Starting A Startup
Team6Labs
Member Posts: 541
Hey everyone, I'm looking to start a startup with some other folks here. I know what you're thinking, these things never work, blah, blah, blah. The mission of the startup is a lot simpler than others may be. We are only doing contract work. Here's the breakdown of people I'm looking for and what percentage they will get.
Outstanding Shares - 40,000,000
1 Developer - 10M Shares
1 Designer/Graphics Producer - 10M Shares
1 Music Producer/Game Writer* - 10M Shares
Me* 10M Shares
Music Producer/Game Writer - Will be responsible for writing out a clear and descriptive game idea for the client and rest of team. Also will be responsible for producing any sounds or music effects required in the games.
Me - I will be run it. I will secure client relationships for the company.
Plan - only client work. We can avoid the hassles of the app stores, corporate bank accounts, etc.
Fun Titles - These are purely for fun. You pick your own
Might be a good addition to resume.
Developer - (CDO) Chief Development Officer, Senior Engineer, (CIO) Chief Intelligence Officer
Designer - (CGO) Chief Graphics Officer, Senior Designer
Music/Game Writer - Producer, Senior Writer
Me - Taking the CEO slot
Looking forward to seeing the reactions, feel free to pm.
Outstanding Shares - 40,000,000
1 Developer - 10M Shares
1 Designer/Graphics Producer - 10M Shares
1 Music Producer/Game Writer* - 10M Shares
Me* 10M Shares
Music Producer/Game Writer - Will be responsible for writing out a clear and descriptive game idea for the client and rest of team. Also will be responsible for producing any sounds or music effects required in the games.
Me - I will be run it. I will secure client relationships for the company.
Plan - only client work. We can avoid the hassles of the app stores, corporate bank accounts, etc.
Fun Titles - These are purely for fun. You pick your own
Might be a good addition to resume.Developer - (CDO) Chief Development Officer, Senior Engineer, (CIO) Chief Intelligence Officer
Designer - (CGO) Chief Graphics Officer, Senior Designer
Music/Game Writer - Producer, Senior Writer
Me - Taking the CEO slot
Looking forward to seeing the reactions, feel free to pm.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
You're taking a huge chunk of the pie. Got years of experience to justify that?
Doing contract work only, means the value of your company has a ceiling. Creating IP that you own will be the only way your company and shares will gain any real value. (you could do both)
If you want to avoid corporate bank accounts I'd say you want to avoid stock options/ shares/vesting stock etc. (you trying to avoid tax or something?)
A senior programmer could deal with the 'hassle of the app store' in his/her sleep.
If you are going to secure client relationships then you'll want to be attending WWDC, GDC, DICE etc to build relationships with publishers? IF that's the case then you'd need some capital to spend on such investments.
If not, its still possible, but you'll need to get in touch with a great PR business and with that in mind you are going to need an example of how great your product is right?
Got any demo's?
I'm not trying to bring you down, just throwing some thoughts out there. Its easy to start a business but to actually BE a business is another story.
Doing client works provides -
A) Immediate Reward/Review
My experience - I have directed, developed, and created a variety of games available on the app store, kindle, and the gs marketplace. I understand the economics of it, and have even done client work myself. Trust me, client work is much more profitable. While building a game internally for ourselves is something that could be in the pipeline, it's not really feasible right now.
This is by no means a full time job. It's more of a weekend job. But if you want to try and make a little extra cash on the side, this might be the way to do it.
Best of luck,
- Thomas
If I combine them together into one job, it less complicates things by having less people, plus a good idea writer knows what kind of sound they want in a game, and vice versa. It's really good to have the sound and idea integrated. Does this answer it?
- Thomas
I know that if I was signing up with a bunch of people who are essentially strangers and going into a client job I'd have some sleepless nights (maybe that says more about me).
Doing a 'test' run project before the real thing at least sorts out the team and how serious they are. Just suggestions.
I wish your venture all the best.
Just to be clear I don't have time right now to join but for others interested, what dealmaking clients do you have access to and how much would on average you make from a job.
Lastly, I thought you were Mr.Marketer with 300k downloads of your game so why do you not want to put on a good quality game, then you market it and justify the 25% and make some dough. (I could be wrong about you being good about marketing but that is what I heard)
@MJMDesign You're getting 1/4th the profit because your getting 1/4th the work. I add value by getting clients and organizing it. Also, the appstore business sucks. Take the top 50 best made game salad games and I bet half didn't even make the $100 dev fee back.
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
If those statistics are true, maybe I shouldn't finish work on my game(s)...
Chakku
@poisenden I agree that with bad programming (there's no coding to be done in GSC, by the way, despite some people's insistence) or bad graphics there is much more chance of spoiling a game than with sounds/music, but sounds and music are still an important factor. And I think it's counter-productive to consider them lesser importance than graphics (or programming). A great programmed game with slick graphics can be made even greater with decent music and sound effects, but still have a negative effect if badly done; that's all I'm saying.
Also considering idea writing as not as important struck me as being particularly strange: if by "idea writing" you mean coming up with the game's concept, gameplay, theme, etc., then this is fundamentally important and shouldn't be dismissed as not very important so easily.
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
Here's why the sound and idea writing positions are less valuable than graphics or coding -
1) You can buy a soundtrack for cheap (marketplace, other website, musician, etc.)
2) Ideas take less time. I can go workout and simply think about ideas and come up with 1 or 2 solid ones in half an hour. How is that equivalent to hours or days programming/designing?
Obviously an idea takes more than half an hour to perfect, but general game ideas aren't that difficult. Do you see my point?
Now, I don't want people to feel undervalued, so i combined the two roles.
I suppose if you're happy with generic library music, that cost could be avoided, with the end result being a game with generic library music.
A couple things:
There's no point in distributing shares for a weekend-only "company."
You say you've done games that are on various stores, but not what games, not what their exposure has been, and not what profits, if any, they have made.
Do you mean Graphic Designer, not Graphics Designer? Because Graphics Designer? That's not a thing.
Looks to me like everyone else is doing the work. What would you be doing? Marketing? Public Relations? That certainly doesn't deserve an equal share, as it's nowhere near equal work. What REAL value do you bring? In what state will the company be founded? Who pays company-related bills?
Most importantly: WHO are you? WHY should anyone work with you? WHAT is your track record? HOW would you get these mysterious clients?
If the idea was decided upon in half an hour, you're so doing it wrong I wouldn't even know where to begin. "Let's make a sci-fi shooter" is easy to say. Now, make it unique so it stands out from the 99.9% of shovelware in every app store. Oops! That takes serious effort. Ideas are worthless - executing them is a different story.
1) My game is Stick Run. Number 1 in 3 countries. Over a quarter of a million free downloads.
2) The shares are just a fun aspect, but might be needed if the company were to expand somehow.
3) I would be managing, organizing, and working the client relations.
4) Company won't be legally founded until we have enough revenue that we can take it to a point that it needs legal protection. Obviously we would create an LLC and go from there.
5) There are no company related bills. If there were (aka LLC fee, taxes, website, etc.) it would be taken from revenue before anyone is paid.
Without numbers, your (free) game could be #1 in 10 countries and it would still be irrelevant. A free game doing okay != people will pay for the next one.
You also might want to get more than one game (and not based on a template) under your belt before trying to start a company with, uh, people you don't know on an internet forum. For your own sake.
And equal pay per projects sounds like an bad idea for the coder(s) and the graphics artist(s). These are the things that usually takes the longest time in a project.
Unless they can just call them self senior without any previous experience.