Cashing In On Sports Without A Jersey w/ Kai Bond

boy out. Eighty five show is gonna be there. All this moments gonna be there. Get six today Black Effect dot Com Forward Slash Podcast Festival. I'm Little Lucas Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna answer to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas. I feel black in building are simply using tech to

secure your bag. This podcast is for you. Ki bous And investor, founder, and entrepreneur who serves his partner of Course i VC, which focuses on sports, gaming and fitness verticals. I asked about the differences between sports of yesteryear and the sports of today and why the sports is today is right for innovation in ways it's never been before, and how that opportunity creates a lane for people like me and you to capitalize. Sports used to be a

game and now it's culture. When you look at you know what's going on with CAP what you see in the English Premier League, UM, where players are taking a knee before every game. UM. When you think about the power of sports in society, it's one of the things that can bring us together. It's one of the things that divides us. Sports and sports figures, athletes. You see it today in social media, their influences outside and you know the shut up and dribble, you know, conversation and

that had that happened. You know, we're talking about individuals who are transforming society at a faster pace, I would argue than politicians are because they're at the forefront of the discussion every day. And so when we think about sports and investing in sports, a lot of people put us in a bubble of sports, technology and fitness and what goes on. But I think you cannot invest in sports and be blind to the fact that we are

talking about cultural movements that are happening within this space. UM. And that's been true for years right, Um, ever since the raised fist that the Berlin Olympics when Hitler refused to shake hands like these literally on a podium, right, you know, this is this is where we are as a society. And with the amplification of the voices through social media, UM, you know you're seeing sports really playing a huge part of culture, not only in the U. S.

BU globe. And I remember Canna um delaying Partnell, who you know is one of the biggest um E sports gaming companies around right now, growing really fastest from play Versus and I remember him saying that historically for a kid to get a varsity letter, they had to be fit, they had to run fast, they had to hit hard.

And now you can be a great gamer and when a state trophy because of companies like play versus UM And I maybe it was Mark Injuries and who said this next thing, but he said something about like how when the user interfaces become very mature, that's when they get massive. That's when technology gets mass adoption. When you know, when user interfaces are difficult, people don't grasp onto it. But when the user interfaces fluent, um, more people can use it because it's easier to use. Um, I'm still

not sure and maybe I'm wrong. I'm still not sure we've seen mass adoption with regards to gaming yet as an industry, and I could be wrong. Um, but what would in the position I come from, what will it take to get more parents to see past the idea that little Billy isn't just playing games, but he is playing games. But there's a large opportunity there. Yeah. Yeah, I think the most powerful thing that Mark Andrew has never said in my perspective, and software is eating the

world right. And I think today I would argue that gamings eating the world right. He just took the board seated Acti Infinity. Um. Acti Infinity is a game where you can play to earn real money in the game. Um, they're creating a massive economy. The economy will be larger

than some countries. Some people are putting their jobs just to play this game all day, right, And so I think the way that we view gaming is transformative in terms of and I wrote a long blog host about this, but the next big social network, the next big Facebook that we think of today and TikTok is going to be in a game that that's already happening right fortnite. Kids growing up today are their first social experiences in roadblocks, right,

That's how they're meeting people. This is their social network. Tweet it was roadblocks is their LinkedIn. That's that's where you go. Right. And so when I think about generational change, right, so I'm forty two, when I you know, my parents idea of playing games was going to an arcade, It's like, this is what you do on a Friday night at nine o'clock and somebody when you play arcade game and you know, the Chucky Cheese era, right coming up, Like

this is a family entertainment experience. You go to do it if you just look at the our generation. I was part of the console generation, right, so Super Nintendo and yes you know, and then you've got report you know your game boys, right, um, and today I argue that everybody is carrying a console in their pocket. Right. In mobile gaming now globally seventy billion dollar a year industry. Right, gaming is a hundred and sixty billion dollar a year

industry annually. So you can take the box office music sales in television without the streaming services, and it doesn't add up to that that total TAM. And the misconception is that you know, you can ask somebody, you know, particularly you ask a middle aged man, old woman, are you a gamer? They say no, Well do you play games on your phone? Yes? What do you play? I play golf clash, I play words with friends. I only play a little bit, you know, during launch and then

after where I'm going to commute home. And I'm like, you played thirty minutes of games a day, but you don't consider yourself a gamer? Right, So you know, you're seeing the acceptance of my generation that grew up with consoles now saying well, gaming is not actually bad, Like it didn't lead to the detrimental things that people thought it would, right, you know, the early days of g t A, the early days of first person in shooters. It's it's just not. The stigma associated with it is

