Yon Raz-Fridman is the CEO and founder of Supersocial, Inc., a pioneering studio that builds boundary-pushing virtual worlds on immersive social platforms like Roblox.

Roblox is the most engaging platform on the Internet, with its 72 million daily active users spending an average of 2.4 hours per day—three times more than TikTok and five times more than Instagram. Brands are racing to tap into these immersive gaming experiences, and Supersocial is at the forefront, setting new standards in interactive and engaging digital experiences for the next generation.

Discover Supersocial's innovative collaborations with influential brands like NARS Cosmetics and GUCCI, and learn about Yon's vision for shaping the future potential of Roblox as a platform for gaming, social interaction, and commerce.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Game Development Insights on Roblox and UEFN
• Roblox vs. Traditional Engines Challenges and Advantages
• Roblox's Role in Democratizing Game Development
• Best Practices for Developing and Maintaining LiveOps on Roblox
• Yon's Entrepreneurial Philosophy and Tech's Transformative Power

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Here’s Waldo Recruiting
• Lizzie Mintus on LinkedIn
• Yon Raz-Fridman on LinkedIn
• Supersocial, Inc.
• Into the Metaverse Podcast

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Here's Waldo podcast, where we sit down with top visionaries and creatives in the video game industry. Together we'll unravel their journeys and learn more about the path they're forging ahead. Now, let's get started with the show.

Lizzie Mintus: Hi, I'm Lizzie Mintus, founder and CEO of Here's Waldo Recruiting. We are a boutique video game recruitment firm, and this is the Here's Waldo podcast. In every episode, we dive deep into conversations with creatives, founders, and executives about their journey. You can expect to hear valuable lessons and get a glimpse into the future of the industry.

This episode is brought to you by Heresvaldo Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm for the game industry. We value quality over quantity, transparency, communication, and diversity. We partner with companies, creatives, and programmers to figure out the why behind their needs. Before introducing today's guest, I want to give a thank you for the Griffin Gaming event at GDC for connecting us, conferences, and And in person stuff is the best.

Today we have Yon Raz-Fridman with us. Yon is the founder and CEO of Supersocial, the company that builds boundary pushing virtual worlds that are authentic and meaningful to metaverse communities. Yon is also the host of Into the Metaverse. Check out his podcast. Let's get started. Thanks for being here. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Thanks for having me. Great to be here, Lizzie. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, for anyone that's not familiar, can you please share more about Supersocial? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Yeah, Supersocial really was born with the hypothesis that the internet could possibly evolve into a real time 3D internet, which means that there is a scenario where the internet feels like one gigantic video game in a multiplayer social setting.

And we felt, about five years ago, that Roblox as a platform could be a platform that is at the very bleeding edge of that trend and momentum. And Supersocial was born to build next generation virtual world and experiences for these next generation platforms. And we are primarily focused on the Roblox platform, but we're really focusing in the grand scheme on building next generation games IP for these new era of the social Internet.

Lizzie Mintus: What led you to Roblox? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: I've had a front row seat at Roblox since probably about 2013, which is when I started my first company, Kano Computing, a company that allowed young people and beginners to build and code their own computer. And in 2012, Minecraft exploded. Roblox started to pick up steam in 2015. And I think what was clear to me is that while many people have been looking at these platforms as, quote unquote, gaming platform for kids, really what happened, those kids grew up and they stayed on those platforms, which ultimately meant that these platforms are not only major UGC platforms where people create the content they play with, but they're also becoming social platforms where people come to play, socialize, express themselves through their 3D avatar.

And so really, Roblox sits at this interesting inflection point of the evolution of the Internet, but also a confluence of entertainment, social and we believe commerce in the very near future.

Lizzie Mintus: Commerce in the very near future. Give me an example of what you think is coming. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Well Roblox is already a virtual economy where there are almost 2 billion avatar items and accessories that have been purchased only last year by users on the platform. And so they're already at an incredible level of expression and consumption of virtual fashion, beauty, accessories, etc. 

Roblox already announced that they are going to enable real world commerce integration, probably 2025, which means that either if you build an IP game or work with a brand and build a virtual experience with them, you're going to be able to connect that to real world commerce.

And so that's a big hypothesis. But we certainly believe that all of those things that in the past have been very separate from gaming, social platforms, commerce. We believe that Roblox could be at the forefront of integration of all of those. Now, it happens mostly with young people under age 20, but if those young people are anything but setting the future of what the Internet looks like, which is always the case, then I think there's a really good shot that we're going to see modalities of engagement and commerce on the internet that really haven't been done before. 

