News

Achieving growth starts with change.

By Skillz on August 31, 2022 in Blog Posts

Skillz has undergone tremendous change in the past few months as we gear up toward profitable growth. We have streamlined our workforce, restructured our organization, and made tough decisions for the health of our company. At times like these, I remind myself that adversity can be a powerful force for positive change.

Our business is based on competition for a reason. Competition holds the power to ignite what’s possible in all of us. This competitive spirit is an inseparable part of Skillz, and what has been the guiding light behind our incredible growth and recognition to date. This is not the first time Skillz has faced uphill challenges, but through focus, grit, and leadership, we have always won against all odds. But winning comes at a cost, and achieving excellence is an iterative process. We are fully focused on winning with excellence, which requires us to make these tough decisions along the way.

Despite this time of change, we remain dedicated to our mission. We exist to bring out the best in everyone through competition. That includes bringing out the best of Skillz for our shareholders, developers, players, and employees. We acknowledge our role in unlocking economic opportunity for those who depend on us. We take this responsibility very seriously as we stride toward fixing our present and building our future. When we went public, we had enviable payback periods of six months lifetime value (LTV) over customer acquisition cost (CAC) — an incredible number for any company. We are not delivering on that metric today and we are working to change that. There is no reason we can’t get there again and investors will be thrilled when we do.

As you may know, I have come back to lead the product organization in order to correct some of the missteps we have made. With a great team behind me, I am energized by our roadmap and the progress we are already making on our platform. Along with my renewed engagement with the product, we have brought in Jason Roswig as our President and CFO. Jason brings years of performance-driven success to Skillz, and his focus will be on right-sizing our organization to ensure we capitalize on the incredible platform that we have built over the last ten years. Jason is overseeing the entire Skillz workforce to ensure we have the right people to get us to the next level of maturity. Together, we are making hard decisions at every level of the organization, including our Board of Directors.

Recently, we parted ways with a number of Board members. We are grateful for their contributions and for supporting our journey. To ignite the next chapter of Skillz, we are excited to welcome our new Board members who come with a different perspective on our potential and the path forward. These include Seth Schorr, who brings extensive experience in interactive gaming and entertainment, as well as Henry Hoffman, who will apply his deep financial services expertise to Skillz.

Despite these challenging times, I believe we will come out stronger. We’ve learned some hard lessons, but remain convinced in the power and potential of our platform. We are humbled, committed, and eager to return shareholder value and hopeful for the same level of commitment from all of you. 

Game on!

Andrew Paradise

CEO

Skillz Named One of Parity.Org’s 2022 Best Companies for Women to Advance

By Skillz on July 29, 2022 in Blog Posts

Today, Skillz was named to the 2022 Parity.Org Best Companies for Women to Advance™ List for the second year in a row – an important achievement of which we’re incredibly proud. 

The ParityLIST™ , established by Parity.org, recognizes organizations creating a culture and conditions in which women can rise through recruiting, promotion, compensation practices, leadership representation, and other practices that collectively help companies achieve gender parity. Organizations with this recognition have benefits, programs, and policies that ensure women have significant opportunities to advance their careers, and which foster an equitable work environment.

Parity.org is the leading organization working to eliminate the racial and gender gap in corporate leadership, where the gap is the widest. Founded in 2017, Parity.org’s mission is to create parity in leadership for women, and it expanded that focus in 2020 to include people of color. The organization takes a pragmatic approach, offering simple but proven tools to help organizations not only reach – but sustain – parity in leadership. 

As the leading mobile games platform dedicated to bringing out the best in everyone through competition, equality is core to who we are. Today, Skillz is the home of competition for all. Like our namesake, we believe that everyone has winning skills, regardless of gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other identity. Our passion for equality also extends to our company culture. Forging and sustaining an environment where all people can thrive is paramount to our mission, values, and growth. 

“For me personally, and for Skillz as a whole, gender parity is essential, not just an initiative. It’s an ongoing journey that requires constant commitment, learning, and openness to change,” said Andrew Paradise, CEO and Founder of Skillz. “It’s how we attract the best people, develop the best teams, and produce the best work. Building for communities means we must be a reflection of those communities.”

The 2022 ParityLIST honorees share a number of policies and practices in common, such as:

• Flexible working hours (98%)
• Paid sick leave for both full-time (100%) and part-time (79%) employees
• Equal family leave for both men and women (84%)
• A culture of encouraging men to take their full family leave (95%) 

In addition, 91% require recruiters to include at least one qualified woman on every candidate slate for executive positions reporting to the CEO, and virtually every company has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment while regularly communicating its gender-equality values to employees. 

Skillz innovates across the gaming industry by making esports accessible to everyone. Thus, fairness, accessibility, and inclusion are critical elements of our ideals and identity – which is why we’re proud to share that Skillz follows all of these practices. 

“The pandemic created a substantial setback for female advancement in the workforce,” said Cathrin Stickney, Parity.Org Founder and CEO. “But the companies that made this year’s ParityLIST not only got back on track, they sped past all expectations. I could not be happier to report that 70% of this year’s honorees have an Executive Team that is 30%+ women, 77% have a VP team that is 30%+ women, and 72% have reached pay parity!” 

“The parity problem is complex – but it’s not insurmountable,” said Stickney. “The extraordinary performance of this year’s honorees proves that a genuine commitment and focus, coupled with the right tools, measures, and practices, will absolutely move the needle toward fairness.”

For more details on this recognition, visit: www.parity.org/best-companies 

For more information on why Skillz was named a “Best Company for Women to Advance” and how to join our mission to bring out the best in everyone through competition, visit the Skillz careers page or follow us on LinkedIn.

The Meaning Behind Our Mission

By Skillz on July 14, 2022 in Blog Posts

Every great company hits a pivotal moment when it needs to define what it stands for and why the world should care. As Skillz turned ten this year, this inflection point became imminent as we continue building our future as an industry leader and pioneer in our space.

When Skillz was founded in 2012, we were motivated by the fact that gamers could not compete in the same way that athletes do in physical sports, despite the growing popularity of video games. Back then, the term “esports” was virtually unknown – but we were ready to take on the challenge to bring competitive gaming to everyone. 

Our passion for leveling the playing field also extends to mobile game developers. Since our inception, we have empowered developers to create thriving businesses, while in return providing players everywhere with access to fair, fun, and meaningful competition.

To grow our business within mobile gaming and beyond, we needed to unearth further meaning in competition and why it matters. 

As human beings, we are all wired to compete. It’s how we survive and thrive on Earth.
You could say we are called the human race for a reason – from the Olympics to the World Cup, from the race to the moon to the race to Mars. The reason we have vaccines, electric cars, and even better burgers has been, in one way or another, a product of competition. It’s a vital and healthy part of our ecosystem. Without it, we have no context of where we stand and how far we can go.

While competition is so innate to human progress, the concept of competition is filled with tension. For many, competition means rivalry – a zero sum game where there is only one winner. But if we dig deeper into the original meaning of competition (in Latin, “competere”) it actually means to “strive together.” This energy exchange we obtain from competition is a critical part of our society – in business, fashion, music, sports, education, healthcare, and gaming.

This led us to an untapped, yet powerful insight: 

Competition is not a game of win or lose. It’s the force that ignites what’s possible in all of us.

We at Skillz believe that everyone has winning skills, regardless of age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or any other identity. Our player base is a reflection of this truth. Our role in the world is to create the home of competition, where everyone deserves to achieve an epic win – something that only a few of us may get to experience in the physical world. For that reason, mobile gaming is so much more than a form of entertainment – rather, it is a force of ACHIEVEMENT.

This belief inspired our new, evolved mission:

“Bring out the best in everyone through competition.”

With our mission, we are energized by maximizing human achievement across four pillars of commitment:

• Build Community:
  Grow inclusive, engaged communities that inspire self-expression and connection 
• Drive Commerce:
  Unlock economic opportunity for developers and premium experiences for players
• Nurture Champions:
  Guide, educate, and inspire to help players and developers level up 
• Power Change:
  Help transform lives through fair, inclusive practices

Our new logo and brand identity is a visual expression of our mission. Our colors champion “blue” vs. “red” as timeless elements of head-to-head competition. Our symbol expresses two equal sides coming together in fair competition to achieve something new, while our logo has been updated to be more inclusive of our growing community.

We’re on a journey to build the home of competition for all, and we’re incredibly excited about our path forward. Together, we’ll enable game developers to share their art with the world, empower players to unleash their inner champion, and ultimately, help everyone achieve their potential. 

Join us.

Honoring the Freedom to Choose

By Skillz on June 25, 2022 in Blog Posts

Dear Skillzians, 

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, removing the U.S. Constitutional right to abortion that was upheld for almost half a century. 

