Indie Starter Kit: The Basics of Founding a Successful Games Company

[Music] my name is Dino um I been uh working uh in with tech for 23 years I've been working professionally with uh games for 20 years um I'm mostly known for co-founding um and running play it um for around 10 years um since then I've done a company called jump chip um um that did a game called suil and I'm also running a company called coherence um and my goal for today is that if anybody of you kind of thinking about starting a company like to inspire you to take the jump and if you already did it I hope to help you with some thoughts and uh some of the mindsets um

doing it um H and it's also important for me to note that this um whoops um this of course is uh my perspective and a lot of this is my thought processes I derived from the values I have uh and my experiences um leading me to my goals so take it with a grain of salt um but all of these are things when I made the talk that I thought it would been nice to know when I I was starting out um so it's a talk that last half an hour and there it's hard to go in depth um but I have thought about five fundamentals I find very very important for when you want to start your company um this Vision risk uh valuation which maybe becomes a bit technical team and then I'll end up talking about you

um these are Vision Basics and there this is very simple this is also sometime something you can kind of look up but a vision is there for you to kind of picture yourself a clear compelling uh future um it's for you to motivate yourself and it's for you to motivate a team it's something that helps you um along the way uh to keep your eyes on the longer term goals because it's so easy to be bucked down in the short term um it's something that can both attract investors Partners employees but it's also something you can use to select the right Partners investors employees um it's something you can use whenever you think about how you want to build your company culture and lastly it's something that you can can use to difference

yourself um in a very early stage um and I want to start out with with some uh my story um and some of it uh that relates to Vision um so I I started as an employee in the tech industry when I started out um and I shifted to games in around 2003 uh in 2005 I I quit my job uh because I thought the game industry was [ __ ] uh it was hard I started Consulting um but I remember when when I started as as a consultant I had this urge of creating a product I remember that you know if if you just sell your own time you just you're just limited you limited by your own time um so already at that point I had had the thought um that I wanted to find some kind of product something that that I could make and it could be replicated um so this was the start things and um in the end of 2006 five uh

I made Aunt as you some of you know and we created PL it um and I remember my main motivation here was that I kind of felt I found my product I felt that we we could build a vision that was like worth it for me to kind of jump into this um and for me it was kind of the big driver's license license in in trying to have like find out what it is to have a vision because it was kind of 10 years just with a deep focus um on the vision which was you know deep um artistic Independence and creative freedom um I learned how powerful it was to communicate I learned how it was to communicate to Partners I learned how it was um to fight for um um and you know we we were we were

sticking stoly to this and it's it was kind of fun because it's learning about how powerful a vision is I think you know I can tell it to you now but for 10 years in a row fighting and trying to do something again and again getting a feedback uh and a positive feedback loop um which sometimes you know it takes a year to get a positive feedback loop you have an idea and then after a year you see okay now we have five employees that fit into that Vision okay it actually feels good um you say no to uh to something and it feels good because you find out long time after it was a good choice because that was there help you stick to the vision um even at one point in the history of play that we um we had some investors and they they wanted to um they wanted to sell our sell the company and they want to sell it to Ubisoft um and I remember it was it was such a hard hard choice for us to say no to that but it just felt that

not saying not no to that would would completely ruin that Vision in so many ways um I also learned that even if you're just making a game H you can still touch the hearts of people around the globe um yeah um so when I started jump ship I my goal was to kind of uh continue that uh with like a focus on Independence and creative freedom this time is just around Chris old Vision um and again example is here that we only choose partners that could help us keep the Creative Vision uh we had NES and as investors and they were chosen because they they were the ones that said that they they invested in us for our vision and not to change anything and it was also um we recently sold the company to thunderful um and it was again the same there was because this company that bought us was fully aligned with what we wanted to do

