Founder Musings

When Life Gets Hard. The Real Shit.

How to guide your company through tragedies.

I have been mourning the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in America. The proliferation of technology has exposed how black men are systematically being hunted and killed. Yes, if you are a black man in America, you are terrified, and now everyone knows why because of technology. Technology is a wonderful in exposing injustices, but exposing is one thing and doing something about it is another thing.

Your company is just a tech company that isn’t focused on social justice. In fact, your entire world 24/7 is about running the company (don’t die), product/market traction, and building a culture. How can you stop for life?

Reality is, if you don’t stop for life, life will stop for you.

I’m not saying take a leave of absence, but how you lead your work community during the wake of tragedy will have immense impact on culture. You will come out stronger for it or weaker.

People get sick, people get hurt and sadly people pass away. Layer on the national tragedies that affect your employees and community as Americans. No matter how big or small your company is — how you respond as a leader to these tragedies has a deeper impact on culture and the people around you than that team building event focused on culture.

Our company has had our fair share of sadness and tragedy over the past years that is related to life. I remember our first life tragedy was when we had an employee pass away suddenly in her sleep, leaving behind a husband and four kids. Our company was only about 120 people at the time and growing like crazy. We found out the next morning and were in shock. After frantically verifying it was true and not just a hoax, we had confirmed she did indeed pass away. It was time to lead the company through mourning.

A few years ago, a controversy that turned into a movement rose up that impacted a portion of our employees. People (of a certain people group) who had spoke out against the controversy would get personal threats, including death threats — unfortunately this is still going on.

Both cases had either direct or indirect impact on the employees — personal, community, and even societal tragedies. How do you deal with this thing called life when trying to build a company?

Empathy

This all begins with empathy. Perhaps you are not directly impacted; however, having empathy enables action. Oftentimes for those that are not directly impacted, empathy may be the largest lifeline to those who are impacted because they are busy mourning. 
 
 Oftentimes after a moment like these, empathy can be as easy as:

How are you doing today?

That phrase is used so nonchalantly, but in the wake of a loss or tragedy, it is a phrase that is most needed and never uttered. Empathy begins with stepping outside of yourself and recognizing that someone may live in a different world than you, or going through their own battles much greater than your task list that day.

Communication

As a leader, it is okay, after a tragedy like this, to recognize that you are emotionally affected (grieved, saddened, frustrated, etc…) and communicate that to your employees. In fact expressing your authentic emotions will give your more strength as a leader in times like this. 
 
 It is also in times like this that employees look to leadership on how to behave. And it is in this moment you have a real opportunity to impact past your product and your company walls. 
 
 If it is a personal situation or a people group that is directly affected, it is best to speak to that group first on how you can best drive towards something healthy from the rest of the company. This way the communication can be most helpful versus harmful to those directly affected. (Mandela Schumacher-Hodge wrote an excellent article about coming back to work after the shootings and gave an excellent primer on how to talk about race after tragedy. Thank you for sharing your story!)
 
 When our employee passed away we spoke to her team lead, colleagues and family on what would be the best way to help support and help them through their mourning process.

With the other controversy, there were several conversations with impacted group about how the company could respond with the impacted group’s safety being the top concern. We decided an email driving to next steps that anyone could do was not helpful, instead we used the controversy to open a dialog around diversity. This led to concrete next steps for people who were interested as well as those just learning. With most injustices, everyone is on a journey and recognize that people will be at different parts of the journey.

Mourning & Self Care

Allow a period for mourning and self-care for those directly affected. For some cases provide grief counselors. Allowing employees to take time off to take care of themselves emotionally if they need to should be available. Even if they do not take it, communicating that it is there is a large step in empathy as well as demonstrating that you as a leader and as a company cares.

Connection

Allow people to talk about the tragedy or loss to each other. Allow people to mourn together. When it comes to social injustices that are heated or where it is so easy for the privileged group to be apathetic, create a forum for which people can begin to dialog. This should be carefully crafted with a lot of thought and care from leaders as well as with HR (give legal the heads up so they won’t freak out, but legal or HR should not drive the dialog — leaders should drive this). The dialog should not start with jumping to solutions, it should be used to build empathy as well as mourn. For us we found it helpful to kick things off with a mixed panel of leaders and then break folks off into mixed groups, which allowed them to discuss reactions and thoughts in a smaller group setting. It was from there that several solutions were put forth into action. And today, we are more diverse and better for it.

