Nigel Eccles: [00:00:00] I've always thought entrepreneurs are more risk-seeking.

And they actually did this research, and they discovered that that wasn't the case.

Actually, entrepreneurs are just very bad assessing risk.

They just sort of look at it, and they over-assess their ability.

Like: "the risk isn't that big, and I can figure it out." 

Nigel Eccles: I just find that experience to be just exceptional.

Just so much fun to be able to come up with an idea of a product, to work with engineers, to building it, launch it, get feedback from customers.

Okay, that doesn't work. Let's iterate it.

I have also worked in large companies, I've worked as consultant, and none of them really ever had that intensity and excitement that startups had. 

​

Nigel Eccles: When I started my first company it was an incredible gamble.

We had this incredibly ambitious product.

We were focused on the US market, none of us were American, we didn't live in America. We didn't really know the market.

We'd never started a company before.

The chances of this thing being successful, are remote. The chances of it even raising money are incredibly remote.

And the funny thing was we did raise money. We raised money from [00:01:00]one of the two VCs at the time in Scotland. 

​

Nigel Eccles: In normal jobs if you're smart and you work really hard at it, you'll generally be successful or at worst you'll be recognised.

You'll be promoted and you'll have a good career.

Startups aren't like that. You go in, you assume you're smart, you work super hard, you hire really good people, and they might still not work. 

​

Nigel Eccles: Startups are really like a science experiment. and your job as an entrepreneur is focus on the one thing that really matters:

do customers want the product you're selling?

It takes an incredible effort and focus and attention to make that work, and it's very unforgiving.

It's very, very hard at that first point to know am I a visionary or am I just deluded, right?

Every day we were getting sued. Every day it was bad news.

A patent dispute suit is a rite of passage as a US startup.

When you first get it you're terrified. You're, "Oh my God, they're gonna sue me for we've infringed their patent," and you don't realise that you get these all the time.

By this point you're like, anything that's [00:02:00] below like a federal agency suing me is not worth getting out of bed for.

You just have to take each day as it comes and go, "Okay, well, we're gonna to figure out and we'll get through this, and then we'll get through the next thing." 

Leo (2): Hey, welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast I'm your host, Leo Judkins, founder of the iGaming Leader Mastermind. And on this show, I sit down with some of the most inspirational and forward thinking leaders in our industry, diving into the real challenges, high stakes decisions and lessons. That shape our 

industry

If you are a VP director or an executive in iGaming, this podcast is built for you.

Before we dive in, a quick thank you to our sponsor Sum Sub, the full cycle verification platform. Trusted by top iGaming operators worldwide, sum sub helps onboard players quickly stay compliant and prevent fraud all without slowing growth.

More information in the description. .

Leo: Hey everybody, welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast. Today [00:03:00] I'm joined by Nigel Eccles, co-founder and former CEO of FanDuel, now co-founder and CEO of BetHug and Sentient Studios. 25 years in online gaming and one of the most interesting second acts in the industry. Nigel, welcome to the podcast. 

Nigel Eccles: Ah, thanks. 

Leo: just before we started recording, we were actually talking about background and, where you're from and how you ended up in New York. we talk a little bit about that?

Can we just talk 

about kind of the beginning years of your career and how you, you know, went from being on a farm to now being in New York? 

Nigel Eccles: so I was, brought up in Northern Ireland, um, a dairy farm. I, left, uh, when I was eighteen to go to college in Scotland. 

so I think I've sort of gone from small-- very s-- the smallest you could possibly imagine, which is a farm, to like St. Andrews, which isn't a big town.

moved to then London and like ultimately today in New York. So I've sort of gone bigger and bigger.

Leo: was it that originally kind of pulled you out of, an environment like that, Nigel? Was it... I feel quite similar [00:04:00] with, kind of coming from a really small place, and I've always had this feeling that just a place I had to escape, you know? was it the same for you?

Or how, did it naturally happen? 

Nigel Eccles: I think there was sort of no question from a very early age that I wasn't a farmer. and my brothers would, concur with that, that I wasn't really cut out for it. like I... At, at school, the area that I was strongest at was mathematics. I studied pure mathematics at university.

and so I'd always sort of hoped to go into a career that would challenge me in that way. so that probably is what drew me, to go and do something that seemed like my strength.

Leo: one of the things that we were talking about is how you've, you know, how you see other founders 

on podcasts sometimes talk about challenges, maybe kinda gloss over it. You've, you've run businesses 

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm. 