with the company that we could do it um with coherence it it was a lot of things coming together um coherence is a Network Technology um but it it it started out with a lot of talks about where where are games going um and I also did that time thought a lot about multiplayer games and I thought about should I do a multiplayer game I'm really fascinated about you know how is it to create a story with uh in a multiplayer environment um but again it all C because um the feeling of making a technology where we could enable other people to be creative and iterate um and sudden we came up yeah with that idea that felt big enough um so yeah [Music] um so what I learned was you can cultivate a vision I don't I don't think think that when you are young that you

may be born with having a vision I think for me it was something I learned something that I learned by the positive food feedback loop [Music] um um yeah the positive reinforcement um it's important to learn how to communicate it I'd never been really really good to good at writing down like any Vision I had but I think in any steps of my life when I did something with my companies I always been really really good at at communicating it and and you know if you ask me about it I can talk day in and a day out about it um um and I also learned that the better you become in communicating what your vision is actually the easier everything becomes uh people understanding your vision Vision people understanding what you're doing is is um yeah just remove barriers um also Al if there's holes in your vision you kind of figure that out

early on as you start talking about it um and I think it's so important to clear out like when you start a vision that's the cheapest point for you to kind of find out if this is a good uh good uh good way to go um I also found out that having a big vision is better than a small vision and it maybe seems self-explanatory but um how are you going to motivate yourself with a small Vision how are you going to motivate your employees uh with something uh bled uh it kind of for me defeats the purpose of having AIT at all so it's yeah it's better to a big one the other thing I learned also is that to continually use your vision like you can have it and you can think about it but then when you start working um you like kind of the vision gets tainted because when you start out you have a really pure and clear idea always

and there's no problems in that idea there always perfect um and then when you go into it there's a day-to-day thing there's problems there's thing that things that doesn't work out and if you don't always go back and think about what was the original intent with this um you often um yeah you often get lost in the day-to-day um of it and and something I do myself and this is like kind of an exercise is like when I go around my own time or run or do something like when I'm not officially at work I kind of just always take on the original Vision I tried to go in and and visualize how how was it what was the original feeling I wanted to have of this is it still what we have in the company uh sometimes it's not sometimes it is you know you you you need to go back and reevaluate um that's why it's important to kind of always use it um and you should use it when you prioritize and when you like when you you decide your

focus is your prior priorization aligned with what the vision was and also when you hire and partnering will your the person sit in front of you that you consider hire will that person help you uh complete this Vision uh will this partner uh complete like help um make this Vision it's really important and then I think emotion is like you can almost not have a vision without it invoking emotion I mean if a vision don't have a component that makes you either excited or happy or gives you some kind of feeling I think it's hard and again I think as long as you work with humans this this this key element if you don't have a vision that kind of Sparks something in yourself or other people it's useless um and the last point is I I think you should never make money part of um the vision or any goal to be

honest um it is it is such a flat and emotionless motivator and what would happen if you got enough would you then stop uh I mean I try to both have little money and a lot of money and and in the end it it doesn't it doesn't make a difference um especially don't not if you want to achieve something big um and I have these exercises I I use myself a lot and and the first one is just like trying to vividly imagining your vision like when you when you sit and you are thinking about starting a company or have started a company try thinking about what what is the end goal what does it give you um what is the feeling in your body if you achieve this uh taking yourself forward to the future and and and experiencing the feeling you would get hitting your goal I think I think it's a kind of it's a cheat code because you

kind of already get a bit of that like feeling and I I I do that often enough and you will compel yourself to go toward that uh that goal um and what is the story what is the story from the point where you are now to that the end goal is it a good story and again what emotion is it in in working in you um try explaining it to others it's actually when you explain it to others you of can hear your own [ __ ] um and it I I I just think it's it's very powerful um the vision has to get out of one point right if you need other people to help you lift it you need to start start talking about it and [Music] um you kind of need to look at how how do they look when you talk about it I mean I yeah here in America like people are so nice and you you tell tell what you're doing and everybody say yeah sounds good you know you can tell

