Transcript
The Brief Interviewer (00:18)
Welcome everyone to our new video podcast from Olivon Advisors called The Brief. Today we have our special guest Marcus Daly, the founder of the K Project and CEO of Gold Rock Holdings Inc. and Anthony Denkinger, CEO of LOOT8. Welcome Marcus and Anthony and let’s get started. There are two companies inside the holding company Gold Rock Holdings Inc. What problem does each company solve and how is your solution unique?
Marcus Daly (00:49)
Yeah, I’ll talk just for a to the K Project and then Anthony, if you want to take LOOT8, that’d be great. So K Project is a subsidiary of GRHI and is focused on AI. The initial focus is on both creating personas of companies, entities, and people and focus first on the enterprise, solving issues there in terms of how people communicate and the information they get and making sure that it’s tailored in a way that matches the way that they operate. That’s why we call it a persona. And of course, from there, it’s going to be expanding into lots of other areas within the AI space, but definitely a unique approach to AI that also scales down even into the retail space, which we’ll probably get into a little bit later. But that’s the K project. Anthony will talk about LOOT8.
Anthony Denkinger (01:39)
LOOT8 is a decentralized content creation platform. Basically what we’ve done is we’ve taken traditional social media and flipped it on its head where you no longer need hundreds of thousands of followers to make you a success in social media. There’s a large market for influencers who are trying to find their footing, but they don’t have these significant followings that major athletes have and major athletes influence the works. We’ve created a system where these people, these creators, actually own their content outright and are having a direct line of communication directly to their fans where they own their data. They own their content. They post and present offers based on their terms. So LOOT8 is kind of a very innovative product where we are leveraging blockchain. We’ve built in a lot of AI into this, where we’re actually analyzing metrics to see what’s performing well versus other people on the platform who are also excelling out LOOT8.
The Brief Interviewer (02:29)
Can you describe your target market and its size?
Marcus Daly (02:34)
Target market initially is the enterprise. Later on, it’ll be going into retail and creating personas for whatever the market may be. Size is absolutely north of 500 billion. I think the actual size of the AI market itself is unknown. But given the fact that we’re actually targeting practical use cases within the enterprise today and really focused on augmenting the current staff as opposed to replacing the current staff. You know, we think that the size is as large as you can imagine from a virtual human perspective, at least one that would act as a co-pilot. But then later on, we think it could even go viral. And of course, we attract a lot more attention on the retail side as well. So we’re kind of right now targeting 500 billion in terms of TAM. We think the SAM may be something smaller if we were to say today. But going into the future with the way this is growing, we think it could be much larger.
Anthony Denkinger (03:30)
On the LOOT8 side, our target market is digital content creators, small influencers, medium to small size brands, athletes, NIL opportunities, things of that nature. We know that there is a $200 billion TAM accessible to LOOT8. The size and the need for influencers and content creators to own their content outright is very, very attractive and we see this growing year by year.
The Brief Interviewer (03:54)
What’s your company’s competitive advantage? What sets you apart from your competitors?
Marcus Daly (04:00)
Well, there’s a few on the AI side, just to talk to that for a moment. One of those is that we’ve been laser focused on open source AI. And what I mean by open source is we’re not tied to any one particular AI provider. We actually understand the ins and outs of the way the technology works. by making it a open source solution, at least in terms of the components that we’re working on, it allows us to be able to also scale it down so it can reside offline on the local device or it can scale up into the cloud and onto a server there to do different tasks. And this is useful when you’re working in an environment where privacy matters or protecting intellectual property matters. In those sort of cases, nobody wants to have their data floating around the web, going up to some third party provider. In fact, you’re seeing these things increasingly in contracts today where companies are refusing to sign a contract if there’s any of what they’re providing that actually gets consumed by a third party AI provider in the cloud. So by having it be local, being open source, being something that everybody can examine and work with and then choose to secure how they want, we think it’s a massive competitive advantage that also scales nicely when you think about it from a retail side, just a transition over to Anthony, people are gonna wanna retain their own privacy. They’re gonna have private conversations and have different things going on there. It also scales down to that as well, which is nice.
