⚡ How a Love for Chess Started a $500m Digital Empire

Morning Innovators ⚡ This week (in less than 5 minutes!) we’ll explore…

 
🥳 The best jobs, funding opportunities and events in the start-up world
📰 The biggest news stories in the start-up world
♟️ How a $55k domain purchase turned into a huge global community valued at over $500m thanks in part to a Netflix series
📣 How events can help your company go viral
👀 Our 3 favourite start-ups to keep an eye on this week
🎨 A tool that helps you easily create beautiful websites

👆 The most clicked link in the last week’s newsletter was this article about a British start-up hoping to refreeze the Arctic.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

💼 Job opportunities

🪙 Growth Associate, Coinbase
📧 UK Partnerships Associate, Substack
🐙 Team Manager, Octopus Energy Group

🎤 Events/Opportunities

💄 This week we featured some beauty and wellbeing start-ups. Sticking with that theme, if you run a beauty start-up then check out the Beauty Accelerator run by The Red Tree. Applications close on the 2nd Feb (so be quick) with one start-up receiving up to £250k in equity funding.

🌩️ Founder + Lightning are on the lookout for early-stage B2B founders to invest up to £300k in and help build, develop and test their B2B product.

💰 Plural, the VC fund set up by 4 former founders has just raised a second fund of €400m.

✈️ After some quiet years for travel the funding is back, and some of the biggest scale-ups are accelerating. Crunchbase News

🏡 French home insurer Luko, finally finds a buyer after, but at a huge discount to the amount it’s raised. TechCrunch

💸 Step aside Canva and Adobe - here come’s Kittl with its browser-based design tool. TechCrunch

☀️ There’s not mush-room for this last story (ok sorry that was awful). German biotech start-up Infinite Roots has just closed a $58m Series B to further its work with Mycelium. TechCrunch

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♟️The King's Gambit - From Startup to Global Chess Phenomenon: In the realm of start-ups, few stories are as captivating as that of Chess.com, a platform that transformed a millennium-old game into a thriving digital empire. Founded by Erik Allebest and Jay Severson, Chess.com's journey from a daring investment to a global phenomenon offers a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs in blending tradition with technology.

Chess.com's inception was marked by a strategic yet risky investment: acquiring the Chess.com domain for $55,000 in 2005. This purchase, made with Allebest's savings, demonstrated their commitment to creating a unique online space for chess enthusiasts. The founders' vision extended beyond a mere gaming site; they aimed to cultivate a comprehensive chess community, offering playing, learning, and interaction opportunities.

In the initial phase, Allebest and Severson faced the dual challenge of developing a robust platform and fostering an engaging community. They began by offering basic chess-playing capabilities and forums for discussion, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive chess ecosystem. Their approach was hands-on, with both founders actively involved in coding and designing the website, ensuring that every feature aligned with their vision of an inclusive and educational chess portal.

As Chess.com grew, the team introduced innovative features to enhance user experience. These included live tournaments, coaching services, and advanced game analysis tools, catering to both novices and experienced players. The platform's freemium model, offering essential services for free while reserving premium features for paid members, proved to be an effective strategy for scaling up the user base without alienating casual players.

A significant boost to Chess.com's growth came with the COVID-19 pandemic and the release of Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit" in 2020. These events triggered a global resurgence of interest in chess, with millions seeking online platforms to learn and play. Chess.com, with its established infrastructure and community, was perfectly positioned to capture this surge, seeing its user base and daily games played skyrocket.

Understanding the power of community and influencer marketing, Chess.com forged partnerships with popular Twitch streamers and YouTube content creators. These collaborations helped demystify chess, presenting it as an accessible and entertaining pursuit. By engaging with a younger, digitally native audience, Chess.com not only expanded its user base but also reinvigorated the game’s image.

For Allebest and Severson, Chess.com was more than just a business; it was a stewardship of the game they loved. They focused on making chess enjoyable and accessible, integrating user feedback into continuous platform improvements. This user-centric approach fostered a loyal community that viewed Chess.com not just as a service provider but as a custodian of chess culture.

Having gone from a $55k dollar investment, Chess.com received investment from General Atlantic in 2022, hosts 10m+ games of Chess every day, has over 100m users, and is thought to be worth over $500m! Not a bad return on that initial investment…

As Chess.com continues to evolve, its journey offers invaluable lessons for start-ups. It’s a testament to the power of community, the importance of understanding your audience, and the potential of combining tradition with technology. As they move forward, one question remains: Where do you think Chess.com’s focus should be to ensure they continue to innovate and lead in the digital age of chess?

Looking to catch the eye of your customers? Look no further than this marketing stunt that Alex Lieberman and his pals pulled off!

Whilst Alex did this on behalf of Hubspot, there’s no reason why you can’t do this for your own business. Alex and his friends were heading to the NCAA college football final courtesy of a post he made on his socials asking if any companies were able to buy him and his friends tickets to the football game. In return, he’d pull off any marketing stunt they could come up with. This is exactly what you’re seeing above. Hubspot bought the tickets, so the Lieberman crew were dressed head to toe as Hubspot mascots.

Are you going anywhere that you know will have a big audience? Is it going to be on live TV or are they streaming it? Get your brightest company colours and make sure you stand out, you might get broadcasted out to millions of people for free!

This week we’re spotlighting a few start-ups doing awesome things in the world of beauty and wellbeing…

🧼 Goodwash is a Welsh skincare brand with a social conscience, founded by ex-Welsh sports internationals Mandy Powell and Kelly Davies. Originating from kitchen table experiments near Barri, Wales, with organic essential oils, Goodwash offers luxury skincare products made from natural ingredients and based on age-old Welsh remedies. Their range includes items for skin, hair, and fur care, catering to both humans and pets. Notably, their popular Dog Wash was inspired by the founders' own pets. Goodwash also operates as a social enterprise, having provided £90,000 in funding for over 45 Welsh charities and organizations since its inception in 2018.

📱 Renude is a personalised skincare service founded in 2019, combining skincare science and data science. Utilising AI technology, Renude creates custom skincare routines based on comprehensive analysis of individual skin concerns. Customers complete a questionnaire, upload images, or have video consultations, which are analysed by the AI to suggest effective routines. Additionally, Renude connects users with licensed aestheticians, each with over 10 years of experience, for ongoing personalised support and routine adjustments.

💅 Glambook, founded in 2020, is a digital booking platform for independent beauty professionals and their clients. It streamlines the process of finding and booking beauty and wellness services. Serving over 40 countries, Glambook partners with more than 37,000 professionals, offering services like makeup, nails, hair, barber, massage, brows & eyelashes, depilation, cosmetology, tattoo and piercing, and permanent makeup. Clients can easily find the best deals by filtering services based on price, reviews, and location.

Each week we’ll be highlighting our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our innovator community have recommended.

Framer is an innovative platform designed for teams to design and publish stunning websites. Emphasising a user-friendly experience, it offers features like a built-in CMS for managing content, AI-powered localisation for global reach, and advanced SEO tools for online visibility. Framer also integrates design and development seamlessly, allowing for rapid deployment of ideas with optimised performance. Its layout tools are powerful yet intuitive, supporting import from Figma and adding unique effects easily. Framer caters to professionals looking to scale their web projects efficiently and creatively, making web design more accessible and streamlined.

Next week we’ll be looking at how a company you’ve probably never heard of can become a unicorn by being the best at one thing - I’ll give you a hint….it’s cheese 🧀 We’ll also be highlighting cool start-ups, more funding opportunities, plus we’ll be giving you more awesome tips, tricks and tools.

P.S. Connect with us on LinkedIn…