Ryan Spoon of Sorare on the Intersection of Fantasy Sports, Blockchain, and Community (EP.202)

05/19/22 • 51 min

In this episode my good friend Ryan Spoon makes his Panic debut. We’ve known each other forever on the internet and met in person about seven years ago when Greg Bettinelliintroduced us at the Upfront conference. Ryan is a great connector – a super connector; and a platinum Social Leverage investor in all of our funds. Ryan is an operator extraordinaire. He was a senior vice president of digital and social at ESPN for eight years. He’s seen growth, he knows sports, he knows mobile, he knows entertainment. And now he’s the COO of Sorare – the intersection of fantasy sports, blockchain, and community. You’ve heard me say it often: the world needs operators. Everybody can start a company, everybody has an idea, and until a few months ago, everybody could raise money; put all this together and no one knows what the hell they’re doing and what we need are operators.

Guest - Ryan Spoon, COO at Sorare

howardlindzon.com, sorare.com, sorare.com/blog,

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @ryanspoon, @sorare, @PanicwFriends, @knutjensen

linkedin.com/in/ryanspoon

linkedin.com/company/sorare/

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Show Notes:

Introduction and a guest appearance by former President Donald Trump (00:40)
Welcome Ryan Spoon to Panic with Friends (06:16)
Ryan explains what it means to be a great “operator” (07:01)
Why Ryan was attracted to Sorare - the NFT based fantasy sports gaming company (08:42)
How Ryan met the Sorare founders through Benchmark (12:03)
What Ryan has had to learn about crypto and why there’s still much to learn (14:11)
The role of NFTs within fantasy sports (15:44)
How to get started and the onboarding experience (18:11)
Leveraging soccers global reach (19:41)
Why adding baseball is a no-brainer (25:14)
How professional athletes increase fandom and engagement (28:55)
Teaching your kids about investing (32:17)
Gambling - everything is regulated but kids can YOLO their last $200 of food money over the weekend (34:26)
What worries Ryan in 2022 coming out of COVID (38:03)
What is it about the holy grail of data that keeps Ryan excited (40:48)
Why Ryan is bonkers over Sleep 8 and getting a good night’s sleep (42:13)
How Benchmark and Sorare found each other (47:00)
Wrapping up and closing thoughts (47:57)

Guest - Ryan Spoon, COO at Sorare

howardlindzon.com, sorare.com, sorare.com/blog,

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @ryanspoon, @sorare, @PanicwFriends, @knutjensen

linkedin.com/in/ryanspoon

linkedin.com/company/sorare/

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Show Notes:

Introduction and a guest appearance by former President Donald Trump (00:40)
Welcome Ryan Spoon to Panic with Friends (06:16)
Ryan explains what it means to be a great “operator” (07:01)
Why Ryan was attracted to Sorare - the NFT based fantasy sports gaming company (08:42)
How Ryan met the Sorare founders through Benchmark (12:03)
What Ryan has had to learn about crypto and why there’s still much to learn (14:11)
The role of NFTs within fantasy sports (15:44)
How to get started and the onboarding experience (18:11)
Leveraging soccers global reach (19:41)
Why adding baseball is a no-brainer (25:14)
How professional athletes increase fandom and engagement (28:55)
Teaching your kids about investing (32:17)
Gambling - everything is regulated but kids can YOLO their last $200 of food money over the weekend (34:26)
What worries Ryan in 2022 coming out of COVID (38:03)
What is it about the holy grail of data that keeps Ryan excited (40:48)
Why Ryan is bonkers over Sleep 8 and getting a good night’s sleep (42:13)
How Benchmark and Sorare found each other (47:00)
Wrapping up and closing thoughts (47:57)

Previous Episode

David Woo, former Wall Street Investment Strategist and CEO of David Woo Unbound on Global Macro and the Current Panic (EP.201)

Today’s guest is David Woo, a former Wall Street Investment Strategist and now the CEO of David Woo Unbound, where he’s leveling the playing field for Main Street. His blog, podcast, and YouTube are a global forum promoting fact-based debates about markets, politics, and economics. David was previously the Head of Global Rates, Foreign Exchange, and Emerging Market Fixed Income and Economics Research at Bank of America. He holds a Ph.D in Economics from Columbia. We’re just over two years from the last market panic, and I thought it was important to bring him on to talk global macro since we find ourselves smack in the middle of another panic – inflation, rising interest rates, markets melting, and the possibility of total war. He’s got some really strong opinions, ideas, and forecasts I thought I should share. Enjoy!

Guest - David Woo, CEO of David Woo Unbound

howardlindzon.com, davidwoounbound.com

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @davidwoounbound, @knutjensen

linkedin.com/in/david-woo-1479a492

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Show Notes:

(00:43) – Intro
(05:08) – Welcome David Woo
(05:26) – The pivot in global macro
(09:00) – Tech won’t solve this
(11:01) – Global momentum is slowing
(18:23) – Waking the dragon
(20:26) – Energy is key
(25:16) – Pressure on the system
(36:09) – Profit margins under pressure
(37:01) – Looking at a recession?
(41:33) – Wall Street v. Main Street
(44:08) – Wrapping up
(47:46) – Closing thoughts

Next Episode

Mike Dudas of 6th Man Ventures on Crypto/NFTs, LinksDAO, and Applying a DAO Model to Biotech (EP.203)

Today’s guest is someone I’ve hung out with a few times, but mostly we’ve banged into each other on Twitter over the years. Mike Dudas is a fireball of creativity. He got the nickname ‘Foodas’ because his weight bounces around like Oprah. And I call him the White, Jewish Oprah. I’m an LP in his fund, 6th Man Ventures, which he started with his pal Serge Kassardjian. Before that Mike was the founder of The Block, where I was a small personal investor who tried to talk him out of doing that. He’s been on every side of the field, up and down and around; VC Investor, Founder, Trader, you name it. Mike was the co-founder of Button, a mobile marketing platform. He’s worked at Google, Braintree/Venmo, and PayPal. Mike started his career in corporate M&A at Disney. He’s got a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Kellogg. There’s a lot to learn here, and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Guest - Mike Dudas, Co-founder at 6th Man Ventures

howardlindzon.com, 6thman.ventures

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @mdudas, @knutjensen

linkedin.com/in/mdudas

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Show Notes:

Introduction (00:38)
Welcome Mike Dudas to Panic with Friends (05:07)
Mike founds The Block around the end of the first crypto bubble and gets Howard’s advice. (06:16)
Being in the right role as a founder versus an operator. (09:31)
The business of Golf and the LinksDAO thesis. (11:16)
Operating and developing a high quality golf experience that’s accessible to everyone. (15:26)
If you don’t know crypto, just pay the 2 and 20. (19:34)
Using bitcoin as a store of value in a really high long-term inflation environment. (21:11)
Tokens allow you to have power in the network by incentivizing certain activities and helps with coordination. (22:21)
The smartest people in the world are not experts on which layer two solution will be dominant in five years time. (23:22)
We can't all be Zuckerbert; the world needs operators. (26:14)
Starting 6th Man Ventures. (26:38)
New York is back baby! (31:23)
Mike’s younger days and starting at Disney. (33:56)
The Vibe bio project. A DAO model for getting drug discovery through clinical trials and into development. (38:41)
Wrapping up. (40:39)
Closing thoughts. (42:19)