Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 The problem is if you hire for today and you give a high position for that person saying, let's say you have a great programmer, just an absolute monster. Who's really good at fast prototyping and fast coding. Is that person good at leading an engineering team? Probably not, but what if he comes really early? Will he be a lead developer? If he's a lead developer, that's a problem because now you've given a title it's for somebody who's not actually a lead developer. And sometimes I've seen even titles, like CTO being given to people who are just great coders that doesn't make you a CTO. So I think, I think if you're hiring for a lead position, that person needs to be a lead. And then you can go about and thinking about like, what kind of a lead do you want? Do you want to lead that can actually build something while that those people do exist and you can hire for that, or if you want to have just a lead that can scale up and you probably have to be in a bit of a different position as a company, but yeah, as a, as a, as a thumbnail, don't give away titles like candy <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:05 Today's guest on scaling so far. Um, we've crossed paths a few times over the years, um, and he's built and scaled teams for some of the most kick-ass teams in the world of gaming for companies like Supercell and Zynga. Um, and I'm stoked that he's with us today, now, CEO and co-founder of Savage game studios, uh, Michigan, welcome to the podcast, Michigan. How's it all guy. Thanks, Matt. Let's, you know, it's going, it's going as good as it can be as it can be during these, um, these fun times. Thank you so much for joining us. I know you're super busy, um, with the launch of the company and all that good stuff, but it'd be great if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your story so far. Yeah, so having been in games for about 12 years started at AGL chocolate, which back then was making games for Facebook canvas.
Speaker 1 00:02:01 And I was actually one of the first product managers in the company, and it was pretty much learning on the job because the job was to make money out of free games, which just sounded absolutely crazy. And it does sound still crazy as, as it is today. Like every time you see people paying for free games and every time I paid for against it's crazy anyways, uh, so learned that useful skill on the job. And from that, you know, web went down, mobile, went up. And so I ended up working at Rovio and worked at Supercell Zynga on plus work both here in Helsinki, as well as, um, in, on, in States, uh, in San Francisco. And currently, as you said, founded my own, my own company finally. And, um, and that's, that's been my career progression from product manager to game lead to studio lead to, um, to now, um, a startup startup CEO, which is not like a typical CEO of startups. It's a different that AC sleeves up position. Almost funny to say that as a CEO. Yeah, it does feel strange sometimes in the companies like two, three, four, five people. But so what led you after a, you know, very impressive career to, to co-fund your own studio last year? Was it something that you've been thinking about for a long time or just a, an idea that spot?
Speaker 1 00:03:28 Yeah, I mean, honestly it wasn't something that I'd been thinking about long time and, um, it came out quite naturally organically, to be honest, it was just meeting with the people you wanted to found the company with. It was, uh, realizing a clear market fit and people actually that would be not only capable of building a, a game like this, but also, or games like these, but also people that are passionate about building something like that. And, um, and the third thing is always like, can we get resources to build something that we want to build? And, um, after discussions with, with VCs, they believed in the cost. So the resources came in. So now you have three things, you've got the market fit, you've got the people who are willing to do that. Now you have resources to, to pursue this challenge. So why not?
Speaker 1 00:04:15 But personally I do have to say, like for me, the biggest driver was to, to build a culture, to build a, the type of, uh, the type of studio that I believe can execute on the mission. So, so that was, that was, that was something that I was, that was driving me probably the most, but of course those, those other aspects are important as well. Awesome. Sounds great. And how would you describe the, the mission and vision for Savage brand studios? Yeah, well, I, um, I dunno if, if, um, okay, let's put it this way. I'm not a biggest fan of the vision, especially with startups, because it's kind of lofty to say like, Hey, we're going to connect people through games and create these experiences. It's just like, come on, guys, what are you talking about? There's six or whatever. So I would say, but, but I'm definitely a big proponent of a mission because mission is something that you can build your values around.
Speaker 1 00:05:09 And mission is like, what are you executing against? And values are, is how are you working to get to the, to, to complete the mission? So for Savage, our mission is to, to build the premier mobile shooter studio in the world. That's a, that's a lofty mission. So I don't think you need a vision on top of that already. And, um, yeah, and the values are based on this mission and the values guide on how we're working go. I like your answer that much on mission versus vision. And you guys have an ambitious statement, uh, and like you say, you can build an organization and some values around that to execute and that's the most important thing. Yep. Cool. So there were 10 of you currently in the team. Um, as I understand it, um, I think that's grown a bit since, since we recorded that seasoned industry veterans from companies like rockstar or gaming, Rovio next games.
