:46,840
Speaker 5: I love Kai Bond and Kai Bond of Comcast, which

1453
01:13:46,920 --> 01:13:50,880
Speaker 5: he's now actually courtside A Ventures. Yeah, he cut the

1454
01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 5: biggest check in our round. And he did it before

1455
01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:56,439
Speaker 5: I even got on the demo day stage. I was

1456
01:13:56,520 --> 01:13:59,240
Speaker 5: just like, yeah, I'm raised. I'm going on demo demo

1457
01:13:59,320 --> 01:14:01,479
Speaker 5: days a week from now. He's like, cool, I'm gonna

1458
01:14:01,479 --> 01:14:04,559
Speaker 5: get this check cut before and he invested six hundred

1459
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:07,519
Speaker 5: thousand dollars pretty quickly.

1460
01:14:07,880 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 2: How does Drake, How does Drake get involved?

1461
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:12,760
Speaker 6: It's a great story.

1462
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:16,760
Speaker 5: Actually, So I was a music producer, full time music

1463
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:21,439
Speaker 5: producer before starting Player's launch. So I was just like

1464
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:23,240
Speaker 5: straight up making rap beats every day.

1465
01:14:23,720 --> 01:14:24,760
Speaker 3: What's your producer name?

1466
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:27,360
Speaker 5: What was it? It was me and and my homie

1467
01:14:27,400 --> 01:14:31,200
Speaker 5: Brandon from UH from our hometown and our produced name

1468
01:14:31,240 --> 01:14:32,920
Speaker 5: was the Arsenal's okay.

1469
01:14:34,800 --> 01:14:35,479
Speaker 6: Some of our stuff.

1470
01:14:35,520 --> 01:14:39,160
Speaker 5: Actually we were on French montananis first album. Excuse my French.

1471
01:14:40,760 --> 01:14:43,920
Speaker 5: We did Life is so exciting for Fabulous, we put

1472
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:46,920
Speaker 5: your tea on it. We did a bunch of stuff

1473
01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:52,400
Speaker 5: for kid Inc. Early on early on kid Inc. So yeah,

1474
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 5: I mean like that was my life and so obviously

1475
01:14:55,200 --> 01:14:59,200
Speaker 5: I had contacts in the space. And so when I

1476
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:04,120
Speaker 5: was before I went to y Comminator. My manager at

1477
01:15:04,160 --> 01:15:08,960
Speaker 5: the time his name is also Austin, hit me up

1478
01:15:09,400 --> 01:15:12,320
Speaker 5: and was like, yo, I thought was gonna be like,

1479
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:15,880
Speaker 5: where are the beats. I haven't gotten beats in a month.

1480
01:15:16,680 --> 01:15:18,439
Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, yeah, I've been starting this

1481
01:15:18,520 --> 01:15:21,080
Speaker 5: company called Player's Lounge. And he's like, oh, we're like,

1482
01:15:21,280 --> 01:15:23,720
Speaker 5: come through to my spot and tell me about it.

1483
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:26,920
Speaker 5: And so tell him all about it, and he's like

1484
01:15:27,120 --> 01:15:30,679
Speaker 5: very very connected. Obviously he actually manages like post Malone

1485
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:35,240
Speaker 5: now and some really big people, and so he's like, Yo,

1486
01:15:35,320 --> 01:15:37,200
Speaker 5: this is really dope, Like I want to invest. I

1487
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:39,360
Speaker 5: want to tell a bunch of my friends to invest

1488
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 5: as well. So he connected me with a dude named

1489
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 5: Sam should Treat and of should Treat Ventures, and so

1490
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:51,840
Speaker 5: he's cool with Future of the Prince, which is who's

1491
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:56,759
Speaker 5: Drake's manager, and so she treat Ventures invested in Players

1492
01:15:56,840 --> 01:15:58,680
Speaker 5: Lungs right when we got into Y Combinator.

1493
01:16:00,080 --> 01:16:03,599
Speaker 6: I was like the first like major investment we got

1494
01:16:04,439 --> 01:16:04,960
Speaker 6: at the time.

1495
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:10,760
Speaker 5: And when Drake got on Fortnite with Ninja, he like

1496
01:16:10,880 --> 01:16:15,599
Speaker 5: broke the Internet, and I think, like the conversation happened.

1497
01:16:15,600 --> 01:16:17,080
Speaker 6: At some point we're like, all right, we got.

1498
01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:19,639
Speaker 5: To invest in esports. And then so the next time

1499
01:16:21,479 --> 01:16:23,640
Speaker 5: should Treat met with Feature of the Prince. He's like, yo,

1500
01:16:23,720 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 5: I just invested in this esports company called Players Lounge,

1501
01:16:28,240 --> 01:16:31,360
Speaker 5: and he connected me with the Future and so I

1502
01:16:31,439 --> 01:16:33,519
Speaker 5: talked to Future on the phone while I was at

1503
01:16:33,640 --> 01:16:37,240
Speaker 5: Y Combinator and he was like love it, like we

1504
01:16:37,360 --> 01:16:40,960
Speaker 5: want in Like that's that's news, that's a that's news.

1505
01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:44,799
Speaker 5: That's great news to me. Like I mean, Drake invested

1506
01:16:44,800 --> 01:16:48,000
Speaker 5: in Players Lounge, Like am I dreaming or what's up?

1507
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:52,599
Speaker 5: And he was like all right, bet, Like we're gonna

1508
01:16:52,640 --> 01:16:58,320
Speaker 5: be in touch. Eight months later, goes by, I haven't

1509
01:16:58,360 --> 01:17:01,439
Speaker 5: heard from him and and we're just fine, and then

1510
01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:04,200
Speaker 5: reached out to him and then we ended up meeting

1511
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:05,800
Speaker 5: in La, so I met him in person. We sat

1512
01:17:05,880 --> 01:17:08,960
Speaker 5: down and it was really funny. We met for forty

1513
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:12,200
Speaker 5: five minutes, and he was on the phone for like

1514
01:17:12,400 --> 01:17:13,840
Speaker 5: forty two of those minutes.

1515
01:17:14,880 --> 01:17:16,679
Speaker 2: Go ahead, talk, I'm listening on the phone.

1516
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:20,000
Speaker 4: Why, like like like you're talking to him while he's

1517
01:17:20,040 --> 01:17:21,000
Speaker 4: talking to somebody else.

1518
01:17:21,360 --> 01:17:26,240
Speaker 6: Yeah, up and take a bunch of calls.

1519
01:17:26,320 --> 01:17:30,800
Speaker 5: Like we're talking about like literally the most desired entertainer

1520
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 5: in the world. And I'm just watching firsthand, like how

1521
01:17:34,520 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 5: busy it must be to manage that person. But he

1522
01:17:38,080 --> 01:17:40,280
Speaker 5: seems to be doing an incredible job to the Prince.

1523
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:45,160
Speaker 5: And then it's like, cool, we still want to invest,

1524
01:17:45,560 --> 01:17:48,840
Speaker 5: like drop the paperwork. So it's moved forward a little bit.

1525
01:17:49,200 --> 01:17:51,000
Speaker 5: So we dropped the paperwork. He puts me in touch

1526
01:17:51,040 --> 01:17:54,680
Speaker 5: with like the business team and stuff like that. So

1527
01:17:55,320 --> 01:17:59,160
Speaker 5: paperwork's there and it's just sitting there and sitting there

1528
01:18:00,120 --> 01:18:02,880
Speaker 5: in there, I'm like, all right, cool, no rush, no rush,

1529
01:18:03,040 --> 01:18:04,880
Speaker 5: understand it's like the busiest guy in the world.

1530
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:06,280
Speaker 4: And then.

1531
01:18:07,760 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 6: This is like August August twenty twenty eighteen. August twenty eighteen.

1532
01:18:18,160 --> 01:18:21,879
Speaker 5: Yeah, so he's on tour and my first manager, Anthony,

1533
01:18:22,080 --> 01:18:24,320
Speaker 5: like my day one from from Jersey.

1534
01:18:24,040 --> 01:18:28,200
Speaker 6: Who like manages the arsenals. He was like, Yo, I'm

1535
01:18:28,200 --> 01:18:29,720
Speaker 6: going to Drake show. You want to come with me?

1536
01:18:29,880 --> 01:18:31,320
Speaker 5: And it was my birthday, so I'm like, yeah, thank you.

1537
01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:34,920
Speaker 5: That's a great birthday gift. And it's an MSG and

1538
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:40,120
Speaker 5: we are in a crazy VIP section. I'm like, I've

1539
01:18:40,160 --> 01:18:41,760
Speaker 5: never I've been I've been in music for a little while,

1540
01:18:41,760 --> 01:18:43,479
Speaker 5: but I've never been like put on like this and

1541
01:18:43,640 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 5: like showing Travis Scott, Mike Tyson's there, Drake's dad is there,

1542
01:18:47,360 --> 01:18:50,840
Speaker 5: DeMarcus Cousins, Damian Lillard, like Smoke Purp.

1543
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:54,560
Speaker 6: We're all just like in this section Kylie Jenner like

1544
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:56,840
Speaker 6: this section MSG. And then we end up going to

1545
01:18:56,920 --> 01:18:59,280
Speaker 6: the after party, like the private after party.

1546
01:18:59,520 --> 01:18:59,800
Speaker 5: And so.

1547
01:19:01,760 --> 01:19:02,160
Speaker 6: I'm there.

1548
01:19:02,400 --> 01:19:04,320
Speaker 5: I didn't even know we were going there, so I'm

1549
01:19:04,360 --> 01:19:07,120
Speaker 5: like dressing in shorts and shit, look like weird.

1550
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:09,200
Speaker 6: I look like a nerd.

1551
01:19:10,760 --> 01:19:13,600
Speaker 5: And end up just going to this after party and

1552
01:19:14,240 --> 01:19:16,439
Speaker 5: I'm coming out of the bathroom. It's a private after party,

1553
01:19:16,479 --> 01:19:19,040
Speaker 5: like Drake's just there just mingling, like security's not even

1554
01:19:19,080 --> 01:19:23,559
Speaker 5: really on him, and so I'm not pressing or anything,

1555
01:19:24,080 --> 01:19:26,680
Speaker 5: like I know that there's a deal like on the

1556
01:19:26,760 --> 01:19:28,960
Speaker 5: table and I'm not like I'm gonna go up to

1557
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:30,800
Speaker 5: it like Creatures of Priends or anything and say that

1558
01:19:30,920 --> 01:19:34,000
Speaker 5: like for the exact same reasons why we talked about before,

1559
01:19:34,160 --> 01:19:37,320
Speaker 5: like Strauss and so Creature just sees.

1560
01:19:37,160 --> 01:19:37,719
Speaker 6: Me at the party.

1561
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:39,640
Speaker 5: He didn't even invite me. He's like damn, like how

1562
01:19:39,680 --> 01:19:45,720
Speaker 5: did you get here? Like you know, yeah, but he

1563
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:47,920
Speaker 5: was just like, oh shit, like I'm glad you're here

1564
01:19:48,720 --> 01:19:51,240
Speaker 5: when you meet Drake, and so he just like brings

1565
01:19:51,320 --> 01:19:53,760
Speaker 5: me over and introduced me to Drake and he's just like, Yo, Drake,

1566
01:19:53,840 --> 01:19:56,519
Speaker 5: this is Austin. He's the founder of Players Lines that

1567
01:19:56,960 --> 01:19:59,160
Speaker 5: I was telling you about, and we're gonna invest in

1568
01:19:59,240 --> 01:20:01,240
Speaker 5: this company. So I just wanted you guys to meet

1569
01:20:01,760 --> 01:20:04,560
Speaker 5: and I just dab up Drake and like we just

1570
01:20:04,600 --> 01:20:06,680
Speaker 5: say like something nice to meet you or something like that.

1571
01:20:06,720 --> 01:20:09,760
Speaker 6: I don't know, and yeah, that was that.

1572
01:20:10,160 --> 01:20:14,799
Speaker 5: And then then the paperwork got signed. So I realized

1573
01:20:14,800 --> 01:20:17,679
Speaker 5: if there was a moral to this story is that one.

1574
01:20:17,840 --> 01:20:21,200
Speaker 5: It's like doing face to face business is a really

1575
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:25,160
Speaker 5: big deal, especially when you're dealing with like people like Drake,

1576
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:28,240
Speaker 5: like really big celebrities who like people come to them

1577
01:20:28,280 --> 01:20:31,160
Speaker 5: with dealers all the time. Every day, Like still I

1578
01:20:31,200 --> 01:20:32,679
Speaker 5: get hit up every week, So yo.

1579
01:20:32,720 --> 01:20:35,080
Speaker 6: Can you hook me up with Drake invest in my company?

1580
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:40,000
Speaker 5: And like so I can't imagine how that's happening like

1581
01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:41,040
Speaker 5: outside of myself.

1582
01:20:41,240 --> 01:20:44,160
Speaker 6: And so what I really what I really got out

1583
01:20:44,160 --> 01:20:45,040
Speaker 6: of that is just like.

1584
01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:50,679
Speaker 5: Being cordial, like not pressing, like yo, like sign his paperwork,

1585
01:20:50,720 --> 01:20:53,360
Speaker 5: sign his paperwork, Like no, like you got to understand

1586
01:20:53,400 --> 01:20:55,759
Speaker 5: who it is, and like you're not in a rush,

1587
01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 5: like and you don't need the money. You also just

1588
01:20:58,560 --> 01:21:00,320
Speaker 5: raise a lot of money, so like why would you

1589
01:21:00,360 --> 01:21:03,560
Speaker 5: even be pressed. Let the let the let it happen organically,

1590
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:07,760
Speaker 5: let it evolve organically. That's exactly what happened. Just my

1591
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 5: two circles, my old circle, my music circle, and my

1592
01:21:10,840 --> 01:21:14,080
Speaker 5: new circle kind of combined to get this done together,

1593
01:21:15,120 --> 01:21:17,360
Speaker 5: which was a really cool experience looking looking back at it.

1594
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 4: A man, now, this is a pleasure. What's the what's

1595
01:21:23,439 --> 01:21:26,519
Speaker 4: the before we wrap this up? What's the scaling model? Like,

1596
01:21:26,600 --> 01:21:29,599
Speaker 4: what what's what's in the future for players lounge?

1597
01:21:32,360 --> 01:21:36,519
Speaker 5: So first we want to just make the product, uh

1598
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,439
Speaker 5: more social. So like remember I was saying, like the

1599
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:41,880
Speaker 5: DNA of the events, putting it into the into the app,

1600
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:45,479
Speaker 5: and like doing more of that, So like having a

1601
01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:48,720
Speaker 5: real platform where you can like follow people what you

1602
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:51,120
Speaker 5: can do now, but expanding upon that, like seeing what

1603
01:21:51,240 --> 01:21:53,680
Speaker 5: your friends are doing on players Lounge and making it

1604
01:21:53,760 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 5: a network for competitive e sports and so like we

1605
01:21:57,360 --> 01:21:59,720
Speaker 5: have celebrities on our platform. We have NBA players, we

1606
01:21:59,800 --> 01:22:02,960
Speaker 5: have LB players, and they have like verified check marks

1607
01:22:02,960 --> 01:22:06,439
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. So creating the environment similar to

1608
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:08,960
Speaker 5: like an Instagram or a Twitter where you can like

1609
01:22:09,320 --> 01:22:14,400
Speaker 5: CEO or favorite celebrities like play competitively, and then also

1610
01:22:14,600 --> 01:22:17,120
Speaker 5: like double down on that where you can like create

1611
01:22:17,160 --> 01:22:22,160
Speaker 5: your own esports team and compete for really big prize pools.

1612
01:22:22,720 --> 01:22:27,160
Speaker 5: And so like let's say you guys create the earn

1613
01:22:27,200 --> 01:22:30,639
Speaker 5: your leisure esports team on players Lounge and you sign

1614
01:22:30,760 --> 01:22:33,519
Speaker 5: like ten Madden players and ten NBA two K players.

