The fundraising journey for startup We The Bookie

Meet Malcolm Wilkinson, founder of We The Bookie who shares his journey launching and fundraising his sportsbook startup.

What’s your story in founding We The Bookie and tell us about the USP of this bookmaker?

A few years ago I experienced a rare “eureka” moment when a new take on the existing bookmaker model flashed into my head. I wasn’t working in the betting industry but I was one of Betfair’s first customers (I attended a promo event of theirs during my exchange year at Leeds University, England in ’98-’99) and was aware of Pinnacle’s low-margin model. I appreciated that both models offered customers better margins but Betfair had the liquidity issue and Pinnacle seemed to cater more to the sharps than the casual punter.

My idea was to use the conventional bookmaker model as a starting point but then give back 50% – yes half – of our monthly gross gaming revenue to our losing customers in direct proportion to each one’s loss that month.

Given the nature of the company, the first name I thought of stuck – We The Bookie – and naturally named the monthly distributions: WeShares.

I wasn’t sure what percent of losses our future customers would get via the WeShare program. My guess was about 20%. Reality has been better than expected with 21%-48% being returned monthly to customers since we launched in January of this year.

The beauty of our model is that it fairly and transparently rewards those who would have suffered the most with a conventional bookie. We are also a “bookie with a conscience”. We don’t have a VIP program, no casino, and simply do not encourage our customers to deposit or bet more than they would naturally.

As a startup, what are some of the unexpected problems you have encountered in your journey of building a bookie?

One of the most crucial aspects of our business offering is being able to offer, on a technological level, a similar betting experience to that of our competitors. In our ‘beta’ testing period with a handful of customers we quickly realized that our platform felt too different to the norms. We are excited to launch later this summer on a new platform which will not only solve this problem, but will also offer features which will enhance our model. We will be able to show customers a live “WeShare Tracker” so that they can see how strong the WeShare pool is and even strategically manage their betting accordingly.

The new platform will also enable us to share our live positions on key events which means customers can have an interest in these events without actually wagering on them. They want to win their bets like normal, but they actually want us to beat the other customers since this inflates the WeShare pool.

You recently pitched at the SBC Canadian Gaming Summit. What sort of tough questions did you get and how were the connections made from that pitch?

Funnily enough, the questions that seem tough, about our low-margin viability, defence against copycats, etc., are fairly easy to answer. Arguably the toughest question we received was regarding our go-to-market strategy. While we plan on building a grassroots and organic following that relies on word of mouth and community-based ambassadors, the marketing plan itself will initially be somewhat reliant on the amount of investment received. To some extent, regardless of budget, we know what we do NOT plan on doing: namely, swimming in a sea of sameness and outspending without rationale on athletes and sports leagues. That’s not us. We’re for the people and of the people.

What advice would you give to other startups looking to raise money for their project?

Have self-awareness about how investable your company is. One simple technique is to consider each slide in your deck in isolation and view it from the investor’s perspective. In my case, I had never worked in a startup, let alone founded one, so when I critically view my “Team” slide, it is clear that I would have to launch and prove certain metrics in order to secure institutional investment, whereas someone who had successfully founded and exited in the past might be able to attract investment based almost solely on their track record.

My other piece of advice is to raise only what you need and to not sell yourself too short on your initial valuation. Run afoul of either of these and you risk giving up too much valuable equity too early.

Given your experience so far, what would you have done differently in getting started with We The Bookie?

With 20-20 hindsight, I would have been more thorough in choosing providers, especially platform provider. It was tough to find a platform provider that fit all our criteria and the search did take years. But I’ve been pretty pleased with the path we’ve taken. There were plenty of pitfalls avoided and even those we fell into, we managed to crawl out of relatively unscathed.

What are your future plans for We The Bookie?

Once we relaunch on our new platform this summer and solidify proof-of-concept in Ireland, we plan on scaling globally rapidly. While our model will not be viable in specific markets where the tax levy is a high percent of stake, our model and brand were designed to be globally appealing. Accordingly, we will expand into mature and emerging markets including the UK and other European countries, select provinces and states within North America, the Latin American market, Asia, and beyond…

We are in the midst of a “bridge round” capped at €200k which will facilitate our relaunch and offer us the runway we need to take off. This will probably be our last “small dollar raise” aimed at the casual investor. If interested, please contact [email protected].