Modulate’s Thought Leadership Strategy: Building Trust in Gaming Through Regulatory Education

When most startups think about thought leadership, they focus on product features or technical capabilities. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Modulate CEO Mike Pappas revealed how educating gaming companies about regulatory compliance became a powerful growth driver.

The Regulatory Knowledge Gap

The gaming industry faces an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. “There’s a huge amount of activity these days in safety and privacy regulation,” Mike explains. “Europe, the UK, Australia, of course, here in the states, there’s tons of activity of people trying to update old laws, pass new laws.”

This creates a significant challenge for most gaming companies. While “Facebook or Roblox have the resources to read thousands and thousands of pages of regulations and figure out what exactly they’re being asked to do,” Mike notes that “most games are not that size.”

From Product Vendor to Strategic Advisor

Recognizing this knowledge gap, Modulate transformed their approach from purely selling voice moderation technology to becoming regulatory guides. Their thought leadership strategy focuses on “first of all, providing the education to these platforms that don’t otherwise have the resources to really wrap their head around such a complex legislative landscape.”

Building Trust Through Education

The complexity isn’t just in understanding individual regulations. As Mike explains, “You have the opposite kinds of bills trying to prevent platforms from imposing too much moderation or restricting certain kinds of dialogue.” This creates confusion about what good moderation actually looks like.

Modulate’s thought leadership addresses this by helping platforms understand “what’s the standard, what’s the normal way to solve these problems.” Their goal is to “smooth out those edges by having enough sort of discussion out there about here is just what good looks like that everyone has kind of agreed on.”

From Education to Influence

But their strategy goes beyond just explaining regulations. “By providing that thought leadership, by opening those conversations, we can actually influence that legislation, too,” Mike shares. This positions Modulate not just as a technology provider, but as a shaper of industry standards.

This approach aligns with their broader vision of being “not just a vendor to a platform. We really want to be a partner,” as Mike emphasizes. Sometimes this means saying “we’re not the right partner for you to actually solve this particular shape of problem.”

The Results

The success of this strategy is evident in their growth. “Over last year, we more than forexed in our annual recurring revenue,” Mike shares, including partnerships with major gaming studios like Call of Duty. Their thought leadership approach has helped them build deeper, more strategic relationships with gaming platforms.

The Broader Impact

This strategy has implications beyond just sales. By helping establish industry standards for voice moderation, Modulate is shaping how platforms think about safety. Their goal is to give platforms “a good guiding light around what does it actually mean to be a responsible technology provider and what are my obligations and how am I going to pursue that in a way that’s actually going to help my users.”

Lessons for B2B Startups

Modulate’s approach offers valuable lessons for B2B startups operating in regulated industries:

1. Identify knowledge gaps that affect customer decision-making
2. Position your expertise as a strategic asset beyond your product
3. Help establish industry standards rather than just following them
4. Build trust through education before pushing for sales
5. Focus on long-term partnerships over quick transactions

The key insight is that in complex regulatory environments, customers often need education and guidance more than they need features. By positioning themselves as trusted advisors who can help navigate this complexity, Modulate has turned regulatory challenges into a strategic advantage.

This story demonstrates that effective thought leadership isn’t about promoting your product – it’s about helping your customers succeed in their broader mission. For Modulate, that means not just providing voice moderation technology, but helping gaming platforms become more responsible and effective stewards of online communication.