Sana Choudary talks about the Yetizen accelerator

okay so it's Pocket Gamer we're in San Francisco and we've been uh looking around the cool some of the cool companies are happening and one of the coolest it has lots of companies in it which we'll get to in a minute is Yeti's end you can see Mr Mr Yeti Zen yes it uses then I don't know yes and Yeti okay he's one of those um and you'll introduce yourself and tell us to fill them up and go on tell us tell us what what because I've been doing get this wrong today so you can tell us properly what Yeti Zen is actually about sure I'm calling you an incubator but you're not so we're not an incubator yeah so I'm the CEO and co-founder of Yeti Zen uh Yeti Zone actually does two things one we have this beautiful Innovation lab space in the center of San Francisco where during the day it's open club play for any game developers so essentially that means free work co-working space and get to meet a lot of other game developers shoot some Nerf guns find others that you want to work with make some great games right and then in the evenings we have a lot of different events here so we have a little over 150 during the course of a year we actually have one tonight so if you see people

moving around they're getting ready for the event tonight it's only multiplayer and we have about 7 000 people that went through our various events last year so quite a lot of developers quite a lot of events San Francisco yes we're the Hub of all things gaining that's how we like to think of it you know I've been calling you an incubator yeah you've corrected me and said you're accelerated yeah people who aren't really integral so much what's the difference so the second arm of yetisen is the yetis and accelerator program and So What by an accelerator what we mean is it is post uh product and post-traction now the amount of traction we look at depends on what particular type of opportunity we're going after but in general it's not as opposed to an incubator which is more about a couple of guys ID on paper come in build something over three months maybe get a couple of thousand users get an angel investment that tomorrow works really well on consumer web doesn't quite work that much for gaming because games good games making great games takes a longer time right so we look at game companies that have already gotten some product out there we're able to see what's

working what's not what can we help with specifically and we help them scale and get to the next level so we have a little over 150 mentors some of the cream of the crop of the game Space some really awesome folks that I'm sure you guys recognize from Perry town from stormy to David holdgasser from Unity a number of some really well-known guys and about nine VCS on our board and some really awesome strategic uh strategics and other angels and VCS as well and in terms of the the program so today I've been kind of seeing companies and this is your third round this is our fifth round yeah you met us back in the early day actually I think I talked to you right before we started yeah so you've seen us evolve right so so what are you looking for when you kind of when companies kind of kind of apply to get into one of our programs yeah so uh this past year we had about 1500 uh companies apply to be anything so we take at Max about 10 companies per Excel rate around and they're two rounds a year so it's very very competitive to to get in right

um so obviously we're looking at both game studios and game platforms and what we look for for each is kind of different right now in general though with Studios we want companies that want to be making the next big thing that really want to be disrupting some type of gameplay you know going for that large exit down the line right um and as opposed to guys who just like making games maybe have a great business there but it's a cash flow business where they can work with Publishers right most of what we we're looking at are companies that want to publish their own games and be really really successful with it and on the platform side we have our own theories of like what are some needs that game developers have right what is it that they might need from a distribution monetization retention and other standpoints and can platforms actually that come to us provide that in good way and if if so and they have a well-functioned technology they can make that happen those are types of guides we take in so you saw about a few of them like five of them today so hopefully you like them there's some guys we're really proud of we worked really hard with them it's about another two weeks left to the end of the program so they're they're

they've been doing well lots of great Commercial Success I'm sure they've already told you about that yeah I guess the other interesting thing is San Francisco I guess the global Hub of mobile games but you're taking people from Colombia and India and yeah and so you're very open yeah so what we're looking for is a certain type of founder DNA so guys that when we bring them into yetisen bring them into our you know huge network of all things amazing within games they can really take advantage they can think about okay where do I come from and how I'm thinking about these things what do these other people have this experience how can they help me and really take it to the next point right now where would that DNA exist around the world we're going to take that company and bring it here so you've met a company today from Israel you've met our company today from Colombia from India we've had some really really nice uh you know companies from around the world I I there's very few countries I'd say we've missed so far and uh and it's getting more and more exciting as time goes on because we're seeing some great quality companies from around the world that basically don't have anything quite like

Yeti Zen back where they are and so we're the obvious choice for them I guess the the bottom line question is why are you guys doing it I mean you're a lovely person but you're not the goodness of your heart all right I mean you you take you take equity in those companies or what's it what's the so so there's like one for you guys there's actually two answers to that so one is um Yeti Zen did start based on this idea that we felt there's a lot of really awesome startups out there that keep making the same types of mistakes at various stages and though so they don't end up having some great exit valuations and some good numbers and unfortunately these really awesome talented people then end up taking jobs at places that kill their soul take their heart away all that other stuff right so we did start based on that idea that what is it what are is the type of stuff we can actually help people with so that they don't end up having those types of of situations in life and actually end up having a better outcome right the second part is that we are not a for a non-profit right we do actually have a business model around all of this so the Innovation lab itself there's a lot of different companies that get involved as sponsors whether that be space sponsors

whether that be actually long-term your long sponsor there's like GameStop and AD waves are for this particular year and then on the accelerator side we do take an equity stake in every company that goes through the accelerate yeah hey you know honestly what's sure you know if that happens that'd be awesome right but uh but you know really I love the game Space and I love the potential of where the game Space is going right there's so much stuff coming up next which we've barely scratched the surface of both as game companies and as game platform plays that can basically expand what our understanding is of what I call the gamer graph beyond what it is today right everyone talks about the spin graph and the social graph well guess what game companies every single one of them has this thing called gamer graph now what that can be extended to beyond the ways we're currently seeing it within this individual game and outside individual company that's the next future that's where the big IPO possibilities line that's what I'm excited about so yeah that's where I'd like to be in 20 years time I want to

have my fingers and everything and I want to be the one saying hey I made this all happen by creating something like Edison well you've heard it here first the game McGraw it's on thank you very much