Anthony Denkinger (05:30)
And on the LOOT8 side, the real differentiator is the ownership aspect and the security. We live in a digital age now where verification becomes increasingly important with how powerful AI has become. Everything on our platform is owned by the creator. It is delivered from the creator. It’s verified that it is coming from a verified source. There is no fakes, no bots, nothing on our platform. That is something that is lacking in traditional social medias that really sets LOOT8 apart.
The Brief Interviewer (05:58)
How does your business model generate revenue?
Marcus Daly (06:03)
Yeah, it’s a good question. We’re fortunate that the enterprise clients that we have right now, we’re working with them through more of regular consulting agreement that we where we bill on a monthly basis. It’s a co-creation event where the intellectual property is created, of course, owned by GRHI, but also owned by the business we’re working with. And that gives us access to the real business use cases. But from a revenue standpoint, what you would expect to see with that type of an engagement with the expectation that it will continue on for an extended period of time.
Anthony Denkinger (06:37)
And for the LOOT8 side, on the retail side, specifically for individual creators, we are taking 10% of transactions of their delivered content. That’s the major source for the retail side. We do have plans to reach into the enterprise sides as well through a white labeled solution where we will license out our technology to have a more specific tailored branded type product for companies that want to use our service.
The Brief Interviewer (07:03)
What major milestones has the company achieved so far?
Marcus Daly (07:08)
Yeah, on AI side, we’re delighted to have a first customer. It’s not easy to get from zero to one. That’s the hardest step. So we’ve been able to get there. And perhaps most importantly, the delivery of that has been done using all of the components that we intended to, which were the differentiators I mentioned earlier around being open source, being portable, and being something that is integrated very tightly into the AI through post-training, which is something that’s very difficult to do and something that we’ve been able to accomplish out of the box, which is nice. So very proud of that. And of course, moving into other enterprise customers as we speak.
Anthony Denkinger (07:49)
LOOT8 has successfully exited its beta phase and is officially into its V1. We exited beta with great data points from some of our smaller activations where we learned a little bit more what we need to tailor for the actual live application. But as it stands today in August 2024, we are in our official V1 and are actively onboarding creators, influencers, and reaching out to enterprise opportunities for the white labeling solution. So LOOT8 has continued to continue to develop and innovate over this time from exiting beta, and we’re in a great spot going forward throughout the rest of year.
The Brief Interviewer (08:22)
What are your current capital needs and how do you plan to use new investments?
Marcus Daly (08:29)
Yeah, right now the capital needs on the AI side are a lot to do with R&D, a lot to do with also maintaining those solutions that have been deployed. And in such a manner that’s reusable across multiple enterprise clients. We’ve invested heavily in getting them up and running and would need now the capital to be able to properly sustain them and expand them. Given the fact that we’re at the frontage of the curve, R&D is something that’s required, though the vast majority of that R&D is really focused on building new products in the learning process that takes place during that as opposed to theory. It’s all about practical implementation. So that’s where the capital would go.
Anthony Denkinger (09:09)
And for LOOT8, same thing. R&D is obviously very important, especially when we talk about building up the AI portion of LOOT8. We have a good grasp of what it already is inside of the application, but to continue to innovate and stay ahead of any other competitors is important. We need to expand our engineering team as well. That being said, know, startups are, you know, they’re fast. There’s competitors popping up all around. And while we are truly steps ahead in what we’ve developed already, building it out our engineering team to work faster and continue to be innovative is definitely valuable and that’s where our funds will go along with marketing to continue to build the brand awareness.
The Brief Interviewer (09:45)
What are the biggest risks or challenges facing your company and how are you addressing them?
