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Portable Presents Product Design 2012 March 2012
My name’s Shainiel Deo and I’m the CEO of Halfbrick.
Halfbrick have been around for 11 years now. [Screenshot of Shainiel playing game on Iphone]
We’ve moved to mobile and that’s where we’ve really staked our claim with games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride [Screen shot of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride]
I did a games course for a year and then at the end of that got the crazy idea of “why go work for someone else, let’s start our own games company.”
[LENI on camera] My name’s Leni Mayo. I’m an investor in Sitepoint and 99designs and we’ve just ticked over our 100,000th project.
[Screenshost of 99designs website]
and we’ve just ticked over our 100,000th project.
TITLE: Strengths
[SHAINIEL on camera] I think what we’ve managed to do really well is look at the strengths of the particular platforms or device [Shot of Shainiel playing with Iphone]
and really use our design processes to come up with products that really stand out.
Title: Challenges
[LENI on camera] Setting up a team and building a team is one of the hardest parts of running a start up.
[Shot of Leni walking in a streetscape] We face the challenge of growing really fast and needing to try and maintain strong leadership
and strong culture in the face of holding on to this rocket that was taking off.
[SHAINIEL on camera] I went to our guys and involved them more in coming up with the ideas.
It’s amazing what sort of comes out from that process, there are some things that are right in front of your face the whole time but you can’t see them because you might be too close.
[LENI on camera] I think the number one mistake that Australian companies face when trying to grow their companies internationally is they lack a focus on marketing.
Many Australian companies are at a competitive disadvantage in terms of their marketing skill and their general understanding and executing of marketing.
TITLE: Business Strategy
[SHAINIEL on camera] We needed to look at the usage habits of users of mobile devices [Shot of iPhone screen Shainiel playing Fruit Ninja]
We also had to look at the viral nature and how to spread the word about our products.
We also had to look at the viral nature and how to spread the word about our products.
[LENI on Camera] We were making designers happy, we were creating opportunity for designers so that was basically the internal motto of the company.
Traffic and revenue took off without us doing a lot of proactive marketing, it was all word of mouth.
TITLE: Media
[SHAINEIL on Camera] The key aspect for us is to build relationships with media even if we haven’t got much to show.
The key way we go about doing that is attending conferences around the world and meeting these guys, and having drinks with them.
TITLE: Investment
LENI on camera The ideal time to seek investment in order to grow is when you’re profitable, when you’ve figured out your business model
model and you’ve figured out how you’ve acquired customers and what you want to spend the money on is putting the accelerator on a proven engine that works.
[SHAINIEL on camera] I think investors do understand what’s happening in the digital marketplace.
They’ve probably been a little bit slower to catch on to it’s potential
and I think that allowed a lot of smaller companies to really get established and I guess disrupt things.
[LENI on camera] Both start ups are getting more sophisticated,
they’re getting much more savvy with how to deal with investors,
and investors I think are getting more sophisticated with what they want.
TITLE: Launch Strategy
[Shainiel on camera] It comes down to identifying key stakeholders in the market and creating and building a close relationship with them.
Secondly its making sure we create the most hype that we can around the product.
TITLE: Golden Advice
[SHAINIEL on camera] First you have to make an awesome product.
[LENI on Camera] Start small, think of what you’re doing as gardening rather than architecture.
Trim, grow, cull and let the light steer where you’re growing to rather than “I’m going to build this wonderful thing and that’s it”.
you’re growing to rather than “I’m going to build this wonderful thing and that’s it”.
Screenshot of Fruit Nijna then shot of Shainiel playing Fruit Ninja
People think we can make these awesome products every time but that they don’t see the 29 other products that didn’t make the cut.
People think we can make these awesome products every time but that they don’t see the 29 other products that didn’t make the cut.
Sometimes you need to knock on a lot of doors. It’s certainly easier if you’ve got a hit product on your hands.
It’s certainly easier if you’ve got a hit product on your hands. But you just need to be persistent and build those relationships and opportunities will come along
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