anything and everybody here says but you need to look at how like are they smiling are they really taking it in are they just being polite um the other thing is also if you if you do it and you kind of want people on the vision like do you just your vision in would it include more people than you like is it an egoistic Vision or would it include other people is your vision worth fighting for because this is never going to be an easy thing like I mean it's always a fight to come from nothing to create something of nothing um it it don't take zero effort there's always a lot of fighting because you also want other people fighting for it and you probably also want other people putting money in it and if their vision is not strong enough to hold that um yeah it's pretty hard and again the last thing is are you working on the right vision uh as I said like in the start where you

have the vision this is the easiest time to kind of decide if this is worth uh um like working on and working uh on the like yeah it's it's easier to come become successful working on the right Vision than putting effort into the wrong Vision a great vision is the fuel that propels us forward challenging us to push beyond our limits and reach New Heights with that comes risk and the possibility of failure you have to take risk in game industry you have to take risk I'm I'm pretty sure it's I I think not taking risk and doing something common is kind of the most risky past uh path here there's so many games there's so many standard games every every game has been made right the only way to make a game that hasn't been made before is to take risk um

so with risk the only thing that is with risk is like you need to manage it and find the balance um and the fun thing risk is that it's it's invisible from the outside and when you look at any game production it usually looks like this that you you you know you find the finished game on Steam and you think that the people who made it they just had an idea about this game and they made it and this is this is this is normal um and the fun thing with risk is actually the risk is kind of like pain it's such a momentary thing even people working on any project can have a lot of risky situations and at any like at any points have such a hard time with choices and prioritization but when you often reach your goals if they set up correctly all the risk is gone there's nothing left like everything and when you think back about it is like what was the risk like of course we did these choices um and this is usually how it is um there's a starting point and you have a

vision and the vision is not a point usually right it's it's a feeling of a place you want to go um and you start off with nothing and you iterate and you try to go towards your vision and it doesn't work and you go a bit like another direction and you know slowly you to get um close to the vision Vision but of course you never hit it because the vision is is is is Big right div Vision has everything the vision is always perfect and has like all of these ideas but the game is is a thing right there's a you have a controller maybe or something that that there choices that needs to be made needs to be a specific thing um and it's all about manag managing the RIS um in this um as a side note if you are inexperienced you usually only look for the budgets that take you the direct path um um and that's why you end up

crunching because you actually need to do this um then there's valuation uh just bear me be for a moment here um this is maybe a bit technical but of course I don't really know the concept valuation it's the value of the company and when you start up the company it's the value of you because you are the company and you're the only person um and this consists of time and money uh it's your team and team history a lot a lot about the founders but it's always the whole team uh it's what you have produced um the IP RS and game product product it's a technology blah blah blah it's also external validation if you have already have customers if you have Early Access if you have a community that's also value um um which you have backers um and then

there's the soft elements that actually also can affect your valuation um the reputation and U the culture and why am I talking about such a technical thing the thing is when you start out the first time you have nothing and the whole what's it called the whole the your job is to make as much value as possible before you let external money in and it usually looks like this um the left part is maybe your own uh value value that is the time you put in you you and the right side is the external money and what what happens when you understand how that is all about putting in as much value as possible you kind of get to a place where you get more and more power and in the end that

like what I'm trying to say is that when you start your first company you often get offered [ __ ] deals and this is this is why so it's always like the more time you can use um the more um um you can put into this uh before take money the more control you end up having in the end um and I I could call it valuation steps um and in in play that we we started from from scratch and it was course really really hard we started with not so many things and that was also the reason why we had um uh we we lost control uh control uh along the way and we actually also ended up with less than 50% um and but what changed since then was that I came out of that uh building new things but I came both the experience and I came with my own money and for example in jump ship we I used my own own money until that we came to Amica SCE and and that just made

everything much easier um then I have a point about the team um there's a lot to say about this topic and I'm already uh almost running out of time I can see um you need a team to leverage your own time so unless you're onean banned and you do your own game which I will not recommend um I know a lot of people have done it and it's um seemingly more hard than if you have a team but so you need a team to to leverage something bigger and you need a team to work for you uh because it's critical if you want to be build something that's bigger than you um a vision in a vacuum is nothing uh without execution it is a worthless worthless um you always want to hire people that that are better than you and I'm not talking about Juniors

