Stanible Year One
Here’s a story of five crazy people trying to put a dent on the universe — our first year building Stanible.
It all started at the peak of the bull run. My experience working in the startup industry inspired me to try and start something of my own. I got reconnected with Jardine and John trying to pitch an idea for an NFT project where people can help rescue stray cats and dogs by buying an NFT. The idea was not sustainable. They convinced me to build something else with them instead.
Jardine Gerodias and John Bailon were co-founders of SCI (Satoshi Citadel Industries), one of the first companies in the Philippines to build on top of blockchain technology. That startup was acquired last year and that’s just one of the many successful ventures they’ve built.
We were full of passion and ideas but there was something missing. Luckily, we found Mel and she was crazy enough to say yes to us. She is now our CEO and the glue that keeps it all together.
Mel Lozano-Alcaraz has worked for many major media companies in the Philippines and at the same time worked as a product manager for known startups in Silicon Valley. Her passion for both entertainment and software was perfect for us.
Being a stan herself, she introduced us to the concept of stan culture and it took our product vision to a whole new level and, most importantly, gave us our name. We want to be the go-to platform for stans (or hardcore fans) to get digital collectibles.
We secure all necessary domains and social media usernames and Stanible was born.
Now that we know we want to be a platform for stans, we needed to get their idols, too, landing our next problem: how the hell are we going to get celebrities and influencers to join us?
That’s when we pitched to Ranvel.
Ranvel Rufino, who was John’s classmate from high school, aside from being a serial entrepreneur himself with many established businesses, is well-connected with high-profile celebrities. He has deep roots and strong relationships in the local entertainment industry. Name a celebrity or influencer and chances are Ranvel is connected to them.
We now have the perfect team. It’s time to build.
We’ve all been in the crypto space since 2013 yet we’re all still frustrated at how complex and highly technical the user experience is. Right now, it ‘s very complex and costly for people to get started with creating or collecting NFTs. We want to change that.
John, who’s actually also a very talented developer himself, coded a proprietary API for us that automated the NFT minting process and could support multiple blockchains. This allows creators on our platform to mint an NFT in a few clicks and in a few seconds.
We bootstrap our app development and begin to build.
While we were busy building, I began crafting our branding and marketing plan. We begin talking to both creators and stans, surveying them about their needs and pain points.
And Jardine, being a frustrated artist, worked on the first iteration of our logo:
We now have the team. We now have the product. We even have the country’s top celebrities and influencers onboard. It’s time to raise capital that will support our go-to market.
We initially wanted to raise a friends and family round, just angels. Luckily, the “friends and family” of my co-founders include a lot of angel investors. We just kept pitching, kept learning from the rejections, and gained support from many early believers.
Among one of our first early believers, and the first VC that invested in us, is Lisa Gokongwei’s Kaya Founders, led by Zalora founder Paulo Campos. They’ve been very supportive and founder-centric, which I find is reflective of being led by a founder like Paulo who actually knows what it’s like to build.
It’s been an amazing ride since that day my co-founders and I were all just writing a bunch of ideas on a white board and post-it notes. It’s amazing how things can just fall into place when you have a vision and you work with people crazy enough to go for it.
We’re now halfway through our raise and have over 5,000 downloads, ready to kick off our major launch this coming January. We’re just getting started. #StanNaAll!