Marcus Daly (09:51)
Yeah, I feel like the biggest risk right now anyway is staying ahead. We’ve been able to address that by staying focused on making sure that whatever we build, if a new set of technology, a new AI model comes out, that we actually benefit from it. That it’s not in any way going to displace what we’re doing. That in fact, it’s an augmentation. That’s actually been a very productive strategy. It allows us to actually get excited when there’s any release from another AI provider or another open source model that comes out. So just making sure that we stay ahead of the curve. And ahead of the curve in this case is actually what is it that enterprises need? And are we developing that as opposed to getting hung up on chasing something that perhaps they don’t need, whatever that may be, but making sure these are real use cases that we’re targeting.
Anthony Denkinger (10:41)
For LOOT8, it’s important for us to continue to maintain the quality on our application. That’s what differentiates us from our competitors. All of the traditional social medias have a lot of bots and the quality of the conversations are not what we’re trying to do here on LOOT8. What we’re trying to do is build a place for brands, influencers, athletes to have real relationships with their fan base and that starts with quality. It’s our job to continue to maintain quality on the platform by ensuring that we’re bringing on the right people as we continue to move forward and get the right people opportunities to continue to put out quality content that’s worth keeping.
The Brief Interviewer (11:14)
How do you see your industry evolving and how is your company positioned to adapt?
Marcus Daly (11:20)
I think that, you know, I guess maybe two things. One, AI is a core piece of what we’re building. It’s not just a tool. Number one. Number two, Anthony mentioned in a few different ways about building relationships and authenticity. And, you know, interestingly, we believe and we’ve believed from the very beginning that there is a tight connection between AI and LOOT8. And so while these oftentimes are viewed in some circles as two different technologies, two different spaces, not, they’re actually very much complimentary. People are going to be, and already are building relationships with AIs. People are already using AI to augment what they’re doing. That’s true on the enterprise side. It’s true on the retail side. And we’re merely targeting the enterprise side because we have a little more latitude for getting it right before we go to the retail side, but these two are intermeshed nicely, very tightly and very complimentary. So we see them moving hand in hand together and getting closer and then eventually merging where they are absolutely interlinked with even some of the LOOT8 stuff coming over into the enterprise where we think it’s gonna be necessary as time progresses.
Anthony Denkinger (12:31)
What we’re noticing is that in the creator economy, very specific niches are beginning to pop up in their social medias. We’re noticing that these people are typically dominated by the top 1% where people see their content repeatedly. What we’ve done to position ourselves uniquely is actually build a platform where you do not need as many followers to have your voice be heard. You just need your dedicated fans. That’s the beauty of LOOT8, and that’s what really sets us apart from these traditional social medias. The creators, these niches pop up, and whether it be, you know, baking type influencers, just influencers in general, sports specific sports – it doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of small niches that there’s a lot of voices that are being quieted in traditional social media and Lude’s done a great job to position these people to have a voice in their communities.
The Brief Interviewer (13:18)
What sets you apart as leaders and how do you plan to scale the company culture?
Marcus Daly (13:25)
Good question. I’ve been at this now for a long time in terms of technology and having gone through a number of cycles, it’s helpful because there’s a lot of patterns that repeat themselves in these technology cycles. so having that experience to be able to see that allows us to more confidently be able to approach and chase things that for others who have been through those sort of cycles may not actually feel comfortable doing because they’re questioning where things are going. So there’s that piece. I’ve continued to be somebody who’s excited and loves to innovate. And I think bringing some of that innovation spirit to the rest of the team is useful. And I also would say, again, also managing large teams globally, find ways to empower team members and our teams as a whole is something that I’ve done well and can bring to the table. And that allows us to be able to scale this, scale this way beyond where it is today comfortably and with some experience that is hard to get.
Anthony Denkinger (14:28)
My background is very different than Marcus. I do not have the technology background that he does, but I come from a military background where operational excellence is definitely emphasized. I ran major programs ranging from, you know, having hundreds of people under my belt to having five people that I’m in charge of. And we’ve deployed people all across the world to set up bases, to bring back bases, to bring people to countries and out of countries, the works. All these things I learned in the military, basically wanted into one thing. It depends on the people around you. You need to make sure that you can continue to trust them. And that starts with us. That starts with Marcus, myself. We are the ones who are in charge of implementing a culture to make sure that people believe in what we’re saying. And that’s when you get the best results out of the people who you work alongside. So like I said, I do not come from the heavy tech background of Marcus. I come from a generation that obviously appreciates technology and I’ve immediately got to grow through all of this through the last couple of years and watch the trends. But my background is much more operational and building team based.
