Indie Megabooth's Digital Nomad Kelly Wallick

You know, and like, either personality wise or within inside of the portfolio or just like, you know, and do, do we wanna spend time with these people for the next 10 years? You know, like, do we wanna be on the, the founder journey with them?

and you know, she's got a really interesting background from, I mean, she went to school for STEM sciencey stuff. Really got into, did she graduate? I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we interview a lot of people that came in. Chemistry did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We didn't talk about the old college degree, but, Kelly's one of the, the unique individuals in our industry who I think came into the industry through this idea of the gaming community.

and it's been a thread throughout her career. Yeah. From That's very fascinating. Yeah. Just being on the, very much on the indie side. Still kind of on the Indie side, but on the institutional finance part of the indie side, which, occup occupy, occupies some rare air, partnered up with her good buddy, Ed Fries. So, really great conversation. Really great to be able to get, Kelly onto the podcast. You're gonna love it. What's happening with you, Aaron? What's going on Besides, besides your.

Irritable Cabbage syndrome. Yeah, I know. Maybe you don't want to talk about that.

My brother kills a lot of animals and gives him, gives me the meat. So I have a lot of, I have a lot of super organic meat. Not everybody knows that. That's where the meat comes from. Speaking of, hey, what do you think about hunting games? Have you ever played a hunting game before? Like when you go hunting deer? So like,

There's, there's driving games like Snow Runner, right. These games you would never play, but, but they're actually phenomenal. Like they're actually really good. you know, and but the but the setting isn't something

How lucky are we? Kelly is an investor and partner at One-Up Ventures, and she's also the CEO and founder of the Indie Mega Booth. And for many years was the chairperson of the Independent Games Festival. I had a game, that was part of the, IGF and the really one that I, I personally made, but I was invite Yeah. Advising a student team, that, had, I have, I have a. Look at that computer. I have it right back there. Showcase winner. hey, the devil's tuning fork. Oh, devil.

Nice. And then, Octo dad was the Oh yeah, Phil. Same program. Year, year after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So huge fan. Huge fan. Great. yeah, me too. Yeah. Great to see you, Kelly.

I think I'm really like, kind of used to it and I like it and I like the novelty and I like being in new places and I really enjoy traveling. and so when I first started up the mega booth, I had been living in Boston at the time, well, Cambridge, but Boston, proud and independent Republic of Cambridge. And I decided I wanted to like, travel a bunch while I was doing it. And I didn't really need to be anywhere. and I was gonna start my own company.

And it was like, one of the fun things about this is like, I don't need an office. I don't need a home. I don't like, you know, have kids and a car and a house and all this stuff. so I put all my things at my mom's house in Pennsylvania and then I just kinda like lived all over the world for a good, like maybe four, four-ish years. Three or four years. but,

So she was like, she ran our payroll and like helped me keep track of all the paperwork. And she like has an email address there. So like people used to joke and call her Diane from payroll. And so like my mom, my mom like, kind of helped run the mega booth and still, still does like all my mail goes there. Can we, people would

The kind of like flow for it was that people would submit their games to us, we would review them, we would make a selection, and then we would help them showcase at consumer facing events generally. So we had, big events that we would do at PAX East and PAX West each year. we had a small showcase that we did at GDC. we used to co organize an event, in Kyoto called Bit Summit. and we had a mega Booth showcase there.

and then we would kind of do various things like around Europe or Asia or just kind of like as, as invited, I guess. it, but the kind of like longstanding ones where PAX East and PAX West, and GDC and we showcased. Oh my God, I think it was like over 800 companies and maybe a thousand games, I think in the 10 years that it have ran.

Wow. Yeah. And so it also kind of became a community, which is something that's like kind of a thread throughout my work, and a like a way for people kinda like a stepping stone into the industry. So we did a lot of things around like connecting people up with like platform holders and publishers and funders, but also each other, you know, like other people, that were also making indie games. and we had a lot of like, grant and scholarship programs.

