Episode 9 - Skyler Scarlett (GameClass)

Mar 31

Episode available soon on all streaming platforms.

Transcript

Dan Lipson (00:01.612)

Hello and welcome to Better Games, Better Gamers, a show where we talk about how games shape and are shaped by the community and the people around them. So today I have Skylar Scarlett with me, the inventor and founder of Game Class, which adapts popular games and media into fun and engaging lesson plans and classroom assignments that help students really feel engaged and excited about learning.

So we met, I believe we met at GamesBeat Time is an illusion, so I don't remember how long ago that was. But yeah, yeah, I don't remember which GamesBeat though. So was a while ago. Okay, so it was, okay, so it was the San Francisco one. Yeah, and I remember it was like going into that room and I'm like, who is this guy? It's like, and then was just such a, such a like, okay, like, what the heck is this guy talking about?

Skyler Scarlett (00:40.864)

Okay. you're right, GamesBeat Next San Francisco.

Dan Lipson (01:01.848)

and kind of, I think so much kind of having coming from the background. think we talked that day. It's like, I, more than 50 % of my extended family is in teaching. And so to me has always been like education is such an interesting topic in games. So definitely wanted to bring you on and like, what the hell are you talking about? Like really kind of focusing on that topic. so really, really, really excited to have you on.

Skyler Scarlett (01:31.074)

Thank you. I'm excited too. I like conversations. like I told you, nothing's off limits. Let's have some good convo

Dan Lipson (01:36.92)

Very cool. So I wanted to just kind of get us warmed up a little bit. Kind of just start talking about games. So very curious kind of putting in going back in the time machine a little bit. Talk about kind of your background with games, what were kind of some of your favorite games growing up.

Skyler Scarlett (01:58.318)

I think this is going to surprise you because I don't think most people expect this, but I am such a big gamer that I think I own like 3000 digital video games and I've been playing games since I was four. Like I got a Sega Genesis, right? That's old school for most people now. And then I had every console and my mom and dad spoiled me. I mean, Nintendo 64, GameCube, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, I had them all. you know, growing up, I remember my memories are really like in Nintendo 64.

playing with my neighborhood, my friends, Smash Bros, know, all these games, Goldeneye together in the couch, like such fun memories. And then also when I was at home playing like by myself, Legend of Zelda, and just falling in love with that game, Super Mario 64. So loving the single player games, loving the multiplayer games. Then as I got older, you know, getting more into of course the more mature multiplayer games.

which I still play today. And then I don't have a lot of time because I have two young daughters under four. But when I do have time, you know, I still love single player experience by myself. Don't think about anything, right? Just get, just get into that experience of the game. Get lost in it.

Dan Lipson (03:11.212)

That's really cool. and one of the things I think it sounds like though games was not your first foray into the working world. So kind of wanting to hear a little bit kind of about.

Skyler Scarlett (03:26.35)

Yeah. I don't even know if I'm accepted as a games company. And I mean, I want to be because I love video games, but you know, even at GamesBeat I felt out of place, right? I'm new to gaming. meeting some awesome people, but I don't build video games, right? So I don't think and I think when you hear about what I do, you're kind of like, huh, what's he doing? Like it doesn't even register. It's probably not that exciting for people that build games. So, I also, I just think it's funny because I play so many video games, right? Like I said, I own so many video games. I don't think people would expect that from the founder. Like, he's just, you know, trying to utilize video games. No, really, I love video games. But to be in the space, I'm trying to go to the conferences. I'm trying to meet as many people as possible. I think so far, like one, the video game industry really hasn't caused me any issues, which is good. but they also really haven't been that welcoming or like here, we love what you're doing, like you're a good thing, let's support you. So it's been kind of, I've seen both of that.

Dan Lipson (04:28.364)

That's really interesting. And I feel like that's something, it's like, want to give, maybe we can jump to, kind of get that, usually get towards that at the end, but I feel like that's kind of one of my fun, it's like, might want to start there. So I think I'm kind of curious, like, really kind of where, and actually, maybe I will kind of go back to where I, how I started.

Usually started is kind of looking at you as a founder. Cause I think if I remember correctly, this isn't your first startup. So I kind of wanted to hear a little bit about that. think I remember there's the word shark tank thrown in there somewhere. So.

Skyler Scarlett (05:11.958)

of the lifetime as an entrepreneur. mean, I'm going off 15 plus years having my own businesses, my own startups, which it just blows my mind because I don't know entrepreneurs, my family, no business owners, my family. So this doesn't really even make sense. It's the thing that I just got into right after college. You know, I got a four year degree was going to go to graduate school, do a career for 30 years. And the next thing you know, I'm in the wellness industry and I'm on Shark Tank and I'm selling a business.

You know, working with the billion dollar health club, it just went crazy. And I spent 10 plus years doing that and only left because of COVID. COVID basically was, I had a business in a health club and I couldn't even go into it for a year. could not go into my business to get a pencil. So it was a hard time for me, but I went home and I had more time to play video games. So I was playing call duty war zone with my buddies. And this is peak gaming. This is during COVID where everyone was home and it was such a fun experience. And I kept going like.

Seeing my teammate do these insane strategic movements going, did he realize how brilliant that was? And I don't think he did. He was kind of going through the motions. It was so smart. He would jump through like four buildings, do this triple jump, get up top and then smoke all these players. Right. It was so smart. I'm like, wow, video games like they're so, they teach so much if you even realize what's happening. And then I realized that when we were winning, our communication was really strong. We were doing call outs, you name it. When we lost, we would forget to do the call outs.

And was like, my favorite class in college was a film class on psychology. And I'm like, if they had had a class on video games, just studying the communication, I would have learned so much. Everyone would. And that's when the idea of GameClass came and you really shouldn't have startups from ideas. It's really bad. Really bad. And I did that, but I think it's one, I'm I'm a passionate entrepreneur, which is the most dangerous kind of entrepreneur. Typically, you know, if you want to make money, find a boring, stupid problem, solve it, move on quickly.

I always choose things that are new, exciting to me, innovative, and like the worst thing you can do if you want to make money.

Dan Lipson (07:15.896)

Pretty funny. Well, and I'd love to hear kind of like take a few steps back again and like double click on the entrepreneur journey. Cause I think it's like, I think to me that's really personally interesting is just how that is like, I think first, um, like, I think you mentioned you went to school, got out of the degree and then we're expecting that. So curious kind of first, um, more details just kind of about what that was. And then kind of, I think how

starting GameClass was definitely similar to some of the things you were building before and kind of how you were thinking about those and maybe also how it kind of informed and if it informed what you're building with GameClass.

Skyler Scarlett (07:58.511)

Yeah, I mean, I made it with exercise physiology. I mean, really, you know, kind of random. And I think I went in like wanting to do business, but I saw a counselor. I no idea what I wanted to do when was younger. I was like, oh, you like sports, you played baseball, you're athletic. You should do this. I was kind of forced into my degree. And then afterwards, like, what do you do with an exercise physiology degree? Right. Like there's only so many things you can do. I was like, oh, physical therapy would be great. You help people three more years of school, a hundred thousand dollars. And that was kind of like, Ooh, that's going to be the rest of my life.

So I always had ideas. just never did anything. Came across cryotherapy. was a bunch of athletes freezing themselves. Thought it was crazy. But then I'm like, wait a minute, it's crazy. But like the best athletes in the world are using it. So that's what got me into cryo. And I had a really good run. I crushed it. First business, like money was coming in, sold the business at like 24 years old. was a, it was a wild ride. And then I wanted to do another startup. I always did. I just was so

stuck and deep into the cryo and wellness side that I said, okay, for my second startup, what am I going to do in video games, education? was like perfect match, right? One, I love to teach. So being on Shark Tank twice, I get offered to go to schools all the time, universities and speak. I do it for free and I just teach young students about entrepreneurship. And I love it. I wish it paid well. I would probably do that.

