Special: Investing in Mobile Games w/ Ignacio Monereo. When to approach VC?

what type of VC are you are you going to follow up or not um are you actually going to be handson and and help me VCS we also tell a lot of stories and we oversell the same as like a Founder will say like hey I'm going to build a$1 billion company I'm going to tell the the company in the founder as well well I'm gonna help you in everything like with HR with uh you know technical I'm gonna you know I'm gonna and and and there's a you know there's this is no gaming podcast two and a half gamer sharing actionable insights dropping Knowledge from our day-to-day user acquisition game design and AD monetization jobs we are definitely not discussing the latest industry news but having so much fun let's not forget this is a 400 a.m. conference discussion Vibe so let's not take it too seriously okay let's uh let's do it welcome everybody uh my name is Matel anich and I'm Felix Brer and we have a

special guest guest uh gasio monel AKA natural welcome naturo we are very happy to to have you here uh this is going to be a special episode uh but okay first before we uh we go into the questions and then the discussion since you're very very well known in the industry because you work Google Facebook well meta I guess now boost Capital can you just walk us through the career the thought process of like starting a venture company and all of the all of the fun stuff yeah well I mean first of all thank you thank you Mage I'm a big fan of the of uh of the podcast uh so thank you very much for inviting me here and um I guess uh when I when I read that very well known in the industry I I don't consider myself as oh come on come on almost everybody knows you no no no I mean yeah I mean I have the the probably the should I make that joke like the cheesiest name in the industry so I mean

how many times like you meet a natur right it's just like anyway so yeah so when you ask the question about like how how do how do I end it up here and at post Capital um I was talking to Felix before so kind of like ended up in games a bit uh a bit random to be honest I've never been like a 100% pure gamer U my parents they didn't like me to play spend time playing video games classic rude yeah yeah but my my first uh console uh was a Master System too so you can imagine like it was a terrible one um but uh but yeah like U I used to spend a lot of time playing with my my cousin and and so so I guess like in in my mind in the back of my mind I wanted to be a gamer although I wasn't allowed at home um so how I ended up here started uh kind of like a weird path so ended up um at Google started in 201 12

in I I was talking to Felix I I worked four years in the ad monetization team the Lord's work yes um kind of like we were saying that we were Plastering the the Internet with with that um because we're working on web and and apps uh apps was very limited at the time we only had the 320 by 50 and the intials I remember when uh incentivized and rewarded uh videos came out and Google was very very much um at the very beginning not not following the trend so so kind of like for us it was like oh you know um 320 by 50 you know Felix like the the cpms are are horrendous so so yeah so I started in at Google in 2012 doing that and um and also was like working with with admob with ad exchange dfp and and it was the time of I'd say early hyper casual like the

Flappy Bird uh then fingers off the very beginning of ketchup and vuru um so ketchup mostly before the acquisition so it was uh super interesting um lot of U you know the that story of two two students in a dorm launching an app and all of a sudden becoming Millionaires and that was like one after the other um so yeah so did that for four years at in 2016 I moved to the Google Play team uh at the time Google Play was um super interesting um mostly because there was a challenge like it probably you don't recall that but uh well you don't recall we all forgot but uh games there games developers were not launching simultaneously on Google Play and iOS most of the times they were launching on iOS and and there was like a a real challenge for us on the Android team trying to persuade uh developers to test in in Android right like that kind of like

things change yeah yeah I mean it's changing right now but I I remember discussing with uh monum Valley 2 for example had an exclusivity launch in iOS for a year and they negotiated that and that was like a for us was okay we need to push harder we need to kind of like get uh mon Val into our phones at the same time because OB this has an impact if you're choosing like if you're desiging to buy an iPhone or an Android phone not having some of these games was a mass was a lost right so so that was kind of like the the idea why for me Google Play was uh super interesting and yeah ended up four years there was that only cash incentives then you were like trying to convince people with or was it more like being like being featured in the Play Store yeah it's always been yeah no cash no cash involved mostly you know like the classic promotions uh uh tools like featuring and and partnering with us in the end like and giving you

access to betas or being part of like um you know managed the uh team and so so yeah there more like more given like more support basically uh but we didn't have any any cash perhaps that's the reason why um some people were L to uh but even on iOS I remember the days when uh you you were kind of exclusive to iOS that you got quite a big promotion on bio star correct yeah yeah but uh but yeah so that was 26 16 obviously has evolved a lot um but during my four years I play I work with a bunch of uh developers game developers I was always super interested in working with smaller developers like and startups nice uh perhaps because I still believe like you know you you could see those startups like really really accelerating and becoming big companies and so it was super thrilling to work with the CEOs directly um so yeah so work with backa