Speaker 1 00:06:07 I think I, and certainly the list of listeners would love to hear a bit more about what your approach has been to building the team today. I know you referenced it earlier, especially from a founder's perspective. How did you know who those early people were that you needed to bring on board? Yeah, so yes, we, we are, we are at 12 today and 13 on Monday as of this recording. So, so, uh, we're, we're, we've been, you know, I would say that hiring hasn't been the, uh, the most difficult things, of course, when you're very small hiring, the first set of 10 to 20 people tends to be quite easy. And after that, of course you're using services like seed, uh, to, uh, to, to grow from there. But for us that the hiring is, is really based on planning. And I think the planning has to be done beforehand. So we we've drawn our organization charts, we know what we need to accomplish. And, um, and we're, we're basically hiring based on that and, and pretty much, yeah. Yeah. I think everybody who had been hired as somebody we worked with before at this point, but as it goes, usually you can get with that to about 20, 25 people. And after that, you've, you've kind of tapped out and also it's good to start looking outside just to, you know, not do hire every friend.
Speaker 1 00:07:28 It's very interesting from a cultural perspective and that's a conversation for another day, but this, the organizations that we see succeed, you know, from a continuity perspective of bringing in those folks, they can work with, um, very early on when it's in that kind of super hostile fights, it's all about speed. It's all about speed. Both with, as you guys know, the hiring takes a lot of time. Testing takes a lot of time. Building trust takes a lot of time, and those are important investments as you go forward. But especially in the beginning, if you're able to save some time by, by bringing people who, you know, can complete the mission and are eager to, to take, you know, to, to jump on and are actually good fit, not just a day or friends, but find in your roller decks, those people who fit the position, then I think it's a good call to take them, but if they're not a perfect fit and you're just taking them because it's the easiest thing to do, and that's a wrong call as well.
Speaker 1 00:08:22 Yeah, for sure. Well, let's, let's dive into kind of the, um, learning from hiring as a process, you know, either for, for this company yourself now, or, you know, we know you've worked at the organizations you mentioned before, you know, both in Europe and the us, um, we really came to, for you to share your thoughts with others, um, around what you should begin from a hiring perspective, you know, what have you learned? What are the sort of, some of the big mistakes that you see? Yeah, well, well the biggest mistake, and I think everybody who listens to and everybody who's worked in any company knows that hiring too fast is the biggest mistake. Just bringing in too many people too quickly, not only slows down your, your, your, uh, your production or whatever you're doing, but also messes with your culture. So, so essentially that's, that's the biggest mistake and that's how companies die.
Speaker 1 00:09:15 So, um, it's, it's very expensive mistakes. So always, always go for, for slow hiring. Um, and, and especially in the beginning, in the beginning, I think you should hire people who have other people that they would bring along because when you're building an organization and are sure you're, you're bringing along some specialists that are specialists for, for the special tasks. But the majority of the people that you're trying to bring are those who would scale up as the organization scales up. So, uh, it's important that if you're hiring an art director, that that art director has actually 18 and preferred partners that they've used to work, so they can set up the operations and, and, and bring talent with them. I've had that experience before, and it's been absolutely fantastic. They would start pretty much with, uh, with a full skeleton art team and preferred outsourcing partner who they've worked for before.
Speaker 1 00:10:04 And you're up and running from, from day one. Uh, another thing that I've learned, um, recently, just, so this is just recent just by, by, by being, uh, uh, very conscious of money and time as a startup CEO, um, use contractors until you find a great fit. So oftentimes I've done this mistake before, and I'm sure other people are doing is that they're trying to hire and fill up positions quickly so that they can move forward. They need certain talent. Otherwise they're getting bottleneck from it. World is filled, especially now with contractors, uh, just super great specialists that can help you out in certain specific tasks, use those and continue using them until you find the fit. So now you're not pressed on time to get that specialist like, Oh, this person is good enough. Maybe not a perfect cultural fit, maybe not the best type of talent, but we need this person right now.
Speaker 1 00:11:00 Otherwise we'll, we will, you know, it will cost money, whatever it is, no use contractor and take time with hiring with this. Like you said, you kind of remove any constraints, which allow you better people decisions you're, you're buying time. You're not, you're not, you're not, you know, being behind the curve by, by actually contracting some of the pieces out a third one is of course, leverage your investor in investors, uh, whether that's investors or your own network, but use your own network. Um, you'll you'll you might find some great, um, great people through that. And other things that I've learned is that typical PR is damn near useless. Like if you're not throwing shade, pocket gamer, but that type of, uh, like basic PR short blip, Hey, we raised X amount of money. We're looking for this, this and that, whatever. No, like, that's almost useless to say that, but that's, that's the case podcasts on the other hand have been great.