Leo: for many, many years. Founded 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. 

Leo: businesses. can we first maybe talk a little bit about what drew you to entrepreneurship and founding businesses? 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. So the first startup that I joined, but I didn't co-found, was Flutter.com. That's, for people who don't know, was actually the [00:05:00]parent company or the original company behind, Flutter Entertainment. so in 2001, Flutter, .com merged with Betfair, and through a whole process of mergers became Flutter Entertainment.

it was a venture-backed, company based in London. the original idea was to kind of be an eBay of betting. It wasn't quite an exchange, like Betfair. Uh, the original idea didn't work. and then I, as a product manager, my job was to sort of relaunch it as an exchange, which we did in early 2001.

and then ultimately merged with Betfair. and I just find that experience to be just exceptional, just so much fun to be able to, like, come up with an idea of a product, to work with engineers to b- building it, launch it, get feedback from customers, sort of say, "Okay, that doesn't work. Let's iterate and, and just sort of, you know, that intensity, and excitement. You know, I have also worked in large companies, I've worked as consultant, and none of them really ever had that intensity and [00:06:00] excitement that startups had. And so, a few years later, 2007 is When I started my first company, and that was a prediction market.

And really the reason I went and did that was because I just found the excitement of being in a startup huge, and I wanted to go and do it myself, and so it was just a real driver to go and do it.

Leo: uh, founding business, any founder will know, isn't just a, you know, you have an idea, 

you kick it off, and then you get, you get 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. Yeah. 

Leo: in, 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: we talk about, certain cases about runway or about, funding. Like, what were some of the early challenges that you ran into, founding that business? 

Nigel Eccles: day one, even before you start is the challenge of you know... I was in a pretty well-paid job at the time, and going in and resigning, I remember-- I still remember to this day how terrifying it was. you know, I had a mortgage, a very big mortgage. I had two kids.

my wife wasn't working at the time, and so we didn't have a [00:07:00] lot of savings. It was kind of like, "Hey, we could probably go a year without taking a salary." But-- And I was just 100% convinced that, w- w-we could go and do this, and it would work and you know, it's interesting.

In retrospect, I think-- I actually remember seeing research once. They always sort of thought that entrepreneurs were more risk-seeking, I've always thought entrepreneurs are more risk-seeking. And they actually did this research, and they discovered that that wasn't the case. Actually, entrepreneurs are just very bad assessing risk.

So, like, they, they just sort of look at it, and they sort over-assess their ability. Like, the risk isn't that big, and I can figure it out." and I think that was actually true at the time. It was, like, an incredible gamble, that in retrospect, you looked at it, you know, we were starting a company in Scotland.

There was only two VCs in Scotland, at the time. I think there's one today. we had this incredibly ambitious product, which was a prediction market. we were focused on the US market. None of us were American. We didn't [00:08:00] live in America. We didn't really know the market.

We'd never started a company before. and so yeah, you would look at that and go, "The chances of this thing being successful, are remote. The chances of it even raising money are incredibly remote." And you know, the funny thing was we did raise money. We raised money from one of the two VCs at the time in Scotland.

So the very first thing was an incredible hurdle, which was, you know, going in, having the confidence, quitting my job. And then after that, it's just a series of like, can you build a product? Can you launch? Can you get a market? Can you show traction? Can you use that traction, to raise money?

yeah, just a series of, like, massive hurdles, one after the other. 

Leo: You said, that moment of resigning was terrifying. Take me back to that moment. What was it like? What was the... Do you remember the day of 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. Oh yeah, I do. I do indeed. I remember my old boss. so I was working for a regional newspaper publisher called Johnston Press, and my boss was CEO of that company. It was a public company. I'd [00:09:00] been there less than a year, so it was kind of a bit of a surprise for him, but I was just bored out of my mind.

And, and I kind of had been hired to shake things up, and I came in, and I did. And then the CEO was like, don't do that as much. Just..." So I, I stopped.And, and, and it just meant that I had nothing to do. Like, it was lit-literally, I would go in, and I would just have the most menial stuff, and it just-- I was going crazy.

so I remember going in and, telling him, like, I wanted to go and do this thing, andhe was very shocked, and I was, absolutely terrified. 

Leo: I, 

I 

did it five years ago, and, uh, I remember just counting down in my head to shake my boss's hand 

and, uh, did you have doubts the 

Nigel Eccles: Oh. 

Leo: leading up to it? 