The Brief Interviewer (15:35)
How do you ensure that your technology and processes remain ethical and compliant with industry standards?
Marcus Daly (15:44)
Yeah, on both sides actually are obviously going through a lot of regulatory changes and sometimes some ambiguity for sure, which is normal for frontier technology. By being open source though and focusing on technology that can run in the cloud or run on your local device and with the training of that in the way it was architected is fully open. You know what the source of the data was, you know how it’s secured, allows us to be able to go into places where regulation may be harsh and difficult and do that confidently because we’re not relying upon a third party that we don’t control. But it also allows us to be able to go into places where there isn’t any regulation, there’s perhaps things are very open and feel confident that we are still though also on the cutting edge and so we don’t need to take any risks. That’s kind of a unique approach, I feel, by not being dependent on a third party for what we’re providing. And that’s right now playing out very nicely given the regulation in Europe and the debates are going on with California and some of the other jurisdictions. I feel confident that we can be able to address those nicely.
Anthony Denkinger (16:51)
And that overlaps a lot with the LOOT8 side. Really at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is be entirely transparent and continue to maintain and keep up with trans and what are happening. We’re in two very, very fluid industries with AI and blockchain technology. And it’s, we absolutely have to stay on top of the regulations that are coming, regardless of what happens, we’ll continue to build according to regulations. We can’t hide behind anything. This is a publicly traded company and therefore everything is out for everyone to see. So that’s how we are, you know, maintaining. Our status is being compliant and we’ll continue to do that going forward.
The Brief Interviewer (17:25)
What is your roadmap for the next 12 to 18 months?
Marcus Daly (17:33)
Yeah, no, it’s a good question. I’m actually excited about the approach that we’re taking. With the enterprise view first, what’s allowing us to do is to be able to cover certain types of use cases that if we had started on the retail side, may not have emerged. And thus, we’re creating a really good repertoire of skills that I think over time, while not fully encapsulating generalized intelligence or what’s called an AGI, we do feel is gonna cover all of the modalities. Modalities are something like text, vision, and audio. And by being able to touch on all three of those modalities, it allows us then to be able to eventually get over to the retail side, which is a part of our roadmap here over the next 12 to 24, and create a relationship that’s not just going to be a chatbot, right? This is something that embodies the persona of the individual that they’re speaking with, or the entity that they’re engaging with, and does so in a way that’s familiar and comfortable for the user. Case in point being, some people prefer audio, some people prefer visual, some people prefer just read. And all three of those are ones where when we mix them together, we’re able to create the best experience, both from a business outcome perspective in terms of what it’s producing or in terms of the relationship that it may create with somebody. So vision-wise, we see that being the outcome where you do indeed actually have a seamless relationship, whatever it may be, with our products. And I would argue that perhaps that may be the vision for where we’re going well beyond 24 months.
Anthony Denkinger (19:08)
LOOT8 is already in its V1 state, so a lot of what we’re doing right now is collecting user feedback and continuing to adapt to what they need as creators. That being said, there are quite a few things in our roadmap that we want to continue to develop on. One of them being verification for any kind of content that may be sensitive, whether it’s alcohol brands coming on to our platform or politicians, anything of that nature where it’s sensitive content and you need age verification or location based verification. LOOT8 controls zero data from the users who come onto our platform. We are not a big tech company and we have no business holding your data. is entirely up to the users to maintain their data. That being said, we don’t know who our users are when they get onto the platform and we do need to verify for these sensitive situations. So that is part of our, and we have a solution for this. So that is part of our immediate roadmap in the next month to two months. After that, we really want to start tackling the white label solution to bring this to an enterprise level. The retail side is great. And we’re getting seen great traction with athletes and influencers coming onto our platform. But we do know that bringing the enterprise solution, as we’ve heard this multiple times from some of the people we’ve spoken with, a white labeled solution that’s custom to someone’s brand is very, very valuable. And we are continuing to build that out right now. And finally, we want to continue to act on this retail side. We’ve seen great traction in the NIL space, which is also an emerging market and giving athletes, smaller athletes, whether they’re division three, division two type schools, the ability to monetize and create opportunities for themselves while they’re in college is very, very valuable. So we’re seeing great traction with that and we will continue to run down that road for the next 6 – 12 months. And, you know, eventually one of these times we’re to land one of these big fish and the retail side is going to explode and it’s going to be great.