still there. But the industry is massive, and I think that we've seen a generational change of people who grew up playing games in a home, and now we're starting to see people play games anywhere. Right, And that's why you see the growth and mobile. Mobile will surpass the total revenue generated in gaming, then console and PC combined next year, um and that you know, when we have an investment in India, very little console penetration, everybody's playing

mobile games. India's by far the world's largest gaming market with the exception of China, and if you look at the numbers in the sheer amount and it will surpass China given the recent regulatory changes that have gone in

limiting the amount of time kids can play games. So, you know, I think we're in a moment in time where we talk about them Ataverse, we talk about the Pokemon Goes, you talk about roadblocks, you talk about Fortnite, that this is the way people are going to socialize, and this is a game we were a digital native generation. This is a game native generation. Interesting so particular to let the things that we talked about with the roadblocks

and Fortnite. You know, I have little kids and for them, you know, they think nothing about spending real dollars to have dollars in the game, right, And I wonder what your perspective is on how they will grow up, you know, being let's say sub twelve, sub twelve years old. And I don't know if you have kids or not, but like you, you study this, so how how will they grow up in a world how were they're they're thinking

be structured around value? So is me having a whole twelve football ten ft high full of sneakers and boxes of you know old Jordan's. They will have a virtual world of you know, digital chatch keys, like you know gyms that they got in two thousand twenty. You know, it's like, how how will they think about these things? Yeah, it's a great question. And so we're investors in stock

ax out of fun one. Right, And if you're a sneaker head, you've got kicks, you've been on Goat, you've been on stock X. You don't see your sneakers as a utility, right, you see them as a luxury iity um. And what we saw in this last ten years of innovation internet space, particularly around a gig economy in ownership, like the fact that you would say, yeah, I'm just gonna put my crib on Airbnb. Like people were crazy when the airbnb came out. People are like, are you insane?

You're gonna stay at strangers? You're gonna let somebody stay in your crib? Like, Nah, that's not possible, that's not gonna happen. Right, And now it's like I'd rather stay at an Airbnb in a hotel, right, And so the idea of ownership is changing rapidly in our society. And again I go back, it's generational change. What was cool for my parents generation was a Ford Mustang, a muscle car, like that was who you were and that representative piece

of your identity. This generation grew up and was like, who cares about a car. I can take an Uber anywhere. It's gonna cost me less. I don't have to worry about maintenance and parking and alternate side. I'll just take Ubers everywhere and it's gonna cost me less on a monthly basis. So this leads us to a game native generation. So Fortnite generates two point one two point three billion dollars a year selling skins. That's it, that's their business model.

Why because if you buy an NFL jersey or you buy a Marvel character jersey to skin your character in the game, that's the representation to your peer group, no different than owning that Mustang or having a pair of Yeezys or having a skin in Fortnae. So when people talk about, oh, I'm believing n f T s, this stuff is fleeting. I'm like, you're not in touch with reality. You don't understand how you view digital assets. You might have dope artwork on your wall. Well guess what I

got an n f T in my virtual world. It's no different. It's the exact same thing. It represents who you are, it's part of your identity. And so you know, we're very bullish on the n f T space, and I think even more so. Digital has this unique opportunity that we're going to see emerge in fractional ownership. So in the same way we had a gig economy, and the same way you treated an asset and you're willing to sell it or lease it, digital opens up completely

new opportunities. And so when you talk about n f T, s oh, I created an original piece of art as an artist, I'm not but to say I did, and I sell that and now it gets resold for ten X because there's a smart contract associated with it. I get a portion of that used that that secondary transaction or the third flip of that item as it goes up over time. So it unlocks additional value the same way stock x unlocks value, which is you can buy a pair of kicks, hold them, flip them, and you're

gonna get the proceeds. Now, the artist, the creator, whoever it is, can actually you know, accrue that value. And I think that's gonna be something lasting in the ecosystem that really changes the way, you know, art and assets are monetized over time, and so we're very bullish on you know, digital art. You know what n f T s mean, digital ownership over time because again, it is

just an item you own that represents your identity. Just because it's in the virtual world, it doesn't mean it's any less or more so than the artwork or the kicks that you wear. When you you specifically are looking to invest in gaming, is it game developers you're particularly looking for? Is it e sports platforms? Is it leads that you're interested in, Like what's interesting to you that's

happening in the space. Yeah, we have a very diversified approach to gaming because I think you know, people tend to lump gaming into here's the studio creating a game, right, and we do that. We we we certainly invested in um, you know a handful of studios. UM. We love the idea that you know, to me, gaming is not that different than somebody who's creating an album or a movie. Right,

You're creating a new piece of work. You're putting your heart and soul in it, and you hope somebody loves it, right, And it's a creative endeavor. And so you know, from our perspective, that's where most of the money in the ecosystem flows today. So we'll continue to make investments in that space. Um. We tend to put the second bucket as what are we investing in terms of social and community.

