SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 770: Crypto: He Has Third Largest ICO Ever With $53m Raised
Sep 2, 2017
22:05
Sergey Sholom. As a teenager, he was a championship-level gamer and created the first large gamer group called S-port Tournaments in Russia for Quake. After getting his PhD in mathematical modeling, Sergey founded Datcroft Games LTD in 2004. Over the past 13 years, the company has developed multiple worldwide popular games with millions of users. He continues to oversee a company with over a hundred employees and continues to bring new cutting edge games to the market. Their latest game called Pixel Wars which will be released in the summer of 2017, has already received critical acclaim and will become the game changer in mobile eSport.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Richard Branson's
- What CEO do you follow? – N/A
- Favorite online tool? — N/A
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4-5
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Push more"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 04:03 – The company was launched in 2004
- 04:29 – The make free games that sell virtual items—that's where the company gets it's revenue
- 04:43 – Around 5% of players buy virtual items
- 05:20 – Sergey had no revenue for the first 2 years of his company
- 05:58 – Sergey supported himself from other businesses
- 06:01 – His newest game has been in development for more than 2 years
- 06:13 – The team has 150 people with offices in 4 countries
- 07:34 – Datcroft Games had an 8-digit revenue in 2016
- 09:00 – Cryptocurrency helped Gamecredits to monetize their audience
- 09:20 – Sergey wants to prove game developers that more revenue can come from crypto
- 10:05 – Gamecredits is preparing to enter the Indian market
- 10:46 – Sergey believes that Apple promoting your game is just an extra advantage
- 11:35 – The number of followers that the Gamecredits store has
- 12:05 – Gamecredits is using its existing coin which has been on the market for 3 years already
- 12:34 – Gamecredits has been running the most successful crowd sale in the market
- 13:19 – Gamecredits will put 26.5 M crypto in marketing
- 14:17 – Sergey will have a way to exchange their coin in dollars
- 14:43 – Different cryptocurrencies are being put in Gamecredits
- 15:11 – Sergey is proud that they're able to run a real crowd sale with almost 10K crypto investors
- 15:23 – Not all ICOs are able to do that
- 15:34 – Gamecredits was able to raise capital from 4 tokens including bitcoin, ethereum, waves and gamecredits
- 16:05 – Gamecredits current tokens are mobilego tokens and their own gamecredits token
- 16:51 – The market is tremendous and the future community will be much bigger
- 17:46 – Apple and Google are for profit companies and Gamecredits is a non-profit
- 20:00 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- It's possible for a gaming platform to penetrate the cryptocurrency market.
- The cryptocurrency market has been growing significantly, increasing opportunities for different investments.
- As a non-profit business, your focus needs to be on the change you can create, not the contributions you can earn.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives