How We Just Raised $6M At An $80M Valuation From 100+ Investors Using A Link (Without Pitching)
Lawtrades nearly failed three years ago.
We couldn't raise Series A or enthusiasm from VCs.
We raised $6M (at a $80M valuation) from 100 customers and investors using a link and no pitching.
Step-by-step:
We refocused our business first.
Lawtrades raised $3.7M while Atrium raised $75M. By comparison, we seemed unimportant.
We had to close the company or try something new.
As I've written previously, a pivot saved us. Our initial focus on SMBs attracted many unprofitable customers. SMBs needed one-off legal services, meaning low fees and high turnover.
Tech startups were different. Their General Councels (GCs) needed near-daily support, resulting in higher fees and lower churn than SMBs.
We stopped unprofitable customers and focused on power users. To avoid dilution, we borrowed against receivables. We scaled our revenue 10x, from $70k/mo to $700k/mo.
Then, we reconsidered fundraising (and do it differently)
This time was different. Lawtrades was cash flow positive for most of last year, so we could dictate our own terms. VCs were still wary of legaltech after Atrium's shutdown (though they were thinking about the space).
We neither wanted to rely on VCs nor dilute more than 10% equity. So we didn't compete for in-person pitch meetings.
AngelList Roll-Up Vehicle (RUV). Up to 250 accredited investors can invest in a single RUV. First, we emailed customers the RUV. Why? Because I wanted to help the platform's users.
Imagine if Uber or Airbnb let all drivers or Superhosts invest in an RUV. Humans make the platform, theirs and ours. Giving people a chance to invest increases their loyalty.
We expanded after initial interest.
We created a Journey link, containing everything that would normally go in an investor pitch:
- Slides
- Trailer (from me)
- Testimonials
- Product demo
- Financials
We could also link to our AngelList RUV and send the pitch to an unlimited number of people. Instead of 1:1, we had 1:10,000 pitches-to-investors.
We posted Journey's link in RUV Alliance Discord. 600 accredited investors noticed it immediately. Within days, we raised $250,000 from customers-turned-investors.
Stonks, which live-streamed our pitch to thousands of viewers, was interested in our grassroots enthusiasm. We got $1.4M from people I've never met.
These updates on Pump generated more interest. Facebook, Uber, Netflix, and Robinhood executives all wanted to invest. Sahil Lavingia, who had rejected us, gave us $100k.
We closed the round with public support.
Without a single pitch meeting, we'd raised $2.3M. It was a result of natural enthusiasm: taking care of the people who made us who we are, letting them move first, and leveraging their enthusiasm with VCs, who were interested.
We used network effects to raise $3.7M from a founder-turned-VC, bringing the total to $6M at a $80M valuation (which, by the way, I set myself).
What flipping the fundraising script allowed us to do:
We started with private investors instead of 2–3 VCs to show VCs what we were worth. This gave Lawtrades the ability to:
- Without meetings, share our vision. Many people saw our Journey link. I ended up taking meetings with people who planned to contribute $50k+, but still, the ratio of views-to-meetings was outrageously good for us.
- Leverage ourselves. Instead of us selling ourselves to VCs, they did. Some people with large checks or late arrivals were turned away.
- Maintain voting power. No board seats were lost.
- Utilize viral network effects. People-powered.
- Preemptively halt churn by turning our users into owners. People are more loyal and respectful to things they own. Our users make us who we are — no matter how good our tech is, we need human beings to use it. They deserve to be owners.
I don't blame founders for being hesitant about this approach. Pump and RUVs are new and scary. But it won’t be that way for long. Our approach redistributed some of the power that normally lies entirely with VCs, putting it into our hands and our network’s hands.
This is the future — another way power is shifting from centralized to decentralized.
More on Entrepreneurship/Creators
Atown Research
2 years ago
Meet the One-Person Businesses Earning Millions in Sales from Solo Founders
I've spent over 50 hours researching one-person firms, which interest me. I've found countless one-person enterprises that made millions on the founder's determination and perseverance.
Throughout my investigation, I found three of the most outstanding one-person enterprises. These enterprises show that people who work hard and dedicate themselves to their ideas may succeed.
Eric Barone (@ConcernedApe) created Stardew Valley in 2011 to better his job prospects. Eric loved making the game, in which players inherit a farm, grow crops, raise livestock, make friends with the villagers, and form a family.
Eric handled complete game production, including 3D graphics, animations, and music, to maintain creative control. He stopped job hunting and worked 8-15 hours a day on the game.
