"Gaming offers unparalleled opportunities for self-expression, freedom from judgment, and the chance to forge deep connections"
Kyle Zappitell Tweet
Welcome to an exclusive interview with Kyle Zappitell, the visionary founder of bash.gg. In this captivating discussion, we delve into the future of gaming as the new social network, where authentic connections and unparalleled opportunities thrive.
With a background as a former Xbox engineer and a lifelong passion for gaming, Zappitell brings a unique perspective to the table. At bash.gg, the aim is to create a digital realm that transcends traditional social media platforms, offering a memory lane for gamers and a replacement for conventional online networking.
Zappitell firmly believes that games provide an extraordinary avenue for self-expression, freedom from judgment, and the forging of deep connections.
During the interview, Zappitell discusses the company’s Xbox-level gaming experience on the web, providing instant access to a vast array of games without the need for downloads. This approach expands the market potential by making gaming more accessible to a broader audience, requiring only an internet connection and a browser.
Join us as we uncover Zappitell’s insights into the gaming industry, the power of authentic connections, and the exciting future that awaits in the realm of gaming as the new social network.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Kyle Zappitell: I’m Kyle, the founder of bash.gg. I’m a former Xbox engineer and been a gamer since I was a kid. For me, bash.gg is a memory lane of when I was a kid playing games.
For kids today, it’s going to replace social media. You see younger people spending a lot more time on games like Fortnite or Roblox than they do on your classic social media, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat.
Our role with bash.gg is to make these games accessible. At bash.gg, we believe that games offer unparalleled opportunities for self-expression, freedom from judgment, and the chance to forge deep connections.
It’s a better social network, one that prioritizes quality time and authentic experiences over mass exhibitionism.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Kyle Zappitell: In today’s world, gaming has already become the social network of choice for younger generations. The drawbacks of traditional social media often stem from a lack of genuine connection.
As we peer into the fishbowl of curated posts and carefully crafted personas, loneliness can increase rather than decrease. In contrast, gaming allows for authentic interaction and shared experiences.
bash.gg offers an Xbox-level experience on the web. You can play any game instantly, no downloads required, and all games are free. This expands the total addressable market because all you need is an Internet connection and a browser, which is much more accessible than consoles or gaming computers.
What advice do you wish you had received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Kyle Zappitell: I was recently given this advice about riding waves and the importance of that. So I wish earlier in my career I had been told that technological waves or shifts are important to build category defining companies. You need a shift, because that wasn’t immediately clear to me, that it was a necessity.
Right now, we have the WebGPU wave in gaming and development. WebGPU empowers developers to create richer experiences, expand their reach, and break free from the limitations of traditional distribution platforms.
As WebGPU continues to evolve and gain wider adoption, we can expect a transformative impact on the web landscape. For me and my team at bash.gg, it’s the tool for our mission to provide a gaming platform as the social network of the future, driven by Gen Z and their younger siblings, Gen Alpha.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Kyle Zappitell: There’s this obsession in the business world with nonfiction books. Most of them just use way too much text for what they’re trying to say. You can really boil it down to a few key points and experiences.
I read a lot on the Internet, I read a lot of articles, and I’m constantly learning from Twitter. Those are the modern books. There is this information out there in much more compact content that saves you time, which I think as a businessperson you should want to optimize for time, not optimize for what looks good. So that’s my controversial take on the business book obsession.
Having said that, I’m reading a book right now that I really like, and it was given to me by the Andreessen Horowitz team, the investment group for the accelerator that I recently joined, and it’s called Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture.
I enjoy it because it’s this raw story of people starting things, so I would also give it as a gift. When founders are really open about their motivations and interests and backgrounds, I find it inspiring.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Kyle Zappitell: We’re working on getting Sunnyvale out there, it’s the game we’re building. The biggest challenge with it is finding the right users to play it, test it, iterate on it and grow from there.
We plan to release it in a closed beta in about three weeks. It will launch on bash.gg, of course.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Kyle Zappitell: The importance of hiring and figuring out how to hire well is a learning process. I don’t think anybody can tell you, hey, this is how you should hire people.
Because depending on what stage of a company they have worked in, it will be different. So you’re going to use different hiring tactics if you’re a four-person team like we are, than if you’re a 100-person team, or if you’re in a large company. So you’re going to use different hiring tactics and you’re going to hire for different things.
At large companies, you’re going to want somebody who’s very different from somebody you’d want on your four-person team or somebody you’d want on your 100-person team. And those are different personalities, and you’re going to want to approach the culture differently.
I tried to take my experience from Microsoft and apply it to hiring at bash.gg, and it didn’t work well. And so I had to completely change the way I hired after that experience. And now I think I’ve got it figured out and we have a great team, but I made a lot of mistakes to get there.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Kyle Zappitell: The only thing that matters is growth and distribution. There are a lot of people who are really good at coming up with clever ways to grow or clever ways to get people’s attention. The hardest thing right now is there’s tons of products out there.
There’s tons of things for people to do. Everybody has their attention pulled in 20 different directions. So if you’re a master at getting people’s attention, especially the people you want to target, if you’re good at that, that’s a superpower. So I would like that one. And that’s what I’m trying to work on.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Kyle Zappitell for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Kyle Zappitell or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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