games hatch games small Giant games first TCH games and for example mat AG you were talking the other day about about the legion so TR light obviously very close to my heart we did a cases study well actually this week is playtime Play Time gold B yeah we're not I'm not invited anymore but U I think it was 2019 or 2018 I did a 201 for for for sure 2018 I was there in Berlin 100% and it was like a bad delig cases study so so yeah so it was nice to nice to hear that um so yeah so so kind of I worked four years in um in in that side and I think I'm coming all the way back because at the time that's when I started like also interacting with VCS um I was part of um an initiative called the lunchpad Android Louch pad um Google was very interested in partnering with VCS from the very get-go and the reason was um we saw that there was an

opportunity like companies that were backed by VCS they had a higher chance of success and therefore like we needed to be like very close to to these companies and so I started talking with the the VCS at the time so initial Capital uh play venters was starting uh because they launched the first Fund in 2018 um it was bers lvp mostly so some of the European traditional um gaming funds and that's kind of like how I ended up a b like interacting with whoever is today U my my partner at post Capital which is Alo he was in initial capital from the very good go and so yeah so I think that's kind of like um you know the the first moment um if I fast forward like 2020 moved to Facebook um uh jumped from Google Play to Facebook I had a very good opportunity to work with uh a super nice person a great exec you probably know him uh Bob

slin from yeah oh yeah I know Bob yeah I fun plus oh amazing fun plus yeah so he basically came to me and said they hey NAU do you want to come and and work in Facebook gaming uh leading all the video initiatives in in neia and I was like sure new new area yeah I've heard about like content creators um all all these buz around content creators is sports and stuff like that I need to learn about it right so jumped in managed like the team inia ended up managing as well aack super interesting learned a lot about like content creators um very difficult to convince them to play your mobile games for free um they like cash they like yeah they like cash most don't get me wrong they they they have an audience and they want to monetize it yeah it's business as well so yeah yeah anyway so yeah it's a great experience working with Bob and and the team and and kind of like funnily enough uh when I when when I was a Google

player I had some people were coming to me and saying like hey n do you want to take part on on on our startup do you want to kind of like collaborate with us and for me it was like a clear conflict of interest um since uh you know I couldn't be a Google Play and then helping a a gaming company uh but when I left from Google to Facebook one of the things that I negotiated was precisely to to kind of like be able to invest and and advise some of the companies and so I started investing as an angel investor invested in itic games and in super scale which you guys know very well um and invested in in some other Studios like they still like uh in n n n well done yes I I was very lucky and um and had a great experience um so so yeah magmatic um I know floran very well and and I was a board ofs server so I really enjoyed and that's it that's how I ended up um in you know three years later Alvaro uh who as I mentioned I used to

know from that Android Launchpad then finally enough we invested together like initial Capital was like it's in three companies that I actually invested myself and so so you have history as well yeah so when when he came last year and and he said hey um I'm putting together um finally I'm launching my own my own fund which would like to join I said like uh this is you know super interesting and I've been doing this let's let me try and this is how we ended up in in boost Capital today okay but okay so but what kind of like requirements or skills you you need to do your for your job like how how can you become a partner like VC company basically yeah uh well look from the outside it looks it looks very very hard honestly it is I think it is hard I think you need to you need to be lucky and I guess in my case um I was lucky

that um that Alo gave me these opportunity so I'm not know I've got to be honest with you I'm not sure if I would get like uh many opportunities like this one um I think in order to do the job if if you think about like the classic two areas like soft skills and hard skills this is a lot about like relationships right and and he a very people skilled okay business so you need to be very good at at sales and Business Development so I think some of the skills when you work on on the Google Play Store managing a lot of like a companies or in sales like as as I was mentioning in atmo it helps you because in the end uh when you're at a VC you're doing very much like same thing um and um I guess you need to be very very flexible curious to learn a lot of things make decisions without not not much information and and have a little

bit of common sense but and realistic optimism that I say okay which is a you need to you need to believe that the world can change and and that's that's hard but those would be kind of like some of the soft skills if I think about hard skills some of the things that I studied economics and finance so some of the things that helped me some of the things that helped me is that even though I'm coming from the platform side previously my experience was in in finance I started as a as an auditor for PWC so you can imagine like how boring that was like when when I started but that helps me when when it comes to understanding business models like Market sizing um trying to make a sense whether the business is is viable or not and you can actually build a large company and so those kind of like hard skills perhaps are are useful as well um one of the things that I'm I'm lacking and I believe that a lot of good investors could do is uh more technical

skills when it comes to you know um coding background like if you're in Tech and you understand how to you know how how things work actually um that actually gives you an edge as well if you're an operator and you and that's why you see a lot of VCS that um the partners are coming from you know exited Founders and the reason is because they've lived through all the experience of launching an a company and so they can add more value than than someone like me that I'm coming from the platform side ah come on uh I think you have very good background to to be able to kind of uh understand or maybe how do I call it just predict which company is going to to do well or not because you've kind of met a lot of Founders and work with small compan I mean definitely like I've seen a lot of companies succeeding and failing and you can like as as I said like I liveed like

through through even like through admob I saw a lot of companies launching but also like when it was at Google Play I I saw loads of companies that they started uh very very small and then they made it all the way to the top and you're very biased because you you tend to skew towards like the already if you're talking to Google that means that you know you reach certain level of of success so you're biased but you can find like um common areas common things that they work and and that helps you that's for sure especially when it comes also to to bench marks um when it comes to Trends that's something like it does help you however let's be let's be honest um there's a big big lack component in this business which you never know there's a lot of things that need to happen in order to be successful as a venture part so what you're saying also kind of is you need to have a good Network so you keep getting yeah access to these Founders right as I said this

is a people's uh business this is about like expanding your network making sure that um you stay very humble and everybody that knocks at your door you listen because you never know who's who's actually going to be the the next uh1 billion doll F yeah that's that's true but then like if you're getting like hundreds or thousands of like Peach TS like every day like it can be quite annoying like you can't just listen to everybody I mean I guess you can but it's just it's not as easy it's not no I I agree with you you need to have some filters uh this is similar to to when you're looking at at games right like u i remember we were doing the Indie Games contest at Google Play and there were like I don't know 3,000 submissions I'm I'm just making up the number but I remember that that we were spending a week playing games uh and we're playing games constantly and

there were some minimum requirements we had to play the game at least for 10 minutes we had to kind of like R rank the game like rate the game like like design game mechanics there were a lot of things to do to do so you you kind of like you get better at filtering those things similar with with TX and with the startups and obviously if if it is a startup that becomes recommended referred by someone uh that tends to have like a higher degree of quality H whether it is uh cold call through Linkedin times perhaps it's less um so you you kind of like you optimize but in my case I always try to at least uh dedicate enough time to to look at the startups and and and make sure that I'm not missing any opportunity or if I miss is because I it's a misj justment not I ignore an em know okay and then in that case like what's the the due diligence process for you uh how does it start and when and where as well I think yeah when you say due diligence

process what do you mean though do you mean do you mean like uh when I start analyzing a company or like filtering uh let's let's say first let filtering and then start analyzing so first I guess like you have tens of well hundreds of PID decks and then like filter first like how to filter and then like how to start like analizing the the company yeah okay well I mean if if I start from from the from where from from the deal flow right yeah um where the deal is coming it matters as I mentioned before like if it comes like referred by you mat or Felix basically you share and you tell me like oh this this team is is amazing yeah definitely that's already it's you know a it's a good it's a good indication right it's a good indication that you you already have set up like that filtering for myself you've done a filter you will never recommend something that you don't think it's it's good right so that's um that's something

like you you basically categorize a bit like a Tex based on where it comes from and um and depending on that you will give more attention to the others uh but then afterwards if it is like old C then you you basically you look at the deck and you start like looking at things right like um like the structure of the of the deck how is it and and whether he like um and I'm I know that you're going to love but like the team where is it coming from H what's the product what's the market and what's the round details I think that's for me like the four things that I would always consider are kind of like those four things I mean there's a lot of caveats and within team you talk about like what's the vision what are they trying to to build uh within the product you go as much in details as you want if they have already a product in the market and they have some metrics uh the market as well like how they're doing the sizing is it a large Market or is it a small um then the round details typically sometimes

are not not included in the first deck uh but round details can give you already an idea like are we talking like a um a series A or a bridge seed uh round where the company's in difficulties and they're trying to extend their Runway or is it like a very expensive uh is the cap table broken or not so there's a lot of elements that you will look in the in the round uh details which sometimes is not included and it doesn't have to be but based on that yeah so not sure what's your goldilock zone so let's say I have a company like when should I be reaching out to nacho like what kind of numbers or kpis should I be hitting and then I'm like notro time yeah well it depends right U and I guess there's not a perfect answer it really depends on on where which stage you are I always say the sooner the better that you reach out to to V establish do you do pre as well or yeah yeah I mean think about this like for us for me the sooner I get into into a company the better uh mostly