Speaker 1 00:12:01 Uh, this is coming from our own experience, running a podcast as well for a long time. I've had a lot of guests from different companies come in and they were talking about their organization and they were getting a lot of people applying for those roles. So whether they are marketing lead or marketing director or product director or whatever is hearing somebody talk for an hour about their organization, how they're working, what are the challenges that leads to a person listening to it and like, Oh, there's actually a fit. I'm interested to hear more about it. And for someone who isn't podcasts have been great, maybe it's long form conversation. Maybe it is. I don't know why, but they just bring it closer. So if you can invest your time into releasing press releases and begging whoever to post them on their site versus jumping on podcasts, like this, jump on a podcast and share it on your LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 00:12:51 And that's better. Yeah. I was going to ask you why you said you're not too sure, but I can kind of see, see why that makes sense. Right? There's a, a blind posts. There are hundreds of these on a weekly basis, right? People raising money or having a look inside this company, that company. And I think with a podcast, as a listener, you can start to feel how passionate somebody is about a topic. Does that resonate with you? What are they building? Does it align with what you want to achieve from the correct perspective? And I don't want to say that the press releases are useless, not by any means because they are on the other hand, great for raising awareness for your company, for other investors, as well as, you know, M and A's and whatnot. That's where the BD guys are following that.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 But the people who are interested in joining your journey are not looking at name the publication. Once the lesson, latest press release that is being put out there. They're, they're not, they're not. So, and if they are, you probably don't want them because yeah. I mean, I have seen that with the type of people that apply at different stages of an organization's journey does change. And sometimes that's driven by PR, um, you've got your own stage folks that like the building phase, the hustle phase, and you've got folks in like a company is already mature, established, successful. I feel some security, um, some sense of security. We'll talk about that later. Cool. So I tend to get so big. It can't go down.
Speaker 1 00:14:26 Here's an interesting question. And you throw in some questions back at me. So is there a myth that you think need busting when it comes to building a games team, um, BS advice or something that you've seen too often advocated? Um, when it shouldn't be, yeah. So I read this question in advance, like the question that you guys sent were amazing, like went through the, the advice, and this was the only one that didn't have really an answer, because I don't like, what are the typical, like, you guys know it, like, what are the myths and in building teams. Yeah. I'll throw a few out there. And these are sort of from, from previous podcasts, as well as some of my own, my own. And that's the, um, hiring fast versus hiring slow. You've already solved for that one. An interesting one is, um, let's talk about this one.
Speaker 1 00:15:16 This is an interesting one. Um, I'm not sure it's it, it's a myth, but an interesting topic for us to talk about, which is, um, firing people quickly. Yeah. I'm not going to say it's a myth, but I'm going to use the opportunity to jump on that. Um, I can guess you've got two schools of thought, right? And I've experienced both, um, some through constraints of, of local market, labor laws and some through organizational culture. Right. But there are organizations that probation period is a very, very serious, um, an opportunity for both parties to decide if, if the organization works for them or not. And there are others that, it's just a thing that's in the contract and this kind of thing, rumble on like a, let's use this opportunity to talk about that as a topic, your thoughts on let's call it firing fast.
Speaker 1 00:16:07 I hate the word offensive, controversial. I think letting go is like, if you have to fire somebody, then you are poor at recruiting. That means you should somebody, no idea person came in and they was horrible. That's what I think about. And then there's like letting somebody go because there was no fit and that's a different thing. So I think that's a great topic. Um, done that a lot. Like not, not a lot, a lot, but in every position that I've been, I had to let go people. Um, I have a very simple process. So first of all, setting goals, goals have to be really clear if the person is not aware of their exact goals and the ownership through that, they will most likely fail in their, in the organization. And then you will be able to point, like, why did they fail? It's like, well, can't, didn't fit or kind of didn't do that.
Speaker 1 00:17:04 But in real life, the person just didn't know what was expected of her or him. So start off with very clearly defined goals. And actually in our, in Savage, we've stepped further. This might sound crazy, but we define the goals and you'd have to sign them because every time you sign something, you really read what was being said. And this was just making sure like, Hey, these are the goals and, and, you know, sign it, like, read it, sign it. Do you agree with them? Okay, great. And like, you would have contracts if you have any questions or concerns, we'll discuss them. Right. Exactly. So, so it's not just a meme, just not the conversation. It's not an email. It's, it's real. Like if you sign it and it was kind of like, this was my co-founder, he, he, uh, he applied this to the tech team and I was like, wow, this sounds crazy.
Speaker 1 00:17:56 And we wouldn't do that in Finland. And actually even that way, our finish, um, programmers, and it works like a charm because the ownership of the areas became very, very clear for them. I own this. It doesn't matter who tells me what in this area, this is what I have to deliver. And I have the ownership and the weight and the ability to decide how I deliver these pieces. So, so first of all, start off with, with making clear goals. Then, then after that, it's actually really easy management. According to that, like, you can actually just follow how the person is leading for that. You can have conversations of like, why certain things are not working. We do that as well. Just, you know, go through a feedback session and try to course correct if there's an issue, but there's usually only one, uh, course-correct session.
Speaker 1 00:18:42 If, if that doesn't work and there's no clear reason, it's just the ways of working. Then we go to the, uh, the next stage, which is essentially discussing, like, you know, how do we part ways? And, and we've had to do that only once in our organization. And even the partying ways was according to two, everybody's done really, um, humanly as possible. It was just not a fit. It wasn't because that person is not capable or this or that. It was just not a fit. And the person didn't feel that there was a fit and we didn't feel that there was a fit. So what we discussed is like, Hey, what will be a great organization for you to find a better fit and what will help you to do to go there? And, um, and let's just have a discussion about that rather than firing.
