Failing Forward: What Insurabit Taught Me (And Why Savvy Scratch Exists)

Failing Forward: What Insurabit Taught Me (And Why Savvy Scratch Exists)

So I tried to build this massive thing once. Insurabit - an insurance fund denominated in bitcoin. And I don't mean "tried" like I halfassed it for a few weeks. I mean I went all in on trying to create something that would've required hundreds of millions of dollars to work.

Spoiler: I didn't raise hundreds of millions of dollars.

But that failure taught me more about building useful shit than any win I've had at the poker tables, and it's directly why Savvy Scratch exists the way it does today. So let me tell you what went wrong, what I learned, and how those lessons show up in the scratch-off tool I'm building now.

The Big Idea That Wasn't Big Enough (Or Was Too Big?)

The vision for Insurabit was actually pretty straightforward, even if the execution wasn't. Create a transparent insurance reserve where everything is on-chain and auditable. Price risk programatically instead of in closed door meetings. Pay claims fast. Hold the reserves in BTC to align long-term incentives and preserve purchasing power.

On paper? Makes sense. In reality? Four massive walls I couldn't climb:

Capital - Insurance is fundamentally a confidence game (the good kind). People trust you because you can pay when shit hits the fan. If the worst-case scenario costs nine figures, you need nine figures sitting there looking pretty before anyone takes you seriously. I had spreadsheets. I didn't have the war chest.

Trust and Timing - Even if you're doing everything perfectly, convincing institutions or whales to move that kind of money into something new - especially touching crypto - requires the right relationships at exactly the right market moment. I had some of that. Not enough.

Regulatory Reality - You can't just "disrupt" insurance from the outside. You have to negociate your way in, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, product by product. That's months and years, not weeks. I massively underestimated the friction.

The Chicken-Egg Problem - Without the capital, I couldn't prove the model worked at scale. Without proving it worked, I couldn't raise the capital. Classic catch-22.

I didn't get Insurabit off the ground. It stung like hell. But it also cleared my head in ways that mattered.

What I Got Brutally Wrong

I tried to start at the boss level. First version of the product needed elite trust and elite capital to even be useful. That's a terrible starting point unless you're a government or already have a megacorp behind you.

I overestimated how patient the market would be. Potential backers might love your model in theory, but capital flows to momentum. If you can't put wins on the board quickly, you fade from everyone's radar fast.

I thought "elegant idea" was enough. It's not. The market pays for useful, not elegant. Something you can touch and use today beats something you can imagine working beautifully tomorrow.

I tried building a skyscraper before pouring the foundation. Insurance with BTC reserves is like 10 floors up. I hadn't poured enough concrete underneath - actual users, real traction, smaller provable wins - to support that weight.

What I Still Think I Was Right About

Transparency wins eventually. People don't need perfect, they need honest and verifiable.

Aligned incentives matter more than marketing. If the structure makes sense, you need less convincing. The mechanics persuade on thier own.

There's real demand for fast, fair claims. Traditional insurance breaks hearts by being slow and opaque. Anything that's the opposite will attract customers who've been burned before.

Those beliefs didn't die with Insurabit. They just needed a different format - one that didn't require me to somehow conjure hundreds of millions of dollars and navigate decades of regulatory mazes.

The Stupidly Simple Lesson

Make something that delivers value NOW. To actual people. For reasonable money. Without asking the entire world to bend around your vision first.

That's Savvy Scratch.

I didn't wake up one day thinking "I should make an app." I wanted to apply the advantage player mindset - data first, timing matters, skip bad spots - to a problem regular players face every single day: picking scratch-off tickets without any real information.

No nine-figure fundraise needed. No permission slips. Just useful.

How Those Lessons Show Up Daily

1) Start where the customer actually is

At the gas station counter. Looking at 80 different tickets on the wall. One minute to decide. Savvy Scratch answers the only question that matters right then: Which tickets look best TODAY at my price point?

Not at launch. Not in theory. Today, right now.

