The team at Kharkiv startup Lobby9 is creating a platform that combines a social space for gamers with an AI assistant that helps them complete games 100%. The startup has already attracted over 60,000 users to its waiting list, entered the US market, and been accepted into The Residency program, whose startup advisor is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
AIN spoke with Lobby9 founder Vlad Polikarpov about the startup’s journey, challenges, participation in The Residency, and how Lobby9 plans to integrate the Ukrainian gaming community into the global market.
Tell us about Lobby9
Lobby9 is a social platform for gamers with a built-in AI assistant. Simply put, it’s a place where players can find a team, communicate, create communities, share their gaming experiences, and discuss strategies.
In addition to the social aspect, we are developing an AI assistant that helps players find hidden content, complete games 100%, find the best tactics for boss battles, select builds and strategies, and explain how to play a particular game. In this way, AI acts as a personal coach for each player.
Concluding, Lobby9 is a platform where gamers can find other players, connect AI to help them in games, and showcase their gaming style. A player’s profile will show whether they are a speedrunner, a Soulslike fan, or mainly play mobile games.
In the future, we plan to add a loyalty system where players can play games, collect points, and exchange them for physical prizes or discounts at partner stores. We already have a group of partners readies to cooperate, including companies such as Wellmart and GameStop.
What games will be available on the platform?
Absolutely all that are available on Steam, Epic Games, PlayStation, and Xbox.
What results do you have?
We have launched the MVP and started adding players from the waiting list. Before we started anything, we conducted Customer Development (CustDev) — we described the product concept, posted it in gaming communities and companies, and collected feedback. What to do, what not to do, how to do it better. Overall, we received good feedback on the idea. And that motivated us to start developing this thing.
Over the past 7–8 months, we have been actively working on developing the platform. For the first 4 months or so, we focused on customer development — researching concepts, analyzing the market, and evaluating whether it was worth continuing the project. We wrote posts on Reddit, Discord channels, and other social networks, gathering feedback to understand what worked and what didn’t.
During this time, we gathered over 60,000 users on the waiting list and received about 7–8 million views on social media, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. This helped us understand the demand and confirm interest in the platform even before its launch.
Will the platform be free or paid?
The platform will be free to use, but we will also have a subscription and Battle Pass, which will give access to the full version. For example, artificial intelligence will work like ChatGPT. That is, the full version will be paid, while the limited version will be free to use.
Which market are you targeting?
The US. In general, almost all of our audience and views are from the US. For example, if you look at TikTok or Instagram metrics, about 50% are from America, and the second largest is the UK. About 20% are from other countries — Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc. Germany, Poland, and Spain account for 3% to 5%.
We don’t have an Asian market at all right now, but we are in contact with a fund that invests in companies interested in the Japanese market.
When do you plan to launch the product?
I think we will launch the full version sometime in late 2026 or a little later. In addition, we have assembled a group of players who have been given early access, and they are thoroughly testing the web application and providing feedback. Based on this feedback, we are refining the platform. Because of this, development may be delayed.
But we are developing a platform by gamers, for gamers. Our focus is on developing a convenient platform that gamers will use every day.
What were the biggest challenges you faced when creating the platform?
There will be many more. They are gradual. For example, the first challenge was the development itself. As the waiting list grows, more and more users write that they want to use it, but the development is not ready yet. You have to make sure that they don’t go anywhere, don’t hate on you in public, and wait for the release.
Another challenge will be Paywall. This is always a challenge for everyone. Then there is testing artificial intelligence with players and implementing it in different types of games.
Personally, for me, the challenge right now is communicating with Sony Interactive.
The global challenge is that the gaming market is currently in a very deep recession. That means getting someone interested in investing in you is already a big challenge.
On top of all this, part of our team is based in Ukraine. We are developing a project or need to make an important call to investors, and there is no electricity. That’s it, no connection, no electricity.
“We are a Ukrainian startup”
Our task is to make Ukraine heard and to completely separate the Ukrainian community from the Russian one. After all, there are similar Russian services that Ukrainians still use. And to integrate the Ukrainian gaming community into the Global Market.
About The Residency
The Residency is an international acceleration program for startups and tech teams, founded by Nick Linck, with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, acting as a startup advisor. It combines mentoring, networking, and co-living for participants, creating an environment for innovative projects to flourish. The program is aimed at founders and creators with global ambitions who are working on breakthrough ideas in technology and artificial intelligence.
It is very similar to other accelerators, such as Speedrun, in terms of positioning requirements. That is, in the first week, you prepare a description and pitch of the product, and they tell you what to do, best practices, etc. Then you complete the first milestone and must implement and mark all the knowledge you have gained.
The Residency is different in that you have to win to get in. They selected approximately 50 startups out of 1,600 applicants. Only three of them will be winners. The winners will receive investments from partner funds and live in San Francisco, at The Residency itself. They pay for flights, three months of accommodation, and help with visas and integration into the Silicon Valley startup community.
This time, we passed the selection process in two days, whereas last time we didn’t even get a response. This year, we already had a formed idea and early traction, albeit non-financial, but it was there. And then we got a response and were accepted into the program.
The only thing I want to note about the program is that they aimed for Y Combinator and a16z speedrun, but they clearly don’t have the budget to reach those programs.
What are the benefits of such a program for startups?
They are extremely useful.
Such programs provide valuable experience, including how to pitch properly and what investors pay attention to. They also help you understand how to communicate effectively with American companies and investors, because people who do not live in the US often do not understand the peculiarities of the local mentality.
For teams like ours, which are partly based in Ukraine and partly in Europe, such programs are especially useful. They allow us to collaborate with American mentors, get advice on pitching, preparing the company for fundraising, legal aspects, the right go-to-market strategy, data collection, product positioning, and avoiding common mistakes.
Any training and any contribution to the team is always valuable. Therefore, I believe that it should be mandatory. I would highly recommend, especially to early-stage founders, to apply and participate in such programs.
It was important for me that my team saw how it works in the US. The program may not provide direct investment. However, it will give you an understanding of how it works, how to communicate with funds, how to pitch to them, how to establish connections with founders who have already raised money, gone through several programs, or something else.
What advice can you give startups to get into such programs?
It is worth applying again and again, improving your pitch deck each time — make it as clear as possible: clearly show what you do, why you do it, the market size, the startup’s potential, the team, your current traction and roadmap for a certain period.
There are many great startups that applied once or twice, didn’t get in, and never applied again.
If you don’t succeed once, you will succeed another time.
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