Speaker 1 00:19:30 It's like, don't come here and get outta here. You're horrible. No, no, no, no, no. It's more of a, it's a humane conversation because this is a small industry and you, and, you know, we try to be very good at hiring meaning that we hired good people and if they don't fit, that must be something with most likely with the culture and with the ways of working. And that person might be excellent somewhere else, maybe at a larger organization. Uh, for example, and I've seen this particularly in, in Nordic countries work very well. Like you say, as a humane process, as for both parties, you know, this, this is, or isn't working. I think the key things that you mentioned here is that the hiring process should be robust enough that we're not in a situation where it's this a firing situation. Occasionally there are misfires, let's call it that if the organization has set very clear goals, that the individual is responsible to, we can track and measure their progress against those goals.
Speaker 1 00:20:28 We can look to fix collectively. And ethanol is the best thing for everybody that we support that person in finding a career somewhere else. Um, I was gonna say, I see this as something that has been a personal learning for me as a first time CEO in my career, I absorbed it as a massive failure on myself. Um, uh, when I see it happen quite consistently in sort of a startup land, um, where people don't necessarily act on this stuff either quickly enough or in the right way. Yeah. And, and I, I do agree. There are a lot of startups that don't do this. Most startups don't do this, and there were kind of, um, how would I put it? It's almost like, let the battle define the role. Like at the best people will rise on the top. That's not true. That's not true.
Speaker 1 00:21:14 Your organization is chaos. If a person has to kind of find their role and also what kind of people rise on the top, you know, the alphas, do you want your whole organization be all full of alphas? I guess if you're running a hedge fund, but if you're running a game studio where you want creativity and you want different types of talent, whether they're artists or programmers or, or business people like there, there are different. So I think, you know, finding the role is very important. The second thing that I didn't mention that I think is important is that when you lose your confidence in a person, you will not regain it.
Speaker 1 00:21:54 So why, you know, that's, it, that's a very interesting point. The future judgment is clouded by the era that was told to me back, uh, at one company that I worked with, but as smart person, as I was discussing with him on, on certain, you know, individual, and he said like, you don't trust him anymore. So that's it. I was like, what do you mean? Like, that's it that won't come back? And I was like, you're right. So that's a powerful message. I'm glad we ended on that topic. I think it was, it was a better outcome in the original question, um, from a listener's perspective. So you raised an impressive 4.4 million seed round in January. So congratulations to you and the team for that. Um, as you look at the road ahead, what are some of the, the main priorities, um, are there specific specific focus if you have from a talent people or is it kind of very much focused on, on product for now?
Speaker 1 00:22:59 It's, it's definitely focused as, uh, as I said, like, we're, we're going to mission first. And the mission is, you know, being on a premiere shooter studio. And what does that entail? Well, it entails always that you have to have your engine that, that of course ours is built on top of unreal, but you have to have that shooter engine. And that is your core competence. That is the core asset for the company. So that is our main priority. And then from other part, it's just making sure that we have the right people and the right culture to execute on this mission. And that is, that is constant work because essentially you're going from four to 10 to 15 to 25. And as you're bringing more and more people, you have to invest more and more time in creating and fostering the right type of culture and the culture will evolve. That's for sure as more people come in. So you have to invest time into making sure that it's the, it's the correct one to achieve your mission.
Speaker 1 00:23:54 That's great. And we talk about kind of culture in an organization and you, and I know that culture in any early stage organization, organization is super important and I've had particularly see culture held high and in game studios from the experience I've had. Um, so what does the studio culture look like in Savage games and given your experience, what measures are you planning to kind of put in place to keep fostering, as you said that the culture in your organization? Yeah. W the culture is so important for us that, that the whole name Savage game studios is based on the culture. Like that's the type of people want heart savages. So, so, and that's, that's the kind of like workshop always going on in the company. It's like, what is a Savage like who is a Savage let's, let's define that, that type of person sort of, we're always hiring for that, but for, for us, the other processes is quite simple.
Speaker 1 00:24:51 I mean, again, going back to the mission that being clear for everybody, then hiring slowly based on that mission. And based on, we actually have, um, we have a hiring freeze, which is a weird thing to do, put on a, on a startup, but, but, um, we do, and we've had to say no to people, uh, to, to good people. The people we work with, but are the hiring freeze works in a way that unless you have a very well-defined role and you have reached the point where you can unlock that harm, meaning you don't want to scale too fast. Now you've reached a point in the production or in the, in the work that now that role becomes open. Now you can initiate the hiring process. And before that, it doesn't matter. You can't, you can't hire for a role that does not exist.
Speaker 1 00:25:32 So hiring slowly onboarding, um, that's important because as new people come in, it's good to explain them. The other things, why certain things are done in certain ways. For example, like every day we have at salvage, we have, um, we try not to have any meetings before noon that's. So that's just the thing, because that's, um, that's a focus time. That's something that, um, we've noticed in our previous workplaces that the people with the most power are the people that have most meetings, and they want to start off their day with the most important meetings. But the people who are actually executing and doing the work need to focus early on, and you should leave them alone because 70% of the people are at best in the morning time. So their first meeting might be the daily and the daily's moved later in the day.
