Hey friends, Ron here. I’m starting a game company as my new full-time day (and night… and sometimes weekend) job. I’ve been building games since I was a kid, and I’m excited to focus my efforts on building a business with the same enthusiasm.
“Okay, but why are you doing this?”
I’ve decided to write about my experience in getting this thing off the ground, being as honest as possible about the process of doing so. Maybe it will give you some insight into the decisions I’m making. Maybe it will light an entrepreneurial spark in starting something of your own one day. Maybe it will scare you straight and convince you never to leave the comfort of your twice-monthly paycheck. But my desired outcome is that following my journey will give you the push you need in life to take whatever next big leap is in store, no matter what you do.
About a month and a half ago, I left my day job to start a new chapter in my life. Admittedly, about a month of that time was spent giving myself a mini-retirement summer vacation to recharge the batteries and exploring a few different business opportunities. Now it’s time for the next step. I have a lot of interests, but I’ve chosen games as my focus because I believe it offers the highest opportunity to leverage my unique expertise. From my childhood spent remaking classic games (somewhere in the depths of Clover Hill High School’s IT inventory, there’s a Duck Hunt clone waiting to be rediscovered) to a four year stint with Xbox and another four with Riot, I’ve spent thousands of hours learning how to make and publish games. This understanding allows me to start generating value for customers quickly.
I recently launched Omega Games with the initial purpose of “creating games, apps and other things that make people happy.” One of my first priorities is sharply narrowing the focus to a core target audience that my initial products will aim to satisfy. More on that later!
Business Objectives
Before I get too deep into the weeds, I want to set some framing goals for the business. These should help focus, align and simplify further decision making about product development and business operations.
A successful business should…
- Sustainably provide enough value to enough people to…
- Generate $160k in annual profit (gross income minus operating expenses)
- Require a maximum of 50 hours per week (appr. 9am-7pm Mon-Fri)
- Achieve these goals by June 2019 (one year from today)
“Sounds fooli — I mean… ambitious! How can I help?”
You can help in a couple ways:
- Follow along, and learn from my failures and (hopefully) occasional successes :) I’ve been so incredibly blessed to be able to learn from others who have come before me, and this is my way of paying it forward to others on their journey. If what I’m doing is helpful, entertaining, or otherwise a value add to your life, clap / like / share / retweet as you see fit.
- Hold me accountable! One of the challenges of self-employment is that you become not just the maker but also the manager, the administrator, the visionary and a host of other roles. 1) That’s a lot of hats to wear, and 2) holding myself accountable to my own commitments starts to look a little Fight Club-esque. Let me know if you see me slacking off. Even the rare encouraging nudge can be incredibly helpful.
To Infinity and Beyond
Anywho, I think that’s enough for now. I’ll expand more on the process of discovering a product that people want in the future. For now, let’s get to work.
