Building a Virtual World from Berlin: Smeet CEO Sebastian Funke (Part 7)

Sramana: Who do you view as your competition?

Sebastian Funke: A product called Shaker debuted this year, and they are focused on helping people meet other people. That is exactly what we do and what we have been doing for the past two years. We are much farther along than they are. We see the possibility of changing how social platforms are used to meet other people. We use social gaming elements to keep the user busy on the platform to ensure they have a reason to come back until they have met enough people so that the social aspects of the platform keep them there.

We combine social gaming and virtual world markets together. There are virtual worlds, but they can’t integrate into Facebook like we do. There are social games companies but they are entirely dependent on Facebook. We are not, so we can do advertisement outside of Facebook. Turntable.fm is another company which has avatars and allows you to do a DJ session while chatting with your friends. We have been doing this for years as well.

On a social platform you don’t just meet other people, you consume content. We have created social TV. Inside of our games we stream content such as YouTube videos or professional content from TV stations. We stand in the room and sit down with the avatar to watch the show inside of the game. That allows you to watch the show while talking to your friends. That is a really big social experience.

We did this for the biggest TV network in Spain. We created unique games for five TV shows. We put games on the website of our partner, and the user enters the platform through our partner’s website. The user is able to meet other fans of the show and is able make Facebook posts through this application even though they are on our platform.

Sramana: What has been your customer acquisition strategy?

Sebastian Funke: We played the entire marketing game. We tried everything. We do SEO, SEM, display advertising, Facebook social ads, and everything else you can think of. We also work with a lot of ad networks. We go broad but try to target specific types of users. When we find channels that don’t work we just throw them out. We have also tried to take advantage of the viral effect by leveraging Facebook posts as well as the ‘cool factor’ of our product.

Sramana: What is your most effective customer acquisition channel?

Sebastian Funke: There is not a single best channel. It is often seasonal. Display advertising seems to work better during certain times of the year. Different regions respond in different ways. We prefer the viral effect because it does not cost anything, and viral users monetize better.

Sramana: What is going on in Berlin outside of your office? How is the startup scene there?

Sebastian Funke: We are in a positive cycle here right now. We have so many young entrepreneurs in Berlin who are building cool companies getting support from incubators and investors that it makes me think we have a very bright future. We are attracting top-tier international VCs. Some VCs are relocating their offices to Berlin, and we have a lot of investor events going on. We are drawing top young talent from all over Germany and Europe. In Germany that talent has always been distributed around the country, but we are now finding that Berlin is starting to draw them in from all over Europe. We are getting people from Spain, Italy, and France.

Sramana: I have really enjoyed talking with you, and I look forward to watching Smeet grow.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Building a Virtual World from Berlin: Smeet CEO Sebastian Funke
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