because that's you know if if you get early that means that the valuation is very likely to be lower and so the multiples that you need to make as a VC they kind of like they don't have to be so so big right um my goal is to find companies that they are fund returners and fund returners my the size of our fund is $40 million if I find a company I get 10% of the company at$ million valuation right um and it I don't know 400 million exit it gives me already the 40 million fund that I have right and so that's what kind of like 10% no dilution I'm assuming so that's kind of like what I'm trying to to to get that so the sooner you get the better um pre idea it's fine if it is um um that's kind of like incubating but I am very happy to to to have those conversations I'm having a number of conversations with right now with Founders that I know them because they were working in a previous

startup a previous gaming company uh they're thinking about building their own company or they are like at Google right now I have one one former colleague at Google thinking about leaving he wants to leave the the the big G and then he's he's asking me like what should I do where where how what are the next steps so all those kind of like those conversations are good my only advice is that whenever you talk to a VC think about that already already in some way you're making the so you have to prepare a little bit because otherwise um there could be you know some you're you're starting to be biased yourself like as a PC you're starting to to to make some judgments about the person and if the person is doubting a lot in the way or you know changing changing his or her views that that kind of like an can affect you negatively when when you have like pre pre kind of pre ideed all about people you are talking to I mean I guess

you need to know them from the past or through some recommendations so it's yeah it's about the team right the kpi is kind of like like that what are the different kpis in different stages I guess maybe I can maybe I can just restart by asking like what what's the ticket sizes you guys are currently going for and boost and do you guys always do like prata or yeah how does it work for you guys yeah um so the ticket size is in between 200 $50,000 and 750 in the kind of like in the in the first ticket that we that we do and to we do follow up so we follow up um in subsequent rounds and we do either prata or if we feel that the company's actually growing and it's one of the companies that we believe that we need to put a lot of support because it can really increase our chances to as I mention to to deliver a fund returner then we can increase actually and and increase the the percentage that we we

have okay nice and then uh so we kind of uh wanted to ask about the how do you do the homework in terms of the like the analyzing the the companies as well right yeah yeah so so this is this goes along a bit with with what I meant with what I mentioned and I know that team is always uh it's always like the most important part I know well I if you think about like an idea or like a preceed Stage Company there's no product to analyze so if um I I really I really like the the the phrase that there's always more reasons to say no to an investment than to actually say yes and that's why you need to be a bit optimistic in this in this um in this job you need to really believe that things can happen and and the magical unicorns can grow from uh from uh this group of people because otherwise it's a it's always like n

there's a there's already an incumbent who's going to uh launch another game like Clash Royale I mean there's there's there's no way you can make it right so so you have like the team is definitely like super important and I can explain a bit more like what do we look in the team yeah because it's not it's very subjective right um and and as I say it's a very people business driven um uh role so so you need to kind of like uh do some due diligence there uh but then is product market and the round details those are the four areas in my opinion and what I what we look at yeah and when we look at the the team and the kpis um one of the most important things is like can I work with these people uh for the next 10 years and the analogy of the marriage which is very as well stereotype and classic but this is the the reality right um our fund is 10 years uh there's a 2year uh extended period uh where like

if the LPS choose to like we can still so we're talking about a long long time until perhaps we are parting our ways with someone that we're signing today which means that if the founder you don't get along with her or him uh that will make our lives very painful for both of us um so I think that is that is essentially like you know super important that sometimes is often overlooked because you're looking at the product the market and you say like oh let me just jump in and then you don't realize that hey we're going to we're going to struggle um but the things that we're trying to assess is uh obviously the the experience of the founders and um you know there's a lot of talk now that you don't race if you're not like a super successful um founder not necessarily like you don't have to you don't have to come from games and be oh I just founded I don't know Riot games before then hey here I am launching my

own my second company I think uh what we're trying to see is that the founders they have the necessary experience to execute very fast and whether it's in games or in a different sector and and that is needed because time is of the essence and when you're fundraising you're just buying time um so execution in the in the team is extremely important um then also what we're trying to to understand very well is like if you have more than one founder how well do they know each other and what is their motivation and what you're trying to understand there is that in times of difficulty which probably there's going to be they're going to come very very soon going to be a lot of those yeah is this is this going to break up easily or are the is the team going to really endure and and you know keep pushing um and then you know from a VC perspective if you're always investing in companies

that they want to reach a sizable um SI like a big size right a large company and and it's perfectly fine if you have like Founders that they want to build a company that is going to be lifechanging for them but is not going to deliver out size return so the vision uh an ambition for from the companies to build a large organization I think that's also key and here I get it many many Founders because they're trying to raise fans they will say whatever we want to hear EXA I mean our jobs is is to essentially try to to to see that right like similar to when you're doing an interview for someone to get a job and then you you know still who make it basically correct and and and that makes sense like we are all uh telling a story and what we're trying is to to see whether that vision is genuine and you really kind of like want to want to go for it and want to push for it um so yeah so so those are

the things but then loads of other things that we look at in in in teens like we look like how good are the raising funds for example you need to have um a Founder that is going to raise funds like now with us but then later on with other other VC so how good is that telling the story and and really convincing other people as well like how good is the founder in um bringing people on board like we know that a company is not built by one person so how good is at hiring and and how good is at you know leading um other people right in order to kind of like deliver and get into the same you know what are you doing then when there's like very good experien team yeah then the founder is also very experienced but he can't tell the story that much and you you see like it's he or she's struggling to like with the narrative but they're really really good but then like you know they can't kind of persuade you to invest because of reasons like what do you do

then yeah yeah that's a very good question we always try to to be as to be conscious of our own biases and that happens a lot with cultural differences um and from Spain uh sometimes we we speak to you know like people from Asia from people from from you know from different cultures like n um and and they are just like simply different right and the way you know I'm very chatty and then they might not and so so that kind of like what you're trying is to to take your own you know be very aware of your own biases and say well um perhaps it's not great is this something that is coachable is this something that really matters and can we help them in any way right so if if someone is is perhaps not the best Storyteller but she is great at delivering and executing and she can um

you know compensate with you know with a lot of results and also she can be coachable and she can learn because that in the end is is something that you don't acquire uh you can you can you can educate yourself and become better presenter so those type of things if you see there's potential then then why not I think I think you don't need to be extroverted to be a a CE of a company yeah okay you also look into like a team structure when uh the team is uh is trying to get some Investments yeah yeah for sure uh the team in games for example like having and this is classic if you see having a technical founder with like combined with like a more business driven founder that that works well um because if the CEO can take care of everything that is like from HR from uh fundraising from Finance legal while the person that is the c or the backend engineer is building game designer is building the

the actual product I think that combines pretty well um especially if you have a solid group of Founders so that kind of like trying to map out the roles and then have like a balance if you have everything on the commercial side U it doesn't mean that it's not going to work but then you kind of like un spot like they're going to need like at some point some strong technical person on the other way around now do you have like connections to for example provide these like types of people because some for example you know we are free guys obviously we don't have anyone from the technical point of view and like okay but we want to raise money like what to do like can you say like oh well we will give you some money but you know you can ask these five other guys with a technical background like you should you should talk to them and then come back or uh you always say look go go outside and try to to have someone on board so I mean a combination of both I've seen like like incubators like classic

situation of of an accelerator they will try to match you up um the the issues with that is always comes you know comes down to to my first question about like team which is what's the motivation and the team have the same vision right like you have a co-founder that wants to sell very quickly because she wants to she wants to make like a life-changing money and then you know retire at 30 years old and then you have another that is like no I I am like Mike Zuckerberg I want to kind of like have impact in the world and I'm not saying good or bad I'm saying like I want to have impact on to do that you cannot stop at a very small company you have to really push forward so um so then that's you know that's a that's a key question but like to your point like do we mat yes if we if we know that there is like a a good CTO or like a good like people that we we believe that a good person that believe that would match your skills I think

that's that's normal and I've seen like many of the VCS actually doing it and doing it successfully the question is they need to agree very well on on what they're trying to build and it has to be some some degree of of uh you know connection because otherwise can can really backfire yeah can I um can I actually jump in here and ask a question about deal flow right so boost cample is a new kid on the Block you said you're raised 40 million that usually means that a typical fund that has to close in 10 years that means that usually you have to deploy the capital in the first four years usually so that means 48 months uh that's 160 checks you need to write so that means every three months you need to invest be investing in about one company how are you guys going to tackle deal flow uh it's quite a lot of competition in our industry right now especially in Mobile I think it's a very interesting question yeah well I mean couple of corre here like funds we're also

