25th February, 2008: GDC Roundup Posts…
Well, you may have noticed that my blogging from GDC kind of fizzled out – this was due in large part to the sheer lack of time I had this past week – not that that was a bad thing, of course – I had the most useful and incredible week, perhaps ever. Very glad I was able to go!
I’m going to be doing a retrospective roundup of some of the sessions I attended etc, so watch out for a flurry of posts over the next few days – tomorrow is my last day in California unfortunately, and will be spent once again, in large part, being a bit touristy I believe… including a trip around Alcatraz at dusk, so I look forward to that!
Posted at 12:43 am | View Comments
20th February, 2008: Mitu @ GDC Roundup – Day 2: Session – “Early Stage Funding For Gaming Startups”
So my day started bright and early again on Wednesday 20th February – the first official day for those of us attending the ‘Main Conference’.
I’d been looking forward to this particular session for quite a while – and I was not disappointed. Matthew Le Merle, President of Keiretsu Forum San Francisco, and CEO of Gameplay Holdings LLC, hosted this great session about funding gaming startups, focusing particularly on Angel Investment. Not surprisingly of course, since Keiretsu Forum is, as I found out, the world’s largest angel investor network (with 750 accredited investor members throughout sixteen chapters on three continents). They are very active in investing in digital media and entertainment, and are actively seeking opportunities. I learnt lots of great practical information which complemented the kinds of things I’d been learning at the Kauffman Foundation previously, about angel investment.
Some of the key points I took away (both things I learnt, and things I suspected and had reinforced) were:
- Most games startups begin by bootstrapping by doing contracted work, adopting a ‘Work For Hire’ approach.
- Investors are more interested in the company rather than the current product it’s developing. They look for:
- A great team – indeed, this is what they care the most about in most cases. Whether it’s the right team for the particular opportunity, and whether the team is committed and passionate.
- Big opportunity / tailwinds
- Whether it’s an investable plan – i.e. how to return on their money
- Angels are long-term investors, usually 5-7 years, so this is an advantage over VC’s potentially.
- In most cases, they require proof that the founders have used their own money already in the company.
- Most angels really enjoy getting involved.
- In preparing for fundraising, it is extremely useful to watch other angels pitch – Keiretsu Forum are apparently very happy for people to come in and do this!
- The pitch should have 10 slides, take 20 minutes, and be written in 30 pt font. The slides should include:
- Problem
- Solution
- Business Model
- Underlying magic/technology
- Marketing and sales
- Competition
- Financial Deal
- Expect to give away lots of equity to angel investors.
All in all, I thought the session was incredibly useful for myself (I certainly gave it 5’s across the board on my scorecard!)
Posted at 10:01 pm | View Comments
20th February, 2008: Mitu @ GDC – Day 1
So today (well, now it’s technically yesterday of course!) was my first day at GDC. And wow, it has been one of the craziest days I’ve ever had! The main conference hasn’t even started yet and I am so, so glad I was able to come along; I’ve had some really great conversations with some really great people regarding my own venture – it’s been amazing hearing the stories of those who have been there and done that in terms of launching successful start-ups. I’ve also learned that the international games industry is kind of a small world!
So I’ll post my own round up of the day here – bearing in mind I’m actually writing this on the Caltrain on the way back to the hotel (an hour’s ride) and don’t have any internet access nor my memory stick duo adapter, so this will be photo-less for now. I will add the photo additions and spruce this up a bit later, quite possibly. I’ll embolden the ‘key’ events I attended today.
Serious Games Breakfast – A breakfast organised by the British Consulate and UK Trade and Investment, with Professor Stone from the University of Birmingham as the speaker. He spoke about the work going on in his own university in terms of games technology, and how that’s being applied to the defense industry for various training-related purposes. It was nice hearing about how the Professor Stone’s group actually commercialises the research they do, too, as that’s not something that happens too much across academia. I made contacts with some really interesting and useful people too after the presentation – so all in all, a really worthwhile event!
After this, I had some free time to kill until lunch, so I decided to have a look around the Moscone Center buildings. I started in Moscone North (opposite the W Hotel where the breakfast was) where I officially registered and received my badge. I then went over to Moscone West and picked up my wristband for the IGDA party in the evening. After checking my emails, I checked out the GDC Shop and picked out a few things I’d love to buy (books, a hoodie, a t-shirt) – unfortunately I’m completely broke till later on in the week though so that’s a shame – I hope it doesn’t all sell out!