It’s our response in moments like these that can be more defining than exceeding a product or company milestone. It is moments like these when we can bring the humanity in each one of us to a higher level that leaves an indelible mark on each one that is left behind in the wake of tragedy — and then we know that a tragedy which was meant for evil was overcome and turned into good that far exceeded its original intent.

#altonsterling
#philandocastile
#sandrabland
#ericgarner
#michaelbrown
#manycountlessmore
#blacklivesmatter

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

Don’t Hire A-players, Hire an A -Team

There is a logic that goes around Silicon Valley — A players attract A players. B players attract C players, and C players attract D players. So hire only A players.

The logic is sound, but it doesn’t quite always get the results you are looking for. What would you rather have? A company full of A-players or a company that achieves results? Obviously, the latter.

There are countless examples of All-star players forming a team, but they never succeed because they are just fighting with each other. And the sad thing is the amount of hubris, that easily is mistaken for confidence, with having the “best” people how could we lose?

Now, why this doesn’t work:

Looking at just an individual is too myopic.

American Society tends to laud the lone inventor or the individual champion, but reality is that if you look closely there is always a team behind him or her.

Individuals don’t win championships, teams do.

Whether it is their coach or assistant, reality is rarely is success based on one person alone. This is the same with startups. Assessing an individual without the context of the team is just too myopic. Oftentimes, if there are too many A-players on a team, execution is negatively impacted.

People aren’t born A-players.

As Malcolm Gladwell said, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice for someone to be expert. People aren’t born A-players, it takes time and experience. This means that more than likely the people you hire are on their way to be an A-player and use your startup as training ground. Don’t be too disheartened by the fact that more than likely your startup does not have A-players.

Remember, the ark was built by amateurs, but the Titanic was built by professionals.

Since most startups don’t have the time or resources to hire experts, the best thing the organization can do is provide the right environment to groom the right team and foster the best performance and results.

Expectations of an A player changes over time.

And sadly, rarely does an organization re-define expectations over time. There are three phases of a company that requires a different team and therefore a different A-player at each phase: founding, growth and scale.

Founding Phase
During the founding phase, an A-player is a generalist with a “get-shit-done” attitude and can work at all levels.They may not be able to do each level expertly, but good enough until there is enough product-market fit to demand a larger team size.

An A-team at this stage is full of people with attitude and initiative for everyone to pull their weight and everyone is measured by how much “shit” they get done.

Growth Phase
During the growth phase, an A-player is someone who can specialize, and is brought in for their expertise. During this phase a company hires people to focus on building a team that specializes in Marketing, Operations, IT, etc…The “get-shit-done” attitude starts looking a little different, and becomes mismatched. A company spending too much time with a mis-matched attitude of “get-shit-done” ends up with a lot of shit.

A-players are still helpful, but instead of doing the work themselves the true A-players are great at influencing not just their team but the entire company. These A-players can truly help the company get into the scale phase by helping the company operationalize and put the right process in place. A true A-player can get the adoption of process and operationalization without much push back, while growing the business.

An A-Team is a group of people who can work effectively as a unit and intensely focused on team goals. I think about our Marketing team during this time. It was led by an A-player who made sure every player worked together well and identified as a team. The team members were all at different phases of their career, yet it was small enough that everyone had an impact. They were one of the rare teams that had annual team dinners and would give awards. And, interestingly enough, this function endured the most changes (re-orgs, new leaders) ; however, those that remained have always gone on to make the teams they join better.

Scale Phase
The company by now needs someone who can hook all these departments together, expert at refining and communicating. An A-player at this stage is not only specialized but can see the overall picture and move multiple moving pieces in concert while also being innovative and creative in how they solve issues. The issues at this stage just at an operational level can get quite complex. Coming up with impactful solutions requires a depth and breadth that is truly on a different level. They have long gotten past micro-managing, delegate well, and know how to politically maneuver any situation and still remain unscathed.

