The Secrets That Product-centric First-time Founders Share

Product-centric first-time founders often share a set of secrets that hold them — us — back; We feel insecure and incompetent about business decisions.

Some of the most commonly shared insecurities for first-time product-centric founders are:

• How do we build a “real” company?

• How do we transition from being a few founders in a “club” to a company?

• How do we best communicate about our company?

• How do we best articulate where we are going?

• Am I doing this right?

As product-centric founders we try to keep our doubts and insecurities secret. Instead of showing vulnerability we are doing all they can to build and maintain an image of a professional company, run by great people who are in control.

When we try to pass as “great people, in control” we sometimes resort to arrogance, bolt-on jargon and hyperbole or we simply don’t go anywhere, paralysed with fear and doubts.

This means that hard and defining choices, that would really shape the future of the company, happen way too late, if ever. Important time is lost, and learning happen too little and too late.

In the best cases, the first-time founders get outside help, or they evolve fast enough, in time for a new beginning for the company.

How To Make Hard Choices Easier

Many indie game devs fail not because of an inferior product, but because their company is built on a poor foundation.

Product-centric founders with no business background - as indie game devs very often are - tend to overlook or neglect important aspects of building a sustainable company. As a result, hard, defining choices often happen too late in the company life-cycle.

As product-centric game people, starting a business, we’re often painfully aware of our own short-comings in the classically businessy aspects of starting and running a business.

Getting help to mitigate those obvious shortcomings is a no-brainer. We hire admin staff or external consultants to deal with payroll, bookkeeping and similar.

The problem is, that we often fail to see the important but non-urgent bits that make up the foundation of how our company operates and where we headed with it.

We fail to see the “soft stuff” that’s missing in our midst. It is not urgent. Nobody demands it from us. We’re only rarely asked about it. But getting it right makes a world of difference.

The solution?

How might we make a system of thought that would help us make hard choices easier?

• Discover and embrace your personal values

• Define and commit to a set of company values

• Develop a clear, inspirational and aspirational mission statement

• Use this to narrow your focus down to what makes the most impact

Then, make it a habit to check choices and actions against values and mission:

• How does this align with our values and mission?

• If we hold these values, what are the consequences in this current context?

Pick One (1) Thing

If you want to build a business, focus on what lies at the core of it. That’s the one thing you need to pick. “One thing” is at least 10.000 things that you have to do and get right in order to make that “one thing”. Doing two things, means twice that + complexity squared + negative attention span = disaster.

Just for fun, try taking the Venture Capitalist approach to picking the one thing:

Pick one thing, one product, one area, one niche, in which you can become #1 in the World. If you can’t become #1, you haven’t defined your one thing narrowly enough.

Less than #1 in the World is probably OK for most of us, but there is value in thinking it through to the end.

If at some point you fail doing that one thing, then try another one thing. Do many one things if you may, but do them in sequence.