From Simulator to Funded Asset: The 8-Stage Journey (Build in Public #2)

This is the second post in our Build in Public series, where I share the real decisions, mistakes, and reasoning behind building DOB Capital. I am Oscar, CEO and one of three co-founders. These posts are not marketing, they are the messy truth of building infrastructure finance in Latin America.

When we started building DOB Capital, we had a problem that every marketplace faces: the cold start.

Operators need investors to join the platform. Investors need operators with quality assets. Neither will come first unless you give them a compelling reason to. The standard playbook is to subsidize one side, offer operators free listings, or guarantee investors minimum returns. Both approaches burn cash and create perverse incentives.

We chose a different path. We designed a funnel where the operator gets genuine value at every stage, for free, and where every free action generates data that makes the platform smarter. The operator never feels sold to. They feel like they are making progress. And they are.

This post breaks down the 8-stage journey from simulation to funded asset, the philosophy behind each stage, and the mistakes we made along the way.

The 8 Stages

Here they are, in order:

Stages 1-4 are completely free. Stages 5-6 have fixed costs per asset. Stages 7-8 are success-based, we earn only when the operator raises capital and makes distributions.

The Design Philosophy: Free Until Traction

The core principle is simple: everything is free until the operator has proven traction.

What does traction mean? It means:

• The operator has a real asset (not just an idea)
• The revenue is verifiable (not just a spreadsheet)
• The asset profile is complete enough for an investor to evaluate
• The operator is serious enough to invest in validation

Until all four of those conditions are met, the operator should not pay anything. Not because we are generous, because charging earlier would kill conversion and produce worse outcomes for everyone.

Think about it from the operator's perspective. You run a fleet of 30 mining trucks in Peru. You have heard about alternative financing but you are skeptical. You have never tokenized anything. You are not sure this is legitimate.

If the first thing we do is ask you to pay, you leave. Game over.

If instead we say "simulate your rate in 2 minutes, no account needed", you try it. You see a rate that is 8 points below what the bank charges (if the bank will even talk to you). You are intrigued. You create a free account. You publish your asset, 3 fields, takes 2 minutes. You connect your SII/SAT/SUNAT/DIAN account and your revenue is verified automatically.

At this point you have invested maybe 15 minutes total and you have:

• A verified rate estimate
• A digital asset profile
• Government-verified revenue data
• A clear picture of what comes next

You have gotten genuine value. You trust the platform. And now, when we say "the next step is formal validation," you understand what you are paying for and why.

Stage 1: The Simulator (Our Most Important Product)

The simulator is not a feature. It is the product.

Every decision at DOB Capital is evaluated against one question: does this generate more simulations, better leads, or richer data?

The simulator captures 8 data points in a 2-minute session:

1. Asset type, SaaS, real estate, energy, fleet, mining, industrial, data centers, agriculture, health, or other
2. Capital requested, $50K to $10M
3. Term, 1 to 10 years
4. Country, 12 LATAM markets
5. Collateral available, yes/no
6. Operating history, more or less than 2 years
7. Revenue from day one, yes/no
8. Active service contract, yes/no
9. Credit history, positive or not

(That is technically 9 inputs, but #5-9 are the 5 binary risk questions that generate a 0-7 risk score.)

The operator sees: an indicative rate and a monthly payment estimate.

We see: a complete risk profile, indexed by country, asset type, and capital requirement. Over time, this becomes a proprietary dataset of infrastructure financing demand across Latin America, something that does not exist anywhere else.

The Mistakes We Made With the Simulator

Mistake 1: Showing too much information initially.

Our first version showed the rate, the monthly payment, a risk score breakdown, factor weights, bank comparison details, and a recommendation engine with 6 different scenarios. It was technically impressive and absolutely overwhelming.

We learned that operators do not want to understand the model. They want to know two things: what is my rate, and what is my monthly payment. Everything else is noise.