To be honest with you, but that's the thing. think teaching is something that, you know, even as a parent, I teach my daughters. It's one of the most important things I do as a parent. And I think, you know, everything in life is better when you have a better education. Travel more, make more money, treat people better. So education has failed so many people and it's gotten worse over time. And sure, I think EdTech could be a part of the problem. You know, I'm an EdTech company, but I can admit there's been kind of, you know, too much EdTech.

or a lot of ed tech that maybe isn't solving problems. And I hope that GameClass is the opposite. But I think, you know, being able to combine two passions, like startups are so hard and brutal. If you're going to choose something that isn't a simple, boring fix, you better be passionate or there's just no chance. And that's why, you know, years later, me and my team are still so passionate every day about what we're building.

Dan Lipson (10:15.82)

That's really cool. That's awesome. Well, and I think one of the things that I felt like too, and it sounds like that.

I think two things is it sounds like first kind of you feel like you're an outsider in the industry. So I'm curious kind of what helped validate the idea and where you're like, okay, like the passion. Yes. But also like, what's the kind of from the it's like,

What helped, what kind of signals I guess would you have is kind of the technical and just the investment term of it of like that you were actually onto something and that this was something that you could push through.

Skyler Scarlett (10:58.286)

Oh, that's not a need for like I told you. The problem is usually you find a problem, right? And I really was a solution in search of a problem, right? Which is bad. You know, I think I said, oh wow, video games are so educational and teach so much. That's not really a problem. That's identifying something kind of cool. But then I realized like, I thought about me myself first and you should always be like your number one customer. I was like, when I was young, even now, I'm very smart, very smart. I didn't pay attention. I just didn't care about a chalkboard or whiteboard. It was so boring. Math probability, who cares? I'm six years old.

When you get older, you really respect education more because now you're like, it will make me more money. I'll be able to do something that I couldn't have done. Right. But no young students can understand that yet. They don't have the experience. So how do get them to buy in? Use things that they enjoy. And I look back at the stuff I did like computer lab once a month, because computers were new, right? Back in the nineties was fun. I loved it. looking back, you know, field trips, I loved movie. Anytime a movie was brought into the class, I loved it.

That's when I actually paid attention. I still remember the movies we watched 20 years ago. That, mean, think about that. I remember anything else that was chalkboard or whiteboard, but I remember the movies that were brought into the classroom. So I knew for me, like I knew it would have worked better than anything. And then I always would be on Reddit and be people like, Oh, I learned a language playing this video game. It was everywhere. People were saying how much they learned through video games. And so I realized that, you know, there's so many problems in education, but

One of the biggest problems is, you know, engagement motivation. How can you teach anything if your students not paying attention? And then you go back 20, 30 years ago, it was so hard to keep us engaged, right? But now they have Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok. It's even worse. So has there ever been more of a time for a need of a product that gets students actually care about learning? That was kind of my buy-in. And then when I started talking to teachers, they loved the idea. In fact, I was expecting a lot more pushback, which was not what happened. never had one.

teacher and I don't kid you, I've talked to 2000 teachers over the years, quick, you know, zooms, know, this and that. Not one has ever said this doesn't make sense. Whether they played games or not, they like tech or not. Like this is, this makes sense. Yeah. My students would pay more attention. It was so obvious. It was like, yeah, why does this not exist? That's a good sign when you're an entrepreneur and you have a startup. And I've also never had so many people want to help me because they're so in love with what we're building, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

Dan Lipson (13:21.496)

So one I'd love to kind of that kind of gets straight into my next question is I'd to kind of really look at kind of how specifically for teachers themselves, what are kind of in like the platform itself, obviously, in the intro, but like, is what are really the benefits of using the platform for teachers? What are what are things that kind of is really advantageous to them?

Skyler Scarlett (13:46.191)

All the challenge when you're trying to make things simple and easy to use, right? With teachers, they're very methodical, very organized. They have to follow certain standards. They have to get approval for a lot of things. It's not that easy just to use something. And that's been a learning process for my team and myself. But I think at the end of the day, what I want for them to realize is like, you don't need to go and build all this new material. Anything you're using, we can enhance. Anything. Math, science, language, arts, it can be made more interesting for your students.

And even if six more students pay attention, is that a win for you? And they almost always will say, yeah, it'd be a huge win. So does it take them a long time to do that? And before we were having them create, which the answer was, it did take a long time. That's a mistake. Now we have the technology where we can build a micro curriculum of 15 lessons in a minute here soon. One minute, 15 lessons, anything that any student loves their favorite TV show, movie, video game, or sports in one minute.

That means we can personalize and customize for any student. If you want to get them to do their homework, you can basically make homework interesting for all 30, 50 students in your class.

Dan Lipson (14:54.808)

I think one of the things I saw you're talking about there is how that works too. I think it's really interesting because it's like, think learning in some ways is.

It's challenging, I feel like, because there's a desire for, there's a desire from teachers to implement new styles, but there's also kind of a pushback on curriculums for that same thing. And especially with things like AI, I know it's, things are changing very rapidly. And so,

Skyler Scarlett (15:29.644)

Very divided, very, divided. And plus think of this, right? Like it's never been easier to build a company. People are vibe coding at tech products every day. So teachers are like, wow, I've had 50 people say, come use my new ed tech tool. There is so much ed tech fatigue and AI fatigue. So I think that's a real challenge for anyone that wants to enter that tech space. Plus what most entrepreneurs don't realize. And I was warned that ed tech was, you know, that one of the hardest spaces to enter. They were right.

that even if you bought a product people want to use, a lot of schools are going to block it. There's web operating companies, there's, you know, approvals. It's very difficult market to enter.

Dan Lipson (16:00.663)

Mm.

Dan Lipson (16:07.474)

Well, I guess, yeah, how do you kind of continue to grow that trust with teachers and kind of...

Skyler Scarlett (16:18.422)

It's a long process. mean, me and my team knew it would be, we're a new thing. We knew that there was a lot of excitement, but it was going to take a really long time. think one, I've, you know, gone almost all the big web filtering companies unblock us. That's a huge win. That takes time. They're like, you are educational. You're not a video game. Like we're going to unblock you. think two, we've done really well internationally, getting into a lot of, you know, different countries, different teachers, students loving the product.

We always knew students would love it. That was never the problem. problem is even though we built something for students, they are the last ones that get to decide to use it. So just over time showing that, Hey, we're still here. You know what I mean? A lot of tech companies are here for a month and then they're gone. And then, you know, meeting as many people as possible and then just figuring out different pathways. One, a lot of big companies have come to us. They understand our value prop, but like we have a curriculum, we have a course, we have a thing. It's boring.

Dan Lipson (16:58.008)

Yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (17:13.742)

We spent tons of money on it, but yours is exciting. So like, can we have you make our content more exciting? That's more enterprise, right? That's a path that's opened up for us within a week while the marketplace. Now any teacher can make their own GameClass content and sell it for a couple bucks. If your students love it, maybe 5,000 other teachers will say the same thing, right? And maybe you make $500,000 a month. I love that.

I've really enjoyed all the teachers I've talked to. They're great people. They all want to make more money. They all deserve more money. So to be able to give them a marketplace like teachers pay teachers, right. But with content that I think is even better, more exciting, and then anyone has the chance to come on and build a, you know, a 15, 10 lesson curriculum or pack teaching pack and sell it and make money is phenomenal.

