company in under 3 years Justin Beck Co-Founder and CEO PerBlue, Inc - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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company in under 3 years Justin Beck Co-Founder and CEO PerBlue, Inc - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Feb 18, 2023 257 likes •1.43k views

Bootstrapping 101: How college kids built a thriving game company in under 3 years Justin Beck Co-Founder and CEO PerBlue, Inc @PerBlue @JustinKBeck Virtual Goods Expenses Purchase Swag Level Up Refine Oil Customize Weapons Change Skill

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Bootstrapping 101: How college kids built a thriving game company in under 3 years

Justin Beck Co-Founder and CEO

PerBlue, Inc

@PerBlue @JustinKBeck

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Virtual Goods Expenses

Purchase Swag Level Up Refine Oil Customize Weapons Change Skill

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Our Revenue

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Our Users

  • 1 million user accounts
  • 13,000 DAU
  • 40,000 MAU
  • 1,500 concurrent players
  • 70% male, 30% female
  • 85% Android, 15% iOS
  • 75% USA, 25% rest of the world
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How did this start?

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We got offered really early money.

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Take The Money or Bootstrap?

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Why did we turn it down?

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Terms That Stink

  • Small investment
  • 1 board seat out of 3
  • 10% share of the company
  • Preferred Stock – protective provisions
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We didn’t trust them.

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We’re officially Bootstrapping.

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Sleep!

My life @ Microsoft

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The real cost is not just time. Stress Focus

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Microsoft offered me a great job.

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Take M$ job or continue to bootstrap?

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Why did I turn down the job offer?

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Mobile Opportunity

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Microsoft will always be around.

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The real value isn’t the money. Education

+100 XP

Experience

+100 XP +100 XP

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Don’t let upfront cash buy you.

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Assembling the team

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Stock Options

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How do stock options work?

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Early Stage Employee Stock Options

  • Really low price per share
  • PT work .1% for a year
  • FT work .4%-.8% for a year
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Key to compensation: Good outcomes for the company and employees.

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Why did people choose this?

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After 11 months of development…

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We still weren't shipped.

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We have to ship.

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Kingdoms Send Messages Crafting Mines Caves Warp travel Armories Crystal Oil Weather Towers Leveled Weapons Ranged Weapons Pets Mini games Trading Merchants Mingling Female character Flags Spells Water Event feed Alliances Geotargetted marketing Ranged weapons Magic Web view Tutorial Customizable items Item naming Territory naming Sheep Avatar customization Dungeons Collect Gold Payment Subscriptions Tradeposts Claiming Land Invites Cities Global chat Quests Giant turtles Scrolls Grove Rankings Kill Monsters Hats Research Academies Armories Societies Oxen Sign Posts Flowers Statuses Larva Plants

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We launch!

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Some Context

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“Got a lot of potential.”

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“I don’t have enough creatures in my circle.”

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“I am sick of driving around.”

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People don’t move.

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“I hit my neighbor’s cat while driving because I was playing PK.”

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How do we make a location-based game not so... location-based?

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Sh*t.

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There is more to location than just being there.

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Bam

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We adjusted our strategy.

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We’re broke.

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When you’re out of money, the ship stops.

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Initial Revenue Model: Subscription Based

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But we were scared of a pay wall.

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This was before Virtual Goods were pop culture.

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Virtual Goods Expenses

Purchase Swag Level Up Refine Oil Customize Weapons Change Skill

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Where players spend Food is important.

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Tradeposts

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We had the revenue model.

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We needed money to launch.

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How can we fund this?

Angel or VC round Friends and Family round Start doing contract work

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Friends and Family

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Friends and Family: Important Things

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Family and Friends Terms

  • $72,000
  • Common Stock
  • 3.5% of the company
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The night before launch…

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It Worked!

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Evaluating Acquisition Offers

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What’s the price?

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Is it strategic?

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What is the opportunity cost?

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Who’s in control?

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M&A Broad Offer Terms

  • Private Stock  Private Stock Swap
  • Other company priced high
  • $3M price, but re-vesting over 4 years
  • Team Relocation
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“Let me build you something bigger and better.”

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Raising Series A

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Raising Series A

  • We were profitable
  • We employed 7 full time people
  • Increasing cash flow
  • Had a solid team
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Many investors requested us to move to CA.

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Perks of being in the Bay

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Perks of not being in the Bay

Madison, WI

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The Results

  • Oversubscribed
  • Looking for $300k, total of $800k raised
  • Good investors that are trustworthy
  • 50% West Coast, 50% Midwest
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Scaling Revenue

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Niche products have more legs than you think.

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Stay Laser Focused

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Starting multiple new products with small teams didn’t work.

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Things that worked

  • Improving new player experience
  • Optimizing profitable features
  • Improving referral systems
  • Improving payment flow
  • Investing in ROI positive marketing
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Scaling Customer Acquisition

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Cost of Customer < LTV of customer

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Cash flow growth is awesome.

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We reused $800k to grow our team 3 times.

Employees Revenue

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2011 Results

  • 3.4x revenue growth
  • 2x DAU growth
  • Record new accounts
  • Record daily revenue
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Player Graph

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What are we working on now?

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Benefits of this strategy

  • Build a “Parallel” brand
  • Shorter dev time
  • Stick to our strength
  • Stackable revenue streams
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Go forth, bootstrap!

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Justin Beck justin@perblue.com

@PerBlue @JustinKBeck