We did a lot of advocacy work to like help, like new and up and coming people, make it in the games industry. And so it, it's kind of like a, I don't know, like a little like kind of festival inside of conferences, but then also like external to that it was like a way for people to get to know each other and kind of navigate, making games together in the industry.

Like, there was still stuff I had to go into and be like, okay, this didn't, it didn't do it right. Yeah. yeah. But I was really fascinated with computers and all through like middle school and high school, I actually like learned some, like, there was like computer classes at my school and stuff. And so, you know, I took those and my dad would like, take apart computers and show us like how they physically worked and stuff.

When you're just talking about the beginning of the internet and your right, your dad having that kind of exposure and sounds like maybe kind of like a. Techy, nerdy kind of.

Diane for payroll. I got, yeah, I got, it's, I mean, I said a cr like I would sneak down at night and like also the internet had like 50 web pages. So, you know, I would like read them all, spend all this time on my computer. but I got, I got in a lot of trouble. I got banned from the internet for a couple months. yeah. But video games were always kind of like a part of that too. Like, you know, we always had like. Nintendo and my Uncle Atari, and I think there was like a fascination with it.

but I mostly play PC games. Like I'm, I really like management simulation games. Like I've played the Sims basically since the day it came out. city builders, all that kind of stuff. mm-hmm. My, my dad considered city builders, like educational games or like sim games. Yeah. Like kind of educational games. So it was like sim spent a lot of time on those. Sim City or were there,

Yep. Yep. so yeah, a lot of these, so no control. Mostly Nintendo. So like, started off with just regular Nintendo and then, yeah, we kind of stayed a Nintendo family all the way up through, and I had a PlayStation in, or PS two in college. and then I had a 360, I think. But mostly I think by that time I just sort of gave up on playing consoles. I just played on pc. 'cause most of the kinds of games that I play like don't really work well on console.

And also they're kind of expensive and hard to like carry around with you all over the place. And at some point I was like, this is, I don't know, there's too many buttons. It's gonna a little complicated.

It was like, you could kind of go for computer science or you could go for like, like it, you know, like kind of like tech work with computers. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to do either of those. And so I was just like, oh, well, like being a scientist is like, I enjoy the like, physical component of it a bit more. And it seems like it's a job that's like, will be around, you know, like it wasn't clear to me whether computers would be like a job or not.

and so yeah, so I decided to go in for chemistry and then, I worked, I just got my bachelor's degree. Took me a little while to go through college. I got my bachelor's degree and then when I graduated I worked at a, startup that was at like founded by some grad students at Penn State. worked there for a little bit and then I got a job at MIT, which is why I moved to Boston.

So I was, managing one of these, it was like a chemical engineering lab, but it was kind of doing interdisciplinary work and focused a lot more on, like biotech, kind of before they had biotech like, biochemistry, like specific programs there. there's a whole crazy story that goes along with that. And then I worked at another startup, that got founded kind of out of that lab that I was doing some research in.

And then at that point I was like, I don't, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing with land life. Like, I wasn't sure if I liked, like my career I like was looking into doing food science. There was a lot of stuff I liked about it, but like, unless I went back to school and got like a graduate, like a PhD or did my postdoc or I started a biotech company, which was something I was actually looking into at the time that I was

like looking about doing games.

And so, I think my original idea was like put like pulling together some of the people that I liked working with and doing some like consult, like consulting stuff. And then potentially some like, you know, I don't know, building some things out of that. 'cause like I said, I liked the building component of it. yeah.

And then my youngest sister, she went to school for electrical engineering, but then really got into programming and she was also in Boston and so she had wanted to start a game studio and she was like, there's all these game meetups in Boston. But she was like, I don't really wanna go by myself 'cause I don't know anybody. And so she's like, will you come, will you come to these meetups with me?

and so I started going to meetups with her and also, we went to PAC Feast, like the very first one that they had when it was still in the Heinz Convention Center. yeah. And I just really love the people. Like, I, I don't know, it was kinda like I found my people, I guess. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like going to these events and I really loved it. And so.

I got a job at a contract shop in like, outside of Boston and learned like project management and got more involved in like learning how like software development works. And we did some game stