Stay Tranquilo - Building the Social Media of Sports with Founder of GotGame App Brando Caveiro

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

In the newest episode of the Stay Tranquilo Podcast, powered by Stay Tranquilo, were joined by founder of GotGame App Brando Caveiro. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We built it for people like us, right? We built it for you guys, you know, the the athletes at home, the competitors in their backyard, and even I think about my 16-year-old self, you know, or when COVID happened, if I weren't able to play my senior year of college lacrosse, I'm sorry, high school lacrosse, just because, you know, what's going on out there doesn't allow you to compete, there should be nothing in the way between you and what you want to showcase or compete. Pete in. What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to another Stay Tranquilo episode. We are here with Brando Cabedo, who has an app that we are going to talk about today and get into some deep diving about that whole process, you know, building that out and talking a little bit about what the app entails. But before we get started, please, the floor is yours. For sure, give everyone a little bit about yourself. Well, dude, first of all, thanks for having me. Yes, sir. I mean, I see, you know, as I just mentioned when the cameras were off. Had to catch you guys before you blew up. You know, what you guys have been doing since day one, you know, giving Miami a platform to, you know,

really showcase whatever talent, skills and, you know, passions there are here is, it means a lot. You know, I've always seen it. I've always supported it. You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys are growing. You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys, you guys, you guys, you guys, we got started. Appreciate it. But, but yeah, you know, I'm building, well, hey guys, my name's Brando, founder of Got Game. And what we're doing, at Gok game is kind of like TikTok and the Olympics had a baby. It's a gamified, scalable video challenge platform for today's athletes to connect and compete in skill-based competitions. Oh, yeah. It's a little bit of that. Yeah. So before we get into how this app came to life,

and I really want to get into the details, I know that was like your elevator pitch kind of thing, you know, one-liner. But obviously, it's a complex thing that you're building, right? It's not, It's not as simple as I guess you kind of put it, right? So I definitely want to get into depth on that. But I want to also start from the beginning, right? And just like your overall journey into, you know, who you are today and where the inspiration for the app came. So you went to St. Thomas the Apostle. That's right.

We went to the same time. And then Columbus as well. So talk to me about that, you know, that journey of going to private school, you know, the friends that you made, just that overall journey and how that's led you to where you are today. Yeah, you know, like most people, like yourself and like the people behind the camera, I'm very competitive. I always have been and playing sports since the womb. And so I think being involved in the stuff I always liked, which was sports,

then started to, you know, wanted to express myself creatively. I did that with, you know, music at times, sometimes drawing as a child or even just, you know, on CCNN back in the Columbus days. So trying to just find my route is I think, you know, what people owe themselves. And so I found an interesting lane, you know, majoring at Florida State University and information communication technology. It's basically just a long way of saying half of my classes were coding. Half of the classes were focused on campaigns and digital marketing.

And so I found that that was a cool way for me to express creativity in a way that, you know, you can actually make a real career off of this. And so that's what I did. And I graduated Florida State, worked at right down here Publiss Group. Oh, nice. Yeah, and I still do right there by the corner of Cocoa Walk and basically managing major brands websites at first, now Jeep Social Media. And so organizing photo shoots, getting together with influencers, was really cool.

So learning a lot about managing site campaigns to social media campaigns. And there was one stat that like flew by my desk one day. It was 55% of TikTok's 2 billion users are interested in competing in sports-related challenges on social. And that kind of aligned with something that I always had my back mind. You know, when I graduated college, me and my buddies would, you know, when we had our fantasy draft, we would always try to come up with a competition to decide the order. And when we all graduated, went to different places. It was harder to do that.

And it didn't make sense to me that at the rate that, you know, Fortnite was growing, and all these video games were growing when people were able to compete digitally all from across the world. Right. And we weren't able to do the same thing when it came to sports. You know, sports has been alive since the beginning of time. And so it was competition. So I feel like there wasn't enough innovation in the space. And when I saw that last stat, that was kind of like the cherry on top to, let's see what's going on here.

