Conversation with SideKick Lianchuang Jonny Fish: Why is live orders an inevitable trend?

Guest: Jonny Fish, Co-founder of SideKick

Interview: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

Since last year, the attention economy represented by Memecoin has become a new consensus in the crypto market. In this new consensus, asset producers represented by Pump.fun and asset consumers represented by P young players appeared.

Efficiently capturing trading hot spots and accelerating trading speed has become the evolutionary goal of distributors such as exchanges and trading Bots. The crypto trading cycle is gradually shortening until the emergence of a new form of "live streaming with orders" emerges - the LiveFi trading platform created by SideKick is about to be launched.

Sidekick is a decentralized live broadcast trading platform, where users can participate in crypto asset transactions in real time through the anchor's live broadcast. Last year, Sidekick received an investment from YZi Labs as one of the best graduation programs in the seventh season of BNB Chain’s Most Valuable Builders (MVB).

In addition, Sidekick has also received tens of millions of dollars in capital from institutions such as Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Foresight Ventures and other institutions and angel investors. In February this year, Sidekick also established a strategic cooperation with Trovo.live, the largest live broadcast platform in Eastern Europe.

Recently, ChainCatcher interviewed Sidekick co-founder Jonny Fish. Jonny mentioned that Sidekick has transformed from the traditional live broadcast and companion play industry, and has accumulated many years of technology, anchor resources and expansion channels. Earlier, the team wanted to cut to Web3 to do live broadcasts, but they all felt that the time was not yet ripe. Last year, asset launch platforms such as Pump.fun launched a "content factory", allowing countless people to become producers to generate content. In addition, the growth of the "P young players" group made SideKick smell the opportunity to match supply and demand .

How strong is Sidekick's "live streaming orders"? How to improve user trading experience through live broadcast? And how can we match and coordinate the needs of project parties, content producers and ordinary users to obtain profits through SideKick?

The following is the full text of the conversation:

ChainCatcher: Your X profile is interesting, why describe yourself as Sidekick 's "Chief Joke Officer"? Please briefly introduce your personal experience.

Jonny Fish: Compared with the titles of CEO and CTO, I think as the founder of a company, the greatest contribution should be to output content and value so that the team can understand our goals and direction. In the live broadcast track, drama and tension are very core elements, and I think I am more "abstract" and willing to play a role that brings dramatic effects, so I gave myself the title of "Chief Funny Officer", which is considered a self-deprecating.

I used to be mainly in the traditional Internet industry. In my early years, I was at Netyu Internet Cafe, which is the largest chain Internet cafe brand in China. They also own a company called Bixin. I obtained the authority of the European general agent at Netyu, and was responsible for the overseas design of Internet cafes and accompanying games, and accumulated a lot of experience in the Internet and live broadcast ecosystem. Because of my long-term contact with Internet cafes and game communities, I also have a relatively in-depth understanding of the needs and behaviors of gamers. Later, we tried to expand the companion business to the world. Initially, we made great progress in the European market, using low-cost anchor resources in Eastern Europe to serve gamers in Western Europe to get interest rate spreads.

Actually, I didn't want to do Web3 business at the beginning. The opportunity was that after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukraine War, the EU imposed legal currency channel restrictions on Eastern Europe, cutting off payment channels from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. This has had an impact on many games and Internet companies. At this time, we discovered an opportunity and decided to build a Saas system to solve the payment needs and the income needs of content output. We completed the payment function through Crypto.

This is the first version of Sidekick, a playback system designed for content creators. This system helps anchors solve payment problems, allowing them to quickly collect payments during live broadcasts. It also supports online play and gifts, to meet different community needs. The project developed very quickly, with a monthly turnover of more than US$10 million, and it ran very vigorously last year.

The political situation eased after Trump took office, we realized that we must plan in advance and finally decided to enter the live broadcast track. At that time, we had signed a contract with the largest MCN company in Eastern Europe, with more than 100,000 anchors and a fan base ranging from tens of thousands to millions. Based on these resources, we began to focus on the live broadcast business.

ChainCatcher: Please summarize the core functions and target users of Sidekick in a few sentences so that everyone can quickly understand what you are doing.

