by MixMob CEO and Game Producer, Simon Vieira
When we got invited to Collision, we went through a range of emotions. At first, we were excited.
Collision hosts over 35,000 people — 1,500 startups, 1,200 journalists, and top speakers from around the world. Politico calls it “THE OLYMPICS OF TECH.”
We were given the opportunity to speak on stage and host a booth where we could demo our Web3 game, MixMob: Racer 1.
Then, after talking internally, our excitement changed to healthy questioning.
We are a Web3 company, after all, and Collision focuses on traditional Web2 startups. So what would be the goal? Would people be ready for what we are building? These were some of the questions we asked ourselves.
After some discussion, we concluded that Web2 people are the ones who we need to transition into Web3. The crypto community already understands the benefits of crypto and NFTs. On top of that, Web2 people will give us great feedback and validation. If we could explain our value proposition without acronyms or crypto lingo and people could see the value of our game, we would be onto something.
From excitement to healthy questioning, we moved to total commitment and anticipation.
And onwards we went.
Here are the top highlights from the conference, from our presentation to talking to people at the booth, all the way to listening to leading CEOs, founders, and some of the most influential people in tech.
Takeaways from the presentations:
- Tech is about to get more political and regulated: data, privacy, crypto, USDC.
- Quality journalism is in decline — we need more independent journalism.
- If it’s not open source, it’s not Web3.
- Web3 native companies will go far, similar to how Web2 natives took the web to the next level. Amazon was born out of the web.
- Diverse teams are more creative and can see the big picture more clearly.
- Think big, start small, and act fast.
- Tech has come a long way, but it’s still early.
- Robots and A.I. are going to take over the world (but not in an apocalyptic kind of way).
- A huge percentage of the startups at Collision were focused on A.I.
Highlights from the booth:
- We made hundreds of connections and handed over all 500 of our business cards.
- 100% of people who play-tested the game told us it was super fun and said they would play it again.
- Everyone has heard of crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse, but very few still understand them and their benefits — and this was a tech conference!
- A lot of people told us that we were the first to successfully explain the Metaverse, crypto, NFTs, and their benefits to them.
- Crypto is still scary and confusing for many people, and they are still turned off by having to create a wallet and load it with crypto.
- A few people challenged us on why we use crypto and NFTs in our game. We turned them into believers after our explanation and demos.
- Multiple people told us that we were the coolest startup in all of Collision. 🙌
Overall, we had a fantastic time at Collision in Toronto. It was one of the most organized conferences we have ever attended. The vibes were immaculate, the stage designs were impeccable, the quality of the production was impressive, and the people were top-notch. We learned a lot!
The best part? All our hard work paid off. We got invited to come back and speak again. We also connected with many potential investors, influencers, press, and other speakers.
Funny last note — turns out a lot of tech people are Batman fans :)
PS: Toronto is a cool city and has great places to hang out.
We’re already looking forward to next year!