You know, so it started with a question. Yeah. And it's interesting, right? because you study all, you know, the coding and all these things, probably not knowing that you're going to get into what you ultimately, you know, have gotten into today. And then you go and you work for an agency, you get these statistics and you start seeing all these things. And it's like the stars start lining up, right?

Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, for me, I had stayed tranquil, you know, five years ago, what is really when I started it with, like, the podcast and just getting active on social media. and just kind of promoting a mantra is really, you know, how it began. And it still is the foundational piece of what we do. But I didn't really know what I wanted it to be, you know, for it's been around for five years, but it wasn't like a business for five years. It was just a slogan and something that I like to promote.

And it was like, all right, it's a platform, right? And what I choose to do with it is to be determined. And then, you know, I started getting into marketing, kind of by accident. I had, you know, I studied exercise science in college. So it doesn't really align with what I'm, you know, with what I'm doing now, but very similar to you. I love sports. So that's kind of where I wanted to plug myself into, you know, long story short, obviously don't end up working in sports, start getting in the marketing stuff just because I could see

the power of it for the sake of building state and on kilo, but also just like, I'm like, damn, I'm good at this, right? Like I'm creative. I'm a creative thinker. So how can I apply this for other brands and other companies that want to do it? So I started doing the freelance marketing work. Then I start working for an agency. And then that's where things started clicking.

Why? Because I started understanding the business side of this world. So when I started saying, okay, brands want to be creative. Brands want to reach audiences, right? But they want to do it in a creative and culturally relevant way. So then I started understanding that. And I'm like, hmm, okay, this is interesting. I have this platform in state tranquilo.

People want to reach the U.S. Hispanic market. My name is a very U.S. Hispanic kind of name in terms of like, like spanglish, people understand it if you're, if you speak Spanish. And even if you don't, you can, you can still kind of understand it. So I'm like, damn, I have a podcast. I have this platform. Now I can see where there's market demand, you know, similar to, to how you saw with those statistics. And I can use this to build something. So it's funny that you say that because you found all these like connection points along the way to help inform a decision that you now have this app. For sure. For sure, man. Yeah. I mean, uh, yeah. Uh, it's, uh,

It's like, how do you stay true to your identity? Right. This is like an ongoing thing, but provide value to, you know, people, you know, and use it. I think it's different, but very similar, right? Like, you always start with a question and an idea. And every idea is a bad one before it's a good one. Right. You know, and so that's what we have to figure out.

And that's something that now, okay, now it becomes you're learning. This is more than an idea. Right. You kind of have to be an entrepreneur. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, okay, all right, cool. It changes the dynamic of things.

Yeah. And so it's like, okay, so let's, let's, let's, build something, let's create something, and then let's test it. Right. And it took me a while to really figure out what should be on the app and how people should interact with challenges. But what gave me the most clarity was putting out, you know, putting out our beta, right? And then testing it.

All right, iterate. Let's change it up. Let's test it again. And I feel like that's, you know, similar with what stick, stay tranquil. It does. Yeah, of course. A lot of it's testing and learning. You have different shows and they're all amazing.

But, you know, you figure out which ones you want to maybe put some more folks. focus on. So I think, you know, we can definitely relate from a creative standpoint. Yeah. Every bad idea starts before a good idea. 100%. So you then realize like there's a market demand, you know, there's an opportunity. Yeah. To build something in the space, right? You saw, hey, there's no sports, digital connection, competition and kind of bridging those gaps together to be able to put together this app.

So when you come up with this idea, then what was that process to say, hey, how do I build an app? How do I do this? How do I get this life? How do I build this beta? What was that process like? Were you consulting with people? How did you go about building that from inception?

For sure. I mean, look, man, nothing, no one can do anything by themselves. And that's a, everyone, you know, everyone needs to keep that in mind because it can seem like impossible to complete something that's in your dreams because you're thinking you're going to be the only one who can do it. And that's not a matter of the fact, right? So starting with the idea, you know, had to still do my 9 to 5 and still do. You know, got to treat yourself first, right?