and interns because I see them as an investment you do in your company and you can do that later on the line when you want to to to scale more but in the start you only want to have people that are better than you um you want self motivated people H again in the beginning this is is is gold you the only way you can liveage your own time if is is if you find this um the team skills are defining what you cre can create you either create what your team can make or you have to hire people with skills that can create your vision um you cannot do anything else and the last point is culture um and again this is a big and huge a big and huge topic um but in in all the companies I've started uh this has been one of the key things um you and the first people in the

company um are going to to Define how this is shaping up and culture always trickles down um and there's a lot of sors going into this um but I think in the end it it just comes down to to your values and your behavior um and I know this is not the most important thing but I also think that like it's important to look at the work work environment um because like is is this where you want to have your grand ideas is this where you want to be creative um or is it like this where you know you you play board games and you you kind of uh yeah have a bit more looser environment and I think it's again it's maybe a smaller thing of culture but I still feel like the place you spent most of your time it's really important it's coach it's really important that it's the place you want to be it's really important it's a place where all of like your employees want to

come um where they have a good time and that's also why I Al always again whenever I started have made a big deal out of um like making everybody feel really good and um yeah takeing good care of my employees and the last thing is you um you will always start inexperienced that's how it is um and most people start as you know uh graphic designer game designer coder sometimes also from business um and that's how it is and you just need to learn you need to learn immensely fast and it's important that you you like to learn and you learn to like to learn you need to learn leadership skills you need to learn to prioritize you need to learn to communicate your Vision you need to learn to leverage your skills you need

to learn to negotiate uh you need to learn to hire uh this becomes such a key skill of doing this and you need to really Lear learn to love it um because there's like there will be a lot of stress uh and pressure and if you don't learn to kind of navigate it and really kind of also in some sick way enjoy it uh it just becomes like U like really really tough um I also think like you have to be crtical critical of yourself and be able to take critique uh it's so easy to fool yourself it's super super tough I've taken a lot of critique um and I'm also really really CR critical of myself and it's not easy to be honest to yourself it's it's it's it's it's it's easier to hear um what you want to hear uh but I think it's really important for you to grow and actually to be able to learn um I also think in the end nobody cares

about your goals um if you're good at the vision you make people care about the vision but it's actually I think being an entrepreneur is is kind of also a very lonely position uh you often uh oops you're often um you know often alone with your thoughts um you cannot expect any to be sorry for you all of the risk your you have is by choice so you can like you cannot go and and cry to anybody because this is something you choose you can also not do it um and you're Al always trying somewhat to do something that's personal for you um and again looping a bit back to Vision that's why I think it's it's important to have that you need to have that feeling of uh where you're ending up and also you have to have that feeling of it being bigger than yourself and it including people because if it

includes people they will care a bit more about you um you need to level up you need to uh like going through different projects and companies you need to level up this is the only thing you bring with you and in my own example it was a it was kind of [ __ ] scare scary to start up a new company after after play it um you know you build up a lot of things around you you have everything handled there's system for everything and sudden you start from Square One um and you just have to rely on your experience and you have to learn again you have to learn new people to know it was even scarier to start coherence it was a new it's a it was in tech and suddenly actually nobody even know who I was to be honest uh whoever we raised money for never heard about limbo inside they didn't care about it so I kind of just had to rely on like raw experience of how to raise money and um how to drive a company and all of

that uh but of course because because I feel I leveled up in all of this I bought myself I brought my experience obviously also brought some money that helps um I actually think I maybe need to skip this because I'm very much overtime um just in short I just want to say that there is an age for everything and I think you need to do your biggest risk as you are in your 25 to 35 when you're above that you can take risk I still take risk but I only take calculator risk um and again the example for me is that uh when I uh started play it I bet everything I had at that point luckily there wasn't a lot so it didn't matter if we failed uh so I mean but now you know uh