Lizzie Mintus: I heard a stat the other day that kids who are, let's say, 11, 16 play something like 150 minutes of Roblox per day. Do you have more exact stats? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: So Roblox as of today has almost 72 million daily active users. On a monthly basis, the estimates are 300 million, but most importantly, regardless of those numbers, Roblox is effectively the most engaging platform on the internet. 

Each and one of those daily active users spend 2.4 hours a day on the platform, which accounts to about 150, 156 minutes a day, which is orders of magnitude more than any other social platform and also bigger than TikTok.

But it's not just the amount of time. It's also the engagement per session. While we live in a world of click flakes and people jump from one place to another and a few seconds of video on TikTok. On Roblox, you're really able to build things and properties that are closer to the engagement of a typical video game.

You see people interacting every session at 10, 15, 20 minutes per session, which is, I mean, again, in orders of magnitude, more depth engagement than any other of those quote unquote 2D social platforms. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. Okay. So your company has collaborated with Crayola, Bic, NARS, all these massive brands that are not techy.

Who was the first partner that you got? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: The first brand we worked with on Roblox is NARS Cosmetics and it's such a fascinating case study because NARS Cosmetics for those who don't know it's a prestige beauty brand. You wouldn't imagine NARS Cosmetics as the typical brand that would want to interact with people younger than 18.

And that being said, they were one of the first brands, one of the first beauty brands to launch on the platform. And we worked with them to build not one, but two experiences year after year. The first of which was NARS Color Quest, which until today is the most successful branded beauty experience on the Roblox platform.

It attracted more than 10 million people to come and play in the experience. It attracted more than 42 million play sessions by these users. Incredible sentiment and rating from the community, which shows that we really created something that resonated with the community. And that's something that is really important with whatever you're working, if it's a brand or an IP, you want to build something that is going to be authentic to the community. And you want to build something that is authentic to the brand. And I think building that is incredibly complex. But when you do it right, it's magical.

Lizzie Mintus: Sounds like that was a magical one. What did you have at your company that enabled you to get the NARS partnership? Can you walk me through the backstory there? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: I think we started Supersocial as a next generation studio that is focused on pushing the boundaries of what's possible on the Roblox platform.

Let me take you back to around 2021, Roblox went public. It became a big name that everyone talks about, but it's still, and by the way, still to this day, an underestimated, underrated player in the ecosystem of interactive experiences on the internet, because it's by kids for kids, because the graphics are not what you would necessarily see in a Unity game on mobile or a Unreal engine based game on PC or console. So there's a lot of perceptions that exist about what Roblox allows you to do. 

And what we've done is Supersocial, we wanted to push the boundaries from day one on what's possible and that shows that you can build incredible, stunning looking experiences on the platform. And that's what we've done with our first game, Ghostopia. That hasn't become a massive commercial success as we wanted, but still really paved the way to positioning Supersocial as an innovator and a studio that pushes the boundaries of what's possible on the platform. 

And so when brands like NARS wanted to come into the platform, they saw Supersocial as one of those studios who can help them coming to the platform in the way that they want, pushing the boundaries, being bold, stunning graphics in a way that will be respectful and authentic to the brand while building something that is going to be fun and engaging for the platform community. 

And so I think as Supersocial, we really focused on making sure that we have the capabilities in house across design, engineering, art, production. Overall execution to ensure that we can actually deliver on our ambition and on our promise to really build those boundary pushing gains. 

Lizzie Mintus: So the first step was creating your own game to showcase that you could do it. And then after, that was that led you to be able to engage with brands like NARS.

Yon Raz-Fridman: Correct. And now Supersocial, really, we do three things. We build our own, we still build our own IP. We work with brands like NARS, Gucci, et cetera. And we also work with IP owners, movie studios, gaming companies. So we really build those sort of three type of businesses that ultimately are executed in a very similar manner, but in a way that is suitable to each of those different stakeholders.

Lizzie Mintus: So if I'm a brand, let's say I'm Gucci for funsies, and I want to create something. I want to stay relevant. I want to be in Roblox. How do you work with a brand to figure out, like you said, it's very challenging, that authentic experience or game, which one is it? And how do you stay true to both platforms? How do you find that? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Look, we have our playbook, but obviously it's more art than science. Also, every brand, every partner is different. Gucci, NARS, Elf Beauty, they're all very different companies with different DNAs and different ways of operating. 