Nigel Eccles: I never sort of thought for a moment that it was a mistake. and I never thought afterwards it was a mistake, even when things were really, really tough. 

you know, you... If you look at the kind of... You add everything up, it was like it was an incredible, like, an incredible gamble.

It was such a long shot that this would be [00:10:00] successful.

Leo: It's true for any startup, isn't it? Like, it's almost like backing yourself more than anything, isn't it? And I often find that talking to people, it's that moment of finding the courage to back yourself.

That's the moment when people are finally brave enough to take the resignation and, to start their own business. 

Nigel Eccles: it is sensible to, weigh up the pros and cons, have your own personal runway and safety net. But I think most... Certainly I didn't do that. Like, we kind of went for it. And, you know, maybe if the sort of person who does weigh all of that stuff up, maybe they don't make the decision, and they don't.

Maybe they back out six months in. Um, I think you kind of have to, you know, burn your boats, as a metaphor. You know, you really have to, because what you can't have is someone, when it gets really tough, you're six, nine months in, going, "You know what? There's a really good job here. you know, I should really go back and do that.

I should go back to school. I should go, you know, back to [00:11:00] what my high-paying job was." That's, that's really tough. 

Leo: how were your mates and your environment around that decision-making point? was that tough? Were you encouraged? Were people saying, "Hey, you're nuts. What are you doing?" what did that look like?

Nigel Eccles: Um, I'm trying to think what they thought about at the time. I thought my family thought I was a bit crazy, but, My family are not sort of massively sort of careerist, that they're like, "Oh my God, you're throwing away a great job."

, so I think they thought it was sort of unusual, but not out of character for me.

Yeah, my friends, similarly. Like, I don't think they thought it was really that out of character for something for me to do. 

Leo: And Nigel, you've now, you know, many, many businesses later, many, many battle scars

later as well 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: cover in a bit. What were some of the things that surprised you the most about founding businesses?

Nigel Eccles: you know, it's funny, I've heard this a couple of times, people just saying how hard it is. and I think it's actually really interesting 'cause when you measure, you say, "Well, what does that mean?" and I [00:12:00] think what you sort of see in normal jobs is if something's really hard, if you work really...

You know, if if you're smart and you work really hard at it, it you'll generally be successful or at worst you'll be recognisedthis guy puts in the hours and so even if that project isn't successful, you'll be promoted and you'll have a good career.

Startups aren't like that. startups, you go in and, and, you know, you assume you're smart, you work super hard, you hire really good people, and they might still not work. the other thing that I think surprised me and surprised a lot of people is, startups aren't like big companies in miniature. I've seen those people make this mistake all the time, and they sort of think, "Okay, well, big company has, I don't know, HR department, and they have, you know, all these different things, sort of sensible, grown-up.

you think of a startup as a small version of that, and what you discover is that startups aren't any of that. Startups are really like a science experiment. and your job as an entrepreneur is to [00:13:00] cut out all of that other crap.

All of that stuff doesn't matter. Try and push that aside so you can focus on the one thing that really matters, which in an early-stage startup is, like, product market fit. do customers-- can you show the customers want the product you're selling? and A lot of people get distracted by the other stuff.

They go, "Oh, I, you know, I've got the insurance sorted, I've got the payroll," you know, all these different things. But they don't focus on the one thing that really matters. And the thing about that one thing is that it takes an incredible effort and focus and attention to make that work, and it's very unforgiving because, you have to kind of start with a vision of what you think customers want, and then you build it.

And almost invariably, for some reason, it doesn't work. And then you have to figure out, okay, does it not work because the product's just not good enough? Often your first product's just not that good. or does it not work because- Even if it was great, people still [00:14:00] wouldn't want it for some reason. and it's really hard assessing that every day and staying motivated and committed.

Like you come in, no one's used your product. you, you pay people to use your product, they still don't use your product. like for example, FanDuel, when we launched it, we launched it in, June of 2009, uh, and no one used it. We even paid people to use our product and, and no one used it.

And it wasn't until about, I think it was October of that year that we made some changes and some pretty big changes, and it really clicked. We had product market fit, it started to spin. Now, that was four months, and four months of just grinding. But I've had other products that we've worked on for two years, and at the end of two years we admitted defeat.

It was like people did not want this product. and it's really hard. It's very, very hard at that first point to know, like, am I a visionary or am I just deluded, right? That people really want this. that is the really hard thing in this [00:15:00] early stage. And we're-- you know, the people that get through are the people who manage to just keep focusing on that one thing.

Nothing else matters. If I can get this one thing to work, people really want this product, then everything's kind of easy. what I see a lot of times people sort of do the easy things, and don't focus on the one really hard thing.

Leo: it's something I see all the time, right? Where because the hard things are hard, many entrepreneurs also get sidetracked by this kind of shiny object syndrome right 

Feeling that the grass is always greener somewhere

else 

Nigel Eccles: yeah.

Leo: you kind of dealt with that throughout your career with that difference like you described between kind of backing yourself for the singular

vision versus

am I actually a maniac that has

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: how did you learn to find that balance and what were some of the lessons you've learned there

Nigel Eccles: Nobody bats a hundred on this one, right? some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, if you look at Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs launched the Apple Newton, which, was a terrible product. and he's launched other [00:16:00] products that didn't, you know, just weren't...

And, and you could say actually they were ahead of their time, and I think he was right on that. smartphone's probably the best product ever invented or one of the best products ever invented, and the Newton was like an early version of that. we launched, HubDub in 2008. It was a prediction market.

And, we shut it down about two years later. we pivoted to become FanDuel- And it was a product that had traction but no real business model. And, you know, the funny thing is, um, we shut it down, must've been 2011. And for the next, 10 to 13 years, I had to explain to people what a prediction market was.

I don't have to tell anybody now, right? and when I look at Polymarket, every time I look at Polymarket, I'm like, "Oh my God, it's just like HubDub." it's incredible, the similarities between the two, and all of the different arguments that they make about why this is important and useful and valuable were exactly the same things that we made back then.

[00:17:00] and again, that one, I guess in a way we were right. There was something there. But, there's no part of me goes, "We shouldn't have pivoted to become FanDuel," which we did in 2009. So it's kind of weird.like for example, with, HubDub Payments, we just couldn't do payments, and there wasn't a framework, a legal framework.

We could have run that as a product. I don't think the market was ready for it. So a lot of times it's like, okay, it's great. it feels good that we were right, you know, that that was a real product. But right is great, but what you wanna do is be kind of right, right now. Uh, a-andwhat we found with FanDuel was this was a product that we knew we could build, that within about four months we'd got to product market fit with it.

and so that was a product that worked. And there's another product I'll mention that I worked on. So 2022, we launched a product, called Vault. But Vault was a new digital music format. and we spent two years on it. the idea was [00:18:00]we created a digital format that allowed artists to sell limited edition versions of their music.

So they could create an album, and they would put it in this format, and they could sell it. And there might be only a, 100 copies of this album. Lots of things were really cool about it. We could not get it to work. Uh, we could get it to work technically, but we just couldn't get the market excited about it.

I still think there's something there. I know it will not be me that will do that. I'd love to think that I would never do anything like that again, but, I can't say that I'm 100% confident. Because I think if you're willing to make a bet that you're gonna create something that doesn't exist, you always run the risk that it doesn't exist for a reason, that nobody really wants it.

you know, like I, I, I'm, I'm open to that risk and, that's something you just, you have to accept 

Makes sense A lot of it is timing like you said right The market's gotta be ready for it or I'll give you another idea, another concept of a product, which was the original, Flutter product, which was a person-to-person betting site. so it wasn't an exchange. An exchange is much more of like [00:19:00] a financial-- like it's all about price.

Person-to-person is like punter A wants to bet and punter B takes the other side of the bet, and there's like a social network everything around Flutter's original concept was that, launched in 2000. It didn't work. I have seen that idea maybe two dozen times since then, and it's pretty much exactly the same idea, and it never works.

Every couple of years I see it and people are like, "Yeah, but this is different. This is on a phone," or, "This is on this." So sometimes it's timing, sometimes it's too early, but sometimes it's just like not a great idea.

And sometimes people try stuff and it totally doesn't work, and the person who comes along later tries it, and they have no idea about all of the people who did try it before. So like I, I... You know, Shane, who did Polymarket, I'm pretty certain he never heard of PubDub, and he probably didn't know about Entrade.

Like he pr- he probably didn't know any about those. He just said, "I'm just gonna go and build this 'cause I think it makes sense." And he-- and it worked, and he was right. so yeah. Like who's to know? Like, maybe the [00:20:00] next person who tries to do this Flutter person-to-person betting site, they do something slightly different and it works,

Leo: Yeah

2001

maybe

Number two 

Nigel Eccles: yeah. Y-yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Leo: I like I'd love to talk a little bit about what you were just saying about Vault Laboratories I I mean you ca-called your post-Fanual years a a bit of a wander through

terrible markets And 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. 

Leo: you said is that music industry was objectively worse than

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: I I'd love to hear from you What how

do you have

kind of a mechanism or a framework on when to decide that a venture is actually dead versus just

early 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah, a venture's dead when all of your investors have given up on it . Pretty much. Like that was,kind of it for Vault. I remember one of our lead investors said to me, said like, "You've been at this for two years. You haven't even broken ten thousand a month in revenue." He was like, "I've got startups who do that in month one."

He was like, "I'm not putting more money in. In fact, no one should probably put any more money [00:21:00] in." and I'm really glad he did that because he was right, and I was just sort of too determined and obstinate to make it work. that was about two years ago we shut that down, and it was like, if I hadn't have, I would still be doing it and it still wouldn't be working.

so sometimes you need other people. But, like, especially when they're paying for it, they have a big voice and say, "You know what? Yeah, time to call it a day on this one."

Leo: Yeah makes sense one of the things I I was reading up on Nigel that I'd love to talk about is that were walking into a windowless room PayPal during the Fanjul years You you said a single meeting where a risk officer

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: whether to keep doing business with you that shaped your decision for Bethog

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: crypto rails before Well you know almost a decade later What what changed in your head when you walked out of that room

Nigel Eccles: Yeah, like it was... You know, we went to PayPal, this is in twenty sixteen. I remember it was January twenty sixteen. It was just before the Super Bowl. [00:22:00] PayPal is in San Jose, and we-- I remember we went in and, I just remember, like it wasn't anybody notable within PayPal. It was sort of mid-level person who did some risk management, and we were just on the list.

As we walked out, and then they approved us. They kept doing business with us. Now, at the time, we were getting sued by, eleven or twelve different attorney generals. Like, the DOJ was looking at it. there was just like, the sort of pressure that we're seeing on prediction markets, that was happening with, us with daily fantasy sports.

And I remember just walking out just thinking, stroke of the pen. Like, she could have just said, "You know what? I don't think this is worth the risk." and we had already lost numerous banking relationships at this point. I think if we had lost PayPal, it'd have been pretty grim, because that was half of our payments.

It always just stuck with me that we were so reliant on these third parties that, You know, whenever I discovered crypto, I was like, [00:23:00] "Wow, this is a way now that we can actually transact directly with our customers without this reliance on third-party payment providers."

And that to me was like, wow, this is a much better way of doing business. because it wasn't even like we weren't that important to PayPal, so that just underlined it to us is that they had such power over us, and they didn't even really know it.

and so that was just something to me as like, wow, to, be able to build a business where I'm not totally reliant on these third parties who don't really care about our business, that, that's what crypto brought. 

Leo: How was that for you as an individual having that conversation that is a huge amount of pressure because that's essentially the end of the business right Like that stroke of a

Nigel Eccles: Oh, yeah.

Leo: L

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. So the...

Leo: do you take those conversations even

Nigel Eccles: Yeah, it's challenging. Like twenty sixteen, we-- Like every day we were getting sued. Every day it was bad news. you know, and, and you're just, y-you know, it's bad news, but is it terminal news? Like it's 

Leo: Yeah [00:24:00]

Nigel Eccles: okay, you've just got sued in Hawaii. You're like, "Eh, it's not that big a state.

We can handle that. okay. And then you're like, "Oh, we've just been sued in New York. Oh, that's really bad. Okay."

Leo: Yeah

Nigel Eccles: but like if it's PayPal saying, "Hey, we're not gonna process payments for you," that's potentially terminal. So it's just kind of like, you know, you're, y-you're kind of like the things-- I remember before that we were worried about, you know, we'd just been sued, for, a patent dispute, right?

Like when people get a patent dispute suit is a rite of passage as a US startup. And, when you first get it, you're terrified. You're, "Oh my God, they're gonna sue me for we've infringed their patent," and you don't realise that you get these all the time. when I first got it, I was kinda worried and, by this point you're like, oh my God, anything that's below like a federal agency suing me is not worth getting out of bed for.

It's kinda like, you know. So you just have to take each day as it comes and go, "Okay, well, we're gonna figure-- we'll get to figure out and we'll get through this, and then we'll get [00:25:00] through the next thing." 

Leo: Crazy isn't it Yeah A rite of passage I love it Nigel I wanna talk a little bit about closing the 10 million Series A

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm.

Leo: Studios A a really public moment but the private moment I believe is is before that right

When you decided

you were going to commit BetHog to B2B pivot

Nigel Eccles: Yeah

Leo: the B2B business is in your own word way off kinda market share ambition talk

me through that

decision

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. So, like, we've been building, AI dealers since last summer. It's been something that we'd been sort of thinking about since earlier last year, been playing around a lot with AI and sort of going, "This is such an incredible technology. Like, why isn't anybody using it more? How could we use it more?"

and so w-we just sort of started playing with it, and we sort of initially thought, "Okay, this would be a really cool product." I play a lot of online blackjack, and I'm always kind of stunned at how, to be honest, variable and poor [00:26:00]quality live dealer is. Like,

I've played blackjack in casinos all over the world, and I've had some amazing dealers and they--

Even losing's fun because they're entertaining. And you sort of think about that when you go to a live dealer and you think, "Oh, I wonder if it's like that." And then you just quickly discover it's not, right? it is a very sort of robotic and, generally... Like, there's exceptions.

I would say maybe one in twenty I get a dealer who's entertaining, who's fun, and it sort of makes being in that table, really engaging. But most of the time it's not. and I sort of like, having played a lot, I just sort of thought, "You know, I'm pretty certain using AI where it is today, we could build a better experience, a consistently better experience than what live dealer is delivering today."

And so we started work on that last summer. and we launched our V1. We also took a view that we were going to build very iteratively. So we weren't going to, like, lock ourselves away for twelve months and, you know, [00:27:00] build what we thought was the best product. We were going to get a product out in three months, and we did.

We launched the first product in October. It was very basic. It was single player, single hand blackjack. It was an, cartoon style avatar. but she was engaging. and, you know, it did really well. It's actuallyour most successful launch ever. Uh, it's been one of our top games ever since then.

And so that told us, "Okay, there's really something here." So then we started to invest and let's build something that's more photorealistic. our vision is that within, certainly within about six months' time, that we have a dealer who, like essentially the only way you know she's AI is because how good it is, right?

Like that's the kind of the biggest... You're like, you know, she's super attractive, she's super engaged, she's, she's fun, she's funny. that's our mission. And as we started to develop it, what we realized was, look, this could be a massive benefit for Bethog- [00:28:00] But even if we did incredible in crypto casino, crypto casino is probably ten percent of the total casino market, and so it just didn't make any sense to just keep that within Bethug.

And so that's when we decided, like the opportunity here is B2B. It's really, let's use Bethug as a test ground for this product, but then let's start talking to other casinos because we want to get this into other casinos and work with them. one of the amazing things, with AI Dealer is it is so flexible.

some of the simple things. We can go from one table to a thousand tables instantly. we can offer players Privé. Normally, you can only play Privé if you're willing to play $1,000 a hand. We can do it from $1 a hand. she can speak 140 languages. Like it, it's incredible. she can speak dialects.

She can, you know, we can turn her into totally different and we can turn her into a male as well, into totally different dealers. We can also clone if, if a partner has a streamer [00:29:00] or a, a brand ambassador, we can clone that brand ambassador, and so you could have, you know, if, if Drake is your ambassador, Drake can be dealing blackjack for you.

So the, the versatility of the technology is incredible, and so that's why we were just like, "Wow, it would be insane to try and just keep this within Bethug. We need to go B2B with it."

Leo: one of the things I've noticed by the way Nigel is that you've been building companies essentially with the same three or four co-founders for 16 years right

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: Tom

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm.

Leo: said finally getting the band back together

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: Tell me a little bit more about that What's the conversation you have with yourself when you decide to call them again for the next one instead of finding fresh blood 

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: view point point of view

Nigel Eccles: Yeah, I think like any startup, finding really talented, hardworking people who want to, you know, bang their head against a wall, which is life as a startup, it's hard, right? To get those like really determined people. and any hire is a huge risk, in that like, do they work out?

Do they really wanna be [00:30:00] in a startup? and so if there's someone you've worked with before who was really good and they want to do it again, like absolutely, I always jump at that chance to hire someone, I've worked with before. so like that's one of the-- I think it's a huge advantage of being like a second, third time around entrepreneur, is that you do have a network.

the other thing that I'm sort of very fortunate is like some of the people I've, built companies with before are just- Like, you know, Rob, my co-founder, is I-I would say like one of the best product people in the entire gaming industry. and I've worked with quite a lot of people, and there's other people that I have massive respect for, but I just think Rob has just got incredible eye for product and what is a good product.

my CTO, Ryan, who actually I worked with in my last startup, he's easily-- CTOs can be quite challenging. They can be very technically strong, but not great managers. or they can be great managers, but they're just kind of VP engineering. They're not like-- They're [00:31:00] not that deep technical person you need.

and Ryan is both of those. And almost unique of the CTOs I've worked with, he's sort of like great guy, incredible manager, but very deeply technical, and the team really respect him. and so, you know, it's easy. And then with Cameron, who just joined me, like Cameron was one of the first hires at FanDuel.

