um so we're we're multiverse we did yc
w20 so that was from like january to
march of this year just before corona
hit um
so you know multiverse it we're we're
making next generation tabletop rpgs you
can think of us like a mix between you
know dnd and roblox we uh we want to
take games like dungeons and dragons
that you play in your head and on paper
and we want to turn that into a visual
experience you play online you can
stream uh you play with your friends
right it's like a video game and uh
we're building a marketplace because d
and d and like tabletop rpgs are
ultimately about telling your own story
and so any we want anyone to be able to
make content on multiverse but we're
also the first creators on it so in a
way we're making a platform but we're
also making a game and content on top of
it
and uh you know we're a bit of an
unusual founding team we've got two mit
engineers me and hisham and sarah who's
a world-class artist like i'll let her
get into uh stuff she's done but uh
really it was kind of an unusual team
and we wanted to share our experiences
about how it was having like someone
like sarah collaborate with us be a
founder and whether maybe that's
something that more people should do
right and uh
you know emma touched on this it in tech
it's hard to understand how to make a
game sometimes right because coming from
a tech background we're used to uh
solving problems we're used to talking
to customers and
uh like worst case you you're building
like a social product and the advice is
always like you can maybe you can't talk
to the customers but you launch
right away and you test the testing's
out
um
and you know games i think sometimes
make people a little bit uncomfortable
in tech because they're
different right like they're
entertainment products and they take
some time to launch and they're not
necessarily solving a problem right uh
in entertainment you really need to have
a point of view that you're sharing and
you need it to be compelling you have to
trust that like millions of other people
want to know about your point of view
right and you need to make these like
really important foundational decisions
uh without necessarily knowing you know
how people will react you're not able to
test it right away right
and uh you really want someone on your
team when you're making a game who is
truly good at that right and um
no it's worth saying that like uh not
every gaming startup is an entertainment
company right like twitch is a platform
right they're not necessarily making
their own content right um even mobile
games to some extent you could say uh
you don't necessarily need the high
entertainment value but like you know if
you're trying to make a company like you
know let's say like riot uh when uh
fundamentally you're also making a media
company uh entertainment is really
important and you need someone who is
good at that you need someone with great
intuition instincts um
and you know when we were making
multiverse we knew we needed to make
content and we wanted to be compelling
and just immediately the person who
popped it to our mind was our we'd been
friends for a long time
it felt very natural
and
you know luckily she had a lot of the
entrepreneurial skills that uh that we
already needed and so uh yeah sorry do
you want to talk a little bit more about
that and like your journey going through
why see as a as an artist
yeah sure uh you can hear me right
yep okay cool uh so hi i'm sarah i'm the
creative director and co-founder at
multiverse and primarily the illustrator
and
sorry for the cat interruptions before
uh she seems to want to give part of
this talk as well
before i was with multiverse i was doing
work for marvel for star wars and on
comic books uh and it was just a really
natural transition actually to transfer
some of those skills uh into games and
if you think about how players interact
with your games art is at every single
step you know the first um the first way
they interact with your game is through
illustration and you know the
promotional images you create uh then
you know their art is dominating the
screen and ultimately defining what the
player experience is going to be
and the art of the game is what people
are going to ultimately recognize you
know when they're on twitch they're on
youtube they're on instagram you know
seeing your game around
so we genuinely believe that artists
actually have the same skill sets that
you expect of good tech founders and
first and foremost illustrators right
now especially the ones utilizing social
media they're entrepreneurs they're good
at business they're very
interdisciplinary you know they're
raking in 10 to 40k at comic cons you
know kickstarters are getting genuinely
like millions of dollars with teams of
just like two or three artists you know
when companies talk about like
reoccurring revenue for the same thing
that these
uh the same thing that artists are
considering and it's like a patreon in
twitch subs you know they're running
their own businesses
uh and often they already have audiences
they have access to other artists in an
established community of talent
uh and when you open the door to like
one illustrator you very quickly have
access to many many more
so it often gives momentum when you
start introducing just one illustrator
to your team you begin to find that you
have access to many more
and one kind of hot take and kind of a
controversial opinion is that um you
shouldn't get fixated and dazzled by
people who are coming from aaa studios
you know the artists who are coming from
riot and from blizzard they're coming
from like a very much a studio
background and what really makes
illustrators excel as entrepreneurs is
when they're coming from the scrappier
side of things when you know they're on
twitch or youtube or instagram or
twitter
and if you're looking to recruit from a
small to mid-sized team i highly
recommend looking at those folks who are
building their own audiences and doing
it from scratch the same way a startup
does
with my own experience coming into tech
and coming into startups as an
illustrators i should say that there is
growing pains uh it comes from both the
illustrator themselves and from the team
that's accommodating them and bringing
them in
i didn't have
the same vocabulary as a lot of the
people in startup spaces you know when i
was going around do i combinator every
two minutes i'd have to lean over to
that and be like wait what does this
mean what is b2b sass what is like i
just smile and sit there i was the only
person at yc who didn't know who paul
graham was and i still a little bit
don't so
you know i didn't have some of these
established truths or general knowledge
and that took
some you know some growing both with my
team
um
and i should also say that for me as an
illustrator transitioning into like
working with a company after so long
doing freelance and you know
successfully working independently uh i
had to understand timelines were fast
decision making is really important
you're accommodating a larger team and a
product that's being developed very
quickly those early stages at a startup
are very crucial you don't want to end
up developing the wrong thing
but what's interesting
is at the same time that's where
illustrators really come in handy
because you're able to produce you know
illustrations and trailers and those
first instances that really grab
audiences
quickly and relatively cheaply compared
to developing other products so you can
kind of test what's clicking with your
audiences and what isn't thanks to
having that talent like ready to go in
the team
um and i would also say especially for
the artists that are in the chat and you
know watching these talks the budgets
are a lot higher and the pay is just
simply better in tech like that's a big
appeal uh to go from working
independently to like working at a
startup
um i'm not similarly likely there and
similarly as a tech company you can
uh get a lot of really talented people
like you know
uh affordably you know like you can like
really like spend a lot of money and uh
like make some really talented people
amazing art like really high production
value um and uh that's been a huge
advantage for us in like all of our
content it's really kind of like why you
know why have we gone to yc and why we
raised our seed round even like most of
the investors were like all right shut
up we don't care about your pitch your
trailer looks awesome you know what i
mean like let's just invest on that so
yeah it's a it's a really huge advantage
yeah
yeah and a lot of things that we hear
from other people who they're not
necessarily opposed to working with
artists but primarily they don't even
know where to start uh and i can say
that they're not on linkedin and they
probably don't know how to use linkedin
uh you have to go to where they're
already building their audiences so that
is going to be twitter it's going to be
art station it's going to be on twitch
or on youtube um
and they're surprisingly like
accommodating and easy to reach out to
and very often again when you find one
you very often have access to others i
also really encourage people to comb
through some of like the popular twitter
hashtags that are on there to look at
hashtag portfolio day
women artists and most recently there's
been a really popular push in game dev
spaces for
poc in play so that is highlighting like
people of color within the video game
industries
and it's been a real like treasure of
talent and access to people who
can really
do something special with your video
game company
so yeah our
whole concept is that you know
illustrators have the same skills as a
tech founder and they're already doing a
lot of the same work
um they know what they're good at
knowing what people want and doing it
and we really hope that more folks uh
bring artists to the table and also the
cap table that was something nice
i i begged her not to make that pun you
know the
the cat table fun
um
yeah i mean no it's been really great
having someone like sarah on board and
uh yeah a huge part of our company um