Eric developed a Stardew Valley website and subreddit to engage with gamers and get feedback. Eric's devoted community helped him meet Steam's minimum vote requirement for single creators.
Stardew Valley sold 1 million copies in two months after Eric launched it for $15 in 2016. The game has sold 20 million copies and made $300 million.
The game's inexpensive price, outsourcing of PR, marketing, and publication, and loyal player base helped it succeed. Eric has turned down million-dollar proposals from Sony and Nintendo to sell the game and instead updates and improves it. Haunted Chocolatier is Eric's new game.
Is farming not profitable? Ask Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone.
Gary Brewer established BuiltWith to assist users find website technologies and services. BuiltWith boasts 3000 paying customers and $14 million in yearly revenue, making it a significant resource for businesses wishing to generate leads, do customer analytics, obtain business insight, compare websites, or search websites by keyword.
BuiltWith has one full-time employee, Gary, and one or two part-time contractors that help with the blog. Gary handles sales, customer service, and other company functions alone.
BuiltWith acquired popularity through blog promotions and a top Digg ranking. About Us, a domain directory, connected to BuiltWith on every domain page, boosting it. Gary introduced $295–$995 monthly subscriptions to search technology, keywords, and potential consumers in response to customer demand.
Gary uses numerous methods to manage a firm without staff. He spends one to two hours every day answering user queries, most of which are handled quickly by linking to BuiltWiths knowledge store. Gary creates step-by-step essays or videos for complex problems. Gary can focus on providing new features based on customer comments and requests since he makes it easy to unsubscribe.
BuiltWith is entirely automated and successful due to its unique approach and useful offerings. It works for Google, Meta, Amazon, and Twitter.
Digital Inspiration develops Google Documents, Sheets, and Slides plugins. Digital Inspiration, founded by Amit Agarwal, receives 5 million monthly visits and earns $10 million. 40 million individuals have downloaded Digital Inspirations plugins.
Amit started Digital Inspiration by advertising his blog at tech events and getting Indian filter blogs and other newspapers to promote his articles. Amit built plugins and promoted them on the blog once the blog acquired popularity, using ideas from comments, friends, and Reddit. Digital Inspiration has over 20 free and premium plugins.
Mail Merge, Notifications for Google Forms, YouTube Uploader, and Document Studio are some of Digital Inspiration's most popular plugins. Mail Merge allows users to send personalized emails in bulk and track email opens and clicks.
Since Amits manages Digital Inspiration alone, his success is astounding. Amit developed a successful company via hard work and creativity, despite platform dependence. His tale inspires entrepreneurs.
Sanjay Priyadarshi
3 years ago
A 19-year-old dropped out of college to build a $2,300,000,000 company in 2 years.
His success was unforeseeable.
2014 saw Facebook's $2.3 billion purchase of Oculus VR.
19-year-old Palmer Luckey founded Oculus. He quit journalism school. His parents worried about his college dropout.
Facebook bought Oculus VR in less than 2 years.
Palmer Luckey started Anduril Industries. Palmer has raised $385 million with Anduril.
The Oculus journey began in a trailer
Palmer Luckey, 19, owned the trailer.
Luckey had his trailer customized. The trailer had all six of Luckey's screens. In the trailer's remaining area, Luckey conducted hardware tests.
At 16, he became obsessed with virtual reality. Virtual reality was rare at the time.
Luckey didn't know about VR when he started.
Previously, he liked "portabilizing" mods. Hacking ancient game consoles into handhelds.
In his city, fewer portabilizers actively traded.
Luckey started "ModRetro" for other portabilizers. Luckey was exposed to VR headsets online.
Luckey:
“Man, ModRetro days were the best.”
Palmer Luckey used VR headsets for three years. His design had 50 prototypes.
Luckey used to work at the Long Beach Sailing Center for minimum salary, servicing diesel engines and cleaning boats.
Luckey worked in a USC Institute for Creative Technologies mixed reality lab in July 2011. (ICT).
Luckey cleaned the lab, did reports, and helped other students with VR projects.
Luckey's lab job was dull.
Luckey chose to work in the lab because he wanted to engage with like-minded folks.
By 2012, Luckey had a prototype he hoped to share globally. He made cheaper headsets than others.
Luckey wanted to sell an easy-to-assemble virtual reality kit on Kickstarter.
He realized he needed a corporation to do these sales legally. He started looking for names. "Virtuality," "virtual," and "VR" are all taken.
Hence, Oculus.
