Slope x StepN AMA Recap
On Jan 18th， Slope Finance was glad to invite StepN Co-Founder Yawn Rong to share how to move to earn in Slope Finance Telegram Community:
Part 1️⃣: A brief introduction about StepN and Yawn (Guest)
STEPN is a Web3 running app with fun social elements and gamification design. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers — walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers.
The player can choose to lease or sell their NFT Sneakers on the in-app Marketplace; users’ GST earnings are stored in the in-app Wallet, which has a built-in Swap function.
Yawn Rong is a serial entrepreneur, he built two successful brands in Australia before he ventured into the crypto industry in 2017, Yawn funded Crypto SA and merged the business with his neighbor Jerry’s game development studio in late 2021 to develop STEPN.
Part 2️⃣: 5 questions to help users to learn more about StepN
Q: Is STEPN a game or a running app?
Technically, it is a half-game and half-running app, we recently pivoted to be the leading Web3 running app with fun social elements and gamification design — adding the social layer to help us to further scale.
The aim is to target not only crypto native people but also the general public (gamer and non-gamer) and connect them to the Web3 apps. This enables us to appeal to if not billion, millions of people.
Q: If I’m a player, how do I get involved?
Ok. The app is live and can be downloaded from our website.
User deposit SOL/USDC to buy an NFT Sneaker from the in-app marketplace and use the NFT Sneaker to walk, jog or run to earn tokens, which the token earning can be swapped to USDC or SOL in-app.
It is a closed cycle, even for people who don’t know where to get SOL, they can start by renting an NFT Sneaker and buy an NFT Sneaker in the future (upcoming feature).
Q: What do people expect to earn from STEPN?
There are four types of Sneakers, Walker, Jogger, Runner, and Trainer, each is suitable for a different fitness level so that everyone can play.
They can expect a healthier body, we have players that already commented they have lost weight by using STEPN, also once we started our governance, people can expect every step they moved, will contribute positively to the environment,
On the token earning side, as we are in the Double Earning Week, people can start off earning roughly $30–50 a day, with higher-level players can do $400–500 a day USDC value
Q: What makes STEPN different from other move2earn projects?
We have the product out in Nov 2021 and rapidly adding new features, we also aiming to be more than just a game or a running app.
Because in Web3, it is the Network effect that connects people, and social plays an important part to scale the connection among people.
So once we have implemented our roadmap for this year, we will start working on connecting people in our app and this will create a much strong tie between users and our app.
Q: What is the future plan of STEPN?
We plan to do our investor announcement this week and go IEO in Feb/Mar, during these two months, the top priority is to add the user tutorial and notification system.
Then we will start adding the Leaderboard, rental system, and achievement system before Q2 this year. Then we will be able to reach the non-crypto crowd.
Part 3: 3 Twitter Questions + 3Live Questions
Q: Do you have any plan for token listing? if yes, when?
Yes. Listing is aimed to be Feb/Mar and we are talking to a handful of exchanges to explore the possibility, but we cannot say anything as nothing is final yet
Q: Could you show us the milestones StepN has reached? And can tell me more about the investors? Does StepN still accept investment?
Milestone 1: Win Solana Ignition Hackathon Gaming Track
Milestone 2: Private Beta in Nov
Milestone 3: Public Beta in Dec
Milestone 4: Built Solana mobile Wallet, Swap, and Marketplace in 4 months and release it in Jan
Milestone 5: Reach 1,500 DAU 28 days after launch with organic growth
Investor disclosure will be out this week
We are currently closed for investment.
Q: What are StepN marketing strategies? What will you do to attract more people to play StepN?
The best marketing strategy is to deliver a good and functional product. As for promotion, we will only start once we are happy with the product we have, currently, we think it still needs 1–2 weeks of refinement. We will kick off marketing with Investor Disclosure, IEO, and Sneaker Brand partnership.
Then do a Carbon offsetting campaign and Marathon sponsorship to reach out to the non-crypto crowd.
Live Questions:
Q: Are you afraid someday there will be another project with more innovative technology that can replace your project?
No, initially yes, because the real question here is vampire attack, a new project can vampire attack the successful project with little effort and there is not the much-established project can do. But we later find out we should embrace it because we are the first move2earn app with tokenomics and gamification, we should take this opportunity to grow our user base and once we are big enough, we can actually embrace vampire attack, start doing co-mining/airdrops with new projects to constantly offer value to our users.
So I’m not worried as long as we can build a robust community centered around the value we could provide to them.
Q: How many team members do you have? Do they have enough experience in the blockchain field? Do they have any experience working in crypto and non-crypto projects?
Currently, we have 32 staff and 20 developers, experience covers blockchain development (4 years average), game development (15 years average), Machine learning, and software architecture. On the crypto side, all staff has 4 year+ of experience in tokenomics design, project incubation, and advisory.
I started doing business from the non-crypto side, before I get into crypto, I managed over 300 employees over 32 outlets and two of our core businesses are turning over 10 million AUD annually.
Q: Can you share with us your tokenomics? How much is the total and circulation supply of your tokens? Will there be a buyback system or token burning in the future?
We have a twin token system, a utility token (game token), and a governance token, the utility token is used to burn in the app to level up Sneakers, mint new Sneakers, gem upgrade, repair and pay the Online Marathon registration fee… And the governance token is burned to do high-level Sneaker mint, UGC, and participate in governance.
In governance, user stake their token to vote on how the game distributes the profit, the more users decided to donate the earnings to charity (carbon offsetting), the app will reward staker with more governance token, if users decide to take the profit as their own, then the app will punish stakers by the burning portion of their staked governance tokens. It is a game between the long-term and short-term beliefs of the project.
About StepN Finance
STEPN is a Web3 running app with fun social elements and gamification design. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers — walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers.
The player can choose to lease or sell their NFT Sneakers on the in-app Marketplace; users’ GST earnings are stored in the in-app Wallet, which has a built-in Swap function.