I can only afford to take calculated risk but I take a lot of risk but it's always calculated because I mean now is different right um pitfalls avoid Trends and the idea of Quick Print that's in the game industry there's so many [ __ ] Trends and it's so annoying right it's AI now right it was nfts last year then it was with a VR right and it's like ah I I just think you need to have a vision of something that that stands the test of time and again now as I said like I've been doing this for 20 years I've seen so many Trends come and go and you need to find something that just and that's why like we work on multiplayer Tech because multiplayer will always be there we can maybe you know do some metor [ __ ] I don't know but I mean in the end I don't want to rely on these uh short-term um Trends there is a lot of big tech companies trying to convince you to make these things and they sometimes also pay you money you know you get money to do

your VI game uh but when you're taking money you are trading off shortterm gain for your long-term um goals and it's fine but you actually don't have a limited time you can only do this a couple of times if you do this a couple of times you never end up reaching your goal because you know time's up so think about it when you take those dirty money um um yeah Talent that's not good for culture um I have many times met a lot of really really talented people that were not good for culture and I would never I don't think you should ever trade off er like sacrificing culture for somebody that's really talented it's not worth it in the end um it's better to have a good culture in a company they will serve you better in the long run um and there there's loss of focus nobody again nobody cares about your focus nobody cares about your time you

get so much inbound and I think the more success you have the more inbound you get I get so many Mals and like a big learning I've made is just saying no saying no to [ __ ] everything it's it's it it feels hard in the beginning and you also sometimes be feel rude but I mean in the end it just becomes such an important skill um you cannot read all Maes you cannot be looking into every technology that been offer for you I actually very very rarely got inbound that was worth a yes very few times but most of the times it's me researching the market understanding what's happening around me finding some things and then me going for things I want um I just think it's it's so easy to lose focus uh in the company uh and not do what you're supposed to do this is my last slide this is the conclusion nobody body will remember your small Vision always go big it's easier to go big sometimes

you can only hire level 10 talent for a level 10 idea that's how it is so why not there's almost no downsides to have a big Vision the only thing is as I talked about with evaluation steps there's a maximum for how big the vision can be compared to where you are um your first game or project will be the hardest birth and I I I only tried my own first birth once uh of course but I really feel like this is what levels you up the most this is where you take the the the hardest hits um from that point on it's it's it's kind not downhill but it only gets better um if you need to cut scope not quality and I learned this the hard way um find like-minded people and seeare ideas uh I think the way I learned the most was by doing

this finding mentors um I started going to DDC in 2010 and I a lot of my friends or colleagues from here like learned me a lot about um yeah how to drive a company and gave me a lot of answers of things I needed and it's usually like-minded other company owners that kind of give you what you need um um and you can also share your ideas um this is a fun thing um and actually I I came I I thought about it going over here because um um I mean if you're kind and generous this has opened so many doors for me it's crazy like you go around you a good person people want you to meet other good people and I mean if you think about like it's just open more doors than I ever could pay for uh that I get introduced this person introducing me to this person randomly because they just think you know you're nice you're nice like you need to you need to like

exchange ideas um and it really has I think looking back at it has been one of the things that's that's been the most helpful yeah my last point is never stop learning um when you go through any type of proc TI of process to hit a goal you quickly realize that if you're not putting enjoyment in the process um your enjoyment be really short because all of your goals are just this small bleeps uh in this timeline um and that's why I think it's equally important to put focus on the process um and not just put focus on the goals um because I've hit hit my goals a couple of times and it it is it is a really short Joy and some of the times I actually kind of you know if I if I

didn't take take care like if I didn't think about what my next goal would would be I would kind of be a bit depressed about it um so my point is just here like I think that the process of you're making what you're making is e important so even though it's hard to start your company or it's um yeah that's that that that is hard to like do the negotiation all these things you you can kind of have to find a way to make the process enjoyable um because the goal will not be what you think it is you hit it you're happy for three months you release that game you get um you get you're happy for three months but after that there's a life um even if that goal make you financially um um independent it doesn't matter you still need to to have like a path forward yeah that's my