A-players at this stage are brilliant masterminds who know their stuff and can apply it in an unknown and changing world. Just like great writers who purposely ignore grammar rules to bring about new work (yes,I’m looking at you Mr.-run-on-sentence-William-Faulkner). They can only bring about new work because they know the rules so well. A players at this stage have specialized so well, that they can break the rules and go into the unknown.

An A-Team here gets more challenged as the company gets larger, it gets more difficult to have the team feel they are moving the needle for the company. And if the team does feel they are moving the needle for the company the weight is either immense or not enough. The team goals purpose and goals become more specialized, and it becomes the leader’s job to make sure that those teams know they are doing something incredibly important and meaningful. An A-team will be able to achieve their team goals while at the same time awareness from the ecosystem and rest of the company their value.

Building an A-Team takes the following:

1. Knowing the right team to build. Figure out what type of team you need and begin to build that team. Focus on setting that leader up for the best success possible. If at all possible it is best to hire the head of the team first. The leaders are a reflection of the company and personally of the CEO. The leaders set the bar and tone of that team.
2. Focus on the individuals in the context of the right team. This means thinking of their role from all angles — not just skill set, but methodology, approach, perspective and personality. A-teams build upon all parts of the person.
3. Build an environment of strong teams. Is your company constantly force ranking your employees and pitting them against each other? What are the incentive structures like? Is there a concept of a team goal that plays into incentives? What are your recognition rituals like? Are they only focused on individuals and not teams?

I end with a confession. When we started out to build Kabam, we were far from A-players. Our rag tag team of designers, engineers, and marketing were cash-strapped, had little experience, and a bunch of quirk. But we worked together as a team. That and a bit of luck, has proven far more valuable than just a group of A-players trying to get shit done.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” — Michael Jordan

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

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How to Cross the Street in China (and other Lessons to Building an Enduring Company)

I have been living in China for the past year. Crossing the street can be a daring feat in China, just like building a lasting company. Here are some tips on getting across the street alive, along with some business lessons for building an enduring company.

Never be the first or the last, be in the middle of the pack

When crossing the street, the best thing to do is to stay in the pack. If you are in the pack, you will be protected by the people around out. If you are first or last, you are left unprotected. Regardless of what the light says if the pack moves, the best is if you move as well.

When it comes to building a business, being too early to the market is the same result as being too late to a market — business failure. Regardless of what is out there, watch where the market is and be a part of it.

Never be too early or too late to market — just be on time.

Cars, bikes, and then people

Rule #1: You are not a car. In the land of 1.2 billion people, there are far more people than cars, making cars a more scarce resource. Scarcity usually is correlated with higher value.

Rule #2: Cars are bigger than people. This is the law of physics — if you get in front of a moving object larger than you — the lesser object has a higher likelyhood of being impacted. Therefore China common sense law would be to allow cars to have the right of way.

You need to allow the cars to go first, and then really watch out for those bikes because they don’t follow the traffic lights and are fighting with the others on the road. Let the bikes and cars fight for the road, while you pay attention to when the people move.

Like in business when new technology and markets come to play often because the incumbents are larger they will move slowly into new markets. Many times you will see the incumbents at odds with each other in their current market and not pay attention to new markets. Our company has witnessed this— twice.

The first was Facebook. In 2007, we were one of the first to Facebook. In those days, companies were born over the weekend. Literally. Companies like Slide, RockYou and Zynga enjoyed the ability of first mover advantage. Including Kabam (well, Watercooler back then). While new unknown companies were dominating on Facebook none of the larger companies were seen on Facebook.

When CBS tried to do their Bracket App for NCAA College Championships (aka March Madness), it was already year 2 for our bracket application. We were David and CBS was Goliath. Facebook was partnering with CBS and CBS had access to as many of the native channels as developers plus the added benefit of an official relationship with the platform. However, we still beat out CBS’s application. Part of it had to do with big brands coming onto a new platform and not adjusting.

The big brands, if done incorrectly, were seen as irrelevant and too late. In fact when ABC wanted to distribute their video on Facebook, they didn’t go to Facebook, they came to us to distribute. For CBS and ABC, they were busy competing with each other outside of Facebook that newcomers were able to grab market share.

