Discover/Riding Unicorns

Investing in the future of KidsTech, Gaming and Media with Dylan Collins, Founder @ SuperAwesome (acq. Epic Games)

Riding UnicornsApr 30, 202543 min

Dylan Collins brings a rare perspective as a three-time founder who built gaming infrastructure that became the backbone of Call of Duty before creating SuperAwesome, the kid-safe tech company acquired by Epic Games. He challenges conventional wisdom about serial entrepreneurship, arguing that desperation and revenge drive repeat success more than confidence, while making a compelling case that Gen Z and Gen Alpha represent a fundamental shift toward default trading behavior across digital and physical platforms.

Key takeaways

  • •Serial entrepreneurs succeed through desperation and revenge, not confidence—survivorship bias masks the psychological drivers behind repeat founding.
  • •Gen Z and Gen Alpha are 'default traders' naturally comfortable buying, selling, and building across digital and physical platforms.
  • •Gaming infrastructure companies can become essential backbone technology for major franchises like Call of Duty through strategic acquisitions.
  • •Kid-safe technology represents an emerging category that major investors initially rejected but became valuable enough for Epic Games to acquire.
  • •Successful exits often come from identifying gaps that resource allocators dismiss but could evolve into entire market categories.

Listen to full episode

0:00
gamingkidstechserial-entrepreneurshipexits-acquisitionsgen-z-commerce

Best moment

3:40· 38spersonal lesson

Successful serial entrepreneur reveals his surprising motivation: desperation and revenge

3:40 / 4:18

repeat entrepreneurs on the podcast, but but not that many because there aren't that many. You've had a lot of six success, you know, over and over again. And so, what what is it? It it is looking for the like, what what is it that's been consistent through those companies? Like, has your mindset what's the mindset or the philosophy that has stayed with you consistently, or or has it changed through that journey?

I think to some degree, it has been about, like, somewhere between desperation and revenge. Like, you know, it's sort of like driving driving vectors. Like, you know, I think that it's

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5 clips

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Riding Unicorns

founder story

How a gaming tech startup became the backbone of Call of Duty

Dylan Collins shares how his early gaming technology company was acquired by Activision and became the foundational infrastructure powering the Call of Duty franchise. He explains how they built multiplayer gaming technology for console studios in the early 2000s before the acquisition.

0:30 - 0:4717s
gaming-infrastructureacquisition-storymultiplayer-gaming

Riding Unicorns

personal lesson

Successful serial entrepreneur reveals his surprising motivation: desperation and revenge

Dylan Collins, founder of SuperAwesome (acquired by Epic Games), opens up about the psychological drivers behind his serial entrepreneurship success. He reveals that his consistent motivation across multiple companies has been rooted in desperation and revenge rather than traditional business motivations.

3:40 - 4:1838s
serial-entrepreneurshipfounder-psychologymotivation

Riding Unicorns

contrarian take

Why most serial entrepreneurs fail: the survivorship bias trap

Dylan Collins explains why serial entrepreneurs often struggle with subsequent ventures due to survivorship bias. He argues that success teaches you nothing, and founders who attribute their wins to skill rather than luck often get "killed" by overconfidence in their next company.

5:45 - 6:0621s
survivorship-biasserial-entrepreneursfounder-psychology

Riding Unicorns

Business Mechanics

And we're saying, well, we think you're wrong. Like, it was sort of a a process of all of those things with with Super Awesome that it was like realizing, one, that was the gap. Two, that it was actually more than a gap. It was gonna become a or it could become a category, you know, in terms of that kid tech space.

Classic contrarian positioning ('we think you're wrong') combined with framework for identifying category creation opportunities. Shows the progression from gap to category creation.

12:36 - 12:5923s

Riding Unicorns

market insight

Gen Z and Gen Alpha are default traders comfortable buying and selling everything

Dylan Collins explains how Gen Z and Gen Alpha have fundamentally different behaviors around commerce, naturally engaging in trading across physical platforms like Vinted and Depop, digital assets like crypto, and virtual goods in gaming platforms like Roblox. This generational shift represents a new default mindset toward building, buying, and selling that differs from previous generations.

23:22 - 23:4522s
generational-behaviordigital-commercegaming-economy

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