- Multiverse is a company that creates next generation tabletop RPGs, combining elements of D&D and Roblox.
- They are building a marketplace for users to create their own content, but also creating their own game.
- The founding team consists of 2 MIT engineers and a world-class artist, Sara.
- Sara discusses the importance of artists in game development and how they bring unique skills and perspectives.
- Artists are entrepreneurs and have the ability to create compelling visuals that attract audiences.
- The team emphasizes the value of recruiting artists who have built their own audiences and have experience in social media platforms.
- Sara shares her experience transitioning from freelance work to working with a startup, highlighting the need to adapt to faster timelines and decision-making processes.
- Working in tech offers higher budgets and better pay for artists, and tech companies can benefit from the high production value of their work.
- Finding artists is best done through platforms like Twitter, ArtStation, Twitch, and YouTube, where they are already building their audiences.
- Popular hashtags like #portfolio day, #women artists, and #POC in play can help identify talented artists in the game development space.
- Multiverse encourages more companies to involve artists in their teams and even on their cap tables.

- The speaker asked someone named Sar not to make a pun related to the cap table.
- The speaker expresses gratitude for having Sar on board and acknowledges their significant contribution to the company.

Multiverse (S20) gives a tech talk on their gaming startup, business opportunities and open roles.

Watch all the talks and create a profile on YC's Work at a Startup to connect with founders and find your next role:

https://www.workatastartup.com/events/gaming-tech-talks-2020

So we're Multiverse, we did YCW20, so that was from like January to March of this year, just before Corona hit.

So you know, Multiverse, we're making next generation tabletop RPGs.

You can think of us like a mix between D&D and Roblox.

We want to take games like Dungeons and Dragons that you play in your head and on paper, and we want to turn that into a visual experience that you play online, you can stream, You play with your friends, right?

And we're building a marketplace because D&D and like tabletop RPGs are ultimately about telling your own story.

And so we want anyone to be able to make content on multiverse, but we're also the first creators on it.

So in a way we're making a platform or we're also making a game and content on top of it.

And we're a bit of an unusual founding team.

We've got 2 MIT engineers, me and Hisham, and Sara, who's a world-class artist.

Like, I'll let her get into stuff she's done, but really there was kind of an unusual team.

And we wanted to share our experiences about how it was having like someone like Sarah collaborate with us, be a founder, and whether maybe that's something that more people should do, right?

In tech, it's hard to understand how to make a game sometimes, right?

Because coming from a tech background, we're used to solving problems, we're used to talking to customers, and like worst case you're building like a social product and the advice is always like you can maybe you can't talk to the customers but you launch right away and you test, test things out.

And you know games I think sometimes make people a little bit uncomfortable in tech because they're different, right?

Like they're entertainment products and they take some time to launch and they're not necessarily solving a problem, right?

In entertainment, you really need to have a point of view that you're sharing, and you need it to be compelling.

You have to trust that millions of other people want to know about your point of view.

And you need to make these really important foundational decisions without necessarily knowing how people will react.

And you really want someone on your team when you're making a game who is truly good at that.

And it's worth saying that not every gaming startup is an entertainment company, right?

They're not necessarily making their own content, right?

Even mobile games, to some extent, you could say you don't necessarily need the high entertainment value.

But like, if you're trying to make a company like, let's say like Riot, when fundamentally you're also making a media company, entertainment is really important and you need someone who is good at that.

You need someone with great intuition, instincts.

And when we were making Multiverse, we knew we needed to make content and we wanted it to be compelling.

And just immediately the person who popped into our mind was Sara.

And luckily she had a lot of the entrepreneurial skills that we already needed.

And so, yeah, Sari, do you want to talk a little bit more about that and your journey going through YC as an artist?

I'm the creative director and co-founder at Multiverse and primarily the illustrator.

And sorry for the cat interruptions before.

She seems to want to give part of this talk as well.