Jonny Fish: If you summarize it in one sentence, what Sidekick needs to do is LiveFi, that is, "Trade the moment". Trading is carried out at the moment , and real-time trading hotspots are captured and efficiently communicated through live broadcast.

Last year, there was a very obvious trend that was the large-scale outbreak of the "P young players", which had not been formed in previous cycles. This group's abandonment of mainstream VC coins and pursuit of Memecoin have led to the launch of products like Pump.fun. We have always felt that if there were no products such as Pump.fun on the market today, then product forms such as live streaming will not be established until now.

The reason is very simple. We can divide the market into three roles: producer, distributor and buyer. Pump.fun is like a producer in the currency circle. We can regard CA (contract address) as a commodity. As buyers, P young players hope to make quick profits through high-frequency trading, but face the problems of information asymmetry and limited time and energy. They need to find potentially valuable among thousands of CAs themselves, so they need to do a lot of research.

A very classic saying, mismatch is opportunity. If an industry has a mismatch, its opportunity will already appear. The first wave of trends was the emergence of the scanned chain bot, followed by the emergence of the data panel on GMGN, the smart money ordering function and the KOL wallet. But these functions are essentially endorsement. For example, CZ shouted, and a meme would have a hot topic. It is the same as Li Jiaqi's selling goods. The brand that sells goods is not as important as Li Jiaqi himself. Because endorsement with people is often more powerful than endorsement with an anonymous address.

SideKick seized this opportunity. Buyers need to quickly obtain hot information, but the existing information collection methods are still inefficient and lack strong endorsements. Through live broadcast, the anchor scans the links in real time, analyzes K-lines, recommends trading points, and directly interacts with users to shorten the time for information transmission and enhances trust. Compared with traditional WeChat groups or Twitter Space, live broadcast allows users to intuitively see the anchor's operations and recommendations, forming an efficient trading model of "the anchor leads the team and the user follows the car".

In high-frequency trading, emotional feedback and trading speed are crucial . The live broadcast mode allows P players to make decisions within a trading window of 5 minutes or even shorter. Even if the plate has no pattern and is immediately poured, the anchor can shout "Brothers, run," and then everyone retreats frantically. In this case, the anchor and the user become a camp, not the opponent. This relationship should be stronger, and the amount of resources and funds that the anchor can drive is more efficient.

So we would think that Trade the moment is the development direction of transactions. In this case, it is necessary to provide a direct communication medium, and only the live broadcast form can achieve such high efficiency.

ChainCatcher: So based on these thoughts, Sidekick began to transform into Sidekick Protocol?

Jonny Fish: When we decided to transform from the original track to the concept of "Protocol + LiveFi", it was based on this judgment: in the future, at least this year, users will pay more attention to Token's publicity capabilities and popularity crawling.

We observed that there is a link for traffic propagation: first, the project CA is released, and it is transmitted from platforms such as Telegram or Discord; then it enters various TG groups, micro groups and other communities; then it attracts users to buy with a small wallet through KOL recommendations; then enters the public traffic pool of Twitter to distribute information; and finally arrives at the trading market. Among these five links, it is crucial to embed this link and achieve the goal. I think the core lies in endorsement. The essence of a CA is endorsement - as long as you have enough trust, users will believe that the project can be done. So the logic of our transformation is to enhance trust through live broadcast, accelerate communication, and seize market sentiment.

ChainCatcher: I mentioned earlier why I chose live streaming, but it seems that mainstream users in the encryption circle are still mainly staying in the era of reading texts. Both media and KOLs are output through text. How do you consider this?

Jonny Fish: I think people are not used to reading articles, but that is the only option at the moment. For example, before 2016, people only used Weibo because there were no platforms like Xiaohongshu or Douyin at that time. When times offer only one option, people subconsciously think that it is the only option, and even feel that they have adapted to it. But this is actually a reflection of human laziness.

Tweets are presented in the form of text like "2D". Whether it is KOL calling orders or posting copywriting, users will think rationally when reading, and everyone has their own perspective and judgment. In this case, marketing efficiency will be reduced due to the subjective differences of users, resulting in a lot of losses. Video content does not require users to think deeply, and users can easily watch it - if you don’t like it, just act as entertainment, and if you like it, you may buy it directly. The output capacity and emotional content of the video are higher, and the presentation form is "3D", with a stronger sense of space and inclusiveness.