Dan Lipson (18:02.808)

I think one of the other things that I saw you posting about a little bit lately was, think also teaching more, it's like using it. So I think there's kind of digging into the specifics of the platform a little bit. think it's like you talked about like math and kind of some of these different subjects, but I think you were also talking more about more complex subjects like financial literacy, I think for instance. So I was kind of curious to hear a little bit about like how the, how you think the platform is kind of.

well suited to things like maybe well suited to that.

Skyler Scarlett (18:33.854)

I think it's probably like the best suited for financial literacy, especially elementary school. I've noticed, because I've been approached by a lot of big financial literacy companies, none of them talked to elementary school. Does that make any sense? Imagine not teaching math till middle school or high school. You're not teaching science, right? You're like, Han, I think they don't know how to do it. They're like, how would you get a second grader to care about investing? And the answer is, well, if you try to relate it to

adult stuff, they're not going to care. But if you invest it in Animal Crossing or their favorite TV show or Bluey or Hello Kitty's, they might actually understand it and start learning. And so I think we are like the perfect EdTech product for financial literacy for elementary school. It doesn't mean we can't do middle school and high school. We can. It's just why would you wait?

Dan Lipson (19:25.334)

Yeah. Well, the other one I want to talk to a little bit more just because of course it's very tight into what we're doing here is I think here kind of your take on digital literacy as a whole and kind of how this is playing into that and kind of maybe even is it, do you think it's kind of changing in, I guess, how do you think it affects and relates to digital literacy?

Skyler Scarlett (19:54.607)

Well, mean, look at all the tech around everyone, right? That's the thing. Like I get that tech fatigue and I understand like limiting tech in schools. I get it, especially for my daughters, but at the same time, like tech's not going anywhere. It's only going to get worse with AI. So if you're not using any tech, you're doing students a disservice. It's all about balance in my opinion. You got to balance it. So I think again, they're going to be using AI and all these things like understanding how to use them and what information to give them.

to not accept an answer the first time. That's what scared me. Like when I use AI, I will change things like 15 times. Like 15, I'm serious. Even if for a LinkedIn post, I'm like, give me one. And I do like 15 versions. I just know most students are like, Oh, AI knows everything. I take that first version and use it, which just terrifies me. I think one thing I'm so proud of is the way that my company is using AI. Like there is so much fake content out there. It's like, it's ridiculous. I think people are getting sick of it already.

Every video on Game Class is real. There's not one fake video on our platform. We use AI to take the real videos and put education in them. We don't use any fake content.

Dan Lipson (21:05.048)

And I think, I think too, I'm curious kind of how, also, guess, looking at what the kind of future roadmap for it looks like. I know you have some, even first time we met kind of talking about what the vision, what the vision for this is.

Skyler Scarlett (21:19.822)

we got something coming within, hope, 30 days. And I'm going to say 30 days, it up being like 90 days, but it is such, mean, obviously I'm going to be the most psyched about it than anyone. And maybe I'm over hyping it, but I think it's going to change the game. Like earlier, I told you a micro curriculum in a minute. We are going to be able to take any sport, any video game and create a lesson in like 10 seconds, a quiz in three seconds. And it's not going to be like, this is random. No, it's going to relate to exactly what happened in the clip.

to like 95 % accuracy.

Dan Lipson (21:54.264)

It's well.

Skyler Scarlett (21:54.755)

What that means, right? It means like people all over LinkedIn, I see every teacher, every tech experts like, for education to really work, we have to relate to the student. We have to personalize for each student. Like everyone is saying that I'm like, well, hello. Here we have a product that can relate to every student fast. Meaning if a student likes this show, okay. If this student likes a video game, our tools now allow for that to happen every day, every week.

Dan Lipson (22:25.56)

That's fun. I think the other one that you talked about previously is just kind of how it, I think the integration of, and I think one of the other things I've seen a lot on the side is just again, kind of your enterprise solution of how like gaming brands and media brands might be working with it. So that's kind of.

Skyler Scarlett (22:43.566)

That this frustrates me because one, I'm like, maybe I'm not as smart as I think I am. Or I'm like, maybe these people are just so far behind. like, I can't even imagine like, you know, I love the San Francisco Giants, right? Imagine them having their own GameClass. It's just San Francisco Giants content. Every week they could upload clips from the game the previous night and their fans, their young fans who are the more valuable than anyone to any business can interact and make lessons and bring them into the classroom.

If you ask any brand, would you want me to bring you into schools? I can't imagine they say no. And do it in a responsible way that people, parents, schools actually respect. Like it's like one in a billion in my opinion. Like you have these scammy ways. No one wants to be associated in a bad way with students, right? And again, a YouTube marketing ad is like 15 seconds. What if you're 30 minutes, they're talking about your brand in schools. Learning.

Like how could you not want to be a part of that? And I could do that for any sports team. I could do that for any video game company. Can you imagine Sega? It's, you know, Sonic, crazy taxi, like all these things about financial literacy.

Dan Lipson (23:51.48)

I think the one that caught my imagination, I you mentioned Netflix.

Skyler Scarlett (23:55.815)

yeah. And here's what is going to blow your mind more. Game class can be done while they're watching it, not just recorded. We could do GameClass with the remote when we could have education mode in Netflix. You go to Netflix, turn on education mode, right? And all of a sudden, like we have a nice balance of the entertainment is there. So they're still like enjoying it, but then there's an overlay that's popping up on their phone or on the screen that is teaching them.

Dan Lipson (24:23.382)

Yeah, so with that kind of vision, really wanted to kind of just paint this picture a little bit, like have helped to paint this picture a little bit of like, what do you think, like, if we got there, it's like if everyone bought into this, what would learning look like? What could learn what could learning look like?

Skyler Scarlett (24:38.766)

Man, can you imagine learning in the things that you love? Like being like, I'm going to go do my hobby, but also learn so you don't have to choose between one or the other. Like imagine being like, going to go, you I got the new Resident Evil game. It's awesome. But I'm going to choose education mode. It's only going to interrupt me every 10 minutes, but it's going to stick. And I can learn something that I've been trying to learn while also enjoying the game. So it's not going to ruin the entertainment experience, but it's going to be memorable enough for like, yeah, I learned too.

So I imagine a future where like you're watching the Giants or your sports game with your kids and you're a family, right? And like you're enjoying the baseball game and then you're learning about projectile motion. Your kid is during broadcast. That gets me so excited. And then I'm, you know, I'm, I think you know this, I told you, I come from a legal family, my mom's a lawyer. So like I grew up around legal. Our patent was allowed. It officially posted next Tuesday. It's going to be official.

We have a patent on a market that I think is going to be such a game changer. It's really the idea of taking anything, entertainment or media and being able to transform that into education.

Dan Lipson (25:52.675)

Well, I'm just going back to the financial literacy thing too. It's like, know a lot of people these days are looking at doing what you did and becoming a founder and just imagining like what that, yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (26:02.196)

I could, yeah, I think there's so many partnerships there. think the one thing that, might be hurting us is fair use. Meaning in two years, we've had not one DMCA or cease and desist, nothing. Two years. I knew what we were doing was fair use. knew from my legal, my mom, you know, my family's legal background that I did the right work. But when you're dealing with bigger companies, they don't like gray areas. Fair use is gray. That it's, that's the way it's designed. You don't.

Skyler Scarlett (26:31.182)

claim fair use until you have to claim fair use. It's not like a certificate you get before you go there. And also, so it's, think if we were to maybe get licenses, GameClass could look a lot different. I don't know how that would go, but I'm really considering it. I've always wanted to work with these companies. I thought I was doing them a favor to be honest. And I don't mean that to be cocky. I just think I'm doing a great thing, right? I'm like, here's your brand in front of so many people in a positive light. get the PR, you get the marketing reach. There's so much there. So I'm really now with the patent actually issuing. I'm thinking, you know, maybe there's some brands that are okay with this. And it's almost like Roblox, right? Where they partner with these companies. I'm thinking if I do that, it may open up a company that just to start up using my technology. Now they focus on just math, but they're using the license for Sega. mean, Nintendo is my dream, right? I can't even imagine, you know. Honestly, this would require doing something with Nintendo, which is, I know, a pipe dream. But can you imagine, like, the education mode in Nintendo Switch 2 for Mario Kart? I don't see how that could possibly fail.