You know, it's huge responsibility. So FanDuel's marketing team was off the charts good. Like nearly everybody there was just exceptional. and so Cameron was a leader in that team, and so chance to work with him again is just incredible. So I'm really, really excited to have him back working together again.

Leo: talking about earlier today with one of our iGaming Leader Mastermind members was how I feel there's three different types of CEOs typically One is the kind of the cash cow CEO optimizes costs goes

for long levity

You have the turnaround CEO business failing turns it around You have startup CEO

Maybe there's more 

but that's

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm.

Leo: it And we and we ended up talking about how people within the business also [00:32:00] sometimes in those categories 

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm.

Leo: perhaps is inside of a large organization very

used to processes

probably wouldn't thrive in a startup environment

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: do you see that as well with people that you've worked with and have you people have you

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: in like a box like that

Nigel Eccles: I've seen that repeatedly. In fact, in startups and when I'm advising entrepreneurs, like whenever they're hiring and, you know, like a sort of a FAANG, so somebody from like a Google or a Meta, they might be like, "This guy's incredible. He's a star at Facebook." and I'm like, "Okay.

He might be, but he's probably got a seventy percent chance of failure at a startup, even if he's great." that's just through my own experience, is that, you know, people from big companies, it's not that they're bad, they just don't really-- the startup environment is so different. and I've also seen plenty of founder or s- people in startups do not-- They're kind of there [00:33:00] because it just-- big companies don't work for them.

again, it's not one's not better than the other. It's just that, just a very different environment. So, now some people do make it, and I've hired people from big companies who have gone on and been very successful in a startup environment. But it's got a very high failure rate.

And when I am working with founders, and they're looking to hire, I'm like: Look, the best person you can hire right now is someone who is out of a failed startup. you wanna understand why it failed. Like, if it failed through really, really bad decisions, that's probably not a great person.

But if it failed, as most startups fail because they worked super hard and it just didn't quite work, and they want to do a startup again, then that's generally a very good hire. And that person's probably got a, you know, maybe more like a seventy percent success rate as opposed to like a twenty or thirty percent to somebody who's come out of a big company. 

Leo: Makes sense And and when we flip that around some you know there's many people currently at large organizations where the organization [00:34:00]is having to reinvent themselves

Nigel Eccles: Mm-hmm.

Leo: become AI first having a huge amount of fat that needs to be cut out of the

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. Yeah.

Leo: economical kind of you know changes in the industry itself how does an organization like that reinvent itself with more process-driven people inside of the business and needing to move to a more leaner startup type of vibe

Nigel Eccles: I've never had to do that. I've always tried to run my companies as startups, even as they've got to real scale.

Leo: Yeah

Nigel Eccles: when you start to hit that point where you're like heavy in process... it's often because you've hired the wrong people who've,

Leo: Mm

Nigel Eccles: Often you've hired managers who then want to hire other people, that sort of just slows it down.

and the problem was you as a CEO didn't hire the right people at the start. And so often when I've made the mistake, it's not because we need more process or different processes. we hired the wrong people who built the wrong type of company. and so, building companies since then, I've just been [00:35:00] very conscious about who I hire And, what sort of teams they're building.

are they hungry? are they the sort of people that will thrive in a startup or desperate to make it work? what I will say for people in companies, today, there's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. there used to be a barrier to being an entrepreneur is if you weren't technical.

Leo: Yep

Nigel Eccles: and often you'd go to events, and you'd-- you have people looking for co-founders, and the people looking for co-founders were always non-technical looking for a technical co-founder. Every technical person wasn't looking for a co-founder, right? And then-- and it was kind of like a-- it was a sort of a meme for a while.

I was actually at a startup event a couple of months ago, and I met three people who were looking for co-founders, and they were all technical. And it was really interesting because I actually now-- I know people who are non-technical that are startup companies, and they're just vibe coding it.