We saw this again when we pivoted into mobile games. EA and Blizzard were slow to adopt which allowed a new comer like Kabam to come in and dominate the new market. In fact in 2012 we were the Top Grossing App on iOS.

Let the incumbents fight it out in their existing markets, while you capture new markets.

Don’t fight the current, go with it

The craziest driving I have seen is in China. The other day our cab driver drove between two buses going the opposite direction. It was not only because the driver was incredibly impatient but he also felt if he did not go, someone else would go. So, he fought traffic the opposite way within an intersection. Sadly, since this a common occurrence, we notice that each time it would have been more efficient if the drivers had gone with the current.

When starting a company it is much easier to go where the users are than to have users come to you. When we started Watercooler (now known as Kabam), we started as a corporate social networking site. After we built and launched it, we thought everyone would come running. We loved it and so would everyone else. After we begged our friends and family, old colleagues and sent cold emails, we learned how hard it was to grow and gain traction. After several months we had only about 2,000 users — if you could call them that. We were deciding whether or not to shut down the company and find day jobs. And then around the same time, Facebook opened their platform to where any developer can create an application. Now instead of spending months to get 2,000 users, we get that many within the hour.

I remember when we told our Board Member that we were thinking about going onto Facebook, she emphatically said, “Yes! Go where the users are!”

Go where the users are.

Social rules often trump legal rules

The first rule about crossing the street in China is “Don’t get killed.” As long you achieve that you will be successful. This means you follow the rules that will not get you killed. And oftentimes following the rules can get you killed. I have jay walked many times, but the situation looks like this:

Even if the light is green, it doesn’t matter in this situation to cross. In fact I wouldn’t cross unless there was a pack of people near by to keep me safe ;).

In building your company, your day and your marketplace can look and feel like the picture above. However, in Chinese the word for crisis is 危机， which has the word “opportunity” in it. The way the market place moves so quickly there is opportunity to build amazing products and companies by focusing first on building what people want first — that is one way to keep the law on it’s toes. In fact there are large amazing companies that were built by following the social rules first and then worrying about the legal rules: Uber, Airbnb, Apple — just to name a few. If they had worried about the legal rules first and then the social rules, they would have never have gotten as big or even started.

Build what people want.

Fight for your right to exist

As you cross the street, you are in charge of your life. You control your destiny as you take those steps to cross the street. Many cars will see you and come right up to and inch slowly their car towards you to intimidate you out of your way, so you must must not be scared of them and act like you belong there.

Building an enduring company is a marathon. It is the most raw marathon on a course that has every single obstacle that could happen to you. In a marathon it is you versus yourself. You must fight for every step that is taken. And after awhile, all you need to do is just take that step. Similar in building a company just continuing to take the next step and just showing up you will survive and by essence, thrive.

Sometimes the best thing a startup can do is — don’t die.

While crossing the street in China can be a daunting task, like building a lasting company, following these five rules can help get your business cross the chasm of success:

1) Never be too early or too late to market — just be on time.

2) Let the incumbents fight it out in their existing markets, while you capture new markets.

3) Go where the users are.

4) Build what people want.

5) Sometimes the best thing a startup can do is — don’t die.

☞ If you would like to hear more tales, hit the Follow button below.

☞ If you are interested in a particular topic to do with our journey that you think is “important shit”, please leave a response below!

☞ Follow me on Twitter @hollyhliu

I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

Three Types of Teams Your Company Needs as it Grows

Oftentimes in Silicon Valley we talk about how we optimize for the perfect hire. But rarely do we talk about what type of team we are hiring for. In general, there are three stages of a company that needs three types of teams. Knowing what stage you are at can help you better define that team and in turn better define that hire.

The Founding Team (The Row Boat)

The founding team is a special team as a unit and only works as a unit. This is where the team is more important than the founding. One grain of sand between them can cause explosions. The number one reason why startups fail is the founding team. 
 
 The type of people that are part of the founding team is a part of a larger whole, but the whole is no larger than a size of a row boat. Therefore, every person aboard that row boat needs to be able to pull their weight as well as each person’s skillset and role needs to be unique. This means that a great founding team has the following qualities in its members:

Generalist, but specialists – Generalists at heart that like to figure things out on their own; however, they are specialists in the sense they have a role within the team for the most part. They are good at one thing, but can “figure out” the other things, not well but good enough.