talk so I went five minute over um I could take cash questions if there's anything yeah good afternoon uh and and no life stories as El musk says okay so my question is you said you've started one company and later had to start another and the only thing you carry with you is your um you know your own knowledge but I feel like my the company I have with does comics and animation is adjacent to gaming do you have any advice for how I could put over the success in comics and animation into um let's say I'm trying to get funding or just someone interested in hey we already have this Comics would would you partner with us to make the game um because we already have a certain level of success in

comics and animation but we've done absolutely nothing in gaming yeah no I think it's a hard crossover to be honest as I said when I shifted to Tech I start I felt like I started from the button again okay sorry thanks I think every aspiring entrepreneur has a vision right and as you said you need more than that you need a team and it can be paralyzing trying to to find a person to fit a specific role especially you don't know anything about it like if you're a programmer and you need an artist how do I know if your portfolio is good so as you've built these teams do you have any advice on how to build a team out for areas that you have no familiarity with but I mean don't you have a feeling of it like you know what looks good right you have an idea but there are people who are really good at kind of bsing their way through things and I think as the less experience you have the more likely it is that you're going to be exploited by people who are good at doing that but as you probably also

saw in my talk I'm I'm not good at Graphics myself um but I feel I can see good graphics I can I can see if there's emotion in it I can I can see other people being talented in it but I don't know if like yeah so it's a feeling yeah I think it's a feeling I mean I as I said like I'm you need to do the negotiation you to be able to turn them on but I think you're the one if you're in the one at the r you're choosing like guess what the graphics is makes sense thank you so follow your gut thank I hope it helps next yeah um do you do uh advisory for startups game startups uh yeah I've done a bit Yeah Yeah well I'd like to contact you about advising mine so uh you can mail me great I probably say no that's okay that's okay just read the email just read the email thank you yeah thank you for your presentation when you made your first transition from employee to business owner how did you

secure funding did you do because he had no experience so was it crowdfunding was it grants was it VC can you just share your experience but there two elements to that we like first of all I could do the BET because I have saved up some of my own money and I could work for a year without money um and I had like I had really low expenditures and I said there was a point of my life where I spent almost nothing on where I lived so I that's why I was kind of good for me to to the it was it was high risk but the what I risked what was low um but we also got a grant of what this 30 20 $30,000 I think it was um at that point which kind of helped you know hire the first person and get to a point where we could find funding thank you but I would like the your expend es just keep them low like that's I think that's the best way to keep your risk

low question okay last questions you mentioned culture a couple times I was curious if you had anything more specific in terms of like any starter go uh like culture uh for a new indie Studio or like something that uh you experienced that you thought that uh worked well Ross your multiple companies yeah but I think like there's no right culture I mean the culture I I appreciate is what I've created um and I Al I just think it's important that people that that work I work with have have a like have a good life and have a good time and I have some old play employees here and I hope they can attest to that we always uh I don't know how it is now I hope it's gone to shits no no no it's a joke don't write that down um h no but we always like always

try to make it a good place to come like it's always like homey like we have sofas we like we we we have like you know lunch for people we have like fridges like we didn't have that from the beginning of course but we had like an idea we have a fridge with everything you could drink and want in life and so we just wanted to be a place where you can kind of you were proud to bring your family but again I don't think it's the I don't know if that's the right Vis that's just how I like to have it that's the workplace I need to want to come to I mean I think it is it's important just to create what you would like to come to because you also need to attract the people that have it like that I mean I would not attract a accountant maybe because they want something else um yeah I was enough answer when you started play dead were you driven by a specific vision for a particular game or was it a more Studio level vision of the kind of experiences and which do you think is more important for someone starting their own yeah I don't know as like so aunt my partner he had the vision for the game and I would

say I had the studio Vision but I mean it was yeah we were it's at one point we were so ster getic it was hard you know we always we met a couple of times a week and and synchronized about like you know everything around the company so sometimes it was hard to find out who who made the choice of what but I mean yeah that was a split thank you cool thanks a lot for coming [Music]