The first week in July was a special time for me. iGB L!VE, one of the biggest online gambling industry conferences, took place at ExCeL London, not too far from where I live. I’ve attended almost all iGB L!VE since its inception nearly 15 years ago, and this time I had the pleasure of bringing along the CoinGeek film crew.
title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=””>While iGB L!VE covers all aspects of the iGaming world, we were camped out near the iGB Accelerator and Startup Launch Pad, a collection of forward-thinking startup founders and investors, all keen on harnessing the latest technology to gain a competitive edge.
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) was a huge topic within the startup space, and throughout the conference, it was the hottest buzzword. The challenge is how startups using AI and other emerging tech can stand out from all the hype when competition is fierce and skepticism is running high.
“Obviously, everyone’s talking about AI,” shared Simon Collins, long-time iGaming entrepreneur, investor, and strategic advisor & director for AI-powered Good.Engine.
“But the reality is, you’ve got to figure out what the real world applications are for some of this technology,” he said.
Michael Caselli, Investor, entrepreneur, and chairman of Clarion Gaming, shared his thoughts on AI and blockchain from an investment perspective after he finished chairing the iGB Startup Launch Pad.
“I think the reality is everyone is using AI. AI is not what makes you stand apart, you just want to look for interesting businesses, and great if you can cleverly use AI to make that business more efficient, faster or develop things quicker,” Caselli shared.
“Whatever you’re doing with the AI, you want to see that it’s used correctly, and the answer isn’t just, hey, we’re in AI. It’s not just throwing blockchain at every problem, and then you’ve got this great new thing.”
“Investors are getting 400 pitches across their desk every year. When all of them say blockchain or all of them say AI, it kind of loses its force. If you want something that’s unique, you still need to come up with a unique idea,” Caselli added.
iGB Accelerator speaker and entrepreneur Benjamin Böhle-Roitelet, now serving as the CEO of Wider.ai, pointed out how the previous buzzword was Internet of Things (IoT), now it’s AI, and that investments are higher “in this buzz” even if the tech is not necessary.
“And that’s why everyone, startups and also not startups, are putting the same buzz at the same moment. But, in fact, if you look into this, it’s sometimes inefficient to put this kind of work,” he said.
Startup co-founder Jack Everitt of THNDR also spoke at the accelerator and shared his thoughts on navigating tech buzzwords surrounding blockchain.
According to Everitt, when talking to investors, it’s necessary to lead with the buzzword and explain how it’s solving an underlying problem, but when speaking with customers, buzzy tech talk puts them off.
“You have to focus on the problem they’re trying to solve, which is more user acquisition, cheaper user acquisition, or more content. And then the Bitcoin or crypto aspects can facilitate and make that product finished,” he said.
When entrepreneurs are passionate about emerging tech such as blockchain, it’s common to develop a solution looking for a problem rather than identifying it first and then solving it with the tech, a challenge Everett faces.
“We had cool tech first, because we were super interested in Bitcoin and blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies. That was kind of our thesis of our company, how can we change and disrupt industries with this tech. And we had some really good games, which we were using Bitcoin to give rewards to players,” explained Everitt.
“The problem is that people just want more games. They don’t know that they need to settle their bets between each other. We start with the problem first now, which is we need to give people more games, and then under the hood we’ll solve the problem they don’t know they have, which is payments,” he said.
The message here is to focus on the market needs first, then the tech comes in.
“There are plenty of good ideas that don’t have any market, that don’t have any ability to be a success. I believe that you must first find a market and look to this market. This market has some money. We can look at some spaces where there’s more money than in others, and we need to look at these parts and see what we can develop to help this part to be more efficient. That’s what we try to do on our side. Start from the market to the idea,” shared Böhle-Roitelet.
Everitt, who learned through experience, now starts with testing products in the market to see how they are received.
“So, we just try. If we have an idea for some aspect of a payment flow that crypto can help, we’ll just build it and put it out and see and show people how it works,” he explained.
“Hopefully there’s a business case for a partner to be like, yeah, that actually makes something better for our users and then they will use it and then investors say, wow, you’re solving a problem and then you’ve got this traction, then it all like comes together,” he said.
For entrepreneurs who do it right, there are also opportunities to partner with enterprises and governments that cannot experiment with emerging tech. However, optimizing their operations is of utmost importance. Osmin Callis, Founder & CEO of Mode8 Venture Studio, specializes in this area, and her message is to focus on utility instead of the buzz.
“Emerging technology, as it continues to evolve, isn’t just necessarily about the next new feature or hyped innovation. Often, those emerging technologies are solving internal problems that make those technologies more efficient. So, they’re faster. They consume fewer resources. They might have increased usability, which, when done well and applied properly, increases their utility,” she explained.
“So those who are willing to take the greatest risk and come in really early tend to want to partner with smaller innovators to take advantage of the experiments that those smaller innovators are doing, and then they can hopefully capitalize and get the benefits with any new IP that’s created,” she said.
Watch: Unlocking the fundamentals of building an effective startup
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