Take care of yourself and that's what I was doing at first. But then, you know, in my free time, I was always interested in creativity. So I learned about Figma. Figma is like where you can kind of design concepts for an app and now it's goddamn even easier. Excuse my language, you know, with AI and stuff. But so I just started little daddling with different designs. I'm a huge proponent of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So leveraging what a homepage, what a profile looks like on TikTok, on Instagram.

Let's borrow a lot, but like what makes us different. And that's when it came down to structured competition. There's so many different ways to compete, right? How fast you can do something is different from how long you can hold something, which is different from how many of one thing can you do within a certain amount of time. And all of that provided clarity when we went to beta testing, right? So I hired a team in India. I learned a lot through that process.

I learned what not to do when you're hiring people and what to do when you want to find, you know, people that align with your goals and your vision and your work ethic. So there's people that come and go, right, when you're on this journey. But the people that provide that value and are really, you know, capable of seeing the end goal, those are the ones you want to stick by you.

And so I've learned a lot about managing people, obviously as a project manager I had some of that experience but now I'm delving into I'm not coding the app right I learned some code in college but I'm not coding this thing so now I need to manage a team

that's coding it all right I designed the first iteration of it now I need to manage the person who's going to design the future iterations of it so I think I've learned more through that process alone than any masters could have taught me so you know experience is the king

100% of teaching for sure you mentioned the fact that you you learned what not to do in that process with like, you know, the coding developers. And, you know, you had to hire people overseas, obviously because it's more cost effected, considering, you know, budget restrictions and all that. What was it that you learned in that process directly from hiring that? Because what did you use, like an Upwork or? That's exactly what I used? Upwork was the first. Yeah. So what did you learn from that? And what was kind of like some of the obstacles you face when you did that? Yeah. First one off the bat is,

you know, and I probably should have leveraged my knowledge in marketing for this, but being very clear with what you want. And that might seem like obviously, you know, but it's no, the more detailed the brief and, you know, if there's questions within the brief, you know, or something that doesn't make sense or it's a little too broad for the team, it's the team that's asking questions about that broad thing that you want to take. So that first time, I did it, I only interviewed about two different development teams and they both were like, yeah, we'll get it done in six months, no problem, and it looks good to us. And that caused delays.

It caused a product that wasn't amazing, but it was enough to get us off the ground. What I've learned now, you know, when we're building the final version of God game, it's, I've hired six or seven different development, I'm sorry, interviewed six or seven different development firms or agencies and the one that asked the most questions and was the most diligent about everything and every design and every idea we had in the brief. That's who I wanted with us because they were thinking critically about things that, you know, we had thought of,

but even taking it a step further, right? When you welcome, you know, questions and feedback and, you know, critical thinking with your idea, that's how you can get to the real meat and bones of your product and,

like, okay, we want all the bells and whistles eventually, but what do we eventually want to launch with just so we can prove, you know, our next milestone. And then now it makes sense to, it makes sense to reinvest and get to the next milestone. So I spoke a lot there, but basically what I'm getting at is, you know, it's trimming the fat, but it's also, you know, when it comes to someone you want to build something with being, being so careful and really, just very honest with them and what they want.

And if you feel they're not being honest with you, you owe it to yourself to at least interview someone else or run it. by advisors as well. So I'm sure you definitely have, you know, a lot of people you look up to and advise you. And I think it's critical for, you know, to have mentors, but to also be mentors to others. Exactly. You learn both ways. No, 100%.