This also involves the commercial value of KOL. KOLs mainly based on text are limited by 2D models, with single output and difficult to scale. For example, an article may only serve one platform. In order to protect its own value, KOL will increase its quotation. Although it has pushed up the price, its actual monetization capacity is limited. Video KOLs can improve monetization capabilities by mounting multiple brand logos. For example, when outputting content, the background is latched with a long-term sponsor logo, and there is no need to mention it in every issue, and you can get profits by just revealing it. This model is more attractive to advertisers because it is cheaper and has more lasting results.

For project parties, they hope to get the highest returns at the lowest cost, such as bringing more exposure or even larger buying. Compared with reading articles, the video has a strong capacity. KOL can continue to expose advertisements in a series of videos, and its revenue capacity has been significantly enhanced. Therefore, our goal is to increase the commercial value of all KOLs, so that they can take more advertising orders and make more money.

If you rely solely on text, KOL's frequent promotion of projects is easily regarded as "spam advertising" and loses attention. However, through high-quality video content and naturally integrated sponsor logos, users will be more accepting because the focus is on the content itself, not the advertisement.

ChainCatcher: Sidekick is actually aimed at three groups, namely Sidekickers (ordinary users), attention producer Kickers (anchors), and traffic provider distribution channel affiliated partners. How do these three groups obtain profits through sidekick products?

Jonny Fish: First of all, the anchor (Kickers). The anchor plays the role of a distributor on the platform, and mainly benefits through three ways: one is to pay a commission for transactions, and they can get a share of the transactions facilitated; the second is to give gifts, and users can bring additional income through rewards; the third is to motivate creators. We early provided airdrop rewards for platform anchors. The longer the live broadcast time and the closer the content is to the hot topics, the more share you get. Encourage anchors to share income with the platform.

The second is the ordinary user (Sidekickers). The core purpose of users is to make money through transactions, which is their most direct source of income. In addition, the live broadcast room will hold an airdrop event, and users can receive additional rewards through participation and increase interactive benefits.

Finally, the distribution channel or project party. Project parties pursue two benefits on the platform: one is to increase exposure, they hope to increase project popularity and attention through live broadcast; the other is to promote goods through anchors. Project parties can not only serve as advertisers, but also recommend products to anchors, and the anchors can promote and sell them on their behalf.

ChainCatcher: It was mentioned earlier that SideKick 's previous business has accumulated many gamers in traditional fields. After the transformation, will we mainly face Crypto users? Or is it a multi-category development?

Jonny Fish: Our products are developed in several stages.

In the first stage, we focused on users in the encryption circle. Because SideKick's core is a live broadcast platform built on transactions, the initial goal is to let crypto users know that they can participate in the trading model through live broadcasts, experience the gameplay, see more high-quality content, tradable modules, and more anchors. This is our first step.

The second stage is to expand capacity and introduce entertainment anchors. Let’s distinguish it here, entertainment anchors are not necessarily game anchors. Entertainment anchors are characterized by providing joy and drama, rather than strong guidance or professional trading opinions. Their professionalism may be reflected more in entertainment effects than in transaction analysis. This stage will bring about a significant growth in the user base.

The third stage is to expand to different industries. As a live streaming platform, if we are targeting game live streaming from the beginning, the chances of success are very low. Because it is very difficult to challenge mature game live broadcast platforms such as YouTube, Huya, and Douyu - they have natural barriers such as game IP copyright and event resources, which limit the development of new entrants. And we chose a crypto-native live broadcast mode and bound it to the transaction.

ChainCatcher: What milestones are worth mentioning in SideKick?

Jonny Fish: There are actually two more important turning points in the development of our project.

