Top blog articles for startup founders

  How to find a game publisher? Nicolas de Kerchove 4 min read In the gaming industry, finding the right game publisher can be a the steppingstone towards achieving success. While creating a compelling and innovative game is undoubtedly crucial, partnering with the right publisher is equally important. A game publisher can provide the necessary resources, expertise, and support needed to launch your game to heights. In this article, based on my experience negociating more than 15 publishing deals we will discuss some valuable tips on how to effectively find a game publisher that aligns with your game’s vision and aspirations. Have a  playable demo . Some experimented succeed to find publisher without it but for most of the people it’s needed. Ideally it should be a  vertical slice  of the game. If you can’t reach this stage you can combine a playable demo with some images on how you see the definitive version looking like. It should be easy to onboard your demo through a link you send

You have 2 main options. You can go for self publishing or go through publishers . OPTION 1: Self-publishing To go for own publishing you need to have cash. If you don’t have you could try to find some external investors and pitch your game. Here are some possible investors: -           London Venture Partner -           super.com -           Level up -           Triple Dragon They will be able to invest or lend you money in exchange for a percentage of your game revenues or your company. They receive many demands. So, be sure to show them a unique game concept with unique selling points together with a nice prototype. Ideally, a vertical slice . Some of them may, also want KPI ’s before investing, especially for a mobile game where they may request the soft launch results. How do you publish a mobile game? To successfully publish a game you should have know-how and try different technics as: -           Being featured by Apple, Google Play ... -           Using

What is Growth Hacking? It’s no easy to copy a growth strategy. For each project, for each app, there is a different strategy and it’s an art to find the right one. That’s why the growth hacker is born. The Growth Hacker is at the intersections between the latest technologies, analytics of data and marketing. It’s a combination of Network effect and viral marketing. The Growth Hacker can make your app win positions and downloads without having to pay huge quantities of paid advertisings. Here are 12 tips for Growth Hackers: 1.    It sounds stupid but like any marketer, you should know what your customers want, what language he speaks and where he is. Write it down and post it on your wall. 2.    You should be able to make use of the latest social media tools. You should know about Twitter, facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Linkedin ads, etc.), iconography, Rich snippets and Blogs. You should know how to use them and how to measure your results using them. 3

They are different business models:   -           Premium is he most traditional model, premium games are apps that are sold at a specific price. The developer takes usually 70% of the sales and the store take the other 30%. Usually a Premium apps doen't get as many downloads as a freemium app and does less revenue. -           Freemium is the most common business model for mobile game and the one which statistically give you the most downloads and revenue. The game is free and has in-app purchases. -           In-app purchases.   This is the most important business model for mobile games in term of volume. It means that your app is free but you can buy virtual goods inside the app. For example in car games, you can buy petrol. In many games, you will have to buy an economy including an hard and a soft currency. The hard currency is the one you buy with real money. You will need to make a plan with the sinks of money and the sources of money. -           Subscription

        When marketing a game you need analytics to optimize it. There are tons of great tools as DeltaDna , Game Analytics , Unity Analytics , etc.   You will fast be lost with the number of key performance indicators (KPI’s). The most important is to divide them into 3 parts and just select the few important ones. Here are the 3 important parts of the conversion funnel: ENGAGEMENT RETENTION MONETIZATION   For the engagement you should see your : CPI (Cost per install) % of people finishing your tutorial   For the retention you should check: D1 (Day 1 retention). The number of unique players who came back to your app on the next day of installing the app. D7 (Day 7 retention). The number of unique players who came back to your app seven days of installing the app. You can also go more into detail with the D3, D15, D30, etc. Ideally you should have a D1 of at least 35% and a D7 above 17%. Now those target figures may change in the time and for the gen

 You want to develop an app but you don't know where to start? 1. Make a concept with an initial prototype . You can do so with free tools as https://proto.io/ It will allow you to do a fake app with clickable screens. Non-developers can start using this. It will allow you to start discussions with partners, investors and future customer. Show you proto to potential customers. Try to use the Lean startup methodology. 2. Make a plan. Start doing a business model canvas . Check your weak points and work on it 3. Build a team . You need someone for the art, another for the UX/UI, another for the development (front-end and back-end), a productor, a business person. Try to find a mentor. Some people are able to take different roles. You can try to associate yourself with those persons or contact a company that will build a complementary team around your own team. Here are some companies making apps for third persons: DMI  (US, EU, Asia) Tapptic  (EU) Hello Pomelo (Spain) Magnet apps