What does it take to build a successful startup in the iGaming industry? John Wright, the founder of the data analytics platform Stats Drone, has navigated the challenges of bootstrapping and fundraising to create thriving businesses. Through his experience, he has learned the power of product-led growth, where a high-quality, user-focused offering can drive success.
By embracing the fundraising process, they have not only secured investment but also gained invaluable mentorship and networking opportunities. John’s insights on the importance of patience, financial discipline, and a relentless focus on the customer are the reasons why he has built lasting ventures. The iGaming industry is just getting started and is ready for innovation, and those willing to take risks and learn from their mistakes can find great success in this sector.
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0:00 Bootstrapping and fundraising challenges in the gaming industry.
1:15 Importance of product focus and user-centric approach.
2:30 Balancing bootstrapping and financing to deliver new features.
4:00 Leveraging development teams and investing in product design.
5:15 Shifting mindset from revenue-driven to user-driven.
6:24 Overcoming early mistakes through product-led growth.
7:32 Pivotal moments and decisions enabling company's scale.
9:15 Leveraging LinkedIn and podcasts for product-led marketing.
10:51 Decision-making process on whether to bring in investors.
12:17 Networking and mentorship as key fundraising strategies.
13:45 Embracing the fundraising process to level up skills.
15:30 Inspiration from bootstrapping advocates like Nathan Latka.
Welcome to “15 Minute Mastery,” the ultimate show for iGaming professionals, hosted by industry veteran Dmitry Belianin. With over 17 years of experience, Dmitry brings unparalleled insights and wisdom from top industry experts in just 15 minutes. Each episode delivers actionable strategies from all iGaming verticals to improve your personal and business performance. As the founder of Belianin, Dmitry also shares his expertise in nurturing high-potential iGaming startups. Subscribe to “15 Minute Mastery” for concise, high-value content and stay ahead in the competitive world of iGaming.
One thing I'll say that people, if they're actually thinking about raising investment money is that you will open the door for new opportunities for meeting new people. My network right now is totally different, both with investors and with people that I've talked to that have either said no, but said, hey, the answer is no, but I'm more than happy to give you time on the phone to chat. And it just gave us a lot of time to think about, well, how do we make them feel comfortable in investing? It's like, what do we need to do? What did they know about a different side of the business that we don't know? It's opened up immense doors along the way. We've been fortunate to be in a few situations where companies said, hey, let's talk acquisition. And even though we've listened to those conversations and said no, which on paper looks like a bunch of wasted time, we've had the opportunity to literally ask questions from some of the smartest people in the industry. You're listening to 15-minute mastery, a show that empowers you with insights from leading iGaming experts to enhance your personal or business performance. The show is brought to you by the ei-powered data analytics platform Blask, and supported by ten driven affiliate and media company already media. Lala starts the leading casino partnership program and next.io, the world's iGaming community. Hey guys, what is up everyone and welcome to 15-minute mastery. My guest today is John Wright, one of the most amazing human beings in the iGaming industry. Also a co-founder at Stads John, the affiliate program Stads Tracker. John has got an amazing experience in the affiliate space but today we're not going to talk about it and we're going to talk about the story behind Stads John and the most importantly on how to build a successful startup bootstrapping on how to manage your finance, on how to scale your business. John, it's so nice to have you here and I cannot wait to start the conversation. I am looking forward to this. Awesome, so let's start with the very first thing. You guys been all over the industry, you won amazing awards, you and Darryl are one of the biggest experts in this industry when it comes down to affiliation but the most interesting part of your business and especially like you personally is the way how you guys build your company. iGaming has been many say all-dated industry for years and people such as you guys are on the forefront of the innovation and the startup and there are so many young minds are really building new products from scratch, new businesses from scratch, going through the challenges, trying to understand how to build a business, how to raise funds. So I really want you to share the early days of Stads John focusing on some of your key challenges you faced while bootstrapping the startup and maybe some of the strategies you used to overcome them. That's a pretty loaded question. The challenges were all over the place. Like I've spent my career in not just iGaming but every aspect of affiliate marketing as an affiliate manager, as an affiliate. So we're building something that even though there are a couple competitors in the market that I could have looked up to, I feel like we're building something that I can't quite copy someone. It's not like the path has been carved and I could just go I'm just going to copy them and I think in iGaming there's a lot of parallels there where a lot of people they're just kind of looking at what other people have done and my personal experience is the more we start going off the path and making mistakes is when we learn a lot. So we've learned a lot from building what we've built and we've learned a lot from having to go to market. Like we're not in affiliate business anymore. We're now a sauce company. So we have to sell to people. I've always enjoyed the B2B aspect of the industry and I feel like this is where I belong as a home. So in terms of everything I mean bootstrapping was a critical part of our initial success. We did do some fundraising which I do think helped us quite a bit but in saying that I'm now have switched my mindset that I think if we could have made, learned from the mistakes that we made from early on, I would say we would have bootstrapped so hard that we wouldn't have raised investors but in saying that I don't regret it because some of the investors we got on board were very lucky and the fact that we were bootstrapped to begin with gave us the patience to not say yes to some deals that we simply didn't like at all. We just never wanted to be in a position where we would have to accept something and then we now have to live with that partner and then I'm sure you've seen this. I think some companies have actually been maybe destroyed or they've given themselves a ceiling by accepting some of these deals. So it's just about trying to build your own path. So I was wondering how did