Dan Lipson (27:43.585)

Yeah. Yeah. No. Or I mean, look at the hat I'm wearing. It's like, there's so many avenues for, I think, that specific partnership. I mean, think that's, yeah. So I want to shift gears a little bit into, and you mentioned you had some interest in psychology. So I think one of the things that I think with a lot of it's like we've talked about marketing, we've talked about legal, we've talked about teachers.

What kind of, in terms of the research, what kind of research has interested you and kind of excited you, I think both in education and psychology around kind of what you're doing.

Skyler Scarlett (28:22.99)

Great question. Now keep in mind, because I was exercise physiology, I looked at so many studies. That was my job, right? Like that was my role, like to review studies. And it was funny because I respect studies and I also like something like just use common sense, right? If something is working, it's working. Why we, you I mean? Some kind of on both sides. You know, I've seen a lot of studies and reports about video games being very beneficial. I know you've seen the same, but then common sense just says like,

from a, you when I was at my cryo company, like I became really good at cells, just learning human psychology. And once I figured it out, it was almost like I felt unfair. Cause I'm like, I know exactly how this person is going to react and how I can do this or that. Now, when it comes to human nature of my daughter, if I tell her to do something, she rebels. But if she's forced, to go to school and you have to learn, you rebel. You don't want to do it, right? But if they can choose what they want to learn in, that's different.

Skyler Scarlett (29:19.904)

If I asked my daughter to make decisions, it's completely different. So when I look at psychology and like what psychology has taught us over the years, like GameClass makes a lot of sense.

Dan Lipson (29:34.53)

Yeah, that's really funny. I'd like, well, I'd love to, like, is, was there anything kind of you've looked at specifically, I guess, and especially the education side of, actually, maybe I'll leave the question a little bit is.

Actually, is there anything in the education side that, like, in terms of what kind of others have doing that you've kind of incorporated into what, like education and games that you've incorporated or been kind of inspired by?

Skyler Scarlett (30:09.656)

Then inspired by a lot of companies, but not so like maybe in a different way than you're thinking. Like I love UI and UX. So if I see a great one, I'm like, how can GameClass be similar? Right? Like they're doing such a good job. How can we try to do something similar? Because I think the, you know, less button clicks to get somewhere less stuff, the user obsessed with that stuff. But as far as our blueprint, there really isn't a whole lot like it. I mean, if anything, maybe at puzzle and Kahoot, but

Dan Lipson (30:13.804)

Hmm.

Dan Lipson (30:35.928)

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (30:37.452)

You know, I think Kahoot, I was kind of blown away. I'm like, all they do is quizzes. So then I'm like, maybe GameClass is doing too much, right? Like all they do is a quiz and it's like a PowerPoint slide. It's like, I'm like this, like what is going on? Right. And then that puzzle, I think they did a really good job of making things simple. I'm like, that's good. They did a good job making simple. but as far as like a blueprint, I mean, no one's really touched our space. Funny enough. Now I've seen like three more companies kind of.

Dan Lipson (30:42.07)

Hmm.

Dan Lipson (30:55.81)

Hmm.

Dan Lipson (31:04.685)

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (31:07.232)

in this space, which is not a bad thing. It's not. Honestly, not having someone in your space is a really bad sign. It means either they tried, it didn't work, or there's just no interest, right? So seeing these other companies is actually good. I think they're all in the same boat as us, meaning like we're newer, there's a lot of education that's going to have to happen. When you have something new, it takes a while for the market to understand what you do, why it's needed and get used to it. And that's really hard. So if you have a big burn rate, you're done.

Dan Lipson (31:26.999)

you

Skyler Scarlett (31:36.46)

No, I self-funded GameClass. have no debt. My, my dev team has equity. We're in a really good spot to ride out, ride out how long this takes.

Dan Lipson (31:46.105)

Um, well, and kind of on that note too is, uh, one of questions I skipped over earlier is, um, who were kind of some of your, just in general for GameClass and really even kind of your first startup, who were kind of some of your, um, maybe mentors and inspirations just kind of more generally in what you were building and being a founder.

Skyler Scarlett (32:09.26)

You know, love entrepreneurs, but I don't like, this is going to sound bad, but like, don't really like to always have that be. don't know. I want to explain so it doesn't come off weird, but I think if you, if you put someone up on like a platter too high, right. Like we're humans, but there's good and bad. No one's perfect. Right. And I, you know, I've reached out to a lot of people. I always appreciate the people that didn't ghost me. cause most are ghosted. Right.

Dan Lipson (32:34.742)

Mm-hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (32:37.294)

I don't, wouldn't say I've ever had a mentor. I've had a lot of friends. I've had a lot of people that want to help me. Um, but no one's going to build your business for you and everyone's busy and a lot of people have done stuff, you know, to be helpful and this and that I really appreciate it. But again, it's funny. I think about even as a kid wearing like sports jerseys, right? As someone else's name on your back, right? I'm always a proponent of like, I want people to realize that they're all very special themselves. That.

Dan Lipson (32:55.416)

Yeah.

Dan Lipson (33:01.143)

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (33:03.266)

They shouldn't put someone up so high like you're special as well. Like, you know what I mean? Don't give so much worth to someone else. Like, I hope what I'm saying is making sense to you.

Dan Lipson (33:15.0)

No, and think, I think it's making sense to me because I probably have somewhat the same perspective and same experience. So it makes sense to me in that way. Well, I think it sounds like very much, and I'm kind of curious, then kind of building your team and kind of love to kind of hear about that. That, and I think what that, especially, I think it sounds like you're still in this place where it's like.

Dan Lipson (33:42.72)

Okay, you're putting this together this new thing. It's in games, but it's not in game. So I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious just kind of how you put together your team while you think about that, how you're even growing, like thinking about like as this thing grows, what it looks like.

Skyler Scarlett (33:47.406)

Yeah. Well, my team, mean, we use the games person. Maybe it just depends, right? I I'm the games person on the team because I know so much about video games. I think again, we don't build video games. And again, like, would I like to work more with video game companies? Sure. I'd to. I don't know if that will ever happen. I think a lot of them were so polite and nice and supportive, but they would come to me and be like, look, don't tell anyone this. I love what you're doing, but like the higher ups will never support this.

And I was like, well, this is interesting. like, what do you mean? They're like, well, they have to go see the money in it. Like that's what matters. Like for us, we are passionate. Like we care. Like what you're doing is awesome. Like, thank you. Like, this is so cool. Seeing my art or my thing being used to help kids learn is like amazing. Thank you. Keep going. But they're like, without like instant money, like, you know, and I had, you know, someone really well known, I won't say who it was. And he's like, I've never seen a game company do anything for education. Cause there wasn't any money behind it.

And they're not wrong. I don't think they were trying to my feelings. I think they're trying to be honest, meaning like, if you look at like educational games, Oregon Trail is the only one, right? Maybe Math Blaster, so they don't really invest. Now Minecraft, okay, whole method, but Minecraft was not built for education. It was an entertainment game, but really backs up what Game Class is trying to do. Game Class's whole idea is don't spend time to build an educational game. Make the greatest entertainment game you can, and then we will take care of the education part.