What is consistent though is our process, right? We start from a very clear place of just understanding and digesting the brand essence, the ethos of the brand, and what do they want to accomplish? Why are they coming to Roblox? What do they want to accomplish? And what success looks like? And also, what shouldn't we do? What is not going to work? What is off brand? And there is a mutual learning journey of Supersocial learning about the brand and the brand learning about the Roblox platform. 

We have deep, deep, deep Roblox expertise. We know what the community and the platform wants, and we know what's not going to work. And so we are being very truthful and honest with our partners in making sure that we manage their expectations and their creative desires. And finding the right balance where it's authentic to the brand and it's authentic to the community And then we just go through the process of really creating.

What is that vision? What is that creative direction that we're going to pursue and it's a back and forth And it's a back and forth throughout the entire process. In the creative incubation in development and production when we go live and run a live game, it's a constant balancing act of a push and pull between us as a studio and between our brand partners to make sure that ultimately we can win right and I think all stakeholders need to be happy, right?

The brand needs to feel like they are being represented in the way they want. And the community feels like they're getting a game that they like and enjoy. And it's pretty clear when the community doesn't like something you do on Roblox. So that's what we're really focusing on as a studio. In making sure that everyone wins. And it's not easy. It sounds easy, but it's certainly not easy, especially when you talk about a platform that is really new to brands. Sure, brands have been around digital for a very long time and they've adopted Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, et cetera, et cetera. But gaming and 3D experiences in general that are more depth, like the concept of live ops, it is incredibly new, right? 

Brands are used to, yeah, I put a TikTok video that took me a couple of weeks, and they were like, boom, boom, boom, right? I'm like, no, we need several months to build this thing. Then we need to run it for several months. The whole notion of live ops is so new, but I believe that because we're moving into an internet that is 24/7, 365 and very immersive, the concept of LiveOps, I believe, is going to be applicable to every single brand in the world. 

Lizzie Mintus: And, so let's say you have a really successful partnership with whatever brand. How do you then measure the actual ROI? How are they seeing what their return on investment is from this? Is it tangible or is it a big picture?

Yon Raz-Fridman: It certainly started from a very big picture. Like if you remember the first days of Facebook pages for brands, it was all about like, how many likes do we have? Or if it's Twitter, how many followers do we have? Right. So it starts in those relatively shallow places. Then not surprisingly, this is how it started with Roblox, right? It was the count of how many visits we have? How many play sessions? Right? So when I talk about our first game with NARS, NARS ColorQuest, it was 43 million play sessions, which is wow. Amazing, but it's a very high level KPI.

But it does answer the business objectives of reach. That's the KPI that shows reach. Then you go deeper and you have an engagement. You're really starting to look at session length, how much time essentially people are spending inside the games that we're building. And then you also look at retention, how much, what's the frequency that people are coming back, right? So you're starting to get to KPIs that in the gaming industry, historically, it's kind of basic stuff, engagement, retention, right? And so and so forth. 

And then you have monetization, which is a very low priority KPI for brands because number one, they actually sell real goods. So it's not like coming and selling a virtual piece of cosmetics is going to be as important as selling real world cosmetics. But that being said, there's certainly a growing level of experimentation and desire to monetize on the Roblox platform, but it's on a lower priority. 

It's mostly more important with regards to how much we can generate revenue to potentially offset the expenses of operating a game on the Roblox platform. So that's where it starts to become more serious. And I think as real world commerce integration that roblox is going to enable is becoming more profound on the platform, you're most likely going to see brand starting to think about that piece as well 

But it will take time because it's very early. And I don't expect that the majority of the users on the Roblox platform are going to suddenly treat Roblox as an e-commerce platform. I think it's a bet for the future. So that's kind of the hierarchy of how brands are really looking at, right? Visibility, top line reach, engagement, quality, interaction with the brand, and then monetization and being able to generate some income because the costs are not insignificant.

Lizzie Mintus: And what has the best brand partnership, yours or not, been so far on Roblox and why? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: I think there's so many great examples of brand experiences on the platform, some of which have been launched by Supersocial and some haven't. A few, I'll start with folks who haven't actually worked with us.

Vans have done a phenomenal job building an experience on the Roblox platform that managed to really sustain itself for a very long time and reached incredible numbers, more than 100 million play sessions in the Vans world, which is great. They also were one of the first, but they've done it right. It's not enough to be first. They've also done a great job. So I think Vans is a great example. 

Alo Yoga is another great example, also past a hundred million visits. Gucci, which we worked with, have done a great job with Gucci town and the fashion show that we launched last year. NARS Cosmetics across NARS Color Quest and NARS Sweet Rush, both of them have really been at the forefront of beauty brands on the platform. Our project with Elf Cosmetics, Elf Up, is the highest rating brand of beauty game on the Roblox platform. 