Before I was with Multiverse, I was doing work for Marvel, for Star Wars, and on comic books, and it was just a really natural transition actually to transfer some of those skills into games.

And if you think about how players interact with your games, art is at every single step.

You know, the first way they interact with your game is through illustration and, you know, the promotional images you create.

Then, you know, their art is dominating the screen and ultimately defining what the player experience is gonna be.

And the art of the game is what people are going to ultimately recognize, you know, when they're on Twitch, they're on YouTube, they're on Instagram, you know, seeing your game around.

So we genuinely believe that artists actually have the same skill sets that you expect of good tech founders.

And first and foremost, illustrators right now, especially the ones utilizing social media, they're entrepreneurs.

They're raking in 10 to 40K at Comic Cons.

Kickstarters are getting genuinely millions of dollars with teams of just like 2 or 3 artists.

You know, when companies talk about like reoccurring revenue for the same thing that these, the same thing that artists are considering and it's like Patreon and Twitch subs, you know, they're running their own businesses.

They have access to other artists and an established community of talent.

And when you open the door to like 1 illustrator, you very quickly have access to many, many more.

So, it often gives momentum when you start introducing just 1 illustrator to your team, you begin to find that you have access to many more.

And 1 kind of hot take and kind of a controversial opinion is that you shouldn't get fixated and dazzled by people who are coming from AAA studios.

You know, the artists who are coming from Riot and from Blizzard, they're coming from like a very much a studio background.

And what really makes illustrators excel as entrepreneurs is when they're coming from the scrappier side of things.

When, you know, they're on Twitch or YouTube or Instagram or Twitter.

And if you're looking to recruit from a small to mid-sized team, I highly recommend looking at those folks who are building their own audiences and doing it from scratch, the same way a startup does.

With my own experience coming into tech and coming into startups as an illustrator, I should say that there is growing pains.

It comes from both the illustrator themselves and from the team that's accommodating them and bringing them in.

I didn't have the same vocabulary as a lot of the people in startup spaces.

You know, when I was going around Y Combinator, every 2 minutes I'd have to lean over to thought and be like, wait, what does this mean?

I was the only person at YC who didn't know who Paul Graham was.

So, you know, I didn't have some of these established truths or general knowledge.

And that took some, you know, some growing both with my team.

And I should also say that for me as an illustrator, transitioning into like working with a company after so long doing freelance and successfully working independently, I had to understand timelines were fast.

You're accommodating a larger team and a product that's being developed very quickly.

Those early stages at a startup are very crucial.

You don't want to end up developing the wrong thing.

But what's interesting is at the same time, that's where illustrators really come in handy because you're able to produce, you know, illustrations and trailers and those first instances that really grab audiences quickly and relatively cheaply compared to developing other products.

So you can kind of test what's clicking with your audiences and what isn't, thanks to having that talent like ready to go in the team.

And I would also say, especially for the artists that are in the chat and watching these talks, the budgets are a lot higher and the pay is just simply better in tech.

That's a big appeal to go from working independently to working at a startup.

Similarly, like there and similarly as a tech company, you can get a lot of really talented people like, you know, affordably.

You know, like you can like really like spend a lot of money and like make some really talented people amazing art, like really high production value.

And That's been a huge advantage for us in all of our content.

It's really kind of like why we got into YC and why we raised our seed round even.

Most of the investors were like, all right, shut up, we don't care about your pitch.

Yeah, and a lot of things that we hear from other people who they're not necessarily opposed to working with artists, but primarily they don't even know where to start.

And I can say that they're not on LinkedIn, and they probably don't know how to use LinkedIn.

You have to go to where they're already building their audiences.

And they're surprisingly like accommodating and easy to reach out to.

And very often, again, when you find 1, you very often have access to others.

I also really encourage people to comb through some of the popular Twitter hashtags that are on there to look at hashtag portfolio day, hashtag women artists.

And most recently, there's been a really popular push in game dev spaces for POC in play.

So that is highlighting like people of color within the video game industries.