fundraising so we've raised 35 million to date our Target is 40 million um which we can talk about like fundraising but which is also is essentially it's very humbling because it's the same like people think like L yes people think that hey VCS they just like you know bunch of entitled people and and and it's very humbling because you have to go the other way around and you say like wa wait a minute we also have to raise so we have to pitch ourselves but um but yeah to your point like a deal flow uh deal flow so what we we're doing is relying majority of the times in our own network so that's kind of like why I mentioned that is very much sales Business Development people's um U uh business so I'm kind of like going to conferences and trying to kind of like make sure that people start to know us and we built a brand that if we don't invest in you at least kind of like we treat you well along the way we give you like meaningful feedback so in order to to help you and we can even

like help some companies in the in other ways right like not financially but like um I'm always offering like look if I cannot invest in you at least I'm happy to provide detailed feedback on the deck and also if I can help you with some other uh things like related to my experience like in the past like with Android you have a question about that or need to get like in contact with someone admit that I'm I'm going to try to to help you on on that front right um because perhaps the person that is talking in front of you is not successful with that startup but he's going to be successful with the next one or know someone that is actually going to be successful and he going to go like say hey talk to them so deal flow it's a lot about Network um so on the one hand like Network and and cold uh cold inflow there's also another part with trying to do which is more trying to be proactive and with the

trends that we see that are interesting like where you see a trend that is growing and you have what is called long tails like like sorry um Tailwinds just look when you have tail WIS in the industry you know that the companies can grow faster and then you try to go proactively and reach out to those those Founders so that's something like we're also trying to do uh we use a a number of tools and and when whenever we see that someone is is leaving a company in order to build something well then we proactively reach out to them and try to find out and and and then yeah that's that's another way and then to closing closing is is hard right um because like as I mentioned before you need to do the the diligence and it's like team product market and then it's round details and round details uh there's a lot of things like as I mentioned before from Cup Table to valuation to the term sheet and the provisions that you get like governance etc etc all those things they need to be

done and sometimes takes a long time um for example I've been working in some deals for for the past four months because you need to get things right um especially like afterwards like those those type of things like legal cles that you don't think too much at the very beginning but then come by to you afterwards if you different stuff towards yeah yeah it's quite intense so it's hard like to get like a one done by every 3 months is hard our deployment our Capital deployment is going to take a little bit shorter like we are trying to deploy all the capital in the next three years so oh wow so yeah yeah so so we're putting ourselves a um you know ambitious goals to to find good companies and yeah so find good companies do you have like any preference in terms of let's say mobile gaming Studios or console versus PC I know you are also investing outside of games as well right so yes any any

preferences in there since you know everybody's talking about how mobile free to play dead so yeah okay my my personal opinion okay fair enough so my my personal opinion on freet to play is not that um I I think I've been hearing like that mobile games are becoming more difficult since 2012 oh yeah every year it was yeah every well it has increased but uh but that doesn't mean that for example 2020 and 2021 all the exits that we saw over there right um that was phenomenal so um if you ask some of the people that exited and you know it wasn't that difficult or like at least they they made it um and still mobile games is 110 billion market right only onps and Felix you know this from from an at perspective so I don't know 30 for yeah yeah okay 30% there or 30 billion

uh but you know lots of new players every day coming and and developing so what it has changed for sure is the is the Playbook and it has been like every year it's becoming more competitive um perhaps we hear less stories about two students in the dorm room leing the jackpot with a new game but there is a stories about companies being created and launching new games so as a VC we still you know we still believe in that and we can operate when it comes to sectors to your question my preference obviously is in mobile games because that's what I know and I feel you know one of one part of the job as I mentioned before you need to be comfortable taking decisions with very limited information and I find this as a as a you know my personal experience and and development I find this extremely hard the one of the first deals that I looked at I went to my partner and I said can I pass on this you know I don't I don't feel I don't feel confident that I can make a

decision whether he's a yes or no on this company because I don't know much and then my you know my partner came back to me and say look that's the role you know you need to make a decision like we we paying you to make a decision on things that sometimes is limited so you can spend endless amount of time um researching about the industry talking like uh with referrals from the founders like speaking to people trying to find like that level of confidence that you need to make a decision but often you need to make the decision anyways and you have very limited uh information so so when it comes to mobile games I'm I'm more confident of on making this decision however that is not the only vertical that we're investing we are also investing I mean I should start by the thesis right of our fund and the thesis of our fund is about customer journey and user experience uh what we're trying is to find Industries where all the

