Mastiff.Media00:00 · Welcome; from thesis project to startup
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Alright gang, so you made it here. Let's learn about Kickstarter and what it took William to put something like this together. While I've got you, don't forget to go to mastiff.media and bookmark that address. Also like, share, and subscribe, whatever social that you use that we're on. And above all, tell a friend. Thanks for joining us. And now, part two. Yeah, so let me give you kind of the story here, the history. So the initial prototype of Haven, I built as a graduate project from it for my master's thesis and then After graduating I continued to develop it Adding, you know starting the the beginnings of some of the other features Not yet tying them into the main app, but you know, they're all kind of their their own individual project They right they exist individually, but they still need to be gathered together into a cohesive whole um as I continued to program I kind of looked at the state of the world and how the the trends were moving and went, oh, man, you know, I don't think I can finish this in time before the walls close in, before social media gets far, far, far worse.
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You know, you see you see news stories about some like indie game developer who worked on their dream game for five years and then put it on steam to mash you know, massive commercial success, right? Right. We don't have five years. So this needs to get out soon. Yeah, absolutely. That is when I changed track and stopped working on the app so much and started working on getting the word out, getting funding, finding a dev team, running this Kickstarter for it so that we can get it out sooner. I thought, okay, in my, you know, 24 hours in a day, programming it entirely myself versus being able to afford a team of devs to help me out to program it, we could get it done a lot quicker. So that's where I am now. That's what I'm doing right now. So that's a good transition, then, into that side of it,
02:22 · Hiring, NDAs and protecting code
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you know, the back end and development. how do you if you've got something my concern on something like this if you've got something proprietary right but you need a team of people how do you know that people you're bringing on can be trusted right with you telling them their your secrets yeah yeah so So for starters, tons of NDAs, you know, back it up with paperwork, make it not worthwhile for them to leave. So you know, pay them well, get them, you know, I can't get like meta salaries, right? But for now, eventually we'd love to give them equity as part of their compensation package so that, you know, with our success is their success. This is a lot of reducing their motivations so much, not so much their means.
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So is it then when you say like an NDA and we already talked about France being able to possibly flip off Florida, are these people stateside or are you on some of the apps that you're getting people from India and all over the place? Right, right. Yeah, no, that's, um, I was actually just about to bring that up. That was the third bullet point I was trying to think of in my head. The third bullet point is just hiring trustworthy people. Be really select with your hiring process. That is a great reason to not contract this out to third party developers, to, you know, code farms in in India or or other places or because, yeah, that's it's going to get stolen. It's like if you're a manufacturing company and you send your blueprints to be fabricated at a factory in China, bro, they're gonna leak that. It's just gonna happen, right? Just accept it. So don't do that. So then let me ask you about the infrastructure then.
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Yeah, yeah. Are these people working on a server that is yours and they only have access to a little bit? Yeah. Or what do you do for that? Right. that is pretty standard across developer software companies is you give the developer a work computer that's that's locked down like it doesn't you intentionally disable like the usb drives and stuff i'm not saying that we will be doing exactly all of these things i'm just saying that i've worked in this sort of business before starting on this startup full-time yeah so i'm also i'm I'm rather familiar with it. But yeah, you can do things like, uh, give them a laptop you control that logs, uh, whenever information is sent, like put onto a USB drive, uh, you keep the code in a central repository that tracks who access is what and when. So you can, you know, track down leaks, stuff like that. Um, there there's various technical cybersecurity solutions for this. Um, as for the rest of this, to answer your question, uh, I'm not going to pretend to know everything, you know, this is a startup, not everything's known.