If Luckey sold a hundred prototypes, he would be thrilled since it would boost his future possibilities.
John Carmack, legendary game designer
Carmack has liked sci-fi and fantasy since infancy.
Carmack loved imagining intricate gaming worlds.
His interest in programming and computer science grew with age.
He liked graphics. He liked how mismatching 0 and 1 might create new colors and visuals.
Carmack played computer games as a teen. He created Shadowforge in high school.
He founded Id software in 1991. When Carmack created id software, console games were the best-sellers.
Old computer games have weak graphics. John Carmack and id software developed "adaptive tile refresh."
This technique smoothed PC game scrolling. id software launched 3-D, Quake, and Doom using "adaptive tile refresh."
These games made John Carmack a gaming star. Later, he sold Id software to ZeniMax Media.
How Palmer Luckey met Carmack
In 2011, Carmack was thinking a lot about 3-D space and virtual reality.
He was underwhelmed by the greatest HMD on the market. Because of their flimsiness and latency.
His disappointment was partly due to the view (FOV). Best HMD had 40-degree field of view.
Poor. The best VR headset is useless with a 40-degree FOV.
Carmack intended to show the press Doom 3 in VR. He explored VR headsets and internet groups for this reason.
Carmack identified a VR enthusiast in the comments section of "LEEP on the Cheap." "PalmerTech" was the name.
Carmack approached PalmerTech about his prototype. He told Luckey about his VR demos, so he wanted to see his prototype.
Carmack got a Rift prototype. Here's his May 17 tweet.
John Carmack tweeted an evaluation of the Luckey prototype.
Dan Newell, a Valve engineer, and Mick Hocking, a Sony senior director, pre-ordered Oculus Rift prototypes with Carmack's help.
Everyone praised Luckey after Carmack demoed Rift.
Palmer Luckey received a job offer from Sony.
It was a full-time position at Sony Computer Europe.
He would run Sony’s R&D lab.
The salary would be $70k.
Who is Brendan Iribe?
Brendan Iribe started early with Startups. In 2004, he and Mike Antonov founded Scaleform.
Scaleform created high-performance middleware. This package allows 3D Flash games.
In 2011, Iribe sold Scaleform to Autodesk for $36 million.
How Brendan Iribe discovered Palmer Luckey.
Brendan Iribe's friend Laurent Scallie.
Laurent told Iribe about a potential opportunity.
Laurent promised Iribe VR will work this time. Laurent introduced Iribe to Luckey.
Iribe was doubtful after hearing Laurent's statements. He doubted Laurent's VR claims.
But since Laurent took the name John Carmack, Iribe thought he should look at Luckey Innovation. Iribe was hooked on virtual reality after reading Palmer Luckey stories.
He asked Scallie about Palmer Luckey.
Iribe convinced Luckey to start Oculus with him
First meeting between Palmer Luckey and Iribe.
The Iribe team wanted Luckey to feel comfortable.
Iribe sought to convince Luckey that launching a company was easy. Iribe told Luckey anyone could start a business.
Luckey told Iribe's staff he was homeschooled from childhood. Luckey took self-study courses.
Luckey had planned to launch a Kickstarter campaign and sell kits for his prototype. Many companies offered him jobs, nevertheless.
He's considering Sony's offer.
Iribe advised Luckey to stay independent and not join a firm. Iribe asked Luckey how he could raise his child better. No one sees your baby like you do?
Iribe's team pushed Luckey to stay independent and establish a software ecosystem around his device.
After conversing with Iribe, Luckey rejected every job offer and merger option.
Iribe convinced Luckey to provide an SDK for Oculus developers.
After a few months. Brendan Iribe co-founded Oculus with Palmer Luckey. Luckey trusted Iribe and his crew, so he started a corporation with him.
Crowdfunding
Brendan Iribe and Palmer Luckey launched a Kickstarter.
Gabe Newell endorsed Palmer's Kickstarter video.
Gabe Newell wants folks to trust Palmer Luckey since he's doing something fascinating and answering tough questions.
Mark Bolas and David Helgason backed Palmer Luckey's VR Kickstarter video.
Luckey introduced Oculus Rift during the Kickstarter campaign. He introduced virtual reality during press conferences.
Oculus' Kickstarter effort was a success. Palmer Luckey felt he could raise $250,000.
Oculus raised $2.4 million through Kickstarter. Palmer Luckey's virtual reality vision was well-received.
Mark Zuckerberg's Oculus discovery
Brendan Iribe and Palmer Luckey hired the right personnel after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Oculus needs a lot of money for engineers and hardware. They needed investors' money.