great learnings that we've seen in gaming can be also applied and and I think there's a number of examples classic examples like du linga in the education um so things where I mean I I I like apply game mechanics rather than gamification but where we see that sometimes in gaming with in mobile games we take for granted many of the things the great things do you do when it comes to understanding the user so what we look is at both user acquisition engage retention and monetization and so we try to find like ways where we can um add some value over there right um so fch healthtech otch um proptech all those kind of like new new verticals that are disrupting in some way the the industries can also be um can benefit from from some of the things that we do at games and you know when when it comes to games as I mentioned mobile games I'm more comfortable deciding than PC conso that doesn't mean that today with the trends um you know a lot of companies

are thinking crossplatform and that's something that we need to do yeah all right so we have let's say a few few model situations because obviously uh uh we are two and a half Gamers and uh we reviewed a lot of games and now let's say we are launching like a hybrid casual game it's three of us uh me on the UA side phelix on the otherization side in the aqu on the on the game design so we obviously we have tons of experience on from the gaming industry we almost ready prototype so so no numbers yet and we would like to go to the soft lunch like I guess January next next year then Global lunch as soon as we can based on the numbers so I guess uh let's say you'd like to get like raise like five million to get the game out um so now what so would you give us this money is this enough information for you like what would be your thought process about like uh about

this case about this case well I like I like that you start with 5 million yeah course because why not if I if I think five million in my mind already I'm thinking well you're asking for a dilution of perhaps like 20% so that puts you in a post money valuation of 25 30 I have no idea how this works well essentially essentially you you would expect like in a in in every round to dilute yourself the founder around 20% 15 to 20% okay obviously the more that you grow the less that you would dilute yourself so which means that if you're five million already um you you kind of like you're putting yourself at a relatively High valuation from the get-go okay um so then uh like in my mind like in depending on the Val the valuation I would be more um let's say more diligent with the question and and obviously the risk is higher because you're you're paying something so in

your case definitely like I would look at the team and say like where's your technical person right you have like a great game designer great and sorry Mt AG but usually UA doesn't come until you don't have a product uh know so so like why would I have like someone that is doing like UA if there's no product yet it's not going to be a there's not going to be a product in one year so so you need to convince me like why should uh should um you have like a cunder that is a a UA person and by the way there's a lot of reasons to do that like if you're doing hybrid casual let's say in a very publishing way um you think about like more like Voodoo style or like you know ketchup then U AG is definitely part of your competitive Advantage so then you can course yeah we don't have the technical director we can actually build the game we have it's almost ready wait a second it's almost ready so we kind of hired someone else who who are working with us yeah the Prototype is going to

be live but okay makes sense I I I'd say you know those those you know I would also try to understand what are you trying to build you you metion you mention a game yeah but um I would be curious like do you want to build a game that is successful or you want to build a company like the next Super okay interesting you tell me like now now so let's say okay so it's it's going to be not even high enough M that's what he's saying yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm reading yeah between the lines obviously but yeah if if I say uh I'm going I just want to build the first game and then based on the success we will build uh obviously multiple games because I mean we we will need to try and start with one and then move from there I'm not GNA try to build a new supercell you're not trying to build the next okay let's send this call here yeah fair enough fair enough okay but tell me tell me like why one one one

game what what is the kind of like the problem like what what is the the opportunity in the market that you see I mean we've been hearing about like hybrid Cas for a while so are you trying to build like HBY like the you know a company that survival like so yeah like I think we we usually discussed and I think we we talked about this on the on ignite like building a template obviously uh for hybrid casual games would be the end goal and then we need to have like a genre expertise in or build a template for one kind of category and then started with one game and then Branch to like five and 10 games whatever else but I I want to start with one and not not have like a big dreams and then suddenly when the first game fails which obviously I guess it can and then just move towards the the under another one I just don't want to say like you said at the beginning I don't want to say everything to convince you to give us money so say okay well let's start with one and then we'll see what happens but I guess

it's not very very lucrative and sexy for for investors to hear I mean to to be honest this is a no program I would say no it's not very it's not very appealing because as I say there I mean you can bootst my recommendation then would be like why don't you just Bo the company um get to to a state where you you know you validate the the thesis that you can build a hybrid casual game and perhaps whenever you kind of like are decided to to make really a a big company a big player in the industry that's kind of like when you come to to to VC which is which is one way or another it doesn't mean that it's good or bad yeah of course yeah yeah sure because yeah there's also the situation the other another one where I would say okay well we have 1 million uh which we saved obviously and then now yeah let's use that for like I guess building save we rob the bank M this is

more okay we rob the bank yeah we rob the bank uh and then and then yeah if if you want to use that for building something and then so we have kind of like kpis as well and then maybe vision for like what we want to build then we come to to the investors and say okay well this is it you to put the one million into into the company or yeah okay uh so big disclaimer as an FCA regulated uh by the way one one of the perks of of being in in VC is that there's a lot of Regulation okay so I cannot I would never provide any Financial advice okay of course yeah this is not Financial advice anyway so no I'm not going to say what to do what you you can do with your with your 1 million but if if you were to put if you were to put the 1 million into the company obviously like um like if you're in from a VC showing that you are committed both financially and in time

that definitely helps right a lot of companies they start bootstrapping they they start you know like with their own fans and their own means and when they get to an MVP or some metrics that already validate or show some signs of success that's kind of like when they raise funds and um and I think that that makes makes total sense uh but as I say it comes down to the vision right if you're a Founder that hey I'm going to put my savings I'm very focused on profitability I think I can get the games like that hybrid casual game to scale nicely and provide me with you know a great great uh uh income source of income and retire myself like you know five years from now perhaps you you don't need to go for VC you just uh need to kind of like keep doing that profitably scaling up and then hopefully you you know you exit the company at some point when you're poor

someone by you know and then you then you invite me and then you invite me to wherever you go yeah okay yeah that makes sense uh okay uh any any other like let's say like last advice or like advice for for VC oh not VC so obviously Founders yeah uh before we we wrap it up well I think I think what you said about the the when to contact the VCS right um so I think definitely like you know contact VC's like the sooner that you can um in the especially in the current context uh right now we all know interest rates at 5% it's very hard for our species like to fund raise um so typically what you don't want if you a startup is to wait until the last three four months of your Runway and say now I'm GNA go to a v start talking I think

is you know the sooner the better and and building the relationship and because a lot of as I mentioned a lot of the decision comes down to the to the team one also advises execute very fast I think um the hit game might not come in the first attempt and if you are able to generate some some some revenues already uh that can decrease your burn rate significantly and then extend your runway for a number of months and I've seen that in in a number of of gaming companies that they their first games they were not successful but they were good enough to to allow the team to iterate and work on on R&D and and develop on games and and so so I think that is a good strategy if if if like can diversifies from just like going the VC rout then series a series B series C and um my last thing is always do your own diligence as well on the um I think

we are doing all the the questions we're making all the questions but then you should ask off the questions on on that end like what type of VC are you are you going to follow up or not um are you actually going to be handson and and help me VCS we also tell a lot of stories and we oversell the same as like a Founder will say like hey I'm going to build a$1 billion company I'm going to tell the the company and the founder as well well I'm going to help you in everything like with HR with uh you know technical I'm going to you know I'm going to and and and there's a you know there's obviously there's no this is not e fated is is is realistic I'm I'm trying to to help but I'm also like doing so many other things so in the end um you might not reach to all the things that you promis so I think that's also good important to know like if they VC the person that you're talking at the VC's Mega VC and it's already like 10 or 15 boards and yeah you can't yeah you can't possibly have t time to just yeah help everybody

and also like the the the where where the VC is at what stage is the VC right if it is a fundraising for the next fun or is it um you know about to to close things like that right so so those are the type of things that you also need to to nice okay perfect yeah uh thanks uh great oh it's I think uh you can uh we can wrap up here and thanks for thanks for coming and uh talking uh to us about all the all the VC and then telling us to uh be a little bit more prepared for pitching our idea are you are you are you gonna send me your deck like we'll see two and a half Gamers we'll see about that as soon as it's ready then definitely is what is like so I'm curious to hear what is your view for hybrid Cal is it um is the I've been hearing about hybrid casual for a long time so so it's a from the the games that we

kind of uh reviewed uh it's it's a very good combination of the both both the worlds because the monetization is 50/50 right so that can kind that can work really well on the UA side and also on the on the monetization side but then if you think about the also the the retention profile it's yeah day one is great but then like the long term is great as well because you're kind of like borrowing the iip monetization and the depth of of the of the game and everything so it's like yeah it's good like the best from both worlds and obviously not as easy to build as everybody thinks because also wodoo is doing this they didn't do it that well all my game is doing this as well they are very far from the rest of the crowd and I think s games is doing the the best job at the moment hobby is the different category that's very different category so I think the outlook for the hybrid casual is quite quite good already I mean I like the games arcade

games classic um power ups and progressing super good um yeah if you ever come across or if anyone listening comes across like a good uh good deck I'm yeah I'm online and please yeah we'll put yeah see youon is slash I'll be there um hoping to get invited to all the good cool parties and then you know have fun all right thanks man and thanks you very much for listening until next time cheers thank you byebye [Music] [Applause] [Music]