Building a product
only possible by
blockchain
Following the blockchain space, we recognized that smart contracts offered an opportunity for people to instantly create trust-less wagers. We then narrowed down our market to esports, and an untouched segment of an $138 billion industry.
MY ROLE
Founder
Product design
Visual design
Design research
WHAT I DID
Created a new approach to gambling utilizing smart contracts for live streamed events. Designed the MVP, created branding/marketing material, raised a seed round, attended an incubator in San Francisco.
TEAM MEMBERS
Kyle O’Neill – CMO
Husain Fazel – CEO
Emhad – Backend
Khalid – Frontend
THE PROBLEM
Esports betting is limited to a select amount of games and events.
In the modern landscape of esports betting, betting is limited to a very narrow amount of games and events. This is because game APIs are limited in the amount of verifiable data that is available to developers and betting platforms. Without verifiable data related to in-game metrics, there is no concrete evidence to uphold results and outcomes which enables legal esports betting.
THE SOLUTION
Consensus based P2P Smart Contracts
By utilizing blockchain based smart contracts, we can use consensus mechanisms to easily create and deploy contracts to allow a wider variety of betting action on games and a variety of live content. When outcomes are not agreed upon by the participants in the smart contract, Slip has a human moderating workforce, incentivized by the Slips token economy to step in and settle disputed outcomes.
VIDEO
Communicating the vision
Having created the white paper, we needed to show the vision of what we were going to build. The video also allowed us to showcase the concept to our target market and potential investors.
RESEARCH
Getting to know our audience
Before jumping in with our vision for Slips, we needed to confirm our assumptions and hypothesis around esports gambling and gauge streamers willingness to test out a new platform/tool for their gaming streams.
Participants
We interviewed about 10 part time streamers and 5 full time streamers, through our initial interactions we decided to find them on twitter.
Interview Script
After learning their demographics,
we got into their background and motivations for streaming. I explored their thoughts on gambling & esports
Market Research
Post interview we looked at our findings and followed up on any similar concepts found in the space for streamers/esports enthusiasts
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Major Findings
1. Streamers are always looking for new tools/games to create content. For streamers the most important aspect of their stream is the content for their audience
2. There are two motivations for streamers, one being the money aspect of streaming, and two being the community aspect
3. Streamers have a lot to handle during a livestream, they must pay attention to their chat, monitor their streaming software, and play the game on top of that.
4. We confirmed our vision that streamers would love to engage their audience with the bets being made with the Slips platform
WALLET
An essential tool for the platform
Through our research we discovered that screen space is a premium for streamers. So by having a wallet integrated with the Slips platform, it would make it easier for people using Slips to monitor their bets and transactions for both streamers and betting participants.
Delivering the design
The wallet set the UI style that was implemented on the platform. We ended up choosing a ‘Dark theme’ after polling our community that had a clear preference for dark themed UIs. The wallet allows betting participants to exchange cryptocurrencies and monitor bets on the Slips platform.
PLATFORM
Planning the MVP
We wrote detailed specifications of all the features that we wanted to include in the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This included creating detailed wireframes that helped us to render the potentials screens for the platform. The first version of Slips was a web app, so all of the design needed to be optimized for desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Designing the MVP
Continuing the dark theme from the wallet design, we took the visual structure of the two most used platforms for gamers and streamers (Twitch and Discord) for a familiar experience. After learning that streamers and gamers use any screen they can get their hands on, we made sure the UI worked on all devices not matter the size.
Homepage
There are three main goals of the homepage, the first is to have new visitors sign-up, the second is navigate people to a channel, and the third is to inform people of what Slips is about. By having a gallery header we were able to have multiple call to actions.
Gamer profile
We wanted to allow a fair amount of customization for the gamer profile pages. At the top of the screen people are allowed to write a brief description about themselves and link to their social accounts. They can also curate their accomplishments on and off of the Slips platform, and even feature highlight reels of their favorite moments.
Channel Page / Challenge Feed
This is where the action happens, the audience can talk smack while watching their favorite gaming streams, and then instantly create bets called ‘Challenges’ as the gameplay unfolds.