Metafy

Metafy operates an online platform that connects players with top-ranked gamers and gaming creators. Each game has its own hub where creators publish guides, offer coaching, run events and link Discord communities, and where players browse and buy what they need. Core products include one-on-one Sessions booked from a partner's calendar (with screen sharing, custom games or replay review, usually conducted over Discord voice chat), group Events and workshops that are recorded for ticket holders, on-demand Guides in video or written form, Communities with free and paid membership tiers offering gated content, discounts and early access, gated Discord roles tied to membership tier, polls, and Fundraisers through which supporters fund a creator's equipment or projects.

The platform covers more than 200 games, spanning large titles such as Pokémon TCG, Rocket League, League of Legends, Super Smash Bros., World of Warcraft and Fortnite as well as niche indie games and trading card games. Players create a free account, choose a Metafy Partner based on profile, accomplishments and reviews, and pay on-site through Whop, Metafy's payment provider; purchased guides and event recordings remain accessible in the account library. After sessions, players rate and review partners and can message them for follow-up.

The company was founded during the Covid-19 pandemic by Josh Fabian and Tom McNiven and is associated with Pittsburgh and Blairsville, Pennsylvania. It has grown partly through acquisitions of other coaching and course platforms, including U.K.-based GamersRdy and Copenhagen-based GamerzClass.

Founding story

Josh Fabian, a self-taught coder who was a nationally ranked Yu-Gi-Oh! player as a teenager, worked as a web designer at Obaz and then Groupon after Groupon acquired Obaz. He earned about $40,000 in six months coaching games he streamed on Twitch and YouTube, and later found that a top-ranked Pokémon TCG player willing to coach his children for $20 an hour supported himself with a minimum-wage warehouse job. Concluding that many elite players could not earn a living from their skill, Fabian and Tom McNiven — a software engineer he had hired for his earlier anime-and-manga social platform Kitsu — began building Metafy in their spare time. During the pandemic they joined Product Club, a San Francisco accelerator run by former Tinder vice president Jeff Morris Jr., which provided $100,000 in startup funding and investor connections.

Business model

Metafy is a two-sided marketplace: gaming creators and partners list coaching sessions, guides, events and membership tiers, and players buy them on the platform. Creators set their own offerings and prices, including bundle packages such as buy-five-sessions-get-one-free. Metafy handles discovery, scheduling and payments, with payment processing provided by Whop.

Creators choose between two plans. The Core plan costs $0 per month and charges a 12% + $1.79 fee on each transaction, applying to sessions, memberships, guides, events and tips. The Pro plan costs $69 per month billed annually or $99 per month billed monthly, includes all Core features and takes zero revenue share. In 2022 the company was described as making money from a 5% fee charged to each student.

Traction

Creators have collectively earned more than $10,000,000 on the platform. By July 2022 Metafy reported more than 50,000 users and thousands of coaches, coverage of 200+ games, and monthly platform spend of roughly $200,000 in late 2021, up from $76,000 in April 2021 and $190,000 in September 2021. Coaches on the platform grossed over $1 million in 2021. The company was described in July 2022 as not close to profitability.

Latest developments

Metafy's current creator offering is structured around two subscription tiers — free Core with per-transaction fees and $69–$99 per month Pro with no revenue share — spanning communities, memberships, sessions, events, guides, gated Discord access, polls and fundraisers, with payments handled by Whop and cumulative creator earnings surpassing $10 million.