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So how do we prevent developers from running off with company code is more of a business question and a policy question than it is a programming question. And I'm a programming guy. So this is something we'll be researching. We'll be getting some, some expert advice on as we build. So my answer to that is we're going to research it and talk to some developers experts about it doctor or lawyers about it so that was another thing mm-hmm at
06:17 · Kickstarter goals and earlier campaigns
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the end of the day this isn't gonna be a cheap project we're not talking about getting the right size card table and sitting out in the sidewalk and selling lemonade right you're gonna spend some money on this if you haven't already I've already spent hella money on it yeah are you considering coming back to Kickstarter and we'll talk about the whole Kickstarter thing you've already come back to Kickstarter this is actually this started what just this past Tuesday a week ago today yeah so you launched this project this this time around on Kickstarter a week ago today so there you are on Kickstarter your goal was to reach it was to raise $10,000 and 1,550 backers later you're up to a hundred and twenty one thousand seven hundred and seventeen dollars and yeah the point that I've looked into your account here on Kickstarter your your William Lavelle profile this is your third run at a year ago was the first one this past spring was the second one both unsuccessful and the reason I say that is you know when for everybody at home why was it so unsuccessful well Kickstarter when you say you want to raise X amount of
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dollars and then you say okay go will you needs to raise that whole amount where he gets nothing mm-hmm and one of the things that I know is different this time around, and I want to ask you if there's anything else that is also, but each of the previous times your ask was $100,000. Right. Because you knew realistically you're gonna need at least that much. Right. This time around you've asked for a very modest $10,000. Yes. And you told me you raised that in the first hour and when I saw you a couple hours later Oh Williams thing starts today you were like that that was a hundred and five thousand dollars ago right you were at like 13 grand mm-hmm and I'm like oh cool he's gonna get it he's gonna get his money he's gonna get to start then I go back and see your new this same project your two previous attempts and I go wow he's actually nowhere near what he actually needs to use in a long term so not only lowering your ask and you just went up about another $500 who not only through lowering your ask but what
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else have you done differently over the course of the past year compared to
09:32 · Angel investors and the lower funding target
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those first two attempts? Yeah, so first I want to answer why the funding ask is lower this time. I have a lot more support this time than I have previously. Throughout the process of getting Haven started here over the past year or so, I have found some really really really cool people who have who think that we're up to something really special and would love to get involved. so much so that they are interested in being angel investors for us, and they're helping us out, and they're not too fixated on return on investment. They're in it for the mission, which is so cool to see. Very, very grateful to meet those people. And so we have lowered the funding goal because now we don't have to worry about implementing literally everything with our Kickstarter money right right we can get just the core features out get us to the point where we can prove that it works and we can present to these angels for additional funding okay so that was stop there a second because that's when you mentioned the angel investors I thought okay you know if he only gets the 10,000 they'll cook they'll kick in the other because your ask both times before was a hundred thousand and one time you didn't even come close to it about a year ago I think that one was and then this past spring you almost got it yeah yeah well this past spring you
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weren't far away you know maybe either a little time or maybe lower the ask whatever okay so now you can lower it because you've got somebody else to fill in the extra hundred thousand but now you've hit the hundred thousand yeah
11:17 · Outside investment, debt/equity and independence
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Will you still go to the angel investors because you're going to need more later on down the line? You've hit the $100,000 already, but I know a long-term, you know, you're going to need more anyway. Will you still go to the angel investors as soon as this closes? And a follow-up is, will it be debt or equity? Yeah, we're we're very grateful to have raised so much that allows us to ask for a lot less from the investors. We likely will still go to them, but now we can ask for a lot less, which is very, very nice. It allows us to, it allows us to not be a subject to outside influence, which I, you know, I want to stress that the people we are getting investment from were very select about. So we are confident that they aren't going to be the ancientifying type. And we also have plans to prevent that as well. As soon as you know, as soon as the word investment comes into the room, people get scared for good reason. Going public has ruined every other social media. So we are doing things a little bit differently to prevent that from happening to us to prevent from being corrupted. So bit of an anatomy lesson here you know the lifespan of a social media typically has a honeymoon stage at the start where you know everything's awesome you know we don't need to monetize ourselves the VCS are picking up the tab it's infinite money
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forever right just show if that's what you actually believe then it just shows unrealistic yeah no no no no I get that but for those who actually feel that way It just shows how unrealistic and ill-prepared you are to manage this project. You clearly are not that person. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, like we saw Discord just left their honeymoon phase. Blue Sky is in their honeymoon phase right now. We'll see how that turns out for them. I wish them the best. We're doing things differently. We are taking the opposite philosophy here. We are skipping the honeymoon phase on purpose, monetizing ourselves as soon as possible so that we take less outside investment. It's short-term pain for long-term stability. So we're taking the opposite philosophy, we're skipping the honeymoon phase on purpose and monetizing ourselves as soon as possible so that we take less outside investment, become financially independent earlier and can buy back our stock and go totally public or sorry not stock specifically pay off debt and be entirely exempt from that the exact details of if it's that if it's going to be debt or equity we have not put on paper yet that's okay yeah yeah so I mean you do still have time to figure that out so yeah absolutely thank you very I agree so I also want to state
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I want to go on the record and say we would rather go bankrupt than ever go public staying private is essential to preventing yourself from being in shitified we can have the investors and not be public correct and and so So that's fine, yeah, absolutely.