And it's been a real like treasure of talent and access to people who can really do something special with your video game company.

So yeah, our whole concept is that, you know, illustrators have the same skills as a tech founder and they're already doing a lot of the same work.

They know what, they're good at knowing what people want and doing it and we really hope that more folks bring artists to the table And also the cap table.

Yeah, I mean, no, it's been really great having someone like Sar on board.


Speaker 0: So we're Multiverse, we did YCW20, so that was from like January to March of this year, just before Corona hit. So you know, Multiverse, we're making next generation tabletop RPGs. You can think of us like a mix between D&D and Roblox. We want to take games like Dungeons and Dragons that you play in your head and on paper, and we want to turn that into a visual experience that you play online, you can stream, You play with your friends, right? It's like a video game.

And we're building a marketplace because D&D and like tabletop RPGs are ultimately about telling your own story. And so we want anyone to be able to make content on multiverse, but we're also the first creators on it. So in a way we're making a platform or we're also making a game and content on top of it. And we're a bit of an unusual founding team. We've got 2 MIT engineers, me and Hisham, and Sara, who's a world-class artist.

Like, I'll let her get into stuff she's done, but really there was kind of an unusual team. And we wanted to share our experiences about how it was having like someone like Sarah collaborate with us, be a founder, and whether maybe that's something that more people should do, right? And, you know, Emmett touched on this. In tech, it's hard to understand how to make a game sometimes, right? Because coming from a tech background, we're used to solving problems, we're used to talking to customers, and like worst case you're building like a social product and the advice is always like you can maybe you can't talk to the customers but you launch right away and you test, test things out.

And you know games I think sometimes make people a little bit uncomfortable in tech because they're different, right? Like they're entertainment products and they take some time to launch and they're not necessarily solving a problem, right? In entertainment, you really need to have a point of view that you're sharing, and you need it to be compelling. You have to trust that millions of other people want to know about your point of view. And you need to make these really important foundational decisions without necessarily knowing how people will react.

You're not able to test it right away. Right? And you really want someone on your team when you're making a game who is truly good at that. Right? And it's worth saying that not every gaming startup is an entertainment company, right?

Like Twitch is a platform, right? They're not necessarily making their own content, right? Even mobile games, to some extent, you could say you don't necessarily need the high entertainment value. But like, if you're trying to make a company like, let's say like Riot, when fundamentally you're also making a media company, entertainment is really important and you need someone who is good at that. You need someone with great intuition, instincts.

And when we were making Multiverse, we knew we needed to make content and we wanted it to be compelling. And just immediately the person who popped into our mind was Sara. We'd been friends for a long time. It felt very natural. And luckily she had a lot of the entrepreneurial skills that we already needed.

And so, yeah, Sari, do you want to talk a little bit more about that and your journey going through YC as an artist?

Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. You can hear me, right?

Speaker 0: Yep.

Speaker 1: Okay, cool. So, hi, I'm Sarah. I'm the creative director and co-founder at Multiverse and primarily the illustrator. And sorry for the cat interruptions before. She seems to want to give part of this talk as well.

Before I was with Multiverse, I was doing work for Marvel, for Star Wars, and on comic books, and it was just a really natural transition actually to transfer some of those skills into games. And if you think about how players interact with your games, art is at every single step. You know, the first way they interact with your game is through illustration and, you know, the promotional images you create. Then, you know, their art is dominating the screen and ultimately defining what the player experience is gonna be. And the art of the game is what people are going to ultimately recognize, you know, when they're on Twitch, they're on YouTube, they're on Instagram, you know, seeing your game around.

So we genuinely believe that artists actually have the same skill sets that you expect of good tech founders. And first and foremost, illustrators right now, especially the ones utilizing social media, they're entrepreneurs. They're good at business. They're very interdisciplinary. They're raking in 10 to 40K at Comic Cons.