On the sports side, I think, worth calling out, the NHL has done a really solid job with their game on the platform. So yeah, I think that gives you kind of a sense of different brands and different verticals. 

And then IP is a completely different thing, right? We kind of make the delineation between brands, which are consumer brands, and between IP, which is more movie studios, gaming IP. There is a clear delineation between the two because they're very different for the consumer.

Lizzie Mintus: Okay. I want to talk about that next, but I want to know first, what have been learning experiences, if you will, from brand launches that have not done well? What are some common pitfalls there? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Well, number one is you have to get out of your own weeds as a brand and think about the Roblox community. You need to deeply understand why what you're building is actually going to matter to them.

The fact that you're a brand doesn't mean anything. A great example of that would be the first experience that Walmart launched was a total disaster because they haven't built something the community truly wanted. No one understood what it was. And they got, I think, like 50 percent rating, which is just terrible. I mean, you would not go and watch a movie that gets 50 percent on Rotten Tomato. I might because I'm just a movie buff, so I'll watch anything. 

But then they've done an activation through us. We've built Super Campus, which was phenomenally successful, a back to school, three months activation. And then they also launched another experience called Walmart Discovered, which was really focused on UGC that he's doing really, really well. 

And so you can see how even one brand like Walmart got it really wrong the first time, but then did it twice more and actually got it really well. And I give them a lot of credit for not giving up. Actually changing course and doing it right. 

 I love seeing brands that are coming in and figuring it out for the 2nd or 3rd time and showing the tenacity because there's obviously something very genuine, unique going on under the Roblox platform. So, just giving up and going away is not an option in my mind.

I think the pitfall number 1 is building something that is not designed for the community. It's going to be a total failure from the beginning, and that could be all about the game design, certain genres, and making sure that you're not trying to advertise, but you're actually building an experience that accidentally is by a brand. That's the key. 

Another thing that is important is when you launch, it's only the beginning of the journey. And so I think some brands think that they just launch it and it's going to be fine and it's going to work and you don't need more content than live ops. And it's basically dead out of the water. That's another great way to just waste money and not experiment in a meaningful way. 

So these are a couple of things that I would say are really important. One, really designing an interaction that is unique for the community and you're bringing something fresh and new. And then the second thing is realizing that it's actually a living organism that needs to be keep pumped with new content to engage and retain and it's not something that you just drop and it's going to be successful on its own 

Lizzie Mintus: Super parallel to any live game. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Which is why I was talking about how new this is because if you're going to talk like a cmo and you tell them, this is live ops in a video game. They're gonna be like what? What is live ops? The first time I told a brand marketer live ops, they're like, oh, it's like maintaining a website. I'm like, no. Exactly. 

Lizzie Mintus: No . 

Yon Raz-Fridman: But you can see how unless you were a gamer, like live ops is completely... What is this Army Live ops. What? What is that live ops thing?

Lizzie Mintus: How do you get live ops right? I mean, how do you think about creating content? What backlog do you need to have? And then, I'm sure you have to react. 

Let's say you launch your partnership with Roblox, but you think it's really missing X. How do you figure out how to push that in the right way? If you already have a pre-release of content, how do you slot that in? I mean the question is really live ops roblox or games, but tell me the secret.

Yon Raz-Fridman: Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's a great question And I would say you want to have just about enough. Typically you want to have enough for like 30 days. Just enough for the first like several weeks because then it's really all about building based on data and understanding intuition and where you want the game to go and reaction from the players.

So you don't want to build too much content for a too long period of time because most likely you're going to change and you're going to learn new things, because you are always learning with real time data of real users playing the game, no matter how many play tests you've done. But certainly there are best practices that one should follow with regards to updating and make sure that you have at least four weeks of content ready for launch. And then you just basically build based on data and combine that with your team's design intuition. 

Lizzie Mintus: And would you have play testers early on, just like you would a game for a Roblox? That's a best practice? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Certainly. I mean, we start kind of internally, just play testing as a team. And then as we get closer to an alpha and a beta, we would start really doing some more play tests and making sure that we're starting to get that sort of real world user feedback. So we're out of our mind and are not only relying on our own kind of feedback. So that's just part of our process of development. 

Lizzie Mintus: How long would it take- ish, ballpark. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Our development timeline on average is about five, six months for a game. If it's like a short activation, it could be less, maybe two, three months. But our ballpark number is five months development on average from start to launching a beta. And then another month or two in beta until we really feel like we've perfected the experience. But from start to like, hey, we're alive in beta five months on average. 