The sports is part of that. Right. When you look at one of our early investments, we were early investors in hundred Thieves. Um, they're any sports team, but they're really a lifestyle brand, right you you you see they're making money not only from competing, but they're making money from march right, from content. Um, it's an entertainment in a brand business. Um. And so you know, we'll invest in the sports. We invest in a lot of real

money gaming. So you know, there's a lot of regulatory change going on in the ecosystem across the US to allow legalized gambling. Um. You know, we play it that. It's the intersection of sports and gaming, right, It's what keeps people engaged in the game. Where you might be watching a three and a half hour game, there's actually thirty minutes of action. What are you doing during that time? So we think you know, m prop bets and and you know in game wagering in real time social around

sports is a fascinating area. UM. And then we invest in infrastructure, So what are the core teching tools needed in a new generation of gaming? You know, gaming gets big and you see outsized returns on investments at the intersection of a new form of distribution in a new

form of monetization. See, you're going from a city dollar console game, going to free to play Facebook games where making micro transactions, to mobile distribution within that purchases and now the we're in a cloud computing era and we're moving into this you know monetization framework of play to earn in crypto as part of the currency of the games. This is the moment in time where you'll see really

outside returns for investments in gaming. And so we're looking at all aspects of the game ecosystem UM, and we look for you know, founders with unique insights into why the i P they're creating at this moment in time can leverage the cloud mobile global distribution with new fundamental economics that not only are allowing users to spend money in the game, but earn money in those games as well. And so that's kind of the broad strokes of of

how we look at investing in the gaming ecosystem. Now, I was reading an article and you said before that you want to meet a founder who can see a trend and has the knowledge, network and ability to execute on their vision. UM. Can you talk to me about an investment that you made, UM, whether it was in gaming, sports or fitness, where the operator had, you know, a unique vision about what the future looked like that caused you to want to invest in You ultimately probably did invest. Yeah.

So it's a really good UM company here in New York. They're based in Brooklyn. It's called players Lounge. UM. Austin Um is a phenomenal founder. You know, he created a gaming platform that allows you to connect with somebody else in the network and play them in a console game or a PC game. UM. So I can challenge you to a game of Madden, I can challenge you to a game of FIFA two K Fortnite. I'll put up

ten bucks. You put up ten bucks. You know, the winner takes eighteen the house takes their ten percent cut on that transaction. You know that. You know, four or

five years ago people would be like, that's crazy. I'm gonna you know what we did in the door room in college, Like we sat down and we had consoles and I'm like, I'll play you like loser Bys and Ford you like, this is where right, and now you can do And I always say when people ask me about Players Lounge, I'm like, Austin was a hustler, Like he was going and setting up game nights in bars

in Brooklyn. He's like, oh, you got a trivia night on night, Like I cannot bring in a group of FIFA meet up group and connect the consoles and have them come in and play. I'll guarantee you have foot traffic on a night that would be like for you normally, and they're gonna drink and spend money. I'm gonna get this. And then he's like, why am I doing this in person? I can do this online and created a platform behind that.

But it was the vision of taking some things saying like people like playing games for real money, right, like Vegas exists for a reason. Um, you know the lava in the US nine billion dollar a year. People like to play games for money. It's a natural part of what we do. And you see that with the regulatory and environerships and you know, uh, New Jersey just hit a billion dollars in wagers one state billion dollars in

wagers in one month. Right, so you talk about the amount of value that's going in and he was like, I'm gonna take it and apply to console games, right for hardcore cats who really like playing. And I consider that the new Poker Night used to get together with people play poker, you hanging out with your friends. Now you're just connecting online and you're playing games that you

you normally would and so for for real money. And so that's the type of founder you know that at a unique insight that was like, oh man, I got this. How do we scale it? How do we execute? Phenomenal investors on the cap table, venture funds, athletes, celebrities you know, coming into co invest alongside. And I think those are the types of investments where it's almost brain dead simple

and obvious, like why isn't this happening? But somebody can see a broader transformation in the market that allows them to scale us to you know, tens of millions of dollars in re You know, we often talk about founders finding market opportunity to solve problems. UM, I don't necessarily think about creating gaming as like solve a problem solved. Maybe you do, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, UM, Like, are there yet still a lot of problems to be solved in this? If there are problems?