And right now, is it a, is it just a one-man operation in terms of you plus the, you know, the developers? We've grown. We've grown, yeah. So we beta tested that product at Columbus, you know, Florida State University, UF, number of different campuses here in Florida and it was just awesome to see kids like, you know, talking shit

and like trying to beat each other in front of my eyes. You know, that was like, you know, that's what, you know, gets me up every day. It was finally seeing people interact with something that used to be just in your dreams. Obviously, the product had a lot, you know, of ways to improve since then. But from there, you know, I was able to pick up,

you know, a head of user research, right? He taught me how critical it is to beta test it. And so he was there with me when we went to Columbus, when we went to Florida State, asking the right questions, or even sometimes not asking questions, and just seeing how they interact with the app. And what can we, you know, take from this experience and, like, you know, jot down. So it's going to improve the product in the future. He was crucial.

I learned a lot from him, and he still is with us. His name is Caesar, as well as a, you know, so we have the development team now based in South Africa. And then we built a team of, you know, a sales. business dev team. Okay, cool. That was, you know, originally interns for the company and they were, there were many interns. We only selected two to stick with us on the full-time team because they demonstrated capability of working that work ethic that, you know, that wants to succeed for the app for

what is our baby. So that is our team right now, sales biz dev team. We have the head of user research. In due time, we'll bring on a CTO, right? Someone who's going to actually leave that development because it's certainly not going to be me. And I don't want it to be a team that is, you know, so far away. Right. Right.

So, and then I can literally just call up at any time. So working with the hours has been a bit of a challenge when it was India or South Africa. But that's our team right now and a team of advisors that, you know, for financial reasons or fundraising or really just feedback or product development are there for me. You know, amazing people with this Miami Tech Base. It's been exciting to see it grow and hopefully be a part of that growth. Yeah, like you said, it's impossible to be a one-man show, you know, running an operation, especially as you continue to grow.

It's about putting the right pieces together, bringing in the right people that are going to just continue to help you take that next step. Because you can only take it so far and you bring in another person, then the collective can only take it so far. And it's about building the infrastructure so that you can grow. Right. So you have a full-time job, right? And a common, I guess, theme, I guess you could say with our audience is we all aspire to do something maybe outside of our nine to five. Right.

And we understand the necessities that come with a nine to five. Yeah. From, you know, you have your obligations for your job. You have to pay your bills. You know, you have to make a living. It would be great for us all to just go chase our dreams and do that full time. but you don't have that no one has that luxury essentially because you got to make money right so how do you juggle you know having a nine to five job while also you know building this out

man that's honestly been the most challenging part of all of this because um you know i i do love what i do um but i owe it to myself to really just you know it's not going to work when at least i tell myself it's not going to work when i'm married it's not going to work when i have children or stuff to look out for. So this is the time, right? And so I do tell myself after work, right, 9 to 5, but that 9 to 5 is typically a 9 to 6 or 7. So that means from 7 until further notice,

I'm working on Gau game. And so that's been, you know, something to get used to because now my weekends are traded for got game time. You know, going out on dates, not as much as I used to because there's something here and I really owe it. These are the dates you go on. These are the dates.

I traded dates with girls on Hinge and whatnot to dates with potential investors, advisors, and people that could help provide value, whether it's just going to a Tech Tuesday, a little happy hour and getting to know people in the Miami Tech ecosystem or some of the more serious one-on-one conversations who are even doing this with you right now.

But I think everyone, you know, if they have that, something is calling to them. my greatest fear in life is looking back and be like, what if. Right. And now I can be at peace knowing, you know, we're going to see this through and I will never think that. So I think every creator goes through that and needs, hopefully that's helpful.

I don't like giving advice because I think everyone has a very unique way to get to where they want to go. But those are some things that help me. Yeah, for sure. And you alluded to the fact of like investors. So right now, your nine to five is essentially funding the business? Yeah, that's right. But you're currently in the midst of a friends and family round.