14:47 · Reaching the goal and launch-day workload
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So now you've seen, let's go back to that first hour. Knowing what you know, and that's that the prior two times through this, you've asked for $100,000 and for you to get a dime from Kickstarter, you had to hit that $100,000. When you lower it to 10, and then you hit 11 and 12 within that first hour, what was that feeling like? You hit your goal, you know you're going to get money, but you also know it's really not the amount you want. Right. You just keep grinding. I have had, to be entirely honest with you, I've been too busy to feel happy or excited at seeing the large number. I got stuff to do. I've been there. I just keep trucking. Actually, the day of launch, I had pulled an all-nighter the night before to get everything ready in time for launch.
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Was planning to sleep during the afternoon for an interview we had in the evening. but that things happened that didn't work out. So kept going, did the interview at the end of being awake for 48 hours straight, going hard, man. So as for what we felt when we met our funding goal, not much at all, because I was tired. Yeah, I can imagine, I can imagine.
16:31 · Pledges, payout timing and taxes
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So now you know, by the end of this interview, you're going to break $122,000 and also for people following because they're interested in something like this Kickstarter gets a cut of that some of the people that make their pledge that that's not money that's sitting in a bank right now that's something that people are going to pay when they get the hey you invested in this guy time to pay up All 1,500 people could say, oh no, it would be incredibly unlikely, but that is true. But so there's not $120,000 sitting in a bank ready to go to William, but does that get released to you in portions? there's a bunch there's 1,500 credit cards that need to be run right now right so how does that come to you yes so no money has moved yet when the campaign closes Kickstarter goes out and draws out the money then in there and you know if if like people's cards fail to try again later there is multiple ways to get paid Kickstarter gives you the bulk of it usually around two to three weeks after the campaign ends is what I hear that's just how long it takes for some people that have chosen to pay over three months that's an
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option you can you can do if your pledges of a certain amount then you get paid a third of it every month for three months right so but the majority of it will will drop two to three weeks after the campaign closes so I've heard okay and then another big question because that's that's a nice number regardless yes is that something that is subject to taxes I don't know but that's a nightmare that keeps me up at night we're gonna hire a CPA yeah I'm not a tax guy and exactly exactly you how to do it so that you're either at least not taxed on it because it's you know something a separate entity and then immediately lose like 25% of it to taxes. Absolutely. So yeah, we're gonna hire a tax guy to ensure that doesn't happen.
18:59 · LLC and benefit-corporation plans
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So your domain, I mean, what I can see, and this isn't the actual advice, this is part of the conversation. You're a .org on your domain. Yes. If you can make this as some sort of nonprofit, that's way better. but at least make it an LLC. Oh, we already are. And we are planning to, again, programmer, not lawyer. So we have not, you know, gotten, we have not done this yet, but we, in the future, will be refiling as a for-benefit corporation, the same way Blue Sky is, so that we don't, so that, you know, even if we have investors, we don't have to prioritize their return as number one priority. Yeah. Okay. So then lastly... Also, as soon as possible, we will be buying them out.
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Saying, hey, we've been monetizing ourselves from day one. We got your cash here. Give us our stock back. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or I mean, there's other certain types of stock like that, equity and whatever that you can cancel that they don't even have to give back. They can take what they got and put it in a picture frame and hang it in their office.
20:24 · Marketing, mailing lists and early momentum
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Last question then before we wrap up part two here. Sure thing. Aside from obviously lowering the ask to Kickstarter, what else have you done differently over the past year from that September, I think it was of 2025, from that attempt to the April, the spring attempt to now? You know, if we put all three of them, it's the same project, but if we put all three of them side by side, what's different? Yeah, the whole timeline there is a story of me, again, programmer, engineer, not a marketing guy, figuring that out and figuring how Kickstarter works and how demanding of a mistress the Kickstarter algorithm is. The first campaign I launched while at Defcon 32, I was handing out copies of my master's thesis there. I thought, oh yeah, the people I meet at this con that will follow us on Kickstarter and donate to our campaign will be totally enough to get us Kickstarted, to get us up and going.