2) Ship small wins consistently

Instead of "raise a massive fund first," we ship states one at a time. Each new state is a tangible win. Each one helps real players avoid bad purchases. Consistent reliability beats grand promises every time.

3) Be transparent about the damn data

We pull from official state prize databases, clean it up, sanity-check it, and tell you what's left that actually matters - the top prizes. If a game's jackpot tier is basically dead, its ranking drops. If it's healthy, it rises. No magic formulas, no hype.

4) Align incentives with users, not against them

I don't need you to gamble more to make my business work. I need you to make better decisions when you choose to play. If you buy less on bad days and more on good days, that's a win for you - which means you'll keep using the tool. Our incentives point the same direction.

5) Hide the complexity, show the clarity

Yeah, there's math happening behind the scenes - tracking remaining jackpots, claim pace, tier health. But the output is a simple ranked list by price that you can use in 10 seconds. Complexity in the engine, clarity on the screen.

6) Earn trust through repetition, not promises

"Trust me" is cheap. "Here's today's ranked list, same time tomorrow, every day" is expensive - and we pay that cost daily. Consistency builds trust way better than any sales pitch.

The Scars That Actually Help

Insurabit forced me to answer some uncomfortable questions:

Can you lead with verifiable value instead of pitch decks? Savvy Scratch does that every morning.

Can you separate your ego from the outcome? You can fail at something big and still be the right person to build the next thing. I'm the same guy who grinded tens of millions of poker hands and learned blackjack from actual legends - I just had to pick a problem that didn't require a sovereign wealth fund to solve.

Can you stay disciplined with your edge? Absolutely. Data first, timing matters, skip bad spots. We just apply that same code to scratch-offs now instead of cards.

Why Any of This Matters to Players

Look, you don't need my life story to buy a $10 scratcher. You need a clean answer to simple questions:

Are the big prizes still in circulation?

Is this game getting better or worse over time?

How does it stack up against other tickets at the same price?

Should I buy today - or skip and keep my money?

That's what Savvy Scratch gives you. The rest - the poker background, the advantage play training, the failed mega-project - that's just context for why I'm obsessed with getting those answers right.

What I'd Tell Past-Me

Pick the smallest valuable loop first. Not the most elegant or ambitious - the one that lets a real person say "that helped me today."

Default to proof over promises. Replace slide decks with screenshots. Replace "we will" with "we did."

Make the first win cheap for users. If the first win requires nine figures from someone, you picked the wrong first win.

Tell a simpler story. "Here's the best $10 ticket available today" lands with people. "Here's a revolutionary new global insurance structure" doesn't - not until you've earned credibility.

Keep your edge, narrow your scope. Be the same disciplined operator - just pick a problem that doesn't require changing the world's plumbing on day one.

Where This Takes Savvy Scratch

More states, methodically - We add coverage the same way we play advantage: carefully. If the data's messy, we fix it. If a state's being stubborn, we keep working it until the output feels trustworthy.

Better daily signals - We'll keep improving how we show "jackpot health" and "momentum" so you can see at a glance when a game shifts from meh to interesting.

Radical clarity - I don't want you hunting through five screens for info. Open the app, tap your price range, feel good about your choice - or feel good about skipping entirely.

No carnival barking - I won't sell you certainty or winning systems. I'll sell you discipline: avoid bad spots, take better ones, let the numbers lead.

The Quiet Promise

Insurabit taught me humility and patience. It taught me to build your foundation before swinging for the fences. Most importantly, it taught me that people don't need your masterpiece - they need your help.

Savvy Scratch is me helping. Taking the edge-player approach and applying it to a decision millions of people make every week. Not a fund. Not a fantasy. A tool that works. Reliable. Useful. Available right now.

If you're new here, the routine is simple:

• Open Savvy Scratch
• Pick your state
• Tap your price range
• Choose from today's top-ranked options - or skip if nothing looks good

That's it. No massive capital requirements. Just better choices, one ticket at a time.

Play smarter. Time your purchases. Let the numbers guide you.

Everything I learned the hard way is baked into the app.