Speaker 1 00:26:20 So usually at noon, and before that, you just focus on your work. You do not even have your Slack off, just, just focus on completing whatever you need to do. Uh, and of course I talked about the written signed goals. I've talked about the daily, Oh, well, we also do a lot of testing, a lot of play sessions. And we have our Friday have sort of a dedicated time where we can play it where we play usually our own game, but we also play games together. And we have our all sort of like a long form discussions on Friday. So we try to move everything like focus, focus, focus, and then on Friday we play discuss, um, you know, all that, all that jazz happening on, on, on one day instead of being kind of put in, uh, in the middle of the weeks and, um, and yeah, and, and follow up.
Speaker 1 00:27:06 And, and in addition to that, the value discussion is always important. You always have to, as the organization grows, you always have to go back and discuss your values. And most importantly, what do, what your values don't mean? Because, um, when we discuss values is always based on the mission, this is how we work. And when we say efficiency, which is one of our key values, what does it not mean? And it's, it's important to get everybody's, um, opinion on, on what do they, don't what they don't want to see, not only what they want to see. And finally, offboarding off-boarding is super important if there's no, you know, the toxicity is one thing. Luckily we haven't had that. And that's, that's the firing thing, but, but mainly it's just, if it's not a cultural fit, you have to, you have to let go. A person makes sense hearing about kind of the, the rituals in an organization, because, you know, for me, these types of things do define culture as your organization.
Speaker 1 00:28:08 You are how you operate, and these are the differentials between organization to organization. And I'd like for the people first efficiency first kind of type type approach, I'm dying to know, um, and sort of unpick this topic. If you're prepared to share with us what makes us Savage, uh, this, this, uh, this changes all the time. So we have a next session where we discuss, what is this? It doesn't say change. It evolves constantly. So we have our next sessions again, milestone completed. So it's next week, we're having a discussion because so many new people have joined. Uh, and we're going to talk about what exactly this question, what for them means Savage. And this is our, you know, based on, based on our mission. So inherently for what it means for me, it's a person that loves ownership. And, and in all the studios that I work with, the greatest results have always come due to individual effort.
Speaker 1 00:29:08 Like somebody, like she was able to pull something that, that, that, that was, that moved the whole team forward, or he was able to do something that was totally unexpected. He pulled it off and that person is a Savage celebrate in the team. So if your whole team is savages, then what can happen. So essentially, uh, that's essentially what we're trying to do. And, uh, and we're trying to hire for, for, for that type of mentality. So a person who's excited about the ownership. Cool. And I think that's super important takeaway for, for that are listening here is the culture evolves and it requires contribution and it changes. And it's a team, a team game, not just sat in the ivory tower, I'm updating the spreadsheet or the pitch deck by yourself, right. This is something that everyone lives and breathes the ivory tower, if you will, has to be clear on what is the mission like that is important.
Speaker 1 00:30:03 And then everything else will be defined by your actions that you're taking. So, so, um, so that's, yeah, thanks for that. So when you're creating genre, defining games, um, like you have, and we'll be doing in this organization, um, you have to be able to hide your on redefining. Um, so how do you go about that? What does the balance of skill experience, potential culture look like for you and how do you spot this in Canada? Yeah, well, it really starts from, from having a strong leads for all the functions, because, um, I'm not the person who can define if somebody is a, is a genre defining program or a backend lead or so forth. So, so it starts off with, with hiring the leads and the leads you trust. And then those leads hire the type of team that can function the best way.
Speaker 1 00:31:01 So, and the second thing is, as, as I said, we have a clear hiring Gates. So as Lee usually leads, work them alone, and then they pass certain Gates and they unlock more talent to their team. And then they are defining those roles very clearly. They're defining the goals for the people very clearly. And we do a lot of testing before we hiring. So those are, those are all the elements to, to build that team. And, and in the meanwhile we contract, because contracting is fantastic. It's a person that starts off next Monday and works for a month or a week or a, or a three months until like, as long as needed placed your efficiency mentioned audio as well. Right. Makes sense. And going back to the strong leads piece, I picked up on this earlier, um, when you're early stages and organization first 10 or so employees you're hiring really strong leads, are you a believer in, and I think I know the answer based on what you alluded to earlier, you believe believer in kind of, of a hiring these positions so that those leads have the potential to, to build and scale those functions, I guess kind of like the mindset of hiring today versus hiring for the future, I think would be that.
Speaker 1 00:32:17 So yeah, all of our leads have led before. And, um, I think that's crucial. I think hiring for today will, the problem is if you hire for today and you give a high position for that person saying, let's say you have a great programmer, just an absolute monster. Who's really good at fast prototyping and fast coding. Is that person good at leading an engineering team? Probably not, but what if he comes really early? Will he be a lead developer? If he's a lead developer, that's a problem because now you've given a title for somebody was not actually a lead developer. And sometimes I've seen even titles like CTO being given to people who are just great coders that doesn't make you a CTO. So anyways, I think, I think if you hiring for a lead position, that person needs to be a lead. And then you can go about and thinking about like, what kind of a lead do you want?