you guys balance bootstrapping the finance management on how to grow the company that even the new features but at the same time keep it to all. So what were the things behind your success in this field? Yeah that's a tough question. I'd say there's always a bit of luck behind some companies but the luck is you make your own luck. So in our situation in the last 10 years I've worked with maybe four to five different development teams and what I've done was I kind of gave each one of these companies a project to work on and over those 10 years the current team we have in Bulgaria they eventually got all the projects they were just that good. So we're lucky that we were able to kind of figure things out in that sort of weird way. Now going back to the opposite side of investing away from bootstrapping when we did get our funding it was it gave us the power and the comfort to say what else can we do to invest more in product. So we've never well we've hired people from sales but it's not worked out and we've just invested more into product and without knowing if this was the right decision or not we just basically said let's go for it. So we're lucky that we hired a SaaS UX design agency that their experience is its SaaS. They're not a UX agency that can do SaaS they're very specialized in that. So it costs us a little bit of money but the investment paid off quite a bit and it really changed our mindset to be very product focused. Now I know that sounds kind of cliche it's like of course think about your users but it's very easy to start a business and get caught up in well why are you doing this. I'm doing this because I want to make money and it's exciting but people kind of forget that you're meant to create a company for the users and I can say we made some mistakes early on of just building our first version of the app and saying all right let's wait for the money to come in and then being very disappointed when people weren't using our app and realizing hey we have to go to market we have to talk to our users we have to do everything. So I think when I talk to other SaaS companies it's a similar story it's very rare that you create something and people just kind of flood in. I think with affiliates sometimes you're able to create a site and maybe it starts getting you know some rankings in google and I think affiliates maybe don't understand what it's like to be on this side of the fence where you could just create something and maybe in six months you're making pretty good money and it was some painful learning experiences but once that I would never change I would definitely be more than happy to do it all over again. You know I really like what you said about the product because if you think about you know not even die gaming but business in general I think you have like two biggest approaches marketing let you know business and then the product let business. I think in your case the the stake you made on the product itself is paying off because you know when the product is so good it just you know like creates this like infinite viral and referral loop for you guys where you know the product itself itself. So I think essentially you know my philosophy has been the same all over the years you know the product always should be coming first and it's a cliche which everyone is saying but essentially it's not because many many kind of companies they fall into the trap of creating a marketing led business rather than the product led business so I really like your approach here. So you went from the bootstrapping and your company started you know like you said getting more clients getting more revenue so what were like what was the pivotal moment or like decisions that enabled you guys for a scale because if you think about you guys now like it's a successful company with you know like with some awards like a recognition obviously the company and brand awareness so what was the pivotal moment or decisions that they will be enabled you to grow and dominate. Tough question. I like to say that we try to build in public but I think we can actually do more in terms of sharing our stories and we've done everything except for sharing numbers of customers and revenue and all that. I think if people actually saw what was behind the scenes in the numbers I think they would see a very bad leg where things just took a lot of time so in my strong opinion I think we've had a great product from day one but I hate to say it but when we did redesign our SaaS app it changed the perceptions of people and then it became kind of like a snowball effect that once we had the new design people believed that it was good and they kind of been hearing their stories in the background so November of last year is when we relaunched with the new app February of this year is when we relaunched with the mobile version of the design and that has just become like its own self-fulfilling prophecy where people are talking to each other and yeah we're 11 people in the company we have nobody for sales and the next hire is probably not going to be sales and it's not to say that I don't care about sales I actually like sales I like the challenge of it but yeah it's just been a weird journey where this snowball effect is kind of like it's now overwhelming us in a good way where you know we're kind of looking at our our work like you know we've won we're fortunate to have won two awards and that's actually just spiked our business so we're now kind of going we just have to stay on top of it and be there for customers and you know try to keep focused on pushing the envelope of building a better product which is what God is here in the first place so I do think it's more product-led growth first with there is marketing and the marketing that's worked well for us has been linked in the podcast that I've got has helped open up a lot of doors and that's been the primary too and with the exception of going to conferences seeing people in person and just being visible as long as we can be top of mind in the positive sense then you know that's that's what we're aiming for oh yeah that that's a great that's a great insight and I'm a fan of your podcast and you know whenever I travel I always have a few episodes downloaded to to to to listen to them so I think I think you mentioned also one interesting thing like earlier on about you know the decision-making process on whether to bring in investors or not so I want to revisit that part because I think you know for for all the you know companies and people who are willing to raise capital or thinking about raise the capital so I want you to try to like go a little bit through your decision-making process like what what was your your fund process on whether to take the external investors or not yeah great question we we didn't know what we're getting into we knew that there was a new level of business that was behind the scenes we've never been a part of it as either investors or raising so I kind of wanted to challenge ourselves and say like what are we going to learn I don't know we've seen examples of some companies that have raised money