Think about it. Five months of 3D multiplayer. It's nothing. 

Lizzie Mintus: It's nothing. Yeah. Compared to five years or more. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Five months in mobile or triple A, you're lucky if you have a playable demo or a vertical slice, right? 

Lizzie Mintus: You may not have your slice. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: You're still probably not even a vertical slice. Yeah. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. And I think that's such a theme right now that I've seen in the games world. People are dumping so much money into games and if it doesn't go well, you're out a ton.

Can you tell me about studios like yourself, but how companies can think about creating a game themselves, or maybe if any developers are listening and they want to create a game on UEFN. They want to create a Roblox game. 

Just best practices and how that differs from creating a massive game. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Look, what Roblox has fundamentally done over the past 15 years, but especially in the last five years, they've really created a infrastructure at a global scale that allows anyone to build a 3D multiplayer virtual world on their platform and monetize that. And they've unleashed a power that was really not available before. Before you were building on unity, you were building on unreal. And that's it. And any big publisher has their own engine like EA and Activision and so on and so forth.

So what Roblox has done in a very closed environment, which has pros and cons, and UEFN is now doing it with Unreal Engine inside Fortnite, is really building an infrastructure that pushes down the complexity and barrier to entry. There is no barrier to entry on Roblox, aside from the ability to have an idea and know how to code with their language. You need to script. You need to know how to script on Roblox. It's not a plug and play zero code platform. It's not. And so you need to know how to code and that certainly is a barrier to most people around the world.

But when you are a brand or a developer or an indie creator, I think you have the traditional ways of building a game, which is building on unity, building on unreal, and finding a way to finance your game until you launch it on Steam or on the Apple App Store, or raise capital from venture investors, which sure there's way more capital to invest in game startups today, but there's also way more companies in games than ever before, right?

So there's more capital, but you're competing against a hundred X more companies that are fighting for the pile of funding available. And so Roblox and EUFN for people who are just starting in the industry provide a zero cost entry. All you really need to learn is verse, which is the programming language of UEFN or LUA, which is the programming language on Roblox. And you just need to learn how to do that and have an idea and start experimenting. That's kind of at the lower end of the spectrum. 

And then, of course, if you also have the ability to either join a company like Supersocial, which is one of the largest professional studios on the platform, or connect with a few other people and start a little next gen indie studio focused on Roblox without funding, right?

So there's multiple ways of how today you can be part of this next generation of games. And I think really Roblox and UEFN are paving the way to what are going to be some of the most accessible ways to build games in the future when the 100 million plus dollar AAA business is obviously struggling and is basically not working anymore. 

And creating a mobile game on mobile is more difficult, more expensive than ever before. And there's a reason why really most of the most successful companies are large publishers who can actually invest these incredible sums of money in marketing. So sure, you have the accidental tile world and folks like that, but these are exceptions to the rule. These are not the stories that every person is going to believe that it's possible. 

So we're going to still see the power of the world occasionally popping up. But for most companies, most creators want to build games, they're going to have to really find very affordable ways of how they get into the industry. And Roblox is essentially the most effective, rapid way to become a game developer today. I think there's very little doubt about that. 

Lizzie Mintus: You think that a strategy for many is going to be create a game on Roblox, and then once it's successful and you've monetized and made x enough money, then take it out of Roblox and make it its own standalone studio and not be tied to it?

Yon Raz-Fridman: I don't think so. I don't think that will be something that many people will do. I think there will be a few examples of that, but I think these will be exceptions to the rule. I think what we'll likely see, and here's the reason why, it's going to take people a long time to be successful on Roblox.

It's not like an easy platform to win. There's a difference between it's easy to get going, and I can build a successful game that makes money. Like that is a whole different ball game. You're still going to be fighting against millions of developers around the world to make money. 

On the off chance that you build such an expertise and you know how to build a great game on the Roblox platform, I would say nine out of ten developers will probably just stick around and keep working on the Roblox platform. But there will be one of ten, which I think will be most likely more studios or companies like us or maybe developers with a bigger ambition that would want to take that income and invest that in building a PC game or a mobile game, etc.

But I think these will be exceptions to the rule, especially as Roblox will grow and will continue to provide the ability potentially for small developers to generate enough income for them to have a great lifestyle. Because keep in mind, most people are not dreaming about building a billion dollar company. 