Series A raised $16M.
Next, Andreessen Horowitz partner Brain Cho approached Iribe.
Cho told Iribe that Andreessen Horowitz could invest in Oculus Series B if the company solved motion sickness.
Mark Andreessen was Iribe's dream client.
Marc Andreessen and his partners gave Oculus $75 million.
Andreessen introduced Iribe to Zukerberg. Iribe and Zukerberg discussed the future of games and virtual reality by phone.
Facebook's Oculus demo
Iribe showed Zuckerberg Oculus.
Mark was hooked after using Oculus. The headset impressed him.
The whole Facebook crew who saw the demo said only one thing.
“Holy Crap!”
This surprised them all.
Mark Zuckerberg was impressed by the team's response. Mark Zuckerberg met the Oculus team five days after the demo.
First meeting Palmer Luckey.
Palmer Luckey is one of Mark's biggest supporters and loves Facebook.
Oculus Acquisition
Zuckerberg wanted Oculus.
Brendan Iribe had requested for $4 billion, but Mark wasn't interested.
Facebook bought Oculus for $2.3 billion after months of drama.
After selling his company, how does Palmer view money?
Palmer loves the freedom money gives him. Money frees him from small worries.
Money has allowed him to pursue things he wouldn't have otherwise.
“If I didn’t have money I wouldn’t have a collection of vintage military vehicles…You can have nice hobbies that keep you relaxed when you have money.”
He didn't start Oculus to generate money. His virtual reality passion spanned years.
He didn't have to lie about how virtual reality will transform everything until he needed funding.
The company's success was an unexpected bonus. He was merely passionate about a good cause.
After Oculus' $2.3 billion exit, what changed?
Palmer didn't mind being rich. He did similar things.
After Facebook bought Oculus, he moved to Silicon Valley and lived in a 12-person shared house due to high rents.
Palmer might have afforded a big mansion, but he prefers stability and doing things because he wants to, not because he has to.
“Taco Bell is never tasted so good as when you know you could afford to never eat taco bell again.”
Palmer's leadership shifted.
Palmer changed his leadership after selling Oculus.
When he launched his second company, he couldn't work on his passions.
“When you start a tech company you do it because you want to work on a technology, that is why you are interested in that space in the first place. As the company has grown, he has realized that if he is still doing optical design in the company it’s because he is being negligent about the hiring process.”
Once his startup grows, the founder's responsibilities shift. He must recruit better firm managers.
Recruiting talented people becomes the top priority. The founder must convince others of their influence.
A book that helped me write this:
The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality — Blake Harris
*This post is a summary. Read the full article here.
Woo
3 years ago
How To Launch A Business Without Any Risk
> Say Hello To The Lean-Hedge Model
People think starting a business requires significant debt and investment. Like Shark Tank, you need a world-changing idea. I'm not saying to avoid investors or brilliant ideas.
Investing is essential to build a genuinely profitable company. Think Apple or Starbucks.
Entrepreneurship is risky because many people go bankrupt from debt. As starters, we shouldn't do it. Instead, use lean-hedge.
Simply defined, you construct a cash-flow business to hedge against long-term investment-heavy business expenses.
What the “fx!$rench-toast” is the lean-hedge model?
When you start a business, your money should move down, down, down, then up when it becomes profitable.
Many people don't survive the business's initial losses and debt. What if, we created a cash-flow business BEFORE we started our Starbucks to hedge against its initial expenses?
Lean-hedge has two sections. Start a cash-flow business. A cash-flow business takes minimal investment and usually involves sweat and time.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
A Translation company
Personal portfolio website (you make a site then you do cold e-mail marketing)
FREELANCE (UpWork, Fiverr).
Educational business.
Infomarketing. (You design a knowledge-based product. You sell the info).
Online fitness/diet/health coaching ($50-$300/month, calls, training plan)
Amazon e-book publishing. (Medium writers do this)
YouTube, cash-flow channel
A web development agency (I'm a dev, but if you're not, a graphic design agency, etc.) (Sell your time.)
Digital Marketing
Online paralegal (A million lawyers work in the U.S).
Some dropshipping (Organic Tik Tok dropshipping, where you create content to drive traffic to your shopify store instead of spend money on ads).
(Disclaimer: My first two cash-flow enterprises, which were language teaching, failed terribly. My translation firm is now booming because B2B e-mail marketing is easy.)
Crossover occurs. Your long-term business starts earning more money than your cash flow business.