1615
01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:38,920
Speaker 5: Then their performance on players Lounge will aggregate into being

1616
01:22:39,200 --> 01:22:41,439
Speaker 5: on the leader board with like a really big prize pool.

1617
01:22:42,080 --> 01:22:43,840
Speaker 5: And so you want to make it a lot more

1618
01:22:43,880 --> 01:22:46,040
Speaker 5: social and a lot more like team oriented, where like

1619
01:22:46,120 --> 01:22:49,000
Speaker 5: you nudge your friend like, hey, have you played on

1620
01:22:49,040 --> 01:22:51,519
Speaker 5: players Lounge this week? Because like our team is fit

1621
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:54,160
Speaker 5: on the leader board, we get up the third. That's

1622
01:22:54,160 --> 01:22:56,160
Speaker 5: another one hundred thousand dollars in our pocket.

1623
01:22:57,840 --> 01:23:01,840
Speaker 6: So that's the kind of like shorter term trajectory that

1624
01:23:01,920 --> 01:23:04,160
Speaker 6: we want to do, and.

1625
01:23:04,240 --> 01:23:07,519
Speaker 5: Then longer term I kind of I envisioned us being

1626
01:23:07,560 --> 01:23:10,439
Speaker 5: in like a Netflix situation where like we're so big,

1627
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:14,559
Speaker 5: the publishers may put wagering in their own games because

1628
01:23:14,560 --> 01:23:16,800
Speaker 5: we've proven that people are willing to do it, and

1629
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:19,880
Speaker 5: we're proven that, like there's a million dollar, hopefully billion

1630
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:22,519
Speaker 5: dollar business in this, so we may have to create

1631
01:23:22,520 --> 01:23:25,759
Speaker 5: our own video games with wagering in it, like Triple

1632
01:23:25,880 --> 01:23:28,920
Speaker 5: A quality video games, the same way that Netflix is

1633
01:23:28,960 --> 01:23:32,639
Speaker 5: making their own Triple A quality TV content to compete

1634
01:23:32,680 --> 01:23:33,839
Speaker 5: with the studios.

1635
01:23:36,040 --> 01:23:38,120
Speaker 3: How many people on the team? It's you and Zach

1636
01:23:38,160 --> 01:23:38,559
Speaker 3: and who else?

1637
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:41,400
Speaker 6: We are a decent sized team.

1638
01:23:41,479 --> 01:23:46,400
Speaker 5: Now we have like twenty full timers and then another

1639
01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:47,760
Speaker 5: like ten part time.

1640
01:23:49,320 --> 01:23:51,799
Speaker 2: But yeah, Zach and I have the co founders Austin.

1641
01:23:51,920 --> 01:23:56,040
Speaker 4: It's been a pleasure, Bro, I appreciate it. How can

1642
01:23:56,080 --> 01:23:59,639
Speaker 4: the people follow you contact you? What's the what social

1643
01:23:59,720 --> 01:24:00,559
Speaker 4: media handles?

1644
01:24:00,640 --> 01:24:02,080
Speaker 2: Website? All of that information?

1645
01:24:03,160 --> 01:24:09,719
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, on Twitter and Instagram's at world Dynasty spelled

1646
01:24:09,880 --> 01:24:13,439
Speaker 5: w O O L d Y and A S T Y.

1647
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:16,120
Speaker 5: It's easily confused as world Nasty.

1648
01:24:16,280 --> 01:24:21,160
Speaker 6: But I'll take you. I'm not even mad at that one.

1649
01:24:21,680 --> 01:24:23,360
Speaker 5: That might be a nice producer name, to be honest,

1650
01:24:23,400 --> 01:24:26,840
Speaker 5: But I make another beat and then the players lounge

1651
01:24:26,880 --> 01:24:31,120
Speaker 5: handles are at players lunge on Instagram and at underscore

1652
01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:34,519
Speaker 5: players on Twitter, and yeah, hit me up. I mean,

1653
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:39,439
Speaker 5: I'm very accessible and I really enjoy paying it forward

1654
01:24:39,479 --> 01:24:41,160
Speaker 5: because a lot of people were doing that for me.