Most people are just dreaming about building games and have enough money to have a great life. Buy a house, have a family. That's most people. Most people are not entrepreneurial in a sense of wanting to build a 100 people company. That's not most people. 9 out of 10 people are going to have just a great life, having a few successful games, making just enough money and having a great life. That's the whole thing about indie studios. They want to stay in indie studios. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, that's true. You do forget when your world is crazy entrepreneurs, then not everybody is a crazy entrepreneur thinking the way you think. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Look, even to start a small business, you need to be entrepreneurial. But what I mean is there is a difference between being a game developer that dreams about building a game or two that makes money, and between, hey, I'm going to build a company. Very different thing. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, and the two get conflated sometimes for sure. So you have started many different companies. I'd love to hear more about your story and your entrepreneurial journey. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Yeah. I mean, look, my profession is an entrepreneur. I just, that's what I love doing. I love coming up with ideas, bringing amazing people around a great ambitious vision and making it come to life.

So Supersocial is one of the several companies that I founded. Accidentally, they've always been at the intersection of how do we use technology to sort of push humanity forward through creativity and expression, right? Either if it's my computer company or VR company or Supersocial. And so it feels like my interests always lie with human ingenuity and how technology enables that.

I think some of the most beautiful tech companies that have ever been built have been built around that. When you think about Apple, Apple is all about unleashing our potential. Sure, at the end of the day, they sell computers. 

So the way I think about it is, a s an entrepreneur, I serve a couple of audiences. One is my team, where my goal there is to really build an incredible team and unleash the greatest potential as individuals and as a team. And then there are the products we're building where it's really about elevating the human spirit, and inspiring people to be a better version of themselves with the games we're building.

So these are the things that I feel what we aspire to do is Supersocial with the grander ambition. You mentioned at the beginning of the podcast today, where our mission is really to create a virtual world that is authentic and meaningful, especially in a world of today where there's so much BS and nonsense and crap, because there is literally zero. More and more, I think building authentic experiences that actually move you.

I went to see Dune 2 in the cinema, and I was moved. That's why content exists, to move you. So if we're able to build content that moves people, that's worth it. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, it is. So you started, the first company was Kano Computing, right? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Yeah. 

Lizzie Mintus: Okay, can you talk about what that was? How did you even start your entrepreneurial journey? Why are you this way? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Why is it so difficult? 

Lizzie Mintus: Why are you the way that you are? I always send them to that office. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Yeah, I think it's a good question. I would say philosophically speaking. The reason I am why I am is because I feel we live once and I think entrepreneurship and building something new, as long as it's meaningful, that can really make a dent on people's lives, it's a form of art. So it's almost like if I would think of myself as an artist, building a company is my art. And different people have a different form of art. I can't paint. I can't sing. I can probably dance a bit, but not professionally. So for me, building a company, like that's my art form.

And I get excited when I'm like, Oh my God, what if? And that's what gets me excited. Like, what if we can do this and that? And it makes an impact on this and that. So that's my drive. And I think I've always been like that, not necessarily maybe from an entrepreneurship perspective, but it was like dreaming.

I think you're always dreaming as a kid and then you grow up and life sucks the dreams out of you, or at least for some people. And so I think as an entrepreneur, I just refuse to let go of dreams. And I think the way it culminates is, look, I had my first entrepreneurial experience or experiment when I was in university. And we started this venture called Funkit in 2008 when I was still in uni and it was about creating an online marketplace where anyone can design their own sneaker design. And we mass manufactured those designs, the popular ones, as a form of stickers for snickers. So kids can go and just customize their sneakers. It was an interesting idea that I didn't ultimately get excited enough to pursue beyond the one year we were working on it, but it kind of gave me the feeling that that's what I want to do.

I want to come up with wacky ideas and I want to bring them to life and I want to build a company around it. And sure, if I do it well. I'll probably make money and then guess what? I can use that money to make more. 

So that's kind of really the essence of being an entrepreneur, which is why when I met my wife, I told her, look, this is my job. I'm an entrepreneur and I'm never going to retire because it's just so much fun to do it and I just want to do it more and more. And be successful at it. So that's the drive. And then Kano was really my first real startup. And what happened was, I came across this piece of technology called the Raspberry Pi.

It's a single board, $35 computer that really democratized computing as a promise for anyone. Imagine building, buying essentially a 35 piece of machinery that you can do anything you want with it. We figured out what if we take that and build around it a computing experience, a computer product that feels almost like Lego meets Apple. So beautifully designed, but it has that sort of construction feeling. So you don't just use a computer, you're actually putting it together and you learn to code with it. So then you can do more things with technology. So that was the promise and we called it Conner, the computer anyone can make themselves. 