Kickstarters are getting genuinely millions of dollars with teams of just like 2 or 3 artists. You know, when companies talk about like reoccurring revenue for the same thing that these, the same thing that artists are considering and it's like Patreon and Twitch subs, you know, they're running their own businesses. And often they already have audiences. They have access to other artists and an established community of talent. And when you open the door to like 1 illustrator, you very quickly have access to many, many more.

So, it often gives momentum when you start introducing just 1 illustrator to your team, you begin to find that you have access to many more. And 1 kind of hot take and kind of a controversial opinion is that you shouldn't get fixated and dazzled by people who are coming from AAA studios. You know, the artists who are coming from Riot and from Blizzard, they're coming from like a very much a studio background. And what really makes illustrators excel as entrepreneurs is when they're coming from the scrappier side of things. When, you know, they're on Twitch or YouTube or Instagram or Twitter.

And if you're looking to recruit from a small to mid-sized team, I highly recommend looking at those folks who are building their own audiences and doing it from scratch, the same way a startup does. With my own experience coming into tech and coming into startups as an illustrator, I should say that there is growing pains. It comes from both the illustrator themselves and from the team that's accommodating them and bringing them in. I didn't have the same vocabulary as a lot of the people in startup spaces. You know, when I was going around Y Combinator, every 2 minutes I'd have to lean over to thought and be like, wait, what does this mean?

What is B2B SaaS? What is it? Like, I just smile and sit there. I was the only person at YC who didn't know who Paul Graham was. And I still a little bit don't.

So, you know, I didn't have some of these established truths or general knowledge. And that took some, you know, some growing both with my team. And I should also say that for me as an illustrator, transitioning into like working with a company after so long doing freelance and successfully working independently, I had to understand timelines were fast. Decision-making is really important. You're accommodating a larger team and a product that's being developed very quickly.

Those early stages at a startup are very crucial. You don't want to end up developing the wrong thing. But what's interesting is at the same time, that's where illustrators really come in handy because you're able to produce, you know, illustrations and trailers and those first instances that really grab audiences quickly and relatively cheaply compared to developing other products. So you can kind of test what's clicking with your audiences and what isn't, thanks to having that talent like ready to go in the team. And I would also say, especially for the artists that are in the chat and watching these talks, the budgets are a lot higher and the pay is just simply better in tech.

That's a big appeal to go from working independently to working at a startup.

Speaker 0: I'm not. Similarly, like there and similarly as a tech company, you can get a lot of really talented people like, you know, affordably. You know, like you can like really like spend a lot of money and like make some really talented people amazing art, like really high production value. And That's been a huge advantage for us in all of our content. It's really kind of like why we got into YC and why we raised our seed round even.

Most of the investors were like, all right, shut up, we don't care about your pitch. Your trailer looks awesome. You know what I mean? Let's just invest on that. So yeah, it's a really huge advantage.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of things that we hear from other people who they're not necessarily opposed to working with artists, but primarily they don't even know where to start. And I can say that they're not on LinkedIn, and they probably don't know how to use LinkedIn. You have to go to where they're already building their audiences. So that is going to be Twitter. It's going to be ArtStation.

It's gonna be on Twitch or on YouTube. And they're surprisingly like accommodating and easy to reach out to. And very often, again, when you find 1, you very often have access to others. I also really encourage people to comb through some of the popular Twitter hashtags that are on there to look at hashtag portfolio day, hashtag women artists. And most recently, there's been a really popular push in game dev spaces for POC in play.

So that is highlighting like people of color within the video game industries. And it's been a real like treasure of talent and access to people who can really do something special with your video game company. So yeah, our whole concept is that, you know, illustrators have the same skills as a tech founder and they're already doing a lot of the same work. They know what, they're good at knowing what people want and doing it and we really hope that more folks bring artists to the table And also the cap table. That was also nice.

Speaker 0: I begged her not to make that pun. You know, the cap table pun. Yeah, I mean, no, it's been really great having someone like Sar on board. Yeah, a huge part of our company.

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Desining from Day One: Artists as Founders: Multiverse (S20) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020