About this article
Hi! My name is Thang, I’m the author of this site. In the past few years, I have been working in fast-paced product development environments, building solutions for different sectors as a product manager. In the process of development, PMs are expected to possess a diversity of skills and knowledge to deal with different situations. In this article, I will share my experiences at Sky Mavis, a company that taught me a lot about stakeholder management and dealing with a political environment.
About Sky Mavis
In the minds of many game players growing up in Vietnam, Sky Mavis might not have come to the top of minds when they were asked about a game company. But that doesn’t reflect the level of achievement of Sky Mavis, which few companies can compare. Sky Mavis is a young company founded in 2018 by a Vietnamese tech enthusiast, Nguyen Thanh Trung, with a vision of creating gaming experiences with the power of blockchain.
Their flagship product, Axie Infinity, became the embodiment of this vision. Axie Infinity wasn’t just a monster-battling game; it was a digital nation teeming with adorable, collectible creatures called Axies. Players could breed, raise, and battle their Axies, all while earning tokens that could be traded for real money. This “play-to-earn” model was revolutionary, attracting millions of players worldwide and propelling Sky Mavis to unicorn status (a startup valued over $1 billion).
How it started
Regardless of the success of many web3 companies, and the fact that blockchain technology isn’t new, its practical aspect still burdens me. On the other hand, in my mind, I believe that we can never truly understand something if we don’t invest decent time in learning and actually applying it in our daily lives. That said, before applying to any blockchain companies, I spent weeks learning courses by courses from Edx, Coursera to Youtube, just to know how this technology works. Eventually, it led me to the decision to let myself emerge into the blockchain world, and Sky Mavis gave me that opportunity.
My first days at work finally came. It wasn’t easy, there wasn’t a clear problem statement or strategy that needed a product person. When I joined, the company had passed its glory days and was looking for new directions. The heads of the company say that they just hire more talents to sit together and brainstorm for the next steps of the company. That’s a weird yet interesting situation, cause I’m a guy that can find my own paths.
Find the problem that is worth solving
Without direction, for the first 2 weeks, most of my time was spent learning about the companies, the web3 gaming market, and the competitors. During the process, one of the problems that was repetitively mentioned across the findings is that Sky Mavis is missing products for developers. On the other hand, the community of developers in Sky Mavis ecosystems is huge, and not just individual developers, professional game studios partnering with Sky Mavis are missing sufficient tools and support. These are proof that there is potentially a market with an unmet need.
Many meetings and discussions were conducted with the engineering and product leaders. Together, we discussed the opportunity of building dedicated products for developers and defined some of the first problem statements and target audiences. After 1 week, as a result, a small group of 5 engineers was formed, and I was designated as the product owner. Our mission was to create products that enable game studios to build and monetize based on the underlying Sky Mavis’s blockchain technology.
Progresses and Challenges
After 2 months of work, we were able to release the very first product, a Developer Portal. Day by day, the APIs and documents included in the portal quickly become more and more substantial to the developers in the Sky Mavis ecosystem. The requests to the portal grew quickly leading us to the decision of expanding the team. Our engineering squad grew to 2 different squads with more than 12 developers with 2 different focuses, one is offering solution support, while the other is building developer products that support our vision. Some of the other notable products of the team were later developed are Mavis Store, Mavis Account/MPC Wallet project, Mavis Pay, etc.
These initiatives opened and played a pivotal role in a new line of strategy for Sky Mavis that focuses on supporting game studio partners in creating the next big web3 games.
Regardless of some fruitful results, our squads faced extreme difficulties in working with other engineers in the company. Implicit and scattered team cultures prevent different squads from working effectively with each other. As a product manager, you are expected to possess a diversity of skills and knowledge to deal with different situations. In this case, it required stakeholder management and working in a political environment, and at Sky Mavis, I learned them in a hard and bitter way.
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