Heading upstairs to the Intel Interactive Lounge, I saw some interesting 3D stuff going on. I spoke to a guy from TDVision about the cool things his company are doing with 3D – and also had a go on their headset. There’s a picture of me:
UK Developer & US Publisher Luncheon – Soon after all this, it was time for the lunch, again thanks to the British Consulate and UK Trade and Investment. Ian Baverstock, CEO of Kuju Entertainment, delivered a really great speech about the Creative Industries in the UK. It was also great to briefly hear his experiences of how he got into the industry 15 years ago, and I also met and chatted to him a bit afterwards to hear a bit more about this, and his stance and advice about entrepreneurship in general. I also spoke to a few other great companies and people about my venture and about starting up in the industry. Again, a really worthwhile event!
After the lunch, I managed to meet up with Dr Jonathan Sykes and a few researchers from his lab in Glasgow Caledonian University – I’d previously got in touch with them a few months ago when I started my PhD because they’re working on some interesting stuff there, so it was a bit funny we finally met all the way out in San Francisco! It was nice to finally meet them all over lunch/coffee and hear a bit more about what they’re doing.
I then went to the Emotiv Product Launch Event in the Metreon Theatre – I’d been lucky enough to win some tickets for this event, and for obvious reasons related to my areas of interest in research, I was very keen to see what they were up to. The launch event was interesting and I got some great photos – however the product, although very cool, unfortunately had some technical problems in terms of the proprietary wireless technology they use, due to interference from all the cellphones etc in the room. I will do a separate write up about the Emotiv Launch Event later (once my photos are off my camera), but for now, you can read more about what happened and what the press thought at Joystiq. Personally, I’m looking forward to hearing their speaker sessions throughout the conference and seeing the technology in action, and I may perhaps visit them at their Expo booth tomorrow.
Finally, the day ended with party time! For those who may not know, GDC Parties are an important part of the whole conference experience, and are great for networking within the industry. I’d planned to go along to the IGDA party so Stuart (another Kauffman Fellow also there for the day) and I headed there at 8pm. Again, I managed to meet some really great people, and had a chat with the President of Ironworks about his thoughts on entrepreneurship, which, as always, was really great to hear about the experiences of successful people and how they got started. Later on, we also managed to meet up with Jon again, and after I bumped into Darius Kazemi, he led us to the Linden Labs Party.
I was really excited to rather fortuitously (and completely accidentally!) meet a whole bunch of people from The Education Arcade at MIT and GAMBIT, as I’ll be starting my three month internship there in just a few weeks! It was great fun meeting them (and I managed to get into the private section of the party too!). Again I met some really great people, so although it meant a really long day, I’m very glad I went along!
So tomorrow is another day – and it’ll be even more productive and even more crazy, I imagine, as I’m actually attending sessions from tomorrow onwards – I have my whole day planned full of really good sessions, so I’m looking forward to that and also to meeting even more great people – I already have a couple of meetings planned so hopefully that’ll go well!
Posted at 10:17 am | View Comments
20th February, 2008: Mitu @ GDC Day 2 – A Brief Mini-Note
So today was another rather tiring day at GDC – so tiring, in fact, that after my past two nights of only four hours sleep, I decided to have a relatively early night and have headed back to my hotel. I will write up my GDC Day 2 experiences tomorrow when I hope to be fully recharged!
Posted at 6:27 am | View Comments
19th February, 2008: Pre-GDC Thoughts, and San Francisco
So today the rest of the Global Scholars and I went on a bit of a touristy trip around San Francisco – we ate lunch in Scoma’s, took a boat trip under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, and generally walked rather a lot, and saw some great sights! Overall, an excellent day!
Although I’m very glad I had the opportunity to explore San Francisco a bit, I am a bit disappointed that my GDC ticket is simply for the main conference, and wasn’t an all-access pass like I’d originally planned, as I was rather looking forward to some of the sessions of the Serious Games Summit. However, my GDC experience will start tomorrow, and I am rather excited. In the morning, thanks to UK Trade & Investment and the British Consulate-General, I’m attending a Serious Games breakfast, and also a UK Private Networking Lunch. Then, in the evening, I’ll be going along to the Emotiv product launch event, followed by the IGDA party in the evening.
It seems that this year, GDC is getting a lot more press attention than previous years – it certainly seems to be being far more intensively covered by a lot of game journalists and websites. Whilst I’ve seen a few people take an issue with this, I’m not entirely sure if it’s a bad thing – it does mean that news of it begins to penetrate out to the non-gaming-specific media too, and anything that raises the profile of innovation in games is a Good Thing, in my opinion. (Also, on a far more self-centered level, it does mean that I only need to go somewhere like Joystiq to briefly read about what went on at some of the summit sessions I’m missing out on!)
Posted at 8:52 am | View Comments