We launched one of the first most successful kickstarters in 2013. We generated 1. 5 million in pre orders. And it was amazing and then the company over time went on to build multiple products with multiple different partners from Harry Potter to Disney to Kanye West, you know We launched this stem player with Kanye West. That was the last product the company launched a couple of years ago. 

And it was all about really empowering and inspiring a whole new creative generation. And again, that's why it was in line with the UGC proliferation, Roblox, Minecraft, et cetera. So it was a great entry point for me to tap into what now is kind of people call Gen Z. We were serving Gen Z, five, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago with our computer kits. And I think this is the first generation that you're seeing now, they're not only making stuff on the internet, but they're actually making businesses and making money. 

And I think the concept 10 years ago that teenagers can make money and build their own businesses while they're teenagers, I kind of feel like I totally nailed it because it's happening. And it's exciting and why not? Why would you just be a student in high school when you can roll up your sleeves learning tech and learn to code build games? Make money and build businesses. And you're seeing it on Roblox at the large scale. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, your kids are in for a treat. What are you doing? What business are you going to create? I can already see. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Oh, my daughter is almost three and she doesn't even know yet But she's already like a public equity investor. Like she has a portfolio. She's not aware of it cause I'm basically the portfolio manager. But yeah, 100 percent she's gonna be like, Hey, here's a bunch of things. What are you going to build with it? 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, I went to this business event and it's the lady who mentored me and she brought her daughter who's 11. And we were asking her, what business are you going to start? Your mom's so entrepreneurial and she said, I don't know if I want to start a business because my mom started a business. I was like, yeah, well, what do you think about your mom's business? She said, well, it's a little cool, but it's also a little boring.

Yon Raz-Fridman: I think at the end of the day, kids are so remarkable. You know, there's this quote from this learning scientist I like to quote. Her name is Alison Gopnik. And in one of her books, she says, children are the R and D department of the human species. 

So if you think about that, if you think about children in that nature, then wow. Imagine the things they can do if we give them the right guidance, inspiration tools and kind of get out of the way, can be pretty powerful. And I think to some extent, that's what Roblox has done. Which is really, really remarkable and so under appreciated. They really enable a community of several million kids to essentially learn to code, learn to build a game. And now they're learning to build businesses. And it's pretty amazing. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. What about discoverability on Roblox? I mean, if you don't have a brand, if you don't have Nike, Gucci, whatever, and you're creating a game or experience, what's your best shot at making it big? Is it working with a creator or working with an influencer? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: No, you know, that can help. But at the end of the day, you know, there is this saying from Peter Drucker who said like 40 years ago, marketing is what you do if your products sucks. So I think to some extent, like we live in a world today where there's so much nonsense, if your product, in this case, a game on Roblox is not really great, like no YouTuber influencer is going to help you.

Now, assuming you're building the right game, influencers can help amplify, paid advertising can help amplify, hitting the Roblox algorithm can help amplify, but the foundations of the game, engagement, retention, monetization, they got to be there. But it certainly is still very much a wild west, similar to where the app store with Apple have been in 2010, 2011, 2012, there isn't yet that sort of scientific machinery of how you acquire users on Roblox and that's going to take time. By the way, you also see the risk of that machinery on mobile gaming today, right? The machinery is so complex and expensive that if you don't have a hundred million dollars for marketing, there's very little chance you're going to succeed at a mobile game. 

So Roblox is in those beautiful, raw, organic days, but that poses other type of challenges. But the fundamental thing doesn't change, which is you need a great product. You need a great game and no influencer in the world is going to help you be successful if your product is not great. If your game is great, yes, YouTubers can help. But the thing is, if your game is great and the community loves it, there are probably going to be influencers who are going to want to cover it anyway without you asking.

And that's what happened to us a few times with Ghostopia that I've mentioned earlier, right? There was this influencer group on YouTube, which I love, the crew, and we woke up one day and suddenly, like, bang. There is a video on our game with like a million views and we didn't even know about it, right? 

Because that's what they do. Think about it. YouTubers want to create great content for their own audience. So if there's a game that picks out that is exciting, that they love, that they're curious about, they're going to do a video anyway. But again, that is an outcome of the game you build being great and not because you paid them. You can still pay them, which is incredibly expensive, but I would rather pay them as an amplification strategy rather than trying to prove that the product we have is great because that needs to happen organically. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah. I'll be Roblox creator programming evolve in the strategy there, obviously, once you have a solid game in place. But it seems like every big company is doing a LiveOps game and every big company is working with some kind of influencer or content creator to amplify their brand right now. That's the strategy. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: It's stable stakes for sure and it works. And there's other forms of other mechanics on Roblox that work really well for marketing that require not insignificant investment like dropping limited UGC collections, right?

