To the investors of Manifold Markets:
Top asks
- Intros to world-class backend engineers we could hire as we start thinking about scaling up our infrastructure.
- Intros to streamers on Twitch & YouTube with cult followings who would be receptive to play-money betting.
- Bet on our markets to help us prioritize what to work on.
Key developments
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Metrics: Hockey stick growth!
- 2,490 DAU (Nov 15)
- 1,637 DAU (7d avg) versus 237 (Oct 15).
- 48% D1 (7d avg) versus 65% (Oct 15), overall daily retention.
- 46% NW1 versus 11% (Sept 15), new user week-over-week retention.
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Personnel changes: Our last hired developer has been laid off.
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New features: Android app (iPhone coming very soon!), Maniswipe v0, simplified market creation, many performance & UI improvements
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Tournaments: Midterms tournament, SBB tournament
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Buzz: Destiny fan mass influx!, Manifold is well-calibrated, FTX liquidity crisis
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In the pipeline: iPhone app, Maniswipe v1, World Cup tournament, new mechanisms (stocks/impact certs, fixed-payout multiple choice/free-response markets)
Manifold Markets has had a rendezvous with Destiny…the streamer, that is.
This month, Manifold has seen a huge influx of 2,000 users, and they are all fans of this controversial YouTuber. The more prominent among them call themselves “orbiters” and have been using our markets to engage in high-minded debates on the latest scientific research trade meme stocks on themselves using a pure Keynesian beauty contest-like mechanism.
While I am not at all surprised that our efforts over the last few months to simplify and improve our product have made it possible for a large online community to seamlessly join our platform, I must admit I am a bit surprised at exactly how they are using our markets. The best example of prior art I can think of is BitClout, which also offers an opportunity to speculate on internet micro-celebrities, unmoored from any notion of intrinsic value…
This influx of traffic has been both astonishing—we’ve now shot past our February DAU target—and unexpected. We’ve had to deviate slightly from our plan to prioritize the mobile experience to focus on more pressing matters such as making sure our site doesn’t crash and helping our new users orient themselves. We are now also considering prioritizing a native stock-like mechanism to accommodate this new use-case (in addition to functioning as impact certs to be used in the upcoming round of ACX grants, as was our original plan).