So Minecraft, think is a great example of that. Sure, they did build education around it, but they started with entertainment. Fortnite doesn't need to go build an educational game. GameClass can go make Fortnite educational and make it fun, right? And put education in it. So I wanted us to be viewed as like, we're the Oregon Trail or Minecraft for any video game in existence. Come work with us. And I think the money part is hard because they've never been in ed tech, right? And they don't really understand. They don't see the opportunities I'm getting coming to me, right? With like,

Dan Lipson (35:38.712)

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (35:49.359)

some these huge bankiDan Lipson (00:00)

So we met, I believe we met at GamesBeat Okay,

Skyler Scarlett (00:31)

GamesBeat Next San Francisco.

Dan Lipson (00:33)

education is such an interesting topic in games. so really, really, really excited to have you on.

Skyler Scarlett (00:40)

Thank you. I'm excited too. like I told you, nothing's off limits. Let's have some good convo

Dan Lipson (00:46)

Talk about kind of your background with games, what were kind of some of your favorite games growing up.

Skyler Scarlett (00:51)

Dan Lipson (02:02)

it sounds like though games was not your first foray into the working world. wanting to hear a little bit about.

Skyler Scarlett (02:10)

don't even

know if I'm accepted as a games company. And I mean, I want to be because I love video games, but you know, even at GamesBeat I felt out of place, right? I'm new to gaming. meeting some awesome people, but I don't build video games, right? So I don't think and I think when you hear about what I do, you're kind of like, huh, what's he doing? Like it doesn't even register. It's probably not that exciting for people that build games.

Dan Lipson (02:18)

Hmm.

Mmm.

Skyler Scarlett (02:35)

I just think it's funny because I play so many video games, right? Like I said, I own so many video games. I don't think people would expect that from the founder. Like, he's just, you know, trying to utilize video games. No, really, I love video games. But to be in the space, I'm trying to go to the conferences. I'm trying to meet as many people as possible. I think so far, like one, the video game industry really hasn't caused me any issues, which is good.

but they also really haven't been that welcoming or like here, we love what you're doing, like you're a good thing, let's support you. So it's been kind of, I've seen both of that.

Dan Lipson (03:08)

That's really interesting. how I started.

Usually started is kind of looking at you as a founder. Cause I think if I remember correctly, this isn't your first startup. So I kind of wanted to hear a little bit about that. So.

Skyler Scarlett (03:21)

of the lifetime as an entrepreneur. mean, I'm going off

15 plus years having my own businesses, my own startups, which it just blows my mind because I don't know entrepreneurs, my family, no business owners, my family. So this doesn't really even make sense. It's the thing that I just got into right after college. You know, I got a four year degree was going to go to graduate school, do a career for 30 years. And the next thing you know, I'm in the wellness industry and I'm on Shark Tank and I'm selling a business.

I always choose things that are new, exciting to me, innovative, and like the worst thing you can do if you want to make money.

Dan Lipson (05:20)

how

Skyler Scarlett (05:32)

Yeah, I mean, I made it

with exercise physiology. I mean, really, you know, kind of random. And I think I went in like wanting to do business, but I saw a counselor. I no idea what I wanted to do when was younger. I was like, oh, you like sports, you played baseball, you're athletic. You should do this. I was kind of forced into my degree. And then afterwards, like, what do you do with an exercise physiology degree? Right. Like there's only so many things you can do. I was like, oh, physical therapy would be great. You help people three more years of school, a hundred thousand dollars. And that was kind of like, Ooh, that's going to be the rest of my life.

And I hope that GameClass is the opposite. But I think, you know, being able to combine two passions, like startups are so hard and brutal. If you're going to choose something that isn't a simple, boring fix, you better be passionate or there's just no chance. And that's why, you know, years later, me and my team are still so passionate every day about what we're building.

Dan Lipson (07:38)

you feel like you're an outsider in the industry. So I'm curious kind of what helped validate the idea the passion. Yes. But also

what kind of signals I guess would you have that you were actually onto something and that this was something that you could push through.

Skyler Scarlett (07:50)

Oh, that's not a need for like I told you.

The problem is usually you find a problem, right? And I really was a solution in search of a problem, right? Which is bad. You know, I think I said, oh wow, video games are so educational and teach so much. That's not really a problem. That's identifying something kind of cool. But then I realized like, I thought about me myself first and you should always be like your number one customer. I was like, when I was young, even now, I'm very smart, very smart. I didn't pay attention. I just didn't care about a chalkboard or whiteboard. It was so boring. Math probability, who cares? I'm six years old.

Dan Lipson (10:12)

what are really the benefits of using the platform for teachers? What is really advantageous to them?

Skyler Scarlett (10:19)

All

the challenge when you're trying to make things simple and easy to use, right? With teachers, they're very methodical, very organized. They have to follow certain standards. They have to get approval for a lot of things. It's not that easy just to use something. And that's been a learning process for my team and myself. But I think at the end of the day, what I want for them to realize is like, you don't need to go and build all this new material. Anything you're using, we can enhance. Anything. Math, science, language, arts, it can be made more interesting for your students.

That means we can personalize and customize for any student. If you want to get them to do their homework, you can basically make homework interesting for all 30, 50 students in your class.

Dan Lipson (11:26)

learning in some ways is.

It's challenging, I feel like, because there's a desire from teachers to implement new styles, but there's also kind of a pushback on curriculums for that same thing. And especially with things like AI, I know it's, things are changing very rapidly. And so, ⁓

Skyler Scarlett (11:43)

Very divided, very, divided.

And plus think of this, right? Like it's never been easier to build a company. People are vibe coding at tech products every day. So teachers are like, wow, I've had 50 people say, come use my new ed tech tool. There is so much ed tech fatigue and AI fatigue. So I think that's a real challenge for anyone that wants to enter that tech space. Plus what most entrepreneurs don't realize. And I was warned that ed tech was, you know, that one of the hardest spaces to enter. They were right.

that even if you bought a product people want to use, a lot of schools are going to block it. There's web operating companies, there's, you know, approvals. It's very difficult market to enter.

Dan Lipson (12:14)

Mm.

how do you continue to grow that trust with teachers

Skyler Scarlett (12:25)

Dan Lipson (13:03)

Yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (13:18)

Dan Lipson (14:04)

I think one of the other things that I saw you posting about a little bit lately you were also talking more about more complex subjects like financial literacy, how you think the platform is

well suited to that.

Skyler Scarlett (14:14)

I think it's probably like

the best suited for financial literacy, especially elementary school. I've noticed, because I've been approached by a lot of big financial literacy companies, none of them talked to elementary school. Does that make any sense? Imagine not teaching math till middle school or high school. You're not teaching science, right? You're like, Han, I think they don't know how to do it. They're like, how would you get a second grader to care about investing? And the answer is, well, if you try to relate it to

Dan Lipson (15:01)

how do you think it affects and relates to digital literacy?

Skyler Scarlett (15:05)

Every video on Game Class is real. There's not one fake video on our platform. We use AI to take the real videos and put education in them. We don't use any fake content.

Dan Lipson (16:12)

looking at what the future roadmap for it looks like.

Skyler Scarlett (16:16)

something coming within, hope, 30 days.

And maybe I'm over hyping it, but I think it's going to change the game. Like earlier, I told you a micro curriculum in a minute. We are going to be able to take any sport, any video game and create a lesson in like 10 seconds, a quiz in three seconds. And it's not going to be like, this is random. No, it's going to relate to exactly what happened in the clip.

to like 95 % accuracy.

Dan Lipson (16:40)

It's well.

Skyler Scarlett (16:40)

What

that means, right? It means like people all over LinkedIn, I see every teacher, every tech experts like, for education to really work, we have to relate to the student. We have to personalize for each student. Like everyone is saying that I'm like, well, hello. Here we have a product that can relate to every student fast. Meaning if a student likes this show, okay. If this student likes a video game, our tools now allow for that to happen every day, every week.

