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So, Hello, and welcome to the show. Hello.
It looks like a richer country like Russia, they have football teams and other expensive
toys and the poor countries like Ukraine and the Baltic’s did open up all these incubators
programs and accelerator programs. There are 2 in Tallinn, There are I think three in Kiev
for the moment and I heard there will be more. So, why did you start this GameFounders thing?
And isn't this like a fashion thing, a fad thing?
Yeah, we've been asked these questions quite a lot, at the moment there's like more than
200 accelerators in the world. 200 in the whole world?
In the whole world. Okay.
According to David Cohen from TechStars, it was like 150 a year ago or so. What do we
notice is that it’s impossible to give lots of value to specialized companies, for instance
gaming startups in a general accelerator. The reason is that mentors that are there
may not be knowledgeable about the specific business of the company at all.
So, what happens in the end is that they give advice which is very generic about most business
models or about how to form a team. But they miss the very industry specific points which
are actually important. So, that is why we decided to create one of the first specialized
or focused accelerator in the world and the first accelerator that is focused on gaming
in Europe. So, you think your differentiation from all
the other program is that you only focus on one industry or market right?
Yes, exactly, and I truly believed that this is a next phase that is at the moment going
on. We see few accelerators emerging in the world that attract all the startups from Ukraine,
from Estonia. These are, as we all know, three of them.
Yeah, which one? Laughs, Would you like to guess?
Well, TechStars, Y-Combinator and the third one is which?
It starts with a number. 500 startups.
Correct. So now we are making a great brand endorsement
to them, Laughs. That, I think yeah, that’s fine.
That’s fine. The fourth one is at SeedCamp in Europe. They are number one.
Probably the best known and the most successful European.
Exactly. What is happening is that, they get the best of startups and the rest of the accelerators
can compete only if they are specialized. This month one accelerator opens in London
whose focus is only on financial startups, and then in the spring, I heard that the spring
board followed our example and started the mobile-only accelerator. And this year also
a focused accelerator has started in San Francisco. Now there is also health-related accelerator,
Rock Health in the San Francisco and also one in Chicago. We see this happening at so
many places and I think it is very good because it actually helps startups more. They get
more value. So, basically, what you want is to be the
best accelerator program for those who are interested in gaming or building gaming projects,
right? Yes, and I believe that we are.
Well, you've just started, how can you say that? I mean there is no track record, right?
Even if you believe it, there is no data that can support this.
Well, if you don’t believe yourself... Who will believe you then? We have about 70 mentors
in the gaming industry. And they have more knowledge about their industry
than you would get as a gaming startup when you are in a general accelerator.
Okay. Let us talk more about the program and the accelerator.
How many teams do you have? When did you start? When is a demo day? What do you do during
the program? Alright, we follow the model that has been
tried for the last 5 to 7 years by top accelerators; it’s a 3 month's program. We run it twice
a year but we started with our first batch in September. So I ran it September, October,
November and we will actually open the applications for the next round very soon, we will announce
it and the next round starts in March. So how many teams did you get on the first
batch? We had 122 applications from 41 countries
and we picked 16. They are from European countries and one from Argentina.
I think there is one from Australia or India, somewhere very far away. Maybe it was Argentina.
Argentina is also far. Yeah. Are they here?
Yes, they are. Maybe I will talk to them later.
Okay. So you have 6 teams, there is 3 month's program
and I assume, all this mentoring sessions and so on?
Oh, yeah. About the program, as I said, we follow the proven model but we are planning
it in a way that is best for gaming startups and we listen to the feedback from our startups
and improve the program accordingly. So, for the first month we have had lots of
mentors, flying here from Europe and US. We also had seminars about game development,
how to pitch and various other topics. We had here really great speakers and we had
demo days at the end of the program. We plan one in San Francisco and one in London.
So, you are not going to do a demo day here? Yeah, we will.