Diverse, yet complementary – I had a friend who created a company accepted into YC and later had a modest exit to a larger company. Since it was a modest exit he felt like it failed to reach its full potential. When asked what was his failing, he said the skillsets between the founders were too similar. All the co-founders were engineers and that meant other roles needed to move the company forward could not be fulfilled as easily and therefore he felt they could have been more successful had their skillsets been different but complementary. 
 
One day Engineering and Design were having a conversation. Engineering says : “I don’t need anyone, I can build the whole house myself. I am most important” Design says: “What good is building a house if people don’t even know how to use the doors or toilets?”. Business then butted into their conversation, and said: “You are both silly, who would ever come and visit your house if they don’t know you exist? It’s like building a house with no address?” At that point Business, Design and Engineering realized they all needed each other.

Different backgrounds, same values – While many things should be different, the one thing you absolutely need to have the same is same vision and values. Similar vision in that you are building the same thing and values on how to treat each other in the process. One value that the founding team held was that while we had different roles we would respect each other’s area of expertise and they would have the final say when it came to those decisions.

If you notice, each quality is a dichotomy. Being able to hold opposing views and execute amidst those views is a skill that never goes away while building and running a company, but takes many forms as the company matures. However, in the most early stages, each member must be okay with the company working with these dichotomies, as every dichotomy is clearly felt and seen with every ebb and flow of the company.

Row Boat Danger Zone: Fights between the crew can bring going forward to a standstill.
 
*Please note that the “founding team” extends past the literal founding team. This applies to employees of the company in the early stages, up to around 80 people. I’m looking at all you early employees who were just crazy enough to join us when we had nothing, and help build a billion dollar company.

The Growth Team (Speed Boat)

As the company grows (+80 people), the company begins to go through the growth phase. It may have felt like the company was growing before, but past about 80 people you begin to feel a shift. Every new person you add, you have a harder time remembering their names, projects or what they work on. These people begin to be okay with reporting to people and want to know the boundaries versus “figuring it out”, but are highly ambitious and excited about the momentum, so they want control of distinct areas. They are okay being a part of a whole, but not be a rower. They will identify strongly with their team.

These people get excited that there is momentum enough to propel a speedboat and they want to be on it. They aren’t sure where it is going, but as long as the direction is forward, that is what fuels them. These people are the type of people that are on the speedboat and as they take off they notice an engine is missing and they get excited because they get to build their own engine while the boat is moving. People who do well at this stage have the following qualities:

Specialist-generalists – The company begins to hire its first CMO, COO, VP of Engineering, VP of HR – basically executives from the outside that are specialists. They are specialists first and then generalists. They are to help “scale”. However, this phase is tricky. Get someone who is too far away from building they fail horribly, get someone too close to building, they cannot help the company manage a team or grow.

Improvisation – People that join during this stage love improvising at a larger scale. They may not build the best data center; however, they will do a decent first run given resource constraints. You will have enough money to get the folks who have specialized in their field but may not be the most experienced. They tend to have a career ahead of them and see this experience as a great addition to their career – in many ways a stepping stone. This is not a bad intersection of personal and company goals, just make sure they do not do it at the risk of the company.

Right now vs. right – If given a choice these people will tend to lean towards “right now” vs “right”. They will make “right” choices; however, the speed at which they are going will allow the “right now” choice to be the “right” choice.

For these people when on the battlefield, performing a tracheotomy with pen, rather than with the proper instruments, is the “right now” thing that becomes the “right” thing given the conditions.

It is important that the leadership be great at recognizing the growth opportunities but not at the sake of destroying long term value. Thus it becomes even more important to hire people with the same values and vision as the company. Not only does it get all these people on the same page faster, it also allows the company as a whole to be agile and respond to opportunities and challenges quickly.

Like riding in a speedboat, this is the bumpiest stage of a company as not only does it has momentum but also a lot of people trying to “figure it out”. Most people attracted to a speed are ambitious young people with their careers ahead of them. Building infrastructure with these type of people can be good, but they must be trusted to be doing what is best for the company rather than their careers. Therefore, building systems in place to measure and gather feedback from a people structure standpoint becomes critical. 
 