Dan Lipson (17:09)

how it, I think the integration of, your enterprise solution of how like gaming brands and media brands might be working with it. So that's kind of.

Skyler Scarlett (17:17)

That this frustrates

me because one, I'm like, maybe I'm not as smart as I think I am. Or I'm like, maybe these people are just so far behind. like, I can't even imagine like, you know, I love the San Francisco Giants, right? Imagine them having their own GameClass. It's just San Francisco Giants content. Every week they could upload clips from the game the previous night and their fans, their young fans who are the more valuable than anyone to any business can interact and make lessons and bring them into the classroom.

Dan Lipson (18:25)

I think the one that caught my imagination, I you mentioned Netflix.

Skyler Scarlett (18:29)

yeah. And here's

what is going to blow your mind more. Game class can be done while they're watching it, not just recorded. We could do GameClass with the remote when we could have education mode in Netflix. You go to Netflix, turn on education mode, right? And all of a sudden, like we have a nice balance of the entertainment is there. So they're still like enjoying it, but then there's an overlay that's popping up on their phone or on the screen that is teaching them.

Dan Lipson (18:57)

if we got there, it's like if everyone bought into this, What could learn what could learning look like?

Skyler Scarlett (19:00)

Man, can you imagine learning in

the things that you love? Like being like, I'm going to go do my hobby, but also learn so you don't have to choose between one or the other. Like imagine being like, going to go, you I got the new Resident Evil game. It's awesome. But I'm going to choose education mode. It's only going to interrupt me every 10 minutes, but it's going to stick. And I can learn something that I've been trying to learn while also enjoying the game. So it's not going to ruin the entertainment experience, but it's going to be memorable enough for like, yeah, I learned too.

We have a patent on a market that I think is going to be such a game changer. It's really the idea of taking anything, entertainment or media and being able to transform that into education.

Dan Lipson (20:09)

yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (20:09)

so many partnerships there. think the one

thing that, might be hurting us is fair use. when you're dealing with bigger companies, they don't like gray areas. Fair use is gray. You don't.

claim fair use until you have to claim fair use. if we were to maybe get licenses, GameClass could look a lot different. here's your brand in front of so many people.

Dan Lipson (20:24)

you

Skyler Scarlett (20:29)

in a positive light. get the PR, you get the marketing reach. And it's almost like Roblox, right? Where they partner with these companies. Now they focus on just math, but they're using the license for Sega. mean, Nintendo is my dream, right?

Dan Lipson (20:35)

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (20:40)

Honestly, this would require doing something with Nintendo, which is, I know, a pipe dream. But can you imagine, like, the education mode in Nintendo Switch 2 for Mario Kart? I don't see how that could possibly fail.

Dan Lipson (20:52)

So I want to shift gears a little bit you mentioned you had some interest in psychology. we've talked about marketing, we've talked about legal, we've talked about teachers.

what kind of research has interested you and kind of excited you, I think both in education and psychology around kind of what you're doing.

Skyler Scarlett (21:07)

Great question. Now keep in mind, because I was exercise physiology, I looked at so many studies. That was my job, right? Like that was my role, like to review studies. I've seen a lot of studies and reports about video games being very beneficial. I know you've seen the same,

when I was at my cryo company, like I became really good at cells, just learning human psychology. And once I figured it out, it was almost like I felt unfair. Cause I'm like, I know exactly how this person is going to react and how I can do this or that. Now, when it comes to human nature of my daughter, if I tell her to do something, she rebels. But if she's forced, to go to school and you have to learn, you rebel. You don't want to do it, right? But if they can choose what they want to learn in, that's different.

Dan Lipson (21:29)

Mm.

Skyler Scarlett (21:48)

If I asked my daughter to make decisions, it's completely different. So when I look at psychology and like what psychology has taught us over the years, like GameClass makes a lot of sense.

Dan Lipson (21:59)

for GameClass and really even kind of your first startup, who were some of your, mentors and inspirations in what you were building and being a founder.

Skyler Scarlett (22:08)

You know, love entrepreneurs,

but I don't like, this is going to sound bad, but like, don't really like to always have that I want to explain so it doesn't come off weird, but I think if you, if you put someone up on like a platter too high, right. Like we're humans, but there's good and bad. No one's perfect. Right. And I, you know, I've reached out to a lot of people. I always appreciate the people that didn't ghost me. cause most are ghosted. Right.

Dan Lipson (22:32)

Mm-hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (22:34)

Dan Lipson (22:52)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (23:00)

They shouldn't put someone up so high like you're special as well. Like, you know what I mean? Don't give so much worth to someone else. Like, I hope what I'm saying is making sense to you.

Dan Lipson (23:04)

Yeah.

it's making sense to me because I probably have somewhat the same perspective and same experience.

Okay, you're putting this together this new thing. It's in games, but it's not in game. I'm kind of curious just kind of how you put together your team while you think about that, as this thing grows, what it looks like.

Skyler Scarlett (23:23)

Yeah

my team, mean, we use the

games person. Maybe it just depends, right? I I'm the games person on the team because I know so much about video games. I think again, we don't build video games. And again, like, would I like to work more with video game companies? Sure. I'd to. I don't know if that will ever happen. I think a lot of them were so polite and nice and supportive, but they would come to me and be like, look, don't tell anyone this. I love what you're doing, but like the higher ups will never support this.

Now Minecraft, okay, whole method, but Minecraft was not built for education. It was an entertainment game, but really backs up what Game Class is trying to do. Game Class's whole idea is don't spend time to build an educational game. Make the greatest entertainment game you can, and then we will take care of the education part.

So maybe I'm really close, maybe I'm far away, maybe I'm not talking to the right person. it's like your best friend being like, hey, I don't know if you're really my friend.

Meaning I felt like I love video games so much and I felt like I was doing this awesome thing, right? I'm not sure a lot of them care, but it caused me to do something interesting. I gave so much to video games, maybe, you know, this works for TV shows, movies, sports. I made that pivot and people loved it. And I think these other brands have been much more receptive.

Dan Lipson (25:10)

Mmm.

Skyler Scarlett (25:23)

I think if I had gone to a better reception or more help from higher ups, I don't think I would have made that pivot.

Dan Lipson (25:29)

this leads into a question that I'm really curious your take around the term games based learning versus gamification.

Skyler Scarlett (25:38)

can correct me I'm wrong. like, way I view it is like gamification is trying to make something feel like leaderboard, like noises, right? In gamification, I get the psychology behind it. I like game-based learning more. I don't know if people would really call us game-based learning. We're kind of our own category. Like game-based learning is like you're actually playing the video game. Now keep in mind, you know, because you know me, I want to get there. But that means I want GameClass to be in the consoles.

Dan Lipson (25:39)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (26:04)

on the PC, I want to do it where you're playing the game and learning with a controller or keyboard. I can, I know we can do it. Our patent covers it. We have the technology to do it. It's just, do I want to make an investment for these companies that just, again, haven't really shown any, like, we want to support you. If I had just one of them, I would go and do it. Cause if they supported it, I feel like it would be a success. would be everywhere.

Dan Lipson (26:28)

there's money in gamification. But I think games based learning was this thing

founded in a lot of educational theory on, how you going deeper? you mentioned Minecraft, another one that this talked about was things like civilization, or even something like Legend of Zelda, it's like Legend of Zelda teaches you things even just inherent in the game itself.

Skyler Scarlett (26:47)

nailed it completely. Gamification is what more people do because it brings money. Game-based learning is where the science actually is, that it's effective. There's not as much science of like, gamification is going to help you learn. It's more like it's going to get you to keep using something. And I think, you know, for GameClass, like I kind of need to do both, right? I care more about them retaining and learning and that's just who I am. And maybe, maybe that will stop my growth a little bit.