Okay. So this is just enough to get us, you know, some legal fees and finish development. So, you know, implementing all that initial user feedback is what we're currently raising for. So just enough to get up off the ground and go live with the final version that can support cash prize challenges, sponsor challenges. And, you know, we're going to launch three different formats of challenging. There's so many different ways to compete. Right. to focus on three and you know you got to crawl before you run so yeah so yeah so right now in the

midst of a family and friends uh funding round um and then when we launched this this bad boy in Q1 of 2025 coming right up uh we're going to be you know having a pre-seed uh round which is uh in the millions okay so that was that was going to be my next question let's say i'm someone that wants to start an app right And I don't have the funds to be able to start it up. What does that precede process look like? How are you finding investors? How are you kind of getting these connections to potentially raise this capital? And how much capital are you willing to raise at a specific valuation?

Right. So you have to set a valuation on this to be able to raise a specific amount of capital while giving up a certain amount of equity, right? Because one of the biggest challenges when raising, capital is this is your baby. How much, how much of your baby are you willing to give up for how much money, right? And that's, it's like a give and take a give and take. Yeah, fuck, I'll give you two million dollars, but I'm going to take 80% of the company. That might not be the best decision. That's a bad deal. Right. Right. For us right now. Yeah. So, you know, so, so talk to me a little

bit about that and that process and how you come to a valuation on a precede around where you necessarily, you know, aren't generating a ton of funds yet, right, through user-generated, you know, it's in the beginning phases of this, right? It's in the infancy stages. And a lot of companies do raise at this point, right, where they may not have proof of concept or they may not have revenue yet. They're still able to raise millions of dollars. So how do you go about that? What does that look like? Yeah, I think it only makes sense to fundraise after you have shown proof of concept. You know, you prove people care, some traction, right? So we did some beta test. We got the metrics. We have the, you know, data that's out there in the market that

supports this and, you know, a total market of about 3.2 billion users is what it ultimately could be if we got everyone in the world. But then you start narrowing that down, right? How are those people in America? Okay, how are those people in America from the ages of 16 to 34 who we're going to target? Okay, now it gets a little bit lower. Now it's 88 million. All right. Now then let's get to a smaller. Who are going to be those early adopters? Who's going to be the first 10,000 users on your platform, 1,000 users on your platform. And you start thinking backwards like that because now it becomes a little bit more crystal queer.

You know, we're going to go towards, right, 16 and 34. But let's bring that even down a notch 16 to 22. And I'm sorry, 18 to 22. And we're going to go to colleges. We're going to get, you know, friends like mine that are competitive and beta tested there. And so showing that they cared, right, and running surveys through those types of people is what I show investors. And when I show accelerators that we're applying to,

because you're right, you don't want to give up too much of your baby at this stage because essentially it's the most, it's the least amount of money that you're raising for the most, you know, bang for their buck as the investors. So that, you know, is something that I had to learn, right? So studying the financial projections, right? How do we get from that big number down to a realistic one? And now what is that realistic one look like? over the span of a year, three years, five years.

And so make it makes sense, right? If you're able to prove that people care about your product, there is a roadmap to profitability, and you got a solid team to make this happen, that's what investors like to see. And typically at this stage, they are just investing in the founder or in the team. 100%.

So that is, you know, what I try to represent every time I speak to them. And when I'm at a showcase or I'm at a panel, or I'm even just talking to you right now is, you know, there's certain steps that we need to hit in Miami, you know. Miami's in the starts in its infancy stages of this tech hub.

Some people tell me that if I, you know, would have launched this in New York or in Silicon Valley, I'd be my second, you know, fundraising round already. So there are some ups and downs, you know, with this. But being in Miami, right, wanting to be similar to stay tankedal, right?

being, you know, maybe the first, right, of Miami to represent us. And there is so much amazing talent and eyeballs in Miami specifically in the tech space. Why not us? Yeah. So that's the attitude that we have. That's awesome. Oh, yeah. So let's get into now the actual app itself.

And let's get into the nitty gritty of it. So tell me a little bit about I download the app, right? What does the app interface look like? What can I do on it? How do I challenge other people? What does that whole experience look like? Well, I'll send you an exclusive link so you can check it out after this call and take it out. But it really functions a lot like what your typical social media apps would look like, right?