Speaker 1 00:33:11 Do you want to lead that can actually build something while that those people do exist and you can hire for that, or if you want to have just a lead that can scale up and you probably have to be in a bit of a different position as a company, but, um, but yeah, as a, as a, as a thumbnail, don't give away titles like candy, I think is a very valuable piece of advice. And I see this as organizations go through maturity phases and funding phases, and first person on the ground in tech is VP of director role. Then there becomes a very awkward conversation where we make sure like, like, like I say, I'm a CEO on paper. I'm more like a GM, to be honest. And then our CTO might say the same thing. It's like, I'm a technical director. I'm sticky on paper, but I'm a technical director.
Speaker 1 00:33:59 When the organization grows, hope I can become a CTO of this organization that you've hired for, I guess, been a hiring manager, let's call it that in some of the let's call it the world's most attractive. Um, and now hiring for a brand new organization. Um, two very different, um, very different approaches, I think. Um, so what have you seen work well for you in the startup studio kind of environment? When it comes to standing out to candidates against the bigger names, this is the type of advice that our listeners could take on board themselves and say, Hey, we're super small. We're competing against et cetera, et cetera. How do we, how do we stand out? How do we differentiate as a, as a studio and a destination? I think it's easier to stand out against the big ones. Uh, you know, this was, uh, this was a good question. And luckily I had a, I worked at fun plus back when phone plus wasn't fun plus plus, but they didn't have top grossing games. And at the same thing, people were like, what is this Chinese company that is, you know, has this empty studio space in San Francisco? Like, what are you guys even doing here? Like this is money laundering thing.
Speaker 1 00:35:22 Uh, so it's kind of like the same type of approach. Like how do you, how do you hire without having the brand and the way you hire when you don't have the brand to support, use, you hire through your mission? Like, what do you set out to do? Um, what you can then that none of these big companies can offer is you, first of all, you can offer a mission, at least two passion. Uh, you can offer ownership and big companies, Oh my God. Reporting, meeting, reporting, meeting, meeting, reporting, then a little value workshop. And you know, like we know what it's like to work in a big company, so don't get it twisted. We know what your job is. So please don't talk about how great it is at working on company, big X, uh, the, the second. And the third thing is the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 00:36:09 It's like, you can build the type atmosphere. Like the more, one of the first things that we did at salvage is we decorated it with rally chairs and gaming tables. And everybody had a gaming PC. Uh, we have razors as laptops. They're not more expensive. They're actually cheaper than Mac books and you know, the novos or whatever HPS, but they look dope and they look like they are, they should be in a gaming studio. And then when people get them, they're like, check out my computer from my job, like load this all black with three snakes. And, um, the art on the wall is from games that we'd love. Like we, we have some, you know, this plate does some amazing, amazing things. So when you come in and then the atmosphere is totally different, then you have a talent. So when you hire slowly and you hire only the best people, the guys and gals, you interview who come in and they're like, wow, this place is filled with some monsters.
Speaker 1 00:37:05 Like, do I fit in? Or am I good enough to be in this crew? Because they know when they go back to their company with 2000 people, everybody's top of the food chain. There's still a lot of people who are not, there's a lot of people who are just kind of cruising and it's not, it's not that they're bad. They're the type of organization where you can cruise, but in this organization, you can't cruise. So there's a, so that's the fit that is coming in. Like, are you ready to, you know, swim with the sharks? And finally, there's an upside. Are you getting an upside in your current organization? Some people are, they're sitting on options. So they're kind of locked. That's fine. It is what it is. But most people aren't, they don't have any upside. They might have some options that are actually valued, like without any, any significant value.
Speaker 1 00:37:49 And they may think that they are safe, but we know that whole gaming companies say it's ludicrous to think that you're working at company X, Y publicly listed and you're safe. No, you're actually more likely to get cut. Like if the stock goes down, they're going to offload you. And then one big an offload, they're going to offload the people who are working on the new project. So if you're interesting in working on something new, if you're interested in working with, with other people who are passionate, if you're interested in this atmosphere, if you're in to taking ownership, and if you buy into the mission and if you want the upside for completing the mission, come and join really interesting topic. And I noticed when I first started working in the games industry, 2018, I think it was, um, it amazed me how tribal, um, the games industry is.
Speaker 1 00:38:44 You know, there's like you said, there's the hoodies, it's a hoodie competition going down IGA. Like who's got the first word. Um, and you know, people are parts of that organization, particularly the early stage ones. And yeah, I think super valuable points for people to take away. Is that be you be authentic and tell people where, you know, because that's super important. Yeah. I would say, I do have to say, I think it's easier to hire for us for a small company. Not even let's put it this way. It's not only a small company. You can be a part of a big company, but you're running your studio autonomously. I think that is easier. And then to hire for a company that is public and that has this and that going on, like it's, and it's based on what your what's your stock price and people like you'll get people who are like, Oh, you guys are doing great because the stock is up.