Note: Transitioning the generalist-specialists of the “Founding Team” phase can be difficult during this time. Helping these people transition can add a stronger foundation to a long lasting culture as well as root out people who came just because the company was growing versus building a great company.

Speed Boat Danger Zone: Sometimes slow is faster. Pivoting smartly can get to your destination, but pivoting too much will drive your company in circles.

The Scale Team (The Yacht)

As the company has found its competitive advantage and has found a successful business model, the team begins to look differently. By now the company has more than one location, and even Project Managers have become a function within the team! Oftentimes at this stage you notice how much more those who build companies and those who run companies diverge. 
 
 This phase is much like moving a yacht forward. A group of specialists working together to move the machine forward. The communication systems and habits of a yacht are very sophisticated. Processes ensure safety of crew and passengers and are ran over and over again. There are a lot more resources but then again there is a larger responsibility. This is not to say there aren’t any tweaks or major updates, but there are updates (for the most part) rather than building something from scratch. There may be new processes or infrastructure, but it is used to connect and improve existing processes. 
 
People who do well at this stage have the following qualities:

Specialist-Connectors – These people are specialists through and through. However, they are able to connect across disparate groups and locations. These people are great at running an existing structure and making it better. They are good at managing groups of people across departments and connecting them.

Communicators – As the company matures and gets larger, communication becomes key to making sure processes move efficiently and effectively. It is these processes working together that help the boat move forward. In fact, long gone are the rowboat days where your paddle can move the whole boat forward, it is much better to get the right team to turn the motor to get the boat moving. Imagine using a paddle and 10 people to move a whole yacht forward, not much would happen.

Refiners – These people tend to refine an existing system and process. They can also run a an existing process quite well. Now the “right” thing is no longer the “right now” thing. This is because your business has matured to a point of a lot of customers and stable revenue stream. Doing something “right now” versus “right” can cause large irreversible damage.

By now the organization has probably made and acquisition or two. They have become more familiar with who they are and can integrate but can do better. At this stage the entire company is in refinement. Markets probably have stopped growing. The company starts to expand the business into other markets, but by now the company has the core business model well formed and they are in refinement of this model through better measurement of the business.

Yacht Danger Zone: Moving or standing still, if you are on a yacht you cannot feel it. Big mature companies die slowly and sometimes it is too late before the company realizes it is dying.

Conclusion

So, before you hire, you should it’s important on who you need to hire. To figure that out, it’s best to figure out what phase your company is in.

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☞ If you are interested in a particular topic to do with our journey that you think is “important shit”, please leave a response below!

☞ Follow me on Twitter @hollyhliu

I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

How To Conduct an Interview (for the Noob)

I remember when I had to make my first hire and conduct an interview for the first time. Our product was growing like crazy and I was at a limit on what I could do quickly to service our users. I was late into the night doing something I was terrible at — cutting art. I could do it but very very very slow. That’s when I knew I needed to hire someone.

I created a Craigslist ad and went to schedule the interviews. Each interview was no more than 10 minutes. And I fumbled through each one asking each one basically the same two questions:

Have you done something like this (cutting art) before?

Can you do something like this (cutting art)?

I obviously didn’t learn anything to help me make a good hiring decision through these questions. Suffice to say I (and the org) have come a long way from this after hundreds of interviews, here is how you conduct an interview if for the n00b (newbie), broken up into three chunks.

Before : Do the prep work.

1. Be familiar with the job (description). You may be interviewing someone who is not your functional expertise, but at least be able to tell the candidate what the job entails and how you hope to interact with them.
2. Know if the interview process before posting. Some positions need several rounds, other positions need just one round. Some positions need several people interviewing them —if several people are interviewing the candidate, for the love of God, please coordinate beforehand on what you are looking for and who is going to ask what questions.
3. Review the candidate before the interview. This means look at their resume, online profile as well as any professional work they put out — like a blog or website. I would steer clear of looking into their Facebook or personal stuff — you don’t want to come across as a stalker 😉
4. Prepare some key questions. If you have done #1 and #3, this should be easy.