They're just like, I'm just gonna vibe code. I'm gonna build it." [00:36:00] And, they had the vision and the knowledge, and they just, go and do it. And so there's no barrier today to just going and starting. And I know a number of companies now that are, getting the early stages success, and they're not technical founders, but they have a clear idea of what they wanna build and they're working, night and days to get it done.

if you're at a big company and you think you wanna be a founder, the best way is to just start. You don't need to quit your job. you can actually just start building things. at some point, the pull to go and do it is gonna be bigger than this fear, and that's the point at which you're gonna go and do it full time.

But you don't have to quit in day one. I think it's incredible time-- opportunity to start companies now. 

Leo: And don't you think it's even a great idea to do that regardless of if you wanted to start a company

Nigel Eccles: Yeah.

Leo: a play is such a great

Nigel Eccles: Oh, yeah.

Leo: actually getting ahead of that AI curve and being on the forefront of it

Nigel Eccles: Yeah. Uh, that-- there was a-- I saw something on, Twitter yesterday, and it was the, uh... It was, a Singapore minister for health, [00:37:00] and he was vibe coding something. Like, it was just incredible. He was like, "Yeah, so in my spare time, I wanna keep on top of it." And I'm like, could you imagine like a British, you know, it could-- West-West Streeting talking about Claude, right?

It's just like-- And it's so absurd 'cause no, of course we can't. But, I think it says a lot about the quality of Singapore, government that they actually have people like that. And I just think that to me is like, this guy's clearly really smart, and this is somebody who is... He's not-- His view on AI is based on hands-on experience- Which is available to everyone.

And so when you hear people like talking about AI or the idea they're setting policy about AI, and they're not actually using it, that's terrifying to me. And that, that's the concern I have. But, like it is available to everyone. There's absolutely no reason why people should-- if they have ideas that they're not trying and building it, it's a huge opportunity..

Leo: Uh for my final question Nigel you umyou've done businesses together with others usually [00:38:00] right You d you said something about that there's decisions you wish you

wouldn't have made alone what is it and why is that

Nigel Eccles: so I do know some people who are, solo founders, I've always advised them, I said like, "If you can get a really good co-founder, go do it." it's absolutely worth the dilution. Like 'cause people start to say, "Well, I own 100% of the day." And I'm like, "You own 100% of zero."

And I said, "If you have a co-founder, your chance of being successful increases dramatically, if it's a good co-founder." Now, solo founder is 100% better than a bad co-founder. like a bad co-founder kills businesses. But being able to convince someone else is really important. It's one of your first sales jobs.

I always advise people on it. every company I've done, I've done with co-founders, and they've been immeasurably better for it. even just like psychologically, just sharing the challenge and the stress is really important. I just wouldn't want to do it on my own, [00:39:00] because there's just like a lot of decisions, a lot of thought, and a lot of pressure that it's just immeasurably better to have co-founders.

Leo: then in that case I'm gonna finish on a different question because there are gonna be single founders that are listening What would you advise them to do dealing with those decisions that they have to make by themselves that they can't discuss with anybody inside the business, people that don't have a co-founder?

What would you suggest that they do?

Nigel Eccles: get a co-founder. And a, and a co-founder can come in at any stage, right? Like it's-- a co-founder doesn't have to be they joined on day one. They could join in two, three years into the business. They just have to be someone who has ownership and feels ownership and behaves like an owner.

Uh, you're probably gonna need advisors. I have advisors all the way through my journey, and they've been incredible. And, and advisors doesn't mean you're speaking to them every week.

That's a therapist. Advisor means someone that you speak to every one to two months And you really reserve the difficult problems. "Hey, you know, I'm really struggling with this. What, what do you think?" [00:40:00] they're also not board members, typically. Board members are-- often represent capital, and they don't really want to hear you coming in going, "Oh my God, they, they-- these guys are gonna quit.

This is not working." it's a very, very bad board dynamic 'cause no board wants to feel you don't know what you're doing. but an advisor ca- you can absolutely-- you want someone you can be honest and say, "Look, I'm finding this really difficult. What do you think?" so that, that, you know-- co-founder, one.

If you can't do that, we certainly want, like, grown-ups in your organization, and then a third thing would be advisors.

Leo: Love it. Nigel, thank you so much for your time and, sharing all of your story. It's been wonderful.

Nigel Eccles: That's great. Thanks very much.

Speaker: Thank you for listening to the iGaming Leader Podcast. If you are a vp, a director, founder, or an executive in iGaming making the biggest decisions alone, that's exactly what I've built. The iGaming Leader Mastermind for Small inner circles of vetted senior executives weekly hot seats. And accountability from people [00:41:00] who understand the effects of the decisions that you need to make.

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