This decision has implications on a profound level. Not only does it bring significant uncertainty and complexities from both a legal and policy perspective as we navigate various laws across the U.S., but also on a personal level – questioning the very core of our rights and freedom of choice.

With a mission to maximize human achievement through competition, we generally, as a company, seek not to engage in political issues. However in this case, we see it as a healthcare issue, and a basic human right we must address.

At Skillz, we believe that access to healthcare and protection of reproductive rights is critical to our humanity, our communities, our industry, our economy – and most importantly, our progress toward equality. With our value of honor in mind, I am deeply passionate about supporting the diverse perspectives and needs of our people. 

In light of this decision, we’ll be expanding our benefits offerings for U.S. full-time Skillzians, effective immediately. We will continue to support equitable access to healthcare, which is why we will do everything we can under the law to support you – our Skillzians – in accessing healthcare regardless of where you live across the U.S. Specifically, we’re updating our benefits policy to cover travel expenses for employees who choose to have an abortion and live in a state where they are prohibited.

We’re committed to taking care of our Skillzians, and bringing out the best in everyone. We believe that achieving your best starts with the freedom of choice.

Andrew Paradise

CEO, Skillz Inc. 

Celebrating 10 Years at Skillz

By Skillz on March 28, 2022 in Blog Posts

Skillz was officially founded on March 28, 2012 by a small team working in an attic in Boston, at a time when the term “esports” was virtually unknown. Since then, we’ve been on a journey to shape the future of competition. We’ve come a long way in those 10 years, and have grown from that small attic, to the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc 5000, to the first publicly traded mobile esports platform. 

Some highlights over the last decade include: 

• 2012: 
  • Founded Lookout Gaming – our stealth mode name for Skillz Inc. 
  • Secured seed funding of $500,000
  • Established our first office in Boston, MA
• 2013: 
  • Launched our proprietary platform
  • Secured Series A funding of $9.8 million
  • Established our office in San Francisco, CA

• 2014: 
  • Launched our Skillz loyalty program, called Ticketz
  • Reached $4 million in gross marketplace volume
• 2015:
  • Secured Series B funding of $15 million 
  • Reached $20 million in gross marketplace volume 
• 2016:
  • Launched bracketed tournaments on our platform
  • Moved our Boston team to San Francisco, creating our HQ
• 2017:
  • Recognized as the #1 fastest-growing company on the Inc. 5000
  • Became first esports company named to the CNBC Disruptor 50
  • Secured Series C funding of $16.5 million
  • Reached $100 million in gross marketplace volume

• 2018:
  • Recognized as one of Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Companies
  • Named to the Entrepreneur 360
  • Secured Series D funding of $25 million
• 2019:
  • Recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies
  • Secured Series D-1 funding of $25 million 
  • Established our office in Portland, OR
  • Reached $500 million in gross marketplace volume
• 2020:
  • Established our office in Las Vegas, NV
  • Reached $1 billion in gross marketplace volume 
  • Went public on the New York Stock Exchange

• 2021: 
  • Acquired Aarki, establishing ourselves as a truly global company
  • Recognized as one of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators, 
  • Named to Parity.org’s Best Companies for Women to Advance
  • Awarded San Francisco Business Times’ Best Places to Work in the Bay Area
  • Reached $2 billion in gross marketplace volume 

Now here we are in 2022. We’ve already accomplished big milestones like announcing our new partnership with UFC and the finalists for our NFL Developer Challenge – and it’s only March! 

We wouldn’t be able to celebrate our 10th anniversary without the hard work and dedication of our employees, developer partners, player community, investors, and many more. We’re proud to share each milestone with everyone that has helped us level up along the way. Together, we are building something incredible through our competitive mobile games platform, running billions of esports tournaments for millions of players each year. 

While our technology and team have grown a lot over the years, the mission has remained the same. The Skillz platform enables mobile game studios to create successful businesses, so they can focus on what they do best – building great games. 

Today we celebrate the achievements of the past, but we also set our sights on the possibilities of the future. Back in 2012 the mobile gaming market was $8 billion, today it’s more than $90 billion, and in 2025 it’s projected to exceed $160 billion.

Much like mobile games, Skillz has been on a rapid growth trajectory that’s still in its early days. In the short time that’s passed since we first set out on this ambitious path, we’ve created an innovative platform that provides a better experience for users and enables better monetization for developers.

It’s a massive opportunity and we’re still in the early innings – we can’t wait to show you what that future holds.