1655
01:24:41,840 --> 01:24:45,479
Speaker 5: So if anyone listening wants to like learn more or

1656
01:24:45,560 --> 01:24:47,400
Speaker 5: like have a simple conversation.

1657
01:24:49,360 --> 01:24:52,280
Speaker 6: Yeah, just just let me know, and uh, I'll make

1658
01:24:52,320 --> 01:24:53,720
Speaker 6: sure I can. I can help you out.

1659
01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:55,920
Speaker 2: Appreciate that, bro Troy Housekeeping.

1660
01:24:56,200 --> 01:24:58,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, shout to everybody on patreon dot dot com. I'll

1661
01:24:58,760 --> 01:25:01,519
Speaker 3: probably pay program the five tiers there. You can any

1662
01:25:01,560 --> 01:25:02,120
Speaker 3: tale you like.

1663
01:25:02,360 --> 01:25:02,519
Speaker 5: You know.

1664
01:25:02,640 --> 01:25:06,240
Speaker 3: At four and five you get certain incentives such as

1665
01:25:06,360 --> 01:25:09,439
Speaker 3: eyl University, our online school that is the top business

1666
01:25:09,439 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 3: school in the world right now, and you also get

1667
01:25:12,120 --> 01:25:16,720
Speaker 3: access to our EYL you private Facebook real estate group

1668
01:25:16,760 --> 01:25:19,160
Speaker 3: which is growing at a rapid pace. Got a lot

1669
01:25:19,200 --> 01:25:22,439
Speaker 3: of incentives there, our book club, our weekly webinars, something

1670
01:25:22,479 --> 01:25:24,479
Speaker 3: that we do on YouTube live that have been calling crazy.

1671
01:25:24,520 --> 01:25:26,120
Speaker 3: A lot of information is being shared, So thank you

1672
01:25:26,200 --> 01:25:28,599
Speaker 3: everybody that's been tuning into that and all the earners

1673
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:30,920
Speaker 3: that's been tuning in and showing love. We appreciate it.

1674
01:25:31,320 --> 01:25:35,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, EYL University is amazing. It's an amazing platform. We

1675
01:25:35,800 --> 01:25:38,360
Speaker 4: bring people on like once a week to kind of teach,

1676
01:25:39,280 --> 01:25:41,320
Speaker 4: so like an extension of like sometimes people come on

1677
01:25:41,400 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 4: the podcast, but people have like more engaged questions and

1678
01:25:44,560 --> 01:25:45,839
Speaker 4: it's like a zoom interactive.

1679
01:25:45,840 --> 01:25:47,560
Speaker 2: It's really dope. So I maybe we can get you

1680
01:25:47,640 --> 01:25:50,000
Speaker 2: on there one time gaming class.

1681
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:51,080
Speaker 3: That'd be a file one A.

1682
01:25:51,320 --> 01:25:54,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, appreciate that. And aswers overliabilities.

1683
01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:57,080
Speaker 4: Is the merch earn your leasion dot com or you

1684
01:25:57,160 --> 01:26:00,800
Speaker 4: can purchase the merch, So yeah, make sure you check

1685
01:26:00,880 --> 01:26:03,080
Speaker 4: us out on you Alisia dot com. We gotta send

1686
01:26:03,120 --> 01:26:06,479
Speaker 4: you some merch also, and yeah, thank you guys for

1687
01:26:06,640 --> 01:26:09,360
Speaker 4: rocking with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

1688
01:26:09,360 --> 01:26:11,960
Speaker 4: If you're listening to YouTube, subscribe, like and comment all that.

1689
01:26:12,200 --> 01:26:14,479
Speaker 4: If you listen to it on Apple, Spotify through the same,

1690
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:18,320
Speaker 4: We greatly appreciate it. Tell a friend and tell a friend,

1691
01:26:18,760 --> 01:26:21,080
Speaker 4: and yes, uh, thank you guys, rock on us. We'll

1692
01:26:21,080 --> 01:26:21,680
Speaker 4: see you next week.

1693
01:26:21,760 --> 01:26:22,640
Speaker 2: Pease, please.

1694
01:26:24,080 --> 01:26:27,920
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1695
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