Okay, you said structure of the program is similar for different accelerators but the
devil is in the details. So, what I want to ask about is the founding team. Who started
this? Do you have relevant experience? Why do you think you can do it? I mean you have
to attract good mentors? You have to, in order to add value; you have to understand what
you are doing. So, who is behind the program? We are 4 founders. We have been in the accelerators
ourselves. We have been involved in several startups. My 2 partners- let say my 3 other
partners have been involved in several startups and one of them is running an accelerator
in US called -___, and has also been head of a gaming studio for 5 years. So we have
relevant experience from the industry in the team.
Okay, that’s good. What happens in the end of the program? By the way, what kind of projects
do you think the teams do? Is it mobile games or other kind of games?
It is a mobile game. It is also a browser-based game.
Okay. We welcome teams from across the globe. And
not just directly gaming startups but also startups that are using gaming apps. For instance,
we have here one startup that is working on the language learning using gamification.
So, there is one startup in the Russia which just recently raised funding called LinguaLeo.
Exactly, such startups are most welcome here because we believe our mentors can also add
value here. Educational games for kids is really very
big thing right now and also training apps that motivate you to run more or take your
medicines at the right times. For the kids recently there was one app which gives you
incentives and badges, so you won’t forget. Medicine is just an example. Gaming is going
into education and various other fields. For instance, motivation, big corporations motivate
people to do tedious tasks using gamification. So these teams. What stages they are in terms
of product? Are they pre-launch or some of them have users?
So we are looking at teams that already have attracted attention or their products are
almost ready or even better, ready. So, they come here and get help on how to polish their
product, how to come up with the right business model or how to launch it? And maybe we also
work on another game or another product here. You asked that how far are teams that are
here right now? Some of them have launched their games already and have very substantial
revenues and so- Substantial meaning what?
Let’s say we are not talking about tens of thousands but thousands euro and also lots
of users and downloads. Now they are planning to go to other markets and working on their
strategy, on their product, on how to make it better. And then we also have teams that
are working on their product. We have this one team that is actually still working on
their games and is not yet ready. Okay, what do you think about games? Are they
hit business? Take Rovio – they have this huge Angry Birds franchise, or Cut The Rope
from Russia, it is not clear if they can produce more games like that which will be successful.
It is even more risky than a typical venture outside of gaming.
Yeah that is correct. It is very hard to predict, however, if you look at the successful game
studios they have managed to produce more than one hit. So it is possible if you have
a great creative team and if you have the right resources, you can go on.
So, back to the program, you said you open applications for the next batch soon right?
So let us say, I am the founder, let’s say I want to get team right? Preferably, I would
have a game of something that is already launched right? Have some users or maybe revenues even,
what kind of other things you look for? Like this checklist, how do you define this?
It’s very important, we realized like what you said that this great breakthrough may
not be the game that they have applied with, the game they are working on right now. I
met him at a conference, the founder of Mafia Wars, and he told me that actually Mafia wars
was the worst. Do you know which numbers - No, no idea.
17th. 17th okay.
So, he was totally broke before that, almost ready to give up and then- so about the team
who can go on, who is creative, and who is ready, you know who’s passionate about games
and who has the right competence? You can be passionate about games but if you don’t
have the right team together, then you cannot make it.
Okay, there is one other thing I want to talk about and this is funding versus- Yeah, there
seems to be a big problem that a lot of accelerators faced. If you’re not on top 3, let say that
there is a demo day and then the plan is to get full funding. Most of the teams, especially
in the Europe, there is a not much capital or at least most of the teams struggle to
get their capital. Yeah, I agree. It’s the key differentiator
between top accelerators and the others. So this is what every accelerator has to work
on a lot. So what is your strategy? How are you going
to help teams to get full investment so they can work on the project and all?
So, our strategy is to create as many connections with investors as possible and also with other
accelerators that could also do follow-ups. We also have demo days in key places where you
can find the investors in the gaming. Right now, you can find investors in the US, that
is why we are partnering with 2 accelerators in the US and also we are making a joint demo
day with a gaming accelerator in the US. So, this is how we connect with their investor
network and get more attention to our startups. And that if you do a demo day in the US, the
team or at least the founders have to probably stay there for the next 3 months to actually
raise money, right? There are hardly ever checks being given on the demo day.