My cash-flow business (freelancing, translation) makes $7k+/month.
I’ve decided to start a slightly more investment-heavy digital marketing agency
Here are the anticipated business's time- and money-intensive investments:
($$$) Top Front-End designer's Figma/UI-UX design (in negotiation)
(Time): A little copywriting (I will do this myself)
($$) Creating an animated webpage with HTML (in negotiation)
Backend Development (Duration) (I'll carry out this myself using Laravel.)
Logo Design ($$)
Logo Intro Video for $
Video Intro (I’ll edit this myself with Premiere Pro)
etc.
Then evaluate product, place, price, and promotion. Consider promotion and pricing.
The lean-hedge model's point is:
Don't gamble. Avoid debt. First create a cash-flow project, then grow it steadily.
Check read my previous posts on “Nightmare Mode” (which teaches you how to make work as interesting as video games) and Why most people can't escape a 9-5 to learn how to develop a cash-flow business.
You might also like
Nikhil Vemu
2 years ago
7 Mac Apps That Are Exorbitantly Priced But Totally Worth It
Wish you more bang for your buck
By ‘Cost a Bomb’ I didn’t mean to exaggerate. It’s an idiom that means ‘To be very expensive’. In fact, no app on the planet costs a bomb lol.
So, to the point.
Chronicle
(Freemium. For Pro, $24.99 | Available on Setapp)
You probably have trouble keeping track of dozens of bills and subscriptions each month.
Try Chronicle.
Easy-to-use app
Add payment due dates and receive reminders,
Save payment documentation,
Analyze your spending by season, year, and month.
Observe expenditure trends and create new budgets.
Best of all, Chronicle features an integrated browser for fast payment and logging.
iOS and macOS sync.
SoundSource
($39 for lifetime)
Background Music, a free macOS program, was featured in #6 of this post last month.
It controls per-app volume, stereo balance, and audio over its max level.
Background Music is fully supported. Additionally,
Connect various speakers to various apps (Wow! ),
change the audio sample rate for each app,
To facilitate access, add a floating SoundSource window.
Use its blocks in Shortcuts app,
On the menu bar, include meters for output/input devices and running programs.
PixelSnap
($39 for lifetime | Available on Setapp)
This software is heaven for UI designers.
It aids you.
quickly calculate screen distances (in pixels) ,
Drag an area around an object to determine its borders,
Measure the distances between the additional guides,
screenshots should be pixel-perfect.
What’s more.
You can
Adapt your tolerance for items with poor contrast and shadows.
Use your Touch Bar to perform important tasks, if you have one.
Mate Translation
($3.99 a month / $29.99 a year | Available on Setapp)
Mate Translate resembles a roided-up version of BarTranslate, which I wrote about in #1 of this piece last month.
If you translate often, utilize Mate Translate on macOS and Safari.
I'm really vocal about it.
It stays on the menu bar, and is accessible with a click or ⌥+shift+T hotkey.
It lets you
Translate in 103 different languages,
To translate text, double-click or right-click on it.
Totally translate websites. Additionally, Netflix subtitles,
Listen to their pronunciation to see how close it is to human.
iPhone and Mac sync Mate-ing history.
Swish
($16 for lifetime | Available on Setapp)
Swish is awesome!
Swipe, squeeze, tap, and hold movements organize chaotic desktop windows. Swish operates with mouse and trackpad.
Some gestures:
• Pinch Once: Close an app
• Pinch Twice: Quit an app
• Swipe down once: Minimise an app
• Pinch Out: Enter fullscreen mode
• Tap, Hold, & Swipe: Arrange apps in grids
and many more...
After getting acquainted to the movements, your multitasking will improve.
Unite
($24.99 for lifetime | Available on Setapp)
It turns webapps into macOS apps. The end.
Unite's functionality is a million times better.
Provide extensive customization (incl. its icon, light and dark modes)
make menu bar applications,
Get badges for web notifications and automatically refresh websites,
Replace any dock icon in the window with it (Wow!) by selecting that portion of the window.
Use PiP (Picture-in-Picture) on video sites that support it.
Delete advertising,
Throughout macOS, use floating windows
and many more…
I feel $24.99 one-off for this tool is a great deal, considering all these features. What do you think?
CleanShot X
(Basic: $29 one-off. Pro: $8/month | Available on Setapp)
CleanShot X can achieve things the macOS screenshot tool cannot. Complete screenshot toolkit.
CleanShot X, like Pixel Snap 2 (#3), is fantastic.