The Brief Interviewer (20:53)
In our current climate, there is a lot of controversy with regards to data collection and censorship. What are your companies doing about that?
Marcus Daly (21:03)
Yeah, good question and that’s well said because I do think that there’s a time and place for when you engage it when you don’t. I say that because, there are companies and certain people too that hold certain positions where the way that they articulate themselves needs to be done in a manner that is compliant, that matches the expectations. And in some cases, what they say can have such a massive impact that they themselves want to, of course, make sure that what they’re doing and saying is meeting the expectations of the people who are depending on them. So there’s a time and a place for that. And there’s other cases where, look, people want to hear the truth. They want to be able to feel safe that they can express themselves. So we did design the AI side of the solution, and Anthony will talk about the LOOT8 side, but the AI side was specifically designed using the open source technology. And then there’s a number of podcasts and documents say from Meta as an example, which is a very large company who’s been publishing now open source framework is beating the same drum where the ability to be able to feel like you can choose how you want to be presented and making sure that that is done safely is something that you can choose to do is what the open source side of this equation allows us to be able to do. And so we feel very comfortable going in and talking to an organization or a person who needs to be very compliant or one that wants to absolutely have things completely uncensored and feeling very comfortable in both cases accommodating their needs.
Anthony Denkinger (22:35)
On LOOT8’s side, we do not control the data of the users. That’s a differentiator from big time tech companies. We do not want your data. Once you’re on the platform, you control your data, you control your content, you control what goes out. And that’s on you. Followers and fans actually choose and deliberately make the choice to follow you, meaning that if they’re in your following, they’re likely in the place that they want to be. On top of that, our entire platform is blockchain enabled, meaning that everything is encrypted to the highest level. We’re on a very, very reputable chain and encryption and security is one of the de facto features of being on the blockchain. And it makes all content, all messaging, anything that you do on the platform secure at the highest level.
The Brief Interviewer (23:19)
In closing, how do LOOT8 and the K Project mesh together inside Gold Rock Holdings Inc.?
Marcus Daly (23:27)
Yeah, it’s a great question. I know Anthony and I have talked about this quite a bit. We’ve spoken about it amongst the broader group as well. Anthony, do you want to take that one?
Anthony Denkinger (23:36)
Basically, there’s a big overlap here with LOOT8 and the K Project that Marcus is working on. The AI personas that Marcus and the K Project team are working on have a huge place and a huge role in LOOT8’s content creators personas. Imagine having any reputable athlete, any sort of professor, anyone with a knowledge base worth listening to creating a personalized LLM that can actually go out and speak to their fan base with their knowledge. It’s incredibly valuable. We know that that would be something that fans are greatly attached to and the ability to continue to customize them to each person’s needs is incredibly powerful. So when you combine the AI personas, which is super unique as it stands, and then putting the encryption and the blockchain layer over the top of this and bringing true AI personas onto the blockchain, that’s an incredibly powerful feature that we know will make us stand apart from any other company out there. So with that, that’s LOOT8, the K project and GRHI. So thank you.
Marcus Daly (24:35)
Thanks.
The Brief Interviewer (24:36)
Thank you for joining us here at the Brief by Olivon Advisors. For more information on these companies, please visit loot8.io and goldrockholdings.us. Please join our mailing list by signing up at olivonadvisors.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Brief.
