Bay Area artist Danielle Baskin is no stranger to entrepreneurship. However, her latest venture is quite different from her past ventures – instead of being a performance art piece, it’s a tech company. And even though it may seem like a joke, she proudly pitches it as “SaaS for witches.”
This isn’t an exaggeration. Moonlight is an online platform for tarot readings, where you can draw cards solo, join a multiplayer session, or even book a session with a verified tarot professional (hence the SaaS aspect).
Many founders strive to have just one great idea, but Baskin has an abundance of them. Some of her performance art projects have unexpectedly evolved into legitimate businesses. One such project involved the concept of trading swag at conferences – instead of receiving generic corporate merchandise, attendees could trade for a Salesforce-branded avocado. While this idea was met with positive feedback, the COVID-19 pandemic halted its progress.
Baskin has also been the driving force behind Dialup, an app that connects strangers via one-on-one phone calls. She also has a knack for crafting humorous products, such as OneHoodie (a hoodie with interchangeable logos to match different company acquisitions), Drone Sweaters (to keep your drone cozy), and Warby Parkour (photos of glasses doing parkour). The funding for Moonlight partially came from the success of Baskin’s previous business venture, Maskalike, where she created realistic face masks with custom designs.
“After I sold my mask company, I felt like for the first time in my life, I wasn’t hustling anything, and I could just think about what I wanted to do next,” Baskin shared.
Moonlight’s connection to one of Baskin’s initial business ventures is quite mystical. Approximately fifteen years ago, she ran a business that specialized in painting personalized bike helmets. Coincidentally, this was around the same time she began learning about tarot readings.
Clarifying common misconceptions, tarot isn’t about foretelling the future or providing psychic readings. Originating in the 1400s, each of the 78 cards in a tarot deck tells a unique story. Tarot readers assist in interpreting the cards and use their stories to help clients think about life events from a different perspective.
“I had this idea to paint each tarot card on 78 unique helmets and sell them in New York. That way, they’d all be shuffling around, and when you pass a cyclist, you could get a reading on your bike,” Baskin explained. “As you’re biking, you’d pass the three of swords and think, ‘Oh, I’m going to contemplate heartbreak right now’ or pass the magician and think, ‘I should be doing more performative things today.'”
During this time, Baskin also traded helmets for tarot lessons with a witch – a term used by some tarot practitioners. This is where she first imagined the concept of an online platform for tarot readings.
She recalled, “One of my teachers had a desktop computer in the corner of her place, and the sound of waves could be heard emanating from it. When I asked about it, she explained that she provided tarot readings on Second Life at a beachside tarot shop. Clients from all over the world could voice chat with her for readings. That has always been in the back of my mind. Even as I was building Moonlight, I thought, ‘Should I reach out to her again?'”
For the past fifteen years, Baskin has immersed herself in tarot studying, doing readings (sometimes at corporate events), and building connections within the witch community. Now, with Moonlight, she has come full circle.
The interface of Moonlight is visually appealing and user-friendly. Upon entering a session, the first step is to shuffle your tarot deck – the default deck is Rider-Waite-Smith, but decks from other artists are available for purchase. You can choose from four preset spreads, or create your own spread on a blank canvas, which can be helpful for those learning to read tarot cards. For those who are new to tarot, the app has a built-in handbook. However, Baskin notes that the descriptions are open-ended, saying, “I wanted to keep the keywords minimalistic, so that you can project your own interpretations onto the cards.”
In the process of developing Moonlight, Baskin partnered with Caroline Hermans, a game designer and former UX engineer at Google.
“It took two years to bring my idea to life because I was looking for the right collaborator. I kept wondering, ‘Are there tarot engineers out there?’,” Baskin remarked. Working with Hermans proved to be the perfect match.
Moonlight was initially funded through the proceeds of Maskalike, but Baskin also found angel investors (though she declined to disclose the amount). Given her history of ridiculing Silicon Valley (such as selling blonde wigs and blood energy drinks outside the Elizabeth Holmes trial and producing TouchBase trading cards that portrayed venture capitalists as baseball players), she was uncertain if investors would take her seriously.
“I was concerned that investors would dismiss me as a prankster, and I worried that it would hinder my ability to build a successful business. However, if people get to know me, they see that I am multifaceted,” Baskin said. “Many of the investors I met with were familiar with my artwork. They’d say, ‘Oh, you did BART Basel,’ the art exhibit at BART.”
Baskin believes that it’s essential for Moonlight to have a solid business plan from the start – a lesson she learned from her experience with Dialup, which has since been shut down.
She admitted, “I was in a similar mindset to Clubhouse, thinking, ‘We can keep growing the app and keep it free. Once it gains popularity, we’ll figure out a plan to monetize it.'” Unfortunately, both Clubhouse and Dialup struggled under this model, as have many other businesses. In contrast, Moonlight is already generating revenue through a 15% platform fee for bookings with tarot readers and digital deck purchases. Although the launch of the platform was low-key about a year ago, Moonlight is preparing to make a big splash.
Baskin confided, “I was concerned that witches would have a disdain for technology. After all, many of them believe in the connection between their physical deck and a crystal on their windowsill. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Witches have Instagram, and we use technology, too. I think they’ll be excited that a tarot practitioner is behind this platform.”
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?