Or is this is this entertainment? How do you position this? Yeah? Yeah, I mean we just made an investment in a tools business, UM that can take a two D image and create a three D asset that can be used in a game or in the metapath. And so if you look at gaming, you have a two D artist sketching something out, three D artists, you have an animator, right, the process for creating really high quality art. I mean, if you

play games nowadays, you see how real right the players are. Um, you know, there are tons of infrastructure and technology business. I mean we're talking about Microsoft's cloud business in gaming being a ten billion dollar a year business. You know, the lift on the back and infrastructure to power that isn't incredible, right, most people think about epic games for Fortnite, Right, the Unreal engine powers most of the console games in

the world. Right, So they have an incredibly powerful engine, and you know, I think that's part of the value. Look at Unity, publicly traded games company. It's a game engine for mobile um And so when I think about you know, problems in the uh the ecosystem around gaming. You know, having worked in studios and launched studios before, you have to really understand what it takes to create I P what it takes to deploy that to launch

games as a service, right, all the ugly stuff. You don't think about leaderboards and player matching, and you know, nonplayer characters having really sophisticated are you know, AI behind them so you can interact with them in the game. There's a lot of core tech that goes on there, and so we try to pick off the pieces of the industry and say, okay, where are there's where is there a huge amount of dollars being spent, What are the biggest technological challenges and who are the right teams

to solve those? Oftentimes they come out of studios or they come out of environments like a Riot games or they come out of Amazon on the scene. You know how much games are being powered on their cloud infrastructure, and UM, you know that's one part of the business. I think the fun and exciting part that people tend to be drawn to is, Oh, here's a new game that launched and we love it and we're playing it

because there are worst in the game. But there's so much that goes on behind the door, behind the scenes in the studio to pull that off for her. As you say before that when you take a meeting, you're looking for ten slides in a demo, right, and UM, what are the top three slides you're lasering in on? Team is always first, UM, you know, we invest in the earliest stages of a business. I've been a founder three times over. It's the hardest thing in the world

to do. It really is like running a successful startup. And I've only done it one out of three tries. So from experience of failure here, UM that that it's really challenging. So team is always first. Team can be repeat founder. Teams can be individuals who have domain expertise that's outsized. UM. In a unique perspective like we talked about. TAM is the other one, right, Like, what is the

total addressable market that you're going after? Um, you know, if you're launching a game only in New Zealand, I'm probably not your guy, you know, Like it's just too small of a market. You know. We have to return you know, our fund to fifty five million dollars three times over, right, So I'm looking for a big market. We're gonna inevitably own ten percent of that company, you know, so that means you gotta be a five million dollar outcome. There has to be a massive market there, um, you know.

And I think those are the top two. If I were to think about, you know, a third component at the earliest stages, um, it would probably have to be past experience, right, what allows you to pull this off? Right, whether it's you see a lot of people hiring out of Facebook and Google because they think there are companies that have you know, do it well, or you see them come out of a successful startler, your track record,

and we invest in the the first time founders. But track record, to me, is not necessarily a determinant of future success, but it's a ingredient in the overall recipe that allows you to pull off what is inevitably an incredibly challenging feat. What are some of those indicates as the first time founder that you might fund that says your path, you know, gives you validity with regards to you know you can do this thing. Yeah, Um, it's you know, I refer

to it a lot as um you know, founder company fit. Right. So I came out of working in mobile and I worked in gaming, and my first company was mobile gaming. Like, you know, I hadn't done a startup, but I've spent

years of Microsoft. I've worked at a bunch of startups, and that was a key contributor, right, Like some people tell me I came out of Facebook, Like you're the eighteen thousand employee working on like a non meaningful product, But like, were you the lead designer on I G Like that's different, right, And so you kind of have to know what somebody was really doing. Um. And that's where if you're a first time founder, it's like what

is that unique inside? Right? You might be at a company like a salesforce and say we do these three things really well, but there's a part over here that everybody's ignoring. And because we're generating billions that can be a hundred million dollar revenue run rate business that can get us to a billion dollar valuation. Like I'm gonna pick this piece off and this is why, and this is the platform that I've worked on. UM So that's you know, we look for those like what are the

unique insights you have? What is your expertise in your network? Your insight that allows you to to to see around the corner that nobody else has seen. And if you have that, then you then have to surround themselves like being a great found like the journey of a found or in a first time founder. Everybody's the first time founder at some point in time, and so what you look for somebody who's highly coachable because you can you know,