We stripped the results down to: rate, monthly payment, and a one-line recommendation. The bank comparison is still there, but subtle, a badge that says "X% below typical bank rate" rather than a detailed comparison table.

Conversion from simulation-to-lead-capture increased significantly after this change.

Mistake 2: Requiring account creation before simulation.

For about two weeks, we required users to create an account before running the simulator. The reasoning was sound: we wanted verified contact information attached to every simulation.

The data was brutal. Simulation attempts dropped dramatically. The friction of account creation, even though it is free, even though it takes 30 seconds, killed the top of funnel.

We moved to: simulate first, capture email after seeing results. The email form appears after the rate is displayed, gated behind a blur on the monthly payment details. The operator has already seen value (the rate), so providing an email feels like a fair exchange for more detail.

Mistake 3: Using risk score for messaging instead of actual rate comparison.

Our recommendation engine initially used the risk score alone to determine what message to show. A score of 6/7 would show "Excellent profile, significantly below bank rates" even if, for that specific country, our rate was actually higher than the bank.

This created embarrassing contradictions. An operator in a market where banks are competitive would see "you save 5% versus the bank" when in reality our rate was comparable or even slightly higher.

We rebuilt the messaging to use the actual rate differential and bank access difficulty. If the bank would not finance the profile at all (certain asset types, certain risk levels), we say that directly. If we are cheaper, we say by how much. If we are comparable, we position on speed and accessibility rather than cost.

Honest messaging converts better than optimistic messaging. Operators are not stupid, they will check bank rates themselves.

Stage 2: Account Creation (The Authentication Bet)

We do not have our own authentication system. When you create an account on DOB Capital, you authenticate through one of two methods:

1. Sign in with Tokenize, our protocol's unified SSO (wallet or Google-based)
2. Magic link, passwordless email login via Resend

The Tokenize SSO was a bet that the broader Dobprotocol ecosystem would be the primary entry point. The magic link was added because many operators, particularly in traditional industries like mining and fleet management, do not have crypto wallets and find wallet-based authentication alienating.

Why Magic Link Changed Everything

Before adding magic link, our sign-up-to-account conversion was modest. The Tokenize SSO requires either a crypto wallet or Google authentication, and then a redirect dance between two domains.

Magic link is: enter your email, click the link in your inbox, you are in. For a mining operator in Peru who has never heard of MetaMask, this is the difference between "I will try this" and "this is not for me."

Since adding magic link, account creation from simulation has improved substantially. The lesson: reduce authentication friction to the absolute minimum, especially when your target audience is not crypto-native.

Stage 3: Asset Publication (The 3-Field Form)

When we say "publish your asset," we mean: give us a name, a location, and a description. That is it. Three fields.

The financial data, asset type, capital, term, country, rate, is pulled automatically from the simulation. The operator does not re-enter anything. They see a "context card" next to the form showing their simulation data, and the asset is created with all financial parameters pre-populated.

Why Only 3 Fields

We tested a longer form. The first version had 12 fields including revenue projections, operating expenses, team size, and years in operation. Completion rate was poor.

The insight was that at this stage, the operator is not committed yet. They are exploring. A 12-field form feels like a commitment. A 3-field form feels like "I will try this and see what happens."

The detailed information comes later, in the enrichment phase (still free). By then, the operator has already published their asset, they can see it in the platform, and adding more detail feels like improving something they own rather than filling out an application.

Stage 4: Tax Authority Connection (The Data Moat)

This stage is optional but transformative. When an operator connects their tax authority (SII in Chile, SAT in Mexico, SUNAT in Peru, DIAN in Colombia), we get government-verified revenue data.

This is the data moat. No other alternative financing platform in LATAM has direct tax authority integration. They all rely on self-reported financials, bank statements, or at best, third-party accounting integrations.

