Hunter Hillenmeyer
President, Overdog & former Chicago Bear
Discussion
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
Hi, my name is Hunter Hillenmeyer. I'm the President at Overdog, whose mission is to improve online multiplayer gaming by connecting people through the interests and communities they care about. Our Xbox One app launched in April and has a second major update coming out in next few weeks. We are growing quickly, and I would love to talk about how people are using Overdog to get more out of all their favorite games, or where we see the company going next.
I'm also a former Chicago Bear, having played linebacker there from 2003-2010. I served on the Board of the NFLPA for five of those eight years. I am also happy to talk about life in the NFL, the reinvention process that former athletes deal with when they leave the game, or the business side of sports. I'm also an angel investor, so I can weigh in on both sides of the table about the process of raising capital as well. I'm also husband, Dad to two little girls, and overall start-up enthusiast, so AMA.
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Lejla Bajgoric
@lejlahunts · Intern, Product Hunt
Hey Hunter! Do you have any odd, semi-superstitious game day rituals you swear by to make sure the Bears win when they play?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@lejlahunts Haha, not anymore. As I know less and less of the active roster these days, I feel much more like a normal fan than a former player.
Back in my playing days we would develop all kinds of quirks that we convinced ourselves would affect the outcome. I would call them more "routines" than "superstitions." For example, for a Noon CST game, I could tell you within a minute or two where I would be at any moment from about 7:30am til kick-off. E.G. 10:27am: Getting my ankles taped and listening to music.
Harry Stebbings
@harrystebbings · Podcast Host @ The Twenty Minute VC
Hi @hthill thanks so much for joining us today. Would love to hear what you think has been the most successful strategy in growing the core audience of overdo users? What tactics have helped increase usage most? New games? Tech publications? Interviews? Love to hear your thoughts.
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@harrystebbings There's a lot in that one question. The most successful core feature on Overdog by far has been "Game Nights."
There are lots of gaming communities out there, on Reddit, Twitter, built around YouTube channels, who want to game together. Overdog gives those kinds of communities a hub for connecting on the console. Overdog has made what used to be a cumbersome process much easier for groups to find each other get in a game.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
Hey what are some of the challenges you face now that you thought you would never have to face previously?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@bentossell Being the scrappy start-up is hard. When Overdog was just getting started, we were calling on Microsoft, Sony, major game publishers like EA and Activision. These are not the easiest companies to partner with by reputation. That really flew in the face of the day-to-day of an NFL athlete, where you are generally catered to and doted upon in a sometimes hilariously overdone fashion.
It ate some humble pie in the early days of Overdog when we had a hard time getting on the radar of the big boys in our industry. Now I wear that underdog status as more of a badge on honor than anything.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
What have you learnt on the angel investing side of things? What is your strategy there?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@ems_hodge I'm not a professional investor. So Rule 1 for me is to keep my total exposure to such a risky investment class small. I only do a few investments a year, and there haven't really been any themes to emerge. I focus on team first, then product.
jamestodd
@jamestodd · Serial encourager and delighter
What are the best and worst things about being based out of a growing tech hub like Nashville vs. an established tech hub like NY or SF?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@jamestodd Ha, we get asked this by VCs a lot too. Nashville is a city with a huge tailwind. Its on all "the lists" right now. There is a pretty strong hub of engineers mostly because that area is a huge city for healthcare tech. That's a key ingredient obviously.
Our team is from all over. We have a few local guys, employees from LA, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and New York. Nashville is an easy sell. It nets out as a much bigger asset than a liability.
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@kevinayuque We are literally meeting in an hour to discuss some of our product roadmap. We've been approved to build a Steam version of the app which is amazing, so that will happen at some point.
Windows 10 and the larger effect that "one-platform" vision for Microsoft has on Overdog will also influence our next year. Xbox is by far our most important partner right now, and we want to nail the Xbox One version of Overdog and do right by that relationship before we get distracted.
Glen Herold
@glenherold · Founder, GOAT
Hey @hthill, can you talk about the process of getting distribution on Xbox? How proven was Overdog prior to that deal? How did you acquire that market proof without built-in distribution? Was that type of deal always a critical piece of your strategy or something that developed over time as you gained success?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@glenherold Overdog started out as a mobile app, brokering gaming sessions between users on the Xbox 360 and PS3. We had pretty compelling data, even in those early days where we forced users to switch devices, and jump through all kinds of hoops to get connected, that our users were gaming longer, adding people to their friends' lists, and becoming more valuable to the console over their lifetime.
That was enough to convince Xbox to let us build a native version of Overdog on the console. There were only 22 apps in that Xbox One apps marketplace when we got that approval. We were probably the first true start-up to get past the gatekeeper.
Kudos to Xbox, they now have more than 3x that number of apps, but we were a trailblazer for sure. They are doing their best to open up to 3rd party apps for the future of that platform.
Seth Louey
@sethlouey · 🙌 2016 PH Maker of the Year Nominee
Hey @hthill! Creating a community is a challenging goal, especially on a new platform such as Xbox One. What has been a valuable lesson that you learned over the years developing Overdog.
PS - Who is the coolest product designer you know? ;) #LoadedQuestionsAreFun
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@sethlouey The toughest part about building community on consoles is that there is no keyboard. Back and forth communication is so key to that sense of community that finding ways to deal with that limitation are key. Overdog also has to strike that balance about building community versus the end objective of going to play a game.
If you find awesome people to play with on Overdog, and then go hop into a game of Destiny, we've done our job. Making sure people continue to come back is where that need for community comes full circle. We want users to think of Overdog first, as a place to find gamers, and even to find out what the people you care about are playing tonight.
jamestodd
@jamestodd · Serial encourager and delighter
Have there been any synergies to come out of the investment from Zynga? Any changes to the people you partner with in the exec shake-up there?
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Hunter Hillenmeyer
@hthill · President, Overdog
@jamestodd What James is referencing is that Mark Pincus is a small investor in Overdog. That's really the extend of the relationship.
We have to be thoughtful about strategic investors because, in some ways, Overdog wants to be Switzerland. We want to connect gamers across all platforms, anywhere that people are playing online multiplayer games. We've started on Xbox One, and Microsoft has been an amazing partner, but we don't want to block access to future platforms because of who is on our cap table.