During : Be present.

This is the best advice I can give in such a distracted world, and face to face time becomes valuable. There is a lot of time and energy just to get to this point from both the organization and the candidate. Both is the operative word because:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

1. Smile and greet the person. Yes, I know this is a no brainer, but candidates get the first impression of you and the org this way. You are selling them as much as they are selling you. Bonus: offer the candidate either a drink or if he or she needs to use the bathroom.
2. Put your cell phone to the side. I’m okay having cell phones in the interview, but find it incredibly a waste of time if either party is going to be on it during a large portion of the interview. If you cannot be “present” during that time, re-schedule.
3. Tell the candidate a little about your role and the company. This not only gives the candidate context but it helps get the interview going in a casual but professional way. First few seconds is a little awkward.
4. Ask the question how (s)he heard about the job and why (s)he is interested . This gives feedback on your recruiting channels as well as getting a sense of their motivation. This also is a really good transition question to the nitty gritty questions about their experience as well as fit.
5. Ask open ended questions. The largest problems with the two questions above were the candidate needed to answer a “Yes” or a “No” and that was the end of it. My favorite type of open ended questions are behavioral ones. They usually start out with “Tell me about a time…”
6. Ask follow up questions. It would have been better if after they answered Yes, I could have followed up with “Can you tell me more about that?”
7. Allow time for any follow up questions from the candidate. This helps you see where the candidate is at in their decision making process and motivations in their job search, because remember:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

After : Follow up.

1. Make a decision and communicate it.

It is okay if the answer is NO, that the recruiter tells the candidate. In this situation it is best to let them decline for you. If you do not have the luxury of having a recruiter, it is best to tell them NO and be short, but courteous, and timely. Email is okay. It makes no sense to go into long detailed reasons as oftentimes there isn’t a good reason and you both may work together again in a different capacity.

If it is YES, then communicate to the candidate and then give them all the information necessary for the next step.

2. Reference Check. I am often surprised how many hiring managers do not do this. If you have great positive feelings about the candidate, it gives you great indication how to be a better manager. If you are on the fence about the person it will give you a chance to hear from other managers how the candidate performed day to day. Yes, this actually matters more when you are a small startup as it’s an intense environment and you want to see how the person operates in your environment. You get to short circuit so much by doing this one step.

3. Close. Oftentimes people make the mistake of going into “sell mode”. It should be a continuous sell throughout the process. If it starts out with the mindset of You are selling them as much as they are selling you, then this part should be easy. Use everything you learned about them in the process, hi lighting things of interest to them in the package. Stay in continual communication with them until they show up on their first day. Pro Tip: We’ve sent care bombs to our candidates welcoming them to the organization before they have started. Because, remember:

You are selling the candidate as much as the candidate is selling you!

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

Great questions! Pursuing the IP strategy is certainly not for all game developers. But in regards to your questions:

1. Costs — The costs of going after large IP comes down to time, revenue splits and upfront costs. Obviously exact costs vary from situation to situation. I know super general/generic answer. If you are looking for something more specific you can DM me on Twitter, and I can try to help.
2. Potential Saturation — Usually licensors cut up their license based off game genre and geography. Licensing uniquely off of these attributes. This is where game developers can look at their competitive advantage and review if their genre or gameplay makes sense with that IP. Kabam would never do an endless runner and therefore would not go after IP that made a lot of sense with that genre.
3. Emerging IPs are best considered when you can lock up content and channel. What I mean by this is exemplified by a company in China called iQiYi (爱奇艺）and a show called Hua Qian Gu （花千骨). iQiYi had exclusive ability to distribute this show, when they released the show they also partnered with a game developer to make the game, funneling all the players into that game. That game made over $100 MM USD for the year.

For game developers trying to break into IP, I would say start with your strengths — what genre or gameplay is your team really really good in? Go after IP that would be a great fit for that.

And if you are making original IP — what celebrity or influencer is a great fit to help you market it?

Hope that helps!

The “Important Shit”

A few weeks ago I was at dinner and the question was posed:

Would Kabam have joined an accelerator if they had the chance to do it all over again?