The first turning point occurred a few months after our project started. Our initial idea was simple: just add a little cryptocurrency payment feature to the existing one. Because cryptocurrencies have two attributes - payment tools and asset issuance, and our products initially cut into payment ports. Essentially, it is a Web2 product that is aimed at live streaming users of traditional Internet and helps them solve payment problems. Later, we received a call from Binance, inviting us to join the MVB (Most Valuable Builder) program. To be honest, we were quite confused at the time. Although we knew Binance, we had almost never contacted people in the encryption circle and even suspected that they were scam calls. But after confirmation, we chose to join. This is why when it was disclosed in March last year, our company suddenly appeared in the circle - before we had no voice in the circle. Taking this opportunity, we began to contact Web3 and understand the industry ecology. MVB provided us with complete guidance, and our team also learned very seriously, and tried to arrange at least two people to participate in each class. I'm sure there, and I'll be here to join the other team and listen to it to ensure quick learning.

The second turning point occurred in September last year. At that time, we had been operating for a while, collaborating with many projects, and communicating with many OGs, and gradually forming our own judgment. It was Trump's campaign at the time, and we thought that if he came to power, it might affect the situation of the war. This is an opportunity for us, but it also means a new product must be launched. This product cannot deviate from our original industry direction, but must be accepted by Web3 users, and at the same time integrate our team's experience on the Internet over the past decade. So, we officially launched the project at that time and began to develop new products. It took three months to investigate the data and improve the model, and finally set the direction in November and launched video live broadcast-related functions. This is an important milestone.

ChainCatcher: How did you get investment from YZi Labs? What 's the special story about this process?

Jonny Fish: Actually, it's not that special to me.

After joining Binance's MVB, we received a call from YZi Labs. I think they invested in us, maybe because we were serious in class, or because we performed more outstandingly in that project (haha). But the more important reason is that we communicate with them very frequently and in-depth. To be honest, we may be one of the teams with the weakest foundation in Web3 in that issue. Because of this, we especially cherish learning opportunities.

For investors, investing in a project does not only look at the project itself, but the team's ability. As an investor, I have invested in many projects myself. I think the most important first point is that the project parties must have strong learning ability - they must be able to digest knowledge and show their growth potential. If a team comes from a large factory and has a bright background, but sticks to its own theories when facing Web3 knowledge and cannot learn them at all, then it is not ideal enough. The advantage of our team is that although we also have a background in a large factory, we learn quickly, have an open attitude, and respect every new knowledge point. When communicating with YZi Labs' team, the question I asked the most was not the investment terms, but some very basic questions in the industry, such as what is RWA.

ChainCatcher: There have been many decentralized live broadcast platforms before, including Pump.fun, which has also launched live broadcast functions. What are the unique advantages of Sidekick compared to them?

Jonny Fish: We can first compare other decentralized live broadcast platforms into two categories.

The first category is a platform represented by Pump.fun. Their design is very creative - the function of the transmitter, coupled with live broadcast, satisfy users' curiosity of cryptocurrency speculation, and also provides project parties with traffic and exposure opportunities. This model is very exciting, but their weakness is that they lack experience in the live broadcast industry, think things too ideally, and do not set up any regulatory mechanisms, which resulted in the intervention of regulators. I think this direction itself is correct, but it requires a more complete design.

We have an audit team of more than 30 people, who are specifically responsible for the complete review of video content. With our more than ten years of experience in the live broadcast and anchor industry, we know where to review and how to grasp the standards. This is our biggest advantage over Pump.fun.

The second category is other Web3 live broadcast platforms. Compared with them, our advantage may be that we seized the opportunity. If Pump.fun had not opened this track last year, the field of "live streaming with orders" may be immature. The core logic of a live broadcast platform is: producers must generate enough assets for users to trade, otherwise there will be no content to broadcast. If it's just live gossip or tidbits, why not do it on Twitch or YouTube? Web3 native live broadcast platform requires content producers to go first. Pump.fun launched a "factory" last year, allowing countless people to become producers and generate content. And we are now involved, playing the role of a centralized distributor, delivering the right CA to the right buyer, and completing the supply and demand matching.

In fact, we considered live broadcasts in the early days of entering the circle, but the time was not yet ripe. We didn't choose to take action until the content was sufficient.

ChainCatcher: Will Rug Pull and other situations that harm users involve our review work?

Jonny Fish: As a platform, it is difficult to completely eliminate this problem because any media of communication has similar risks. As a platform, we cannot completely eliminate this phenomenon, so we can only try our best to set up a constraint mechanism.