So there is a there is a home page, right? There is a Discover page, right? Because we want to give everyone the opportunity to showcase their talent or showcase a challenge they created. And the whole, you know, real nitty gritty with this is, you know, you should be able to compete against the world from the backyard. And there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to. Now you can't. We have a camera. We got an app that structures these competitions in a way that makes it easy for people to join.

And, you know, not only easy for people to join, but there's scale, right? Everyone who has an app can look at something that you created. And you don't even have to be the best of what you do. There are users that, you know, you can launch a challenge, a cash prize challenge. and as long as people want to join that cash buys challenge, you can make a percentage off of that by not even being the best at your own challenge. So that's the interesting angle that we're showing influencers right now.

We also have brand sponsor challenges that would be on that Discover page. So there's a local soccer company here, for example. They're going to have the juggle challenge and the top three, top 10 in their challenge are going to get a free pair of quits. So it helps them generate, you know, have user-generated content,

you know, target who they want to target. get people that play soccer in Miami, in this age group, right? But in a way that is so much more different than an ad that would have, you know, worked for that because that is such passive scrolling. This is an active thing that people want to participate in because, hey, might win something from it. So just because you're not going to make a pro, just because you won't make it to the NBA, you can be the best free throw shooter in the world.

Just because you're not making it to the NBA, it doesn't mean that you can't compete at the highest level within a certain skill or challenge. So to kind of wrap that part off, you can create challenges, you can join them or even submit ideas for some because, of course, at this stage, we built it for people like us, right? We built it for you guys, you know, the athletes at home, the competitors in their backyard, and even I think about my 16-year-old self, you know, or when COVID happened, if I weren't able to play my senior year of college lacrosse. I'm sorry, high school lacrosse, just because, you know, what's going on out there doesn't allow you to compete. There should be nothing in the way between you and what you want to showcase or compete in. So that's a little bit of what this app looks like. So I don't want to say there's a lot of a betting aspect, but there's ways to monetize and, you know, get a little credit for what you do.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think the thing that intrigues me is getting the influencers involved in this, right? So you leverage their platforms, you leverage their followings, their audience, right? Have them put a challenge on the app, and then their audience comes and challenges their influencer, right? I think of, I'm a big golf guy, so I think of, you know, like the big golf influencers out there, right? You get a long drive guy, say, hey, I hit my drive, you know, 380, 400 yards, I'm going to challenge you who's going to beat me, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you can incentivize it, and you can bring a brand into that. Maybe a brand wants to be a part of it. You can give away a driver, you know, to whoever wins that. It's cool. It's engaging. On that note, I mean, you know, in all confidence, we're not going to be able to support that type of challenge off the bat, but it is something we're going to work with us because I know that golf is

where a lot of people are super competitive. And actually, the Travis Scott, you know, the Jordan, I don't know if you remember that Jordan Travis got golf shoes. They actually did do a drive-in competition. They did. I remember that. And only the best one. So clearly there is attention here.

And I think, you know, I'm starting to see a lot of that, you know, from influencers and brands that have expressed interest in this sort of, you know, framework. But, yeah, you know, I didn't want to, you know, interrupt you there. Yeah, no. I mean, it's endless at the end of the day. What type of challenge is, obviously, that could be possible on an application like this. So right now in the beginning phase, it's going to be 2025 start, right, launch. That's right.

Download on Apple, Google, Play, Store, everything. Yeah. And it's a free, it's a, is it a free app or do you pay to download it? Free app, you can join free challenges. If you want to join a cash prize challenge, there's an entry fee. If you win that challenge, you take home the pot, you know, and so sponsored challenges, right? So we have B2B aspect of our business where we're charging businesses, but at the start, we're just going to charge of them based off incentive. So, you know, if a thousand people join, if this many people

buy your product or this many people visit your website, then you pay us, right? So we want to prove ourselves because that's how much confidence we have in what we're building. But, yeah, it's free, you know, so why not? And what challenges are going to exist in the beginning? Ooh. Can you say it? I don't want to spoil too many of my, you know, soccer's, you know, we're in Miami. We've got to have the soccer lock or juggle challenge here and there. We do have, man, I've learned about so many different sports through this. We have High-Lye influencers getting involved. Spike Ball is a huge one.

Spike Ball's fun. You know, I'm learning about sports that I didn't even know about it. As a fan of sport, that's like been such a cool part of this. And, you know, even just, you know, you talk about the challenges that we're going to have. I just like sent this to my buddies. Just literally like my closest friend group. And you know some of them because they went to middle school. Yeah.

I just, hey, test it guys. I want you guys to break it and just put something out there because I want to see. what you think. Found out one of my closest buddies is an excellent Rubik's Cube song. And he did it in seconds. I was like, what the hell? So it's just a, I love telling that story

because it's such a prime example of people having these skills and maybe you look like a tryhard. If you were to do that or bench on Instagram or on TikTok, it's like, what is this guy doing? But when you do it on a platform that is dedicated to building a community of competition and support

in so many different areas and different sports, then it's natural. And so that's what we're doing. So without giving too much away, just know that there's so many different ways to compete, man. I mean, flipping this water bottle. There's so much shit you could do. There's a lot we can do it. No offense to your time.

You're good. It is funny because I think as we also get older, like the competitive side of us doesn't go away. And we will just challenge ourselves to do something like stupid as hell. Yeah, it can be challenging yourself. Well, I'll pick up a rock and be like, I bet you can't hit that pole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're just there for 20 minutes, you know, tossing rocks, just trying to hit that pole. Like we find ways to do any sort of competition.

Right. And we might have no sort of ball around us, no sort of hoop, no sort of anything. Get creative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, that's fun.

Yeah. It's like, you know, like you were just saying, like the rock and stuff. Like things about when we're kids, you know. Exactly. Yeah. People that like, you know, competition. And like, they're naturally creative, whether they realize. it or not, and here, just by creating something, or maybe you're not the best in the world,

but you're the best in your friend group, and that's enough. Maybe you're challenging yourself, trying to hold yourself accountable to a certain goal you're trying to hit. That's where he gets fun, you know, and so I'm always excited to see what people come up with for different ideas. Maybe we'll get a stay tranquil type of challenge going on and make a coffee involved. That's how I would imagine it, but a little confecito in some way. But yeah, there's so many different ways to to express that love for competition. And it's been alive since, you know, humans, you know, since the beginning of time, really. Competition has been an intrinsic human value since like, you know, talk about the Olympics

and when it started. So that's why we like to say TikTok and the Olympics had a baby. That's cool. I like that. So download the app, honestly, you know, whoever is listening, obviously, be ready for the app. Not yet, yeah. Not yet, but be ready for it in the beginning of the year to download the app. That's right.

What's been your favorite memory? so far in this journey of building a game? Yeah, man. So that's a good question. You know, I mean, there's been a lot of forms of validation, right? I've shown this to people I've connected with at major companies, you know, like Nike, like even TikTok. But seeing that validation from those high school kids at Columbus when we've made a test it

the first time and seeing them like, what's going on here? Oh, I can win something. Oh, I can be my buddy who I know that I'm way better at than this. And seeing them like talk smack and like, you know, kind of cheating the line so that they can compete in God game first. That was just like, you know, beautiful, you know, to see because at the end of the day, that's what you're building. That's what I'm building this for. And so when I saw that and seeing that there was a demand for this that is untapped right now, that just gave me, you know, that shot at Cappacito in the morning every day to be like, you know, people want this. that is untapped right now,

that just gave me that shot a Cappacito in the morning every day to be like, you know, people want this. We're the only ones doing this, and we're going to do it better than anyone else if someone else tries to do this. So like Dan Campbell said, you can knock us down,

but we're going to buy the kneecap all the way up. So I feel bad for anyone else to be our competition. Oh, yeah. I love that. And one last question. If I'm someone that's aspiring to start something of my own, what would your advice be to that person? Yeah, man. And this is something, you know, we still need to give myself this, you know, this advice.