I think probably maybe the most famous one is I think better collective raise some money content media raise some money and you see them as they became public and became massive giant so you're kind of wondering is this what we should be doing um in going in revisiting that whole process it was an amazing journey it it was like a big slap in the face of being told no and it's like well what is no what's behind the notes so every time we got a rejection from an investor just gave me more power and will to go further I felt that if we were going to take any investment money whether it's friends family or someone from the industry that I'm putting my name and line on the reputation that I'm really going all in on this and one thing I'll say that people if they're actually thinking about raising investment money is that you will get you will open the door for new opportunities for meeting new people I can say like my my network right now is totally different both with investors and with people that I've talked to that have either said no but said hey the answer is no but I'm more than happy to give you time on the phone to chat and it just gave us a lot of time to think about well how do we how do we make them feel comfortable in investing us like what do we need to do what do they know about a different side of the business that we don't know and it's opened up immense doors along the way and including we've we've been fortunate to be in a few situations where companies said hey let's talk acquisition and even though we've listened to those conversations and said no which on paper looks like a bunch of wasted time we've had the opportunity to literally ask questions from some of the smartest people in the industry like to get to ask anything you want so the questions come our way about going okay we got to pitch our business but we get to ask questions too and those questions I mean I've leveled up my skills and networking so much from just being in that position so highly recommend people do it and I think it's a great way to validate your business like even if you say I don't want to go through this process throw it out there I mean it's worth it you know just get uncomfortable get embarrassed you know saying I don't know the answer to a question that you should know you fix that for next time and you just get better I absolutely love it I think this is going to be like a quote somewhere in my memories about you know how you can really leverage you know your opportunity to either fundraise or not thank you for sharing this tip and if you can only like give like three best tips from your experience on the fundraising you know you've been through a lot like as you mentioned so what will be the top three key tips from John Wright on like fundraising I might just give you only two but I'll see if I can spin it off in the three the first tip I'm gonna say it has to do with kind of like mentorship and networking which is I kind of like referring to this the story of you know Kobe Bryant going to Michael Jordan saying hey you know I want to be the best as well and Michael Jordan becoming a mentor I've been looking at myself over a long period of time going what do I need to do to find that right mentor and I kind of been able to look in the mirror where being humble and asking investors for their money means that I have to basically say hey look I'm willing to just kind of share my story expose my situation and it really gave me the pressure to be the best so in trying to just kind of summarize that story with you know Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan is that I say like if you really want a good mentor a good mentor will spend the time with you if they see something in you that they see a drive they see a fire and you know it's kind of cliche as well to say well you know some investors they invest in people first like sometimes they say you know I don't like a project but I like you and I think the next project will be amazing so I wanted to you know kind of put myself out there and you know try to win people over and in looking for mentors I just had to kind of level up I had to get really uncomfortable do the things that maybe I don't know if I wanted to do like start a podcast and be on video and you know do public speaking but when I've done that you know I find that these mentors that I've looked up to are now willing to kind of invite some other time to have a one-on-one call or to lend a hand whatever that looks like and I think you know people kind of hope and aspire to get these mentors but I think if you really want to mentor a bit of time and respect that you got to show something for them to say you know what I see you doing this and then they're willing to lend that hand. Another part would be I spent a lot of time thinking about guys like Nathan Latke who runs Founder Path and he's a big proponent of bootstrapping his story is that he did a bunch of fundraising and he's very he's almost like against the investment world and for not a bad reason he raised money for his company he eventually lost majority ownership he didn't exit but it was not one that he was happy with he's like great now I have to start all over but he built a business that is all based on his premise of going if if I was able to bootstrap I'd be able to own my own company and that becomes part of his story so being a company that's done bootstrapping first with investment to accelerate and considering a second round I said you know what let's adopt this bootstrap mentality and take the inspiration from people like Nathan Latke like Guillaume Mubech from Lemless where they just say you know what bootstrap and make things happen it's you can spend a lot of time waiting for investors and if they don't come around it's like what was a better use of my time trying to impress the next customer or win the next business or try to win an investor I've done both and getting an opportunity to it one more time I'm like you know what the third time it's I've got the the investors we need they they basically said anytime you want more money it's there which is great but it's kind of like you know what let's not sell any more equity let's let's bootstrap it and let's not raise again if we need to or take the time to have you know these amazing network opportunities to say if we are going to raise a second round what would it look like and let's be patient bootstrapping gives you the financial ability to be patient and that's very understated well I absolutely love your tips and I think you know me when I started my first business almost like 15 years back knowing some of the advices you just mentioned would have been you know completely changed my journey so I really hope that some of the insights you shared right now will be insanely valuable for all the people in our in our nation possibly even beyond I came into to be able to improve their businesses and essentially their lives thank you so much john I really enjoyed our conversation it was a pure gold thank you so much for for spending your time with us awesome thank you so much thank john [BLANK_AUDIO]