But the more critical level lies in the screening of anchors. In theory, the first level of screening has been completed through the trust endorsement of anchors . Just like users believe that Dong Yuhui has done preliminary screening for products. This also explains why retail investors currently rely more on Smart Wallet or KOL wallets, and they lack a more intuitive source of endorsement. Through live streaming, the anchor’s trading strategies and consistency can bring stronger trust and endorsement to the project.

ChainCatcher: What is the composition of the SideKick core team like?

Jonny Fish: Our Co-founder is one of the co-founders and former CEO of Trovo.live, the largest live broadcast platform in Eastern Europe. This platform has 38 million users and about 4 million daily active users. It was created by him. He later came out independently and joined us. I had a good relationship with him when I launched the project. His joining helped us solve the problems of the small language market. He is good at Russian and has also brought rich Eastern European resources.

The second is our CMO, who was once one of the youngest professors at the TOP5 universities in the UK. During the epidemic, I started to study the market and found that I was good at educating and guiding. After all, I have been a teacher for many years and how to influence and motivate others. After a few years of exploration in the Web3 circle, he joined the 23rd year after our project was officially established.

The third member comes from the investment circle, has led large-scale projects worth over US$2 billion, and has IPO experience. He is very familiar with the system of venture capital and currency circles. He is one of the top Chinese investors in Europe and one of the first members to join us. He initially invested in his personal capacity, but later switched to joining full-time.

In general, the team combines game live broadcast operation, educational background and investment experience, and their respective strengths complement each other, providing comprehensive support for the project.

ChainCatcher: Will the team be mainly technical? After all, live broadcast platforms rely quite on technical support. **

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Jonny Fish: Haha, we are actually focusing on abstraction. Technology is not a problem for us, because our background is to build a complete system. Technology is not the core of the product, it is more like a basic tool, just like building a car, and most technical difficulties can be achieved through ready-made solutions or key talents on the market. What really determines the success or failure of a product is the idea of ​​the founding team - what exactly do we want to do? If the goal is just to bet and issue a project, the product may be a flash in the pan. But if we want to fully enhance the output capabilities of drama tension and live content, the team will take the initiative to work hard on this aspect to solve related problems.

Technology is not the most important thing, but it is the foundation of everything. It is like a full-score 60 points. After laying the foundation, the remaining 40 points, and even future additional points, depend on strong operations, especially anchor operations. This is the key.

ChainCatcher: What is the biggest challenge Sidekick faces? Is there any place that makes you unable to sleep?

Jonny Fish: Actually, I have a good sleep quality and call myself the "No. 1 Abstract Home" and I can usually sleep. However, the biggest challenge at present does exist, mainly from anchor education. Because most KOLs in the Web3 circle have never done live broadcasts, we need to spend a lot of time teaching from scratch. But at the same time, we also found some anchors who were on B and Weibo but did not enter the Twitter circle. They are very familiar with live broadcasts, and we are also trying to bring these new anchors in.

At present, we have cooperated with dozens of relatively high-quality KOLs. In the early days, our entire team would serve and test them around these people. After the SOP (standard operating procedures) is completed, our goal is to increase the number of anchors to 500 within one month.

ChainCatcher: When will Sidekick 's app be launched? What is the team’s plan for the next year?

Jonny Fish: The product has been in-between Alpha for a while, and both BSC and Solana networks have been launched. We also started the public recruitment of early bird anchors on April 3. All friends who love interaction, are willing to share, and are passionate about the encryption field are welcome to participate in our early bird anchor program. We will provide special support for potential anchors and also have exclusive incentive plans. Live broadcast gameplay such as Lianmai Interactive and anchor rewards will also be launched one after another .

Team planning is very important this year. SideKick still has a lot of room for development, and if possible, I hope to support a track. When Douyin first came out in 2016, Weibo bloggers would mock Douyin as a "country bun". Until Douyin rose in 2019 and 2020, everyone wanted to join, and content dissemination would inevitably go through the process of text turning to video.

Based on this trend, our strategy is to focus on the present moment, and do not consider too many miscellaneous things first, and make the product well. As long as we can seize this opportunity to transform from text to video and allow part of the content to happen on our platform, it is enough.