Dan Lipson (27:04)

Mm-hmm.

Skyler Scarlett (27:13)

because I care too much, but I hope people respect that, that I do care as much as I do. I'd rather have a product that works than one that makes a bunch of money because it's flashy.

Dan Lipson (27:23)

at the end of the day too, it's thinking about what is kind of the lasting impact of media? And it's like going back to kind of what I was talking about, digital literacy too, the experience itself is being improved by.

Okay, it adds better outcomes. You have people that are more engaged with it because...

Skyler Scarlett (27:38)

Imagine

the problems with it, right? Even like the education mode I want to do is optional, not forced into it. How could you get mad about a setting that you don't have to have on? And then as a parent, I think if anyone would love it, it's probably parents. think we feel really guilty as parents when our kids want too much screen time. You and my wife, you know, we have to kind of like fight our daughter for the iPad and stuff. But if I knew that I could put on education mode and she'd be learning, that'd make me feel so much better. Cause I don't think all screen time is created equally. I really don't.

Dan Lipson (27:41)

Yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (28:06)

I don't think too much free time is good regardless. think you got to cap it as her employee. But I know my daughter, people always think she's so brilliant. Like, what did you do? And I'm like, whoa, she was watching Miss Rachel at like one to two years old. And she learned a lot. She was doing the sign language stuff and like, it was really productive screen time.

Dan Lipson (28:24)

It's like the challenge a lot of times with games based learning. Cause it's like, I know there's a lot of people that are building serious games. They're building a lot of these, but, or they're like trying to do something like, Assassin's Creed for instance, did the, you did an educational platform. It's really cool. But I'm, I don't want to know how much that costed and how much they like .. It's like, yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (28:37)

Cool, right? Yeah.

Yeah, they put a lot of money into it and there's your problem,

right? I think they invested so much money when I probably could have done that for GameClass for nothing, right? On top. Like you get it. every day there's a new educational video game. Every day it's flooded, right? And I respect them and I'd have my daughter play them and I would, but I don't think they work that well. And I just want to be honest. I want to be realist. And this is just my opinion. The market is flooded.

Dan Lipson (28:50)

Yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (29:08)

The problem is a kid or a student looks at it and goes, that's not Fortnite. That's not Mario Kart. It's just not the same affinity or affection towards the characters. And they might play, and I wouldn't even be surprised if they choose it over the chalkboard, but they play it one time and they move on. And I've seen so many of these financial literacy companies, they'll do this. They'll build a game. all excited. And I'm like, I go and play and I'm like, this is cool, but it's not really a video game that your high schooler is going to.

Dan Lipson (29:12)

you

Skyler Scarlett (29:35)

really like and they might be playing because the teacher is asking them to play or because it gets them away from the chalkboard. But are they really invested in it? Are they really going to learn as much as if we took a video game that they loved and taught financial literacy through that? I don't think so. Curious on your thoughts.

Dan Lipson (29:52)

I remember it's like back in the like late nineties, early two thousands, I think when both of us are growing up is like there was games like Oregon Trail things like that, that era of kind of the PC, that era of PC games there were.

good learning games out there, but there are also just less games out there too. So it's like sometimes it's like you didn't have it. Yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (30:11)

know, to be honest, right, I loved Oregon Trail,

but also Oregon Trail was because we were in school and it was the only game we could play. If you had Oregon Trail versus Fortnite or Mario Kart, I would never have chosen Oregon Trail over Mario Kart. I wouldn't have. I'm not saying that some students wouldn't have. Yeah, but I don't think we'd have the option, like you said, if we could play Goldeneye or we could play Mario Kart or Oregon Trail. I think we all would have been on, you know, Goldeneye or Mario Kart.

Dan Lipson (30:17)

Exactly.

than Mario- er, not competitive. But yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (30:33)

So it, know, yeah. And I love your point about Assassin's Creed. I love that they did it. I think it's awesome. I think they probably put tons of money into it. I don't know what the results were, but again, I think they could have done that for like nothing the way I'm doing it.

Dan Lipson (30:48)

What does being a better gamer look like to you and how do you kind of see that growing and changing?

Skyler Scarlett (30:55)

When it looks at gaming, I see gaming as so much more than gaming. Like when we grew up, it was just gaming. Now it's like the best movies are video games, right? It used to be like the best movies would become video games. Now it's changing. And then I just look at like the way that video games are more respected. There's now 50 % of gamers are female. I love that, right? When we were growing up, it probably was like 10%. It's not like such a nerdy looking thing anymore. There's so much money you can earn in gaming now. If you're professional player, you know, e-sports.

You're an influencer. It's, in my opinion, the highest form of entertainment. I think it's going through a really interesting phase.

Dan Lipson (31:30)

what how do you think the industry will look like this time next year?

Skyler Scarlett (31:34)

I mean, I think a lot of people are looking for Grand Theft Auto to bring a lot of gamers back. I think it's really hard to with, uh, live up to the hype when you've waited 15 years. And I also think that a lot of the stuff that worked like our world is crazy right now. It's a lot of that satire and things are going to hit a little bit differently. And I think there's been so much violence that even a violent game is not the best timing. So, you know, will they do phenomenal numbers? Yeah, of course they will.

the ramifications of that game are going to be humongous. Now, as far as GameClass, I can't really use the game. I learned the hard way because you look, I always care about the students. And like for some people, Grand Theft Auto might be a great way to get them to pay attention, not the violent parts but other parts. But I know I did one LinkedIn post on like a marketing of a business in Grand Theft Auto and it got tore apart. And then I realized, okay, I can see why they were unhappy with it.

Dan Lipson (32:06)

Mm.

Skyler Scarlett (32:22)

I don't think I'm going to put Grand Theft Auto templates on the platform.

Dan Lipson (32:26)

looking at specifically Grand Theft Auto, but I think also looking at Roblox, you said, Roblox is very much more targeted at getting people into younger audiences. And so I think the other big trend that across seeing like UGC platforms and kind of the creator economy and this sense that, I guess how people kind of, and it sounds like you're

have always kind of had a background in multiplayer games. And so I think a big thing that, of course, looking around here is how communities are shaped and culture is shaped around games. And so I'm of curious how you're playing into that and kind of how you see that.

Skyler Scarlett (33:05)

UGC has become huge, right? Way bigger than I ever imagined. think, you know, like looking at Roblox, like being able to create your own game, share it. It's funny. It's not something that I can really play myself, just not into it. But I respect it knowing like when I was this age, when I had been into it and I'm like, well, if my friends were on there, I'm sure I would have been there.

Dan Lipson (33:22)

What are you kind most excited about for where things it's like

Ed Tech is progressing and the future of kind of the relationship, I think it really between games and media.

Skyler Scarlett (33:33)

I think they have to merge more for education because I think it'll be so successful for learning.

And what happens with GameClass they want, they get a glimpse of something they want more. Oh wow. That game looks fun. I'm going to go play it now.

and they go home and they tell their parent, want to buy the video game where I want to get a Netflix subscription because I, you know, I learned through physics with Stranger Things, right?

And for like sports teams, right? Like you're, always got to look at different ways you can connect with your fan base.

to be able to do something for families and teach them through gesture IP. You're not sharing with anybody. It's just your team, just your stuff. And then what you can do is when they perform well and they get good grades, they can use it on tickets. Now the money is coming back into the ecosystem, right? If you're earning points or gamification thing and you're scoring like A plus, you're getting good grades and after a couple months you had earned enough points to get two tickets to the Giants game, that's awesome.

Now you're giving back, you're also making money. Maybe they get like 50 bucks off a jersey, right?