Speaker 1 00:39:39 It's like, or you guys are doing poorly because the stock is down. It's like, no, this has nothing to do with what we're doing. So it's really hard to communicate your passion message inside of a big organization. And like it is in a, in a smaller organization. So you're well off not being part of something big. Cool. Thank you very much. And what do you feel are the main forces behind the, uh, sustainable high performing? We can talk about games studio, but I guess anything, um, when it comes to culture that we've touched on a lot, you've touched on, you know, on the team perspective, what are the measures that companies should look or should consider putting in place early doors, um, to ensure that that high-performing organization, first of all, it's it's mission. I said, mission so many times it could be a North star or some companies talk about their North star is super important because that brings people together and they understand what they're going after.
Speaker 1 00:40:36 There are companies with great North stars, our mission statements, like Supercell, probably being one of the best ones, you know, and they make games that people play for decades and remember forever. Got it, got it. That's clear. What else do you need? And then they have their, like, it comes from company first, then team venue. Perfect. That's that's the playbook. Now I understand how to, how do you operate in this environment? So of course having this type of a North star or a clear mission is, is imperative. Then you have to have leadership that actually listens to people. This is a, to your comment of the ivory tower. I've seen this happening all the time. It's like they set out certain missions or certain goals, and they never talked to the people. They never go to the ground level and then really, you know, interact with, with, with, with, with the staff.
Speaker 1 00:41:27 It's like, Hey, how's it going? They might interact with the division leads and think it's going to go all the way out. But no, like, even if you think like the biggest generals, they always walk through their troops and kind of, you know, talk to everybody, the stable boy, like, don't be afraid. We're going to take this. It's normal to be afraid that you know, that, that kind of stuff, but that's a good leader. And the same thing has to happen in a business. You have to be on the ground floor. You have to be approachable. You have to approach others. Third thing is you have to have decentralized command. Like you can't be a micromanager making all the calls because you kill all the initiatives in your company, give leeway, trust your people Harwell and let them come up with how they want to accomplish the mission.
Speaker 1 00:42:11 That's how you lead them through setting that fourth, one top talent. If you start hiring too fast, start bringing in people, start saving a little bit like, ah, you know, this guy could probably do it maybe or start bringing in too expensive people where they are not actually doing their work. And they need a lot of like a little army helping them out. And that's, uh, that's, that's not good. You want to always have a top towel so that when you come to work, you feel that you're surrounded people who you respect and who you want to be working with. That's awesome. And finally, you got, um, ship, whether it's games, whether it's whatever you're doing, you have to let them get the products out because the success of your products and the growth of your products will invigorate your whole organization.
Speaker 1 00:42:59 Thank you very much. Now we're moving into some of the, uh, the closing questions. Um, what would you, one challenge when it comes to co-founding and building a game studio, if you had a magic wand you could wave and fix it immediately. I was, I was talking today with, uh, with a certain founder who, um, who actually, he reached the end of the rainbow just recently. Um, anyway, and he was, we were talking about this and he said, you don't want to sell too fast because then you lose out on all the grind and the grind is what grows you I'm paraphrasing. But basically that's what he was talking about. And, um, kind of referenced that like, again, you don't want to make it easy, so no magic wants to make it easy because you have to go through the hardships. Um, but one of the things that is probably the most difficult is uncertainty.
Speaker 1 00:43:59 You know, there's, it's, um, there's always situations where you don't know what's going to happen. And Oh, like every week, usually couple of times a week, there's an element of uncertainty and you have to just live with it. And I'm the type of person that doesn't like uncertainty. I like plan a and plan B preferably plan C as well. And when you are in situations of uncertainty where you don't know if funny is gonna work and plan B is actually the wrong plan because you didn't expect this uncertainty to come in. So you actually don't have a plan that creates stress. So you have to kind of deal with it. And if I would be able to deal better with uncertainty and somebody says meditation, I'm going to punch them. But that will be, that will be better. That would be the magic wand is to deal better with uncertainty because yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 00:44:53 It's a reality. And even the bets that you make as an organization, and you think these are, we are very confident. This is going to pay off sometimes frustratingly for folks like us. You can control so much of the, of the equation, but not everything and everything is important. But what do you think about it? Do you think meditation helps? Uh, for me personally, no, my wife is very into spiritual activities. And, you know, as your wife run a company, no, she doesn't actually. Um, I just think for me, the uncertain, uncertainty, stress, challenges, solving problems. These are, these are what we sign up to actually, because deep down we like this kind of stuff. We don't like sitting on something that's already done with this. Right. So I just make myself aware that actually you might be a bit stressed, but you signed up for this, by the way, you really love it. You might be a little bit sick in the head, but you actually love it. Exactly. And it's, but I always feel like I have to just jump on this meditation because I hear mainly from people who have gone through the grind and are on the other side, maybe sold the companies, but are well off. They're like, yeah, I really found meditation to help me a lot because they're not in the grind anymore.