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Turns out, not nearly enough engagement. I don't post on social media very often. I'm not a content creator, so that's kind of new to me. Second go-around, I've been thinking, okay, yeah, I've got to spend a lot more money on promotions. Dropped a bunch of money hiring, like, 15 different YouTubers to, like, sponsor their channels to get the word out about us, and that went a lot better. You can see we raised, like, $44,000. So not great, third time went, okay, I'm not a marketing guy. I'm gonna realize my weaknesses here. We're going to hire marketing consultants and they can help us get this thing across the finish line. And they did their jobs very well. Very excited. We got a mailing list up. We collected our mailing list so that we could send emails and have everyone rush to the Kickstarter page all at once. The pre-launch page is the most important part of your Kickstarter.
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It makes or breaks in the first 48 hours. I don't know. Right. Oh, I saw that. I've noticed a incredible decline in the speed in which you're making money. And when I say making money, I mean growing the account on Kickstarter. That happens for every single campaign. I walked away and came back to my desk and literally the amount of money you had in that account doubled. It went from like $14,000 to like $29,000 like that. Oh yeah, we had an explosive day one, thank you everyone so much.
23:21 · Personal risk, debt and use of funds
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So now one other, you had mentioned something that did spur one other question. You've acquired debt in this whole past year, specifically because of this. I've only acquired debt in the past few months. Everything else has been, it's just been just paying for it normally. Not going into debt, but it does leave your bank down. But yes, I am all in on this. Are you familiar with the idea of burning the boats behind you and how the ancient Greeks upon landing upon a new shore would burn their boats so the soldiers the only way home was through, right? Right. Exact same situation here. I am all in on this. I quit my full-time job in ransomware recovery in order to pursue this startup. I've thrown every penny of my net worth into it, dipped it into an inheritance. All in. So that's the question. I believe in the idea so much. the question then are you allowed to repay yourself with any of this money that is a repay the credit card debt yes repay like myself like a salary that's a question for the lawyers I don't know I actually probably not because I let me You're living, you've got a nice shirt on,
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you look like you're in a nice room with a house that you're in. I think you said you moved in with your grandparents. Yes, actually it's my grandparents' house. So you've got a roof over your head, you're eating, you look healthy. Thank you. With long hair like that, if you weren't eating properly, you wouldn't be looking like that. Yeah, it'd be falling out. So it's not like you need to go take a cruise when you've really now got a lot of work to do. Yes, yeah, this is only the beginning. This is only the foothills to the bigger mountain. But you have taken out debt that's in your name. Correct. Not the company's. Correct. Your company owes you. I'm gonna let my lawyers answer that one. Yeah. I don't know. But yes, part of the Kickstarter funds will be used to repay the credit card debt we've racked up during this, which isn't a lot.
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It's not like a terrifying amount, but it's important to get that settled. And then the remainder is going to building the company, getting the graphics cards we need, getting the equipment we need, hiring the dev teams we need, et cetera. Right. Which I know you're looking at that and going, ah, 120,000, that's barely enough to pay for one dev for one year. That is where our angel investors come in. Is, we don't need to pay them for an entire year. We can pay them for half a year and then present and then get more funding from there. Yeah, no, absolutely. So you're totally right. Credit card debt is super scary, but if you don't take a risk, nothing ever changes. And I am incredibly confident in this project. Yep, and you should be, well done. Thank you.
26:49 · Where to support Haven and closing remarks
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All right, William Lavelle, thank you very much. You can see this, this is the Kickstarter, you can actually see this by going to mastiff.media as we so often promote people like this that have been on the show. We should say they are now, what we call them, we call them actually a partner, a featured partner. All right, William Lavelle, thank you. Great information. You can support Haven Social by going to mastiff.media. We're constantly sending you there just to watch this, if nothing else. Of course, you recognize that one. That is for our project in The Matrix, very similar to this, but on our homepage is a link where you can go and explore and learn further about Haven. Just click on that brown box there, and that'll take you to the Kickstarter and the website and you can see everything else that we did not cover here today. Congratulations again. Hopefully that continues to grow. Consider supporting this if you agree with what we talked about because I think it's definitely something that is a societal fix.
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Well done. Thank you. But we are very, very grateful to Mastiff.Media. Awesome. Thank you very much. William Lavelle, congrats again. Thank you again. Congrats. Thank you.