Dan Lipson (34:31)

going back even to like the relationship between gamification and game base learning

if I'm a parent in five, 10 years, how will games and education and media and education look like? why should I be excited as a parent?

Skyler Scarlett (34:43)

Well, no kids ever gonna come to you saying, want you to buy this educational video game. Let's be honest, 50 years it hasn't happened. I'm gonna bet on human psychology and say for another 50 it won't. But I will think kids are so smart, you give them credit, right? If they come to your parents say, well, like, I know you don't wanna buy me any more video games, but I can learn, you know, a new language or I can learn, you know, algebra two through this game. They might go, I feel guilty, but you're gonna learn?

And they might go purchase the game. then when they're fighting with their kid, they're like, well, you only get to play 20 more minutes of eternal education mode. That's kind of what I see. That's what I kind of want to happen is, and again, I think my role is to make sure that the balance of entertainment education stays safe. Too much entertainment, right? We lose the education. Too much education, we lose the student. So really we have to have that, like that.

Dan Lipson (35:29)

you

Skyler Scarlett (35:35)

perfectly straight bridge of entertainment education. That's where I hope that I'm around to help with because one, I love video games and entertainment and movies. So I want to keep the entertainment. I also love learning. So even for me, I'm like, how would I use this where I want to have both? Right.

Dan Lipson (35:51)

Yeah.

I think the other thing from games based learning is it's, and I think the difference between games-based learning and gamification is gambling is gamification is like, there's so much, there's so much gamification in games and social platforms. language based learning has now been very well gamified, but

Skyler Scarlett (36:07)

Yeah.

Dan Lipson (36:08)

you lose some of the, I think the term is the meaningful play. It's they're not, it's the difference. think play is kind of another important piece of it.

Skyler Scarlett (36:13)

Well, yeah.

It's one of the reasons

I didn't want to raise money, money, we're going to be having gamification everywhere. it does make more money. Same reason why GameClass is more secure. We don't let like you message strangers. Well, that hurts our, you know, it hurts our platform for growth, but it's the right thing to do.

you said, like we understand why they're using it because it's addictive, but it's not good for, you know, a child's brain. So yeah, I want to, you know, of course I want to make money. want GameClass to be successful, but I also want to be a good person. So I hope I don't sell my soul.

Dan Lipson (36:48)

you looked a lot at kind of the user experience as well you're deep focused on that. it's like game design, it's like, when I hear gamification, it's like, you're doing the challenges, you're doing the rewards. But games are so much more to me than gamification, as games are like, you're thinking about the user experience, you're thinking about all these kinds of different elements, you're having...

Skyler Scarlett (37:00)

Yeah.

Dan Lipson (37:09)

problem, you're doing problem solving, you're doing all these things inherent in the game themselves.

Skyler Scarlett (37:11)

It's a great point. When you play a great game, don't

even realize how well they're doing it, right? Because it's working so well. It's when you get frustrated, you're like, why did they make this design choice? Like vectors didn't tell them how frustrating this is. Always blows my mind. But yeah, like a great game has to have a really clean UX user experience. You're not being frustrated, right? Constantly.

Dan Lipson (37:29)

Yeah. a lot of these multiplayer games is how you build these like communities Like communication was big for you and you learned a lot about communication through games themselves.

Skyler Scarlett (37:40)

ways that schools would never allow, like you do a sniper shot and you're like, what was the projectile? you could do like so much math and science with it. But I think as you get older and you're more in university, there's a lot to learn in those more mature games.

Dan Lipson (37:52)

what are kind of some other things that you've been enjoying lately? What do you enjoy outside of games?

Skyler Scarlett (38:02)

The beach, honestly, I'm so fortunate. live like 10 minutes from Carmel beach, beautiful beach, beautiful area. It's been so beautiful and sunny lately and to take my daughter and she likes to go in the ocean, even though it's freezing. Like it's been great because I'm unplugged. It's really hard for me. I mean, I own an AI patent. I'm a software person. I'm a tech guy, right? I'm on the computer all day, but go to the beach. leave my phone in the car. Like it's no technology. She's just me and my daughter, the sun, the sand, the ocean. And I've been loving that. I've been doing a lot of yard work, um, you know, on my

property, just felt really great. And then I've gotten really into patents. Just obsessive in a way. In fact, I'm trying to hopefully take the patent bar so I can be a I like it so much. I can do it on the side, but I just find inventions and patents fascinating. And I did so much work for Game Class myself I felt like I learned just about everything about patents and stuff.

Dan Lipson (38:43)

That's really cool.

Skyler Scarlett (38:54)

I built a pretty cool portfolio for GameClass, so I'm excited to do more in that area.

Dan Lipson (38:58)

Yeah, yeah, so you're kind of thinking of helping, maybe helping other people, helping your friends kind of yeah.

Skyler Scarlett (39:03)

I had a friend, came and he visited me and he had this great idea for something and he posted on LinkedIn. Like, you know, that's prior art, right? Like I learned these things because he publicly posted it's public disclosure, public disclosure. He has one year to file a patent before he loses it forever. idea. I have no clue about that. I just know so much about now. And I'm like, even like filing a patent, really not that expensive. It's not.

Dan Lipson (39:20)

interesting.

Skyler Scarlett (39:29)

So people are like probably underestimated like how much it really costs. So I can help friends do it for a lot less money. Yeah. There's a gold mine. It's like for AI, there is a gold rush. my, my AI software patent. Like if you have a method attached to AI, there's so many things out there people can get that will change the world that like you can't bypass that. If you're a tech company, like, Oh, wow, this person owns the patent for this. I'm gonna have to pay them or license it. There's so much out there still. Video games too, because I follow all the video game paths to see what all the companies are doing. I'm like, I'm watching you. I see what you're doing here. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there.

Dan Lipson (40:05)

So where can people learn more about Game Class and you and what you're working on?

Skyler Scarlett (40:15)

Really approachable anyone can come to want to talk to me. LinkedIn, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn as you know, and then know, www.gameclass.net. It's a free platform. It doesn't cost any money. You can go on there. We have a free library. We're working on a premium library, which is more like teachers actually review the content. It's subscription only. So I can't say that all the free content will be great. Some of the student stuff, but it's fun. And you'll see some stuff that you enjoy.

marketplace coming soon if you want to create and sell some stuff. And then like I said, within a month, I'm really excited for the AI stuff we're doing. I think the fact that you can come on and prompt that you want an Aaron judge home run lesson on velocity, and you'll get that in 15 seconds and that the student will love it. And you'll be like, wow, this is really good stuff is just gets me so excited. And I say that as someone that loves and hates AI, I love and hate it.

But the stuff that we're about to do, I don't think anyone's ever done. And you know a lot about, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone's ever at this scale been able to say, okay, we can take any media. And in 15 seconds, you'll have a quiz or a lesson that's accurate to what you watch teaching you.

Dan Lipson (41:18)

And so it's like, so in this day and age, so cool for teachers.

Skyler Scarlett (41:24)

Thank you. Yeah, I think teachers will love it once it becomes that easy. So before, even though I thought it was easy, it was still like, don't want to come home from school and spend 10 minutes building something. Now I can prompt it and bring it into the classroom in like 30 seconds. I'm in, hopefully. Never that easy, but we're getting there.

Dan Lipson (41:41)

Cool. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. This is really fun cover. Covered a lot of ground. We covered a lot of ground. So yeah Yeah

Skyler Scarlett (41:44)

Oh, Dan, I knew we'd have a great conversation. Yeah, was a very, very fun conversation with you. So thank you for inviting me.

Daniel Lipson

Episode 9 - Skyler Scarlett (GameClass)

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Episode 9 - Skyler Scarlett (GameClass)

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Episode 8 - Fay Lee (Far Out Solutions)

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