Growth: Preparing the ground

Last week we hit a key milestone in our company.  We’ve changed our payment structure and said goodbye to the last of our external government funding.  From here on out its make or break, and I’m excited.

Paul and I talk shop a lot.  Daily we knuckle down and crunch numbers, try to predict the unpredictable, and talk through existing and potential contracts and what it could me for our company. As you’ve seen in our previous blogs we’ve taken a strategy of analysing all our data, whether that’s financials, productivity or group dynamics.  We’re in this to grow stronger as individuals, as a team and as a company. So I want to take you through the journey, the good, the bad and the ugly for how we got to where we are and how we’re going to proceed from here.

This series is going to be targeted at new graduates and people who are trying to get into the game market since the early 2000s when so many of the big companies crashed. People without years of game industry experience to fall back on. Why should you listen…? Because its working (for us anyway).

Paul and Nic both have game degrees but only 3 years ago I was a musician thinking that composing for games might be cool. Now we all work full-time in our own studio, and hopefully our journey can help you get started on yours.

We’re going to try to be as honest as possible and give you real numbers, because that’s what I would want if I were in your position.  We’ll talk about our mistakes, how we were able to massage tiny amounts of money into a livable life, when we got lucky, when we turned corners and how we managed it, how our work ethic and skills have changed, our trials and tribulations.

The three of us have different understandings of what happened and why, so we’ll also let you know when we disagree on part of the history. We’ll give solid figures on our own business and funds but we’ll be honoring our clients confidentiality so there will be parts where we paint in broader strokes.

Growth, its scary, its exciting and I think about it more than anything else these days. Next week will be part 1, Planting the seed, where we’ll talk about where we came from, how we decided to form, the founding and how we started out on the wrong foot with the right intentions.