Right. Yeah, exactly. It's, uh, if you got an idea, run it by some people. You know, it's different when your mom says she likes the idea than maybe your friends. All right, now, let's take it a step further. People in the target market. Get some feedback on it because maybe it is a bad idea, but it's okay. It starts with that. Yeah. You chip it. Like, you know, every statue looks like a piece of crap before you start chipping at it. So slowly. you get some feedback here and there. Now you start picking up some skills along the way. Now you know how to maybe make some money off of this because you've found a unique insight.

So I think people with ideas, people that are creative or creators, the best advice I can give, and I hate give you advice, but it would be go for it, put it out there, be humble because chances are, the first thing you throw out there

is not going to be the best thing that you're capable of doing. But you owe yourself to put it out there get some feedback and then work on it be true to it if you know it needs some work put some work in it get get the right people around you that share that vision right after you've gotten some some some some feedback so um that's that's solid advice i agree yeah i think you know nothing changes nothing changes so yeah because there are bad ideas out there but like you said if you can get some sort of validation from not maybe friends and family and really test it out but to be able to do that, you have to actually do it.

If you don't do it and you don't test it, it goes back to your point. You're probably going to live with the regret of like what if. And I always, like my motto is like, I'd rather go do something, fail a million times doing it than live with the regret of not doing it. So if you have a thought, everything begins with a thought. I remember a podcast I did years ago. I always go back to this. And every time I see a plane flying, like the fact that there's hundreds of people flying in an airplane across the world, that began with an idea. That was a concept that people never realized, like, maybe we can do this, right?

And then someone got in a plane and they flew from here to there. And they're like, shit, we got something in the air. And then that just started the evolution of obviously, you know, what air traffic is today. But it began with a thought. And a thought turns into an idea, an idea turns into a concept and a concept turns into a reality. Right. And if you have that idea, you have that thought, like, why not? You know? Put it out. Why not? What do you have to lose, you know? Exactly.

Probably, probably, you know. I mean, maybe a lot. Yeah, yeah. And it only makes sense to invest in it once you, you know, you've seen it. But it's all about what you believe in at the end of the day. And if you obviously believe in what you're doing, I obviously believe in what I'm doing. And anybody that does their craft believes in what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Right.

So if you believe in it, I think it's worth every single penny. That's right. You got to go for it. I think Twitch started as a terrible idea. It was a guy, I don't know if you know this. It was like a guy wearing like a body cam and it was just filming him all day and what he does. That's what Twitch was. And now it isn't.

I didn't know that. Like, I don't know if it's a billion dollar company. It's probably a billion dollar. I think it might be. It's one of the most valuable companies in the world. And so, yeah, it is going to start with something that is just your, you're, your first piece of crap out there, you know, and then like, make it, make it something cool, yeah, but working on it too. Oh, yeah. So always wrap up with this question for the pod. For you, what does it mean to stay

tranquil? What does it mean to stay tranquil? I mean, to me, uh, tranquilo. I mean, it makes me think of my family and what they would say to calm us down. But stay tranquil to me means knowing yourself, trusting yourself, and working on yourself because there's always some part of us that can be better and we owe it to ourselves to find out what that is and put some work on it. So, don't quite. Maybe tomorrow we get a little bit better. Hell yeah. Love that. Well, I appreciate you for coming on, brother. For sure, thanks for having me on. It's a good time. And yes, Godgame, tell them where to find you, let them know, release date, all that fun stuff. At gotgame.com. That is our social media. That is also

for our website, gotgame.app, sign up. And you can be one of the first people like Andre here to test out the lead beta version and they'll be the first ones to maybe get some free cash credits when we do cash prize challenges. So yeah, I'm excited. Let's go, man. Thanks again for jumping on.

Thank you guys for tuning in and we'll catch you guys on the next one. Cheers, man. Peace.