Conference Presentation, Fireside Chat
Desining from Day One: Artists as Founders: Multiverse (S20) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020
- Multiverse aims to transform tabletop RPGs into a visual, streaming-enabled online experience with integrated friend interaction.
- The company intends to build a dual-purpose marketplace for user-generated content while acting as the primary content creator initially.
- Founders anticipate that game development success requires a compelling, trusted point of view capable of reaching millions of users.
- Strategic decisions will be made on foundational elements without the ability to immediately test user reactions.
- The team will rely on members with strong intuition instincts to manage entertainment aspects and accommodate fast startup timelines with quick decision-making.
- Production goals include delivering compelling content immediately upon launch, utilizing illustrators to create affordable illustrations and trailers for rapid market fit testing.
- Momentum is expected to accelerate upon introducing an illustrator, who will serve as a gateway to accessing a wider network of artists through their established communities.
- Recruitment strategy targets artists from "scrappier" backgrounds on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, prioritizing platform portfolios over LinkedIn, with a focus on hashtags like "portfolio day" and "women artists."
- The organization plans to encourage the inclusion of artists in both operational roles and equity ownership ("cap table"), alongside a specific industry push for "poc in play."
- Founders believe illustrators from non-AAA studios possess superior entrepreneurial skills for building audiences and possess intuitive knowledge of market demands.
- The company expects to offer significantly higher budgets and compensation than independent work to afford high-production-value art.
- Founders expect "growing pains" during the transition of freelance artists into the company structure, balancing the need for high output with team integration.
- A high-quality trailer was identified as a primary factor in securing seed funding despite the absence of traditional pitch details.
- Founders plan to explore whether the successful collaboration model of artists working alongside technical engineers should be adopted as a broader founder structure.