Yeah. I agree, it’s definitely tough but it’s up to the founders if they can go through
this. If you really want to do this it’s possible to stay in the US use budget places
and act your way to the top and that is why we are also looking for startups that already
have options. So they might have enough resources to sustain through the process and actually
be able to be capitalized. Okay. I think that I have run out of questions
about the program. I think we covered all of the major things. If I miss something just
tell me. Yeah. I wanted to say that we are actually
very much looking for startups from Eastern Europe, and Ukraine is definitely a wealthy
place where we would like to see teams coming from. Why? Because we think we can help them
more than for instance, some US teams we had this time. We had most of applications from
the US. Oh, really?
Yes. Like more than half of them from the US?
Not more than half but out of 41 countries, highest number comes from the US. However
I think we can add more value to a startup from, let’s Ukraine. Simply because in Europe,
we act as a link to US. We are partnering with 2 accelerators and majority of our mentors
are from US, Canada. Once again, the majority as the highest number if we take by country,
so what do we offer is like a link to a gaming centers and investors. However, if you are
already in the US, the value could be small at least at the moment, however some US teams
are really interested to come over here to learn from very innovative Scandinavian gaming
industry. We have lots of mentors from there. It’s actually-
Do you have some mentors from Rovio? Ah, we know quite a few people from there.
Let’s say and- so it is actually very attractive for US teams to come here. For teams who want
to have a European business, who want to launch here some browser games specific for let’s
say German market or a European market to understand better what has to be done.
International landscape? Yeah.
Okay, cool. Just one final question, where we are sitting is a like, I don’t know what
this is, but can you tell a little, I mean, we don’t have anything like that in the
Ukraine. Sorry about the construction noise right now.
Yeah. So the building is about to be opened. It’s
brand new and it is a one of the buildings of Tallinn science parks technopolis and it’s
a science park. It’s meant for technology companies helping technology companies to
grow faster. So, they rent the office space to TechStars startups. They have about 150
startups in various buildings 150 startups really?
Companies, and startups and one of them is Skype’s building. These 500 people are just
next to our building here. So, it is really a great environment here. We are on 2nd floor
of the building with other companies, and particular floor is only for a startups and
Gamefounders. And this area is next to Estonia’s largest ---second largest university and only
technical university in Estonia. It is also next to an IT college. So, it is a great growth
here in this area-- in this town. Well, that is amazing. I mean both the size
and location are impressive. Who come up with this idea of building this technopolis? It
is like a government program or is it like a private people who wanted to make it happen
and just force the government to help them. Well the science parks were invented in the
US and all over the world there are around thousand science parks. It started in 50s
60s in the US and now they are in many countries around the world. There are these technology
parks and science parks. Usually they are supported or founded by a universities, government
or local government. Initially the idea was to take all these inventions research of the
universities to the market place and make it commercially available. Nowadays there
is a less connection to universities, but this science park is actually founded by the
Tallinn Technical University and Estonian government and the city of Tallinn. You asked
that who the initiators were. So, the first CEO of the science park- and of course, there
are also other people, it has to be almost every one's effort.
Yeah of course but still typically, there is someone who pushing this?
Right. Well, I mean that is good environment and
there will be something in Kiev. I’ve heard that there is something in Kiev. But I don’t
know of what these startups in one area are even-
You know, I think you have the potential to do all of this. And sometimes it is possible
to create big things in a relative short time if you have vision to do to it and determination
that how you want to do it. Maybe for a couple of years, you are ahead of many other countries
and then the others push harder and catch up.
Okay. That is the beauty of competition.
It is a good source for closing. I want to wish best of luck to all of the team who are
here and good luck for your second batch. I think the more good programs we have benefits
entrepreneurs and the community. Thanks. And I hope Ukrainian teams also apply
to Gamefounders and your entrepreneurship ecosystem grows faster and faster.
Yeah. Thanks. Sure. Bye.