Roblox users, like anyone in the world, loves free stuff. So all the different mechanics of how you build awareness and reach to your game but fundamentally you need the game to be great. Otherwise you may promote it and people come but they're not going to come back So you don't have retention. If you don't have retention, you're not going to be successful. 

Lizzie Mintus: It's true. So you've done, you've had all these different companies, you've done major brand partnerships. What has the most fulfilling thing in your whole career journey been so far and why? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: It's always the opportunity to see how the company that I started It's really making a dent on our team's lives and allowing them to be what they dream for themselves.

And that is really satisfying. You know, seeing the impact, the gratefulness, the potential that is being unlocked by someone is incredibly gratifying and fulfilling as a founder and an entrepreneur, because it shows that people believed in us and now they feel like what we're building is theirs as well.

And I think when we reach that point people feel like they're having so much fun, they're growing, they're fulfilled, I think it's a beautiful state for a business. And honestly, I don't think you can succeed without it because happy people build happy products. Never seen sad people build happy products.

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, that's true. So how do you create happy people? What are your philosophies for your own team? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: From the beginning, we were really focusing on building a culture at Supersocial that can be a magnet for the very best talent. And because we're working with a next generation workforce, right? A lot of our team members are young people, under 25. And so we're really focusing on distilling the values that we care about from transparency, humility, collaboration, and making sure that people feel truly that they have a voice around the table, that they can speak up, that their ideas are heard. And most importantly, that they're growing, that they're doing something that moves them forward and creating that environment where smart, capable people are working with other smart, capable people. And they have a sense of autonomy on the stuff that they're building. 

It's not rocket science, but I also think it's very difficult to do and requires a lot of discipline from leadership to ensure that when things get murky and tough, you're not all like jumping like a helicopter. It's a process. It's a journey.

I think of the culture of a company, like a product. It's constantly being iterated. It's not static. And the values could be thought of as features. If the company culture is a product, then the values are features and the features, like any product, can change, they can evolve, they can morph. You have to evolve the culture of the company with the time. It's highly unlikely that the first culture you had is exactly what's going to allow us to grow further. And so it's taking people on that journey that this is a journey. 

Lizzie Mintus: You have to do live ops on your company, basically.

Yon Raz-Fridman: Exactly. You've got to live ops that thing. 

Lizzie Mintus: I have one last question before I ask it. I want to point people to your website, Supersocialinc.com. 

The last question is, what is the best piece of advice you have received in your career? Yeah, I always like to share cheat codes. What have you learned that you can share with probably somebody who wants to start a company? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: I mean, I don't even know who gave me the advice, maybe it's something I compiled based on so many different things I've learned and amazing mentors I've had. But the advice that I would give that I'm grateful that I've collected over time is that you're going to hear a lot of different things in your life. You're going to hear a lot of different ideas and feedback and suggestions for people. But at the end of the day, you want to make a decision that you really feel in your gut that is the right one for you in any particular situation. And I think when I do that, it just helps me sleep well at night because I know that we're making the right choices. We're doing everything we can. I'm doing everything I can. 

And so listen to everyone, collect all the feedback. But at the end of the day, be with yourself when you make those choices, small or large, business or personal, and truly feel like you're making the decision. Because the reality is that looking backwards, you're not going to have anyone to blame aside from yourself.

So if you're already making that choice, you want to look back and not regret. And the way to do that, I believe, is by making sure that you've made the decision and you're doing it with complete clarity. 

Lizzie Mintus: Yeah, that's great advice. And that's so true. Whenever I've done anything that's not really in alignment with what I think, but I've listened to somebody else, it always goes wrong.Your intuition tells you a lot. 

We've been talking to Yon Raz Fridman, who's the founder of and CEO of Supersocial. Yon, where can people go to work for you, maybe have a brand partnership with you, or learn more about you? 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Well, thank you. You can always reach out on LinkedIn. Just find me Yonathan Raz Fridman on LinkedIn.

I'm always happy to chat and get connected. You can also find me on our website Supersocialinc.com, and you can also find me on our podcast, Into the Metaverse, which is intometamedia.com. These would be great places to start. 

Lizzie Mintus: Thank you so much. 

Yon Raz-Fridman: Thanks for having me. 

Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. To catch all the latest from Here's Waldo, you can follow us on LinkedIn. Be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes. We'll see you next time.