Government-verified revenue data means:

• We can verify that the operator's declared revenue matches their simulation inputs
• We can see revenue trends (growing, stable, declining)
• We can assess tax compliance (a strong signal of operational discipline)
• We can cross-reference with counterparty declarations (especially in Chile and Mexico where both parties file)

For the operator, connecting is free and takes minutes. For us, it is the most valuable data point in the entire funnel.

Stages 5-8: Where Revenue Begins

Stages 5 through 8 are where the operator pays for services and where DOB earns revenue. I will be more circumspect about specific pricing here because the structure is still evolving, but the philosophy is clear:

Stage 5 (Due Diligence): Fixed cost per asset for KYC/KYB/KYR validation, revenue verification (cross-referencing tax data with declarations), and a Go/No-Go report. This is the quality filter; it separates serious operators from tire-kickers.

Stage 6 (Legal Structure): Fixed cost per asset for SPV/cell legal structuring, jurisdictional framework, and base contracts. This is the most complex and expensive stage for us to deliver, involving local legal counsel in each jurisdiction.

Stage 7 (Fundraising): We earn placement fees as a percentage of capital raised. The operator pays nothing upfront for fundraising, our incentives are perfectly aligned with theirs.

Stage 8 (Funded): We earn a small percentage of ongoing distributions. Again, purely success-based, we only earn when the operator and investors earn.

The fixed costs at stages 5-6 serve two purposes: they cover our actual costs (legal, compliance, verification), and they filter for seriousness. An operator who will not invest in proper validation and legal structure is not ready for institutional capital.

The Dataset Nobody Talks About

Here is what I think most people miss about our funnel: it is not just a sales pipeline. It is a data collection engine.

Every simulation generates a data point: an infrastructure operator in [country], with [asset type], requesting [capital] over [term], with [risk profile]. Over hundreds and thousands of simulations, this becomes the most detailed map of infrastructure financing demand in Latin America.

This data does not exist today. Banks do not share it. Private credit funds do not aggregate it. Development finance institutions publish annual reports, not real-time demand signals.

We are building it, one simulation at a time. And every data point makes the next evaluation faster, the pricing model more accurate, and the platform more valuable for both operators and investors.

What We Got Wrong

In the spirit of building in public, here is what we are still figuring out:

The free-to-paid transition is harder than expected. Operators are happy to simulate, create accounts, and publish assets. The conversion from free stages to paid validation is the biggest drop in the funnel. We are experimenting with better education about what validation includes and why it matters.

Tax authority integration adoption varies wildly by country. Chilean operators connect their SII without hesitation; it is a natural extension of their digital tax workflow. Mexican operators are more cautious about sharing SAT access. Colombian operators face the most friction due to the DIAN's habilitacion requirements. Peru is somewhere in the middle.

The 8-stage pipeline might be too many stages. For a simple presentation to operators, "simulate, publish, validate, raise" (4 stages) might be clearer than 8 granular stages. We are considering whether to simplify the operator-facing journey while keeping the 8-stage granularity internal.

Mobile experience needs constant attention. Over 60% of our simulator traffic comes from mobile devices. Every component, every flow, every form must work perfectly on a phone screen. We have rebuilt the simulator results display three times for mobile.

What is Next

The immediate priorities:

1. Secondary market: Building liquidity for tokenized assets so investors can exit before maturity
2. Automated distributions: Smart contracts that distribute revenue to token holders without manual intervention
3. Portfolio view for LPs: A dashboard where investors can see all their positions, distributions, and performance across multiple assets
4. More tax authority integrations: Expanding beyond the initial 4 countries to cover Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Brazil

The longer-term vision is a self-reinforcing flywheel: more operators bring more data, more data enables better pricing, better pricing attracts more operators, and the growing operator pool attracts more investors. The 8-stage journey is the engine that powers this flywheel.

If you are an infrastructure operator curious about what your financing could look like, the simulator takes 2 minutes. No account, no commitment, no spreadsheets, just your rate, instantly.

And if you are building something in fintech or infrastructure and want to compare notes, I am always happy to talk. Find me on LinkedIn.