Shorter is Better

I was reading a blog entry by Seth Godin the other day when a thought hit me; his blog entries are short and informative. This is one of the reasons I love his blog, not to mention the genius he instills in it! Throughout school we’re taught to write to fill space, but this is not effective in this medium. I know I don’t have time to read bloated articles. So I’ve decided to take a queue from Seth and work on creating shorter blog entries.

Plan for Nanoburnt Games

I just read a great and extremely relevant post at jeffongames.com; especially considering all of the indies out there looking to make a living. In my plans to start an indie studio, I’ve also encountered these dilemmas when looking at the numbers. Since, I also have the dream of making a living producing indie games, I’ve developed a plan to do so (warning: not for quick money seekers or the undedicated).

Since we want to make good indie games, we do not want to be weighed down by investors or debt, so all funding for games will need to come from the games themselves. Investors tend to demand profits and guarantees which tend to limit games. Debt is similarly restricting, as it sometimes forces strict time lines (i.e. this game needs to done in time to generate money to make loan payments). This also means we will need to keep our day jobs for quite a while.

We have several ideas for games, some small, some large, and some like Sputnik (HUGE!). Most of the small game ideas are actually coming from the larger games we want to produce. We’ve discovered that we can take small aspects of a larger game and generate a smaller game from it. The beauty of this is that while we have a smaller game to release, much of that game can be re-used in the larger game. Thus we’re actually working on a larger game by releasing smaller games.

So our basic plan is to release several small games initially (this is good since we still have day jobs; and therefore, available time is limited). The revenue from the games will be re-invested back into the studio, building funds for future games (we don’t need to pay ourselves, since we still have day jobs). Once we’ve built up enough funds, we can quit our day jobs and really concentrate on one of the larger game ideas and may even be able to afford a bit of hired help. Not only will we have the funds available, but during the time we’ve been saving we’ve built up a reputation for the studio.

I hope this gives some hope and ideas to others.

MBA and startups

Dharmesh at OnStartups.com has posted a good article, Startups-10-Things-MBA-Schools-Won-t-Teach-You. Below are my thoughts on the subject:

While I agree fully that an MBA is not necessary for a startup, it may still be beneficial to your success. I am just a few months away from completing my MBA and actually started it (as well as my undergraduate) with the purpose of eventually starting my own business.

I don’t agree with everything in the post, but there are definitely many lessons that are not taught nor can be taught in B school. The two biggest of these are that B school cannot teach you to fail and no two businesses run the same way. Failing is how we learn and grow, without which we stagnate and continue in the same ruts. Businesses are a lot like people, no two are the same. Each has different cultures, backgrounds, operations, and personalities. So B school cannot teach every aspect of running and operating a business. This said, you must have your own personal reasons to obtain an MBA or not. No one can tell you whether or not you need an MBA to start a business.

Below are 7 reasons I chose to pursue an MBA (in no particular order):
1. Provide me a stepping stone to see over the complex tangle of trees and underbrush of the corporate forest.
2. Open my mind to areas of business I may not think about normally
3. Learn from others' experiences
4. Networking, it’s amazing the connections that are made through school
5. Start-up ideas, I’ve spent countless nights after class contemplating ideas from class and how they can be applied to a start-up.
6. Investing, understanding how the corporate world works helps to conduct proper due diligence when researching investments.
7. Discovering tools and techniques that have worked in the past and then examining them to determine if they are still applicable or how they can be adapted for now and the future.

As mentioned earlier, a degree does not make a person and just because someone has a degree does not necessarily make them any better than the person without a degree (one more lesson not taught in B school).
Thanks to everyone for the great comments and thanks to dharmesh for starting it!