We started in 2006, with a few years of work experience. YCombinator had just started on the east coast the year before in 2005 aimed towards students. Thus, we don’t know what it’s like to go through an accelerator — we don’t know what is taught or more importantly what people learn. We did it the old fashioned way — going up and down Sandhill Road.

I answered if they taught the “important shit” like how to hire people, how to fire people, defining values/culture and making the tough decisions — I would be all for it (assuming we could even get in!). It has been a lot of trial by fire and one of the most important things to building an enduring company.

It’s been about 10 years since we started Kabam . We’ve had a lot of challenges, opportunities and amazing milestones on our way to building a billion dollar company. And still learning “the important shit”.

So I hope this will be the first of many “important shit” articles. This is what this publication is about. Things that really only experience can teach someone when founding and building an enduring company. My hope is that folks can learn from our experience.

Smart people learn from their own mistakes, successful people learn from other people’s mistakes.

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

Thanks @Vincent Fulco!

How Game Developers can Choose Winning IP

This is adapted from a talk at GMIC for a Chinese audience, and covered by sootoo.com

With the news that Disney is heading towards a licensing strategy, it will be a high likelihood as a game developer, you will be working with a licensed IP.

It is truly a partnership. This means you will bring value to the IP and the IP will bring value to your game. It is clear what the IP should be bringing: continued content, lower marketing spend, and mass appeal. But for the game developer what does it bring? Deeper engagement with the IP, retention for the IP between movie or product launches, and of course a continuous revenue stream for the IP holder.

Therefore, choose your partner wisely and consider the following below.

Deep and Continuing IP

Kabam is great at deep gameplay married with great IP. We look for IP that has lots of characters and deep storyline. Our games enjoy many characters and rich storyline. This is why we have partnered with Marvel: lot’s of characters, rich storylines and continuing IP (many movies coming out). In Lfact the Marvel universe keeps expanding, which presents so many possibilities for the game developer.

In October 2015, when Marvel wanted to expand their Marvel universe with a new superhero character, they came to the game developers as a source of a new character, and they developed Guillotine.

However, if your speciality is something else, perhaps a single player gam3, it is best that you find an IP with a singular character that is deep and rich which will continue. For example, Glu Games had a great simulation engine that revolved around a singular experience. For them, the brand of Kim Kardashian made sense, and helped catapult their game to new audiences. Also it is clear from all the magazine publications that the Kim K. IP continues regardless whether some like it or not.

The most important qualifier in choosing IP is that there is continued life to the IP.

Global IP

If possible, consider IP that is globally appealing. The western markets only account for about 500 million people to which a large percentage of people have smart devices which they play games. Therefore, choosing an IP that does not have global appeal immediately limits your ability to grow past the Western markets. And , in the next few years the mobile gaming market is projected to mainly grow in Asia (Gamasutra). Yes, when possible think globally.

Right Genre + Right Team + Right IP

It is important to marry the right genre with the right IP. Early on we only had one game called Kingdoms of Camelot, which was strategy based. When considering an IP, each time we would ask if it would make sense with the genres and gameplay we were good at. For example, would Star Wars be coupled well with a strategy based genre? It didn’t seem to make so much sense to us easily. Unlike once we had a team and a successful action game engine, we were able to explore IP that fit this genre.

Also we would go a step further and evaluate the team behind the game development team to create this IP and ask the following questions.

1. Did they have expertise in this genre?
2. Had the core team been working together for a long time?
3. Had they worked with complications around licensed IP before?

We found that game development on the mobile phone has become increasingly mature, meaning the experts in the industry have a much better than fighting chance than amateurs. Gaming is one of the few industry within entertainment that favor experience over youth. Therefore since it is a team that creates a game and rarely a single person, looking at the core of the team and their ability to stand the test of time can really give the game an advantage at succeeding. Finally working with IP that is tied to outside product launches such as movies requires complications that come with many partners. Any team that has had success and is still together is a team that should be bet upon when dealing with IP.

Game development is becoming increasingly difficult and rules out those that are just opportunistic, but can really favor those who are determined, full of passion and just a bit lucky.

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam. I am currently in Beijing, China. These perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.

Unless otherwise noted, all image credit is Kabam