Speaker 1 00:46:21 Did you meditate before? I just recently found this? I'm like, exactly, because everything is good now meditation for me, um, is not in the true sense. I like music. Um, and other passion projects and other things that I guess is a form of meditation because I'm focusing my mind on other things, not constantly trying to solve the stuff I see. I see peace in just different things. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Doing something that makes you forget about the main thing. That's a different thing than sitting quietly and trying not to think about the thing you should be thinking all the time is preposterous. That stresses me out. I would have the opposite effect to meditation. I'm afraid I'd rather spend an hour trying to solve it and scribbling stuff down or on the whiteboard. And try not to think about podcasts will not be sponsored by any meditation apps.
Speaker 1 00:47:22 We blacklisted, obviously not meditation, but is there anything that you're unapologetically passionate about something that you're mildly obsessed with? These can be lighthearted or serious? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I was thinking about this question beforehand and I was like, what am I passionate about? Like what do I do every day that, um, I'm really into? And I was like, Oh fuck. Yeah, my passion project actually deconstruct or fun is something, um, I'm, um, I don't know if fashion is the right word, but yeah, I do this. This is, but it also supports my own journey because I can get smart people on a podcast and people who won't have an hour call with me to talk about interesting things. But since I published the art of conversation, somehow they're willing to do that. So, so I would say that as well as I, I think by writing. So that's how the whole thing came out to be. And if you write publicly, then you write better and it's just, just scribbles and you also keep yourself accountable. So I would say, I would say bad. And if it's like mildly obsessed about stuff, uh, this is something that I require for myself is like discipline, uh, a lot of things going on, always. So, so, um, I mock myself in my head when I don't do it. When I'm watching Netflix, I might be like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 00:48:49 I love the openness about like the learning process as well. I'll be super open about that to every single podcast we do, um, um, hosting my notepad and the same today goes crazy. Like I'm scribbling stuff down. That's super cool. I'm this to my thinking list to a great job of that. So yeah, it's a really great process and you get to speak to lots of super smart people and unpack some of that growth experiences, that good stuff. Is there one thought value or phrase that you live by? I wouldn't say live by that would be sounds extreme. Huh? It's pretty extreme for sure. But on the business side and on, on everything, I really liked the quote from Henry Ford. And he said, whether you believe you can, or you can't, you're probably right. I think that's powerful. I think that is like, it's all in your head and, and that's, I think it's true.
Speaker 1 00:49:47 I'll give you that on that one, that is very, very powerful. Um, a people leader, founder, or source of inspiration that you think we should try and secure as a future guest. And just to let you know, somebody suggested we get Elon Musk on. So hopefully they're a bit more attainable. Yes. But we like a challenge. So, all right. I'm going to give you, let's start off with the easiest, easiest, but most straightforward to get to your podcast that we'll be very interested in. I would definitely listen to. So James Nichols, he's a general Mo of general manager of natural emotion, uh, is known in the industry wide as a great manager. So it would be great to talk to him and hear about why are you a great manager word on the street is you are a great manager of why, what makes you, so the second one would be Sophie well she's, um, she's just really good.
Speaker 1 00:50:41 We'll do Berlin. And she does a lot of deep thinking on leadership. A lot of writing, a lot of, um, yeah, she has, she follows this, um, Simon Sinek methods of finding the why, and she's very methodical in her approach. So, uh, on her team building and everything. So that will be a great one. And, um, and finally number three would be Anthem golfing. He's the CEO of huge games. So these aren't in the order of easiness to get is I would call him an engine. Uh he's he's just, uh, he's a, he's a founder CEO of a public company, but he is always fired up. So fired up all the time. Like he, I dunno how and, um, and just gets more and more fired up as, as, as things go forward. So I would definitely, um, hear from those three. Awesome. Thank you very much for sharing that.
Speaker 1 00:51:38 And we'll, we'll do what we can. Um, finally, um, someone that you admire or think has a unique and impactful approach to scaling, especially from a people perspective, this is not surprise to probably anybody. So that will be the CEO of Supercell. I think he's the one, the best team builder in the business ever, probably from my personal experience. So let's, let's just a spade, a spade. So of course, you know, a tremendous amount of learnings you can get from, from the person. And, um, yeah. I don't know what else I can say about that. Yeah. I think it's no secret to those that know basically folks that are not fortunate enough to have had a little bit of exposure to digital chocolate as well. Right. You know, create, I can see, I like his friends about being the least powerful about kind of creating an organization that can achieve the mission, which is easier said than done.
Speaker 1 00:52:43 Yeah. He has a, he has a strong mission, great leads, decentralized command. And then you can say you're at least powerful. I don't believe in least powerful. Let's be honest. That's a great phrase, but the way he builds teams and organization is just unrivaled. For sure. For sure. Well, this has been a blast. Thanks for joining us. Super insightful as always learnings for me. And I think for everyone that's listening has been brilliant. And, um, thanks again, very excited to follow your journey ahead and we wish you all the very bad. Appreciate it. Thank you for the great questions and then fun interview. Thanks.