Allows
Scroll to capture a long page,
screen recording,
With webcam on,
• With mic and system audio,
• Highlighting mouse clicks and hotkeys.
Maintain floating screenshots for reference
While capturing, conceal desktop icons and notifications.
Recognize text in screenshots (OCR),
You may upload and share screenshots using the built-in cloud.
These are just 6 in 50+ features, and you’re already saying Wow!
Bart Krawczyk
2 years ago
Understanding several Value Proposition kinds will help you create better goods.
Fixing problems isn't enough.
Numerous articles and how-to guides on value propositions focus on fixing consumer concerns.
Contrary to popular opinion, addressing customer pain rarely suffices. Win your market category too.
Core Value Statement
Value proposition usually means a product's main value.
Its how your product solves client problems. The product's core.
Answering these questions creates a relevant core value proposition:
What tasks is your customer trying to complete? (Jobs for clients)
How much discomfort do they feel while they perform this? (pains)
What would they like to see improved or changed? (gains)
After that, you create products and services that alleviate those pains and give value to clients.
Value Proposition by Category
Your product belongs to a market category and must follow its regulations, regardless of its value proposition.
Creating a new market category is challenging. Fitting into customers' product perceptions is usually better than trying to change them.
New product users simplify market categories. Products are labeled.
Your product will likely be associated with a collection of products people already use.
Example: IT experts will use your communication and management app.
If your target clients think it's an advanced mail software, they'll compare it to others and expect things like:
comprehensive calendar
spam detectors
adequate storage space
list of contacts
etc.
If your target users view your product as a task management app, things change. You can survive without a contact list, but not status management.
Find out what your customers compare your product to and if it fits your value offer. If so, adapt your product plan to dominate this market. If not, try different value propositions and messaging to put the product in the right context.
Finished Value Proposition
A comprehensive value proposition is when your solution addresses user problems and wins its market category.
Addressing simply the primary value proposition may produce a valuable and original product, but it may struggle to cross the chasm into the mainstream market. Meeting expectations is easier than changing views.
Without a unique value proposition, you will drown in the red sea of competition.
To conclude:
Find out who your target consumer is and what their demands and problems are.
To meet these needs, develop and test a primary value proposition.
Speak with your most devoted customers. Recognize the alternatives they use to compare you against and the market segment they place you in.
Recognize the requirements and expectations of the market category.
To meet or surpass category standards, modify your goods.
Great products solve client problems and win their category.
Tora Northman
3 years ago
Pixelmon NFTs are so bad, they are almost good!
Bored Apes prices continue to rise, HAPEBEAST launches, Invisible Friends hype continues to grow. Sadly, not all projects are as successful.
Of course, there are many factors to consider when buying an NFT. Is the project a scam? Will the reveal derail the project? Possibly, but when Pixelmon first teased its launch, it generated a lot of buzz.
With a primary sale mint price of 3 ETH ($8,100 USD), it started as an expensive project, with plenty of fans willing to invest in what was sold as a game. After it was revealed, it fell rapidly.
Why? It was overpromised and under delivered.
According to the project's creator[^1], the funds generated will be used to develop the artwork. "The Pixelmon reveal was wrong. This is what our Pixelmon look like in-game. "Despite the fud, I will not go anywhere," he wrote on Twitter. The goal remains. The funds will still be used to build our game. I will finish this project."
The project raised $70 million USD, but the NFTs buyers received were not the project's original teasers. Some call it "the worst NFT project ever," while others call it a complete scam.
But there's hope for some buyers. Kevin emerged from the ashes as the project was roasted over the fire.
A Minecraft character meets Salad Fingers - that's Kevin. He's a frog-like creature whose reveal was such a terrible NFT that it became part of history – and a meme.
If you're laughing at people paying $8K for a silly pixelated image, you might need to take it back. Precisely because of this, lucky holders who minted Kevin have been able to sell the now-memed NFT for over 8 ETH (around $24,000 USD), with some currently listed for 100 ETH.
Of course, Twitter has been awash in memes mocking those who invested in the project, because what else can you do when so many people lose money?
It's still unclear if the NFT project is a scam, but the team behind it was hired on Upwork. There's still hope for redemption, but Kevin's rise to fame appears to be the only positive outcome so far.
[^1] This is not the first time the creator (A 20-yo New Zealanders) has sought money via an online platform and had people claiming he under-delivered. He raised $74,000 on Kickstarter for a card game called Psycho Chicken. There are hundreds of comments on the Kickstarter project saying they haven't received the product and pleading for a refund or an update.