think about the sports analogy, but the NFL combine. You might be able to jump really high, you might be able to bench a lot, you might be able to you know, max out on your reps, but are you going to be great team leader? Are you going to be able to read defenses? Like what is your intuition? And so everything that we do there's an art and a science to it, and so but I think about founders, you might be a great product person. You might be

a great salesperson. Um, you might have a unique insight, but there's a ton about leading a business you don't know. So you can be a great founder in a great entrepreneur without being a great CEO. In the journey that someone's willing to go on during this process is how do you go from a good founder or a great founder to a great CEO. And we've seen the biggest companies in the world, the best companies of the world, their CEO is mature. Right, Zuck couldn't get on stage

at one point in time and give a presentation. Fine, now gates same thing, right, Um, basis you knew when to call it a day and transition off to a chairman role and leave the CEO. Right. And so they went from great founders to becoming great CEOs. And that's a path and a journey that that that takes years of you know, refining and so so I look at coach ability as one of the key factors for us. If somebody is the first time founder, that they're willing to learn that they have a that they want to

get better at this craft. They just don't want to win in the business, right they actually have business goals that they want to get to and they understand that the personal growth and development leads them to work that as well. You know, you're also a founder, as you mentioned, um, and you're somewhat you know, I would say Mary to particular verticals, you know, sports, gaming, you know, media, fitness, UM,

what you need? Value? Do you believe you provide founders in these spaces because you know, again you're also a founder, but as a VC, what value you provide? Yeah? So every founder is great at something and there's areas of improvement and I was no different. And so what I try to work with founders on is where do you need to help? Like? What what are the things right?

Like I hope in many of the cases that I'm not just a tactical component and another piece on the chess board that they move around to help accelerate the business. That's the case many times, and that's fine. We play that role. But you know, how do you build a good company culture? Right? Like? What does that mean for you? What are the values in the guiding lights and the principles that you're driving your organization towards. Like people don't think about them. It's just like I need to hire

for a role. I need to fill a body. I need an engineer, I need to just you know, I need a product manager. I needed somebody is really good to use your acquisition and then like run. But what are the principles of the guiding lights behind that? Right? Um, In my third company, everybody's salary was known by everybody else, transparent. Everybody's equity ownership was transparent. Every decision, every meeting we had. Everybody knew everything, and we fostered. There was no jealousy,

there was no who's making more? Why? It was all benchmarked. It was all standard performance. And so you know, PTO, do you have unlimited vacation policy? Why? How do you

make sure you don't suffer burnout? What are you doing? Like, there's so many things that we try to work with founders on to create a better company because oftentimes they're so focused on the product, the sales, the outcomes that if you ignore the underlying components of business, you're building a house of cards that's gonna crumble at the point in time. So you know that's from a founder perspective. You know, how do you negotiate M and A deals?

I worked in them and a before right like what are evaluations whether standard benchmarks like we talked to publicly traded companies, we talked to private companies, We talked to head funds, We talk to other startups in the ecosystem, knowledge sharing expertise. Our LPs are all strategic to US public companies, high networth individuals, their protein owners. Whatever deals we're doing, we want to be able to bring value from ourselves and from our network, our investors in that

comprehensive package. Hopefully as a board member or a board observer. Often times if we don't take the board seat, will add value. And so we try to do it on personal level and try to do it on a fund level. We work really hard for and with our founders. We consider ourselves part of the extended team and whatever we need to do that we can to support that business, we spent time. My entire Friday is always dedicated to

my perfor Black Tech. Green Money is and production to Black the Afro Tech on the Black Effect Podcast Network and i Heeart Media. It's produced by Morgan Dubonn and me Will Lucas, with additional production support by Love Beach and Russa Lewis Special Thank you to Michael Davis, Sadam Simson's the carsa von Yon you know like the Whine. Yes, that's his real name. Learn more about my guests and

other tech thissft's innovators at afro tech dot com. The video version of this episode would drop the Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, so tap in enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Leave us a five star rating on iTunes. Gonna Beat Your Money, Piece and Love Else Are The first Black Infact Podcast Festival was happening Sunday, August in Brooklyn, New York. Tickets available right now black Effect dot Com Forward Slash Podcast Festival and live podcast will be on

stage from your favorite show. You get to be an audience. We get to do our thing on the stage. I'm so excited for this. It's the first time I've ever been able to do this in front of a live audience. So please be in the crowd being an audience. Clap when it's appropriate. Oh and I when it's appropriate. Come check us out. Horrible this, this this, this is gonna be there. Eighty five show is gonna be there, All the smoke is gonna be there. Get tickets today at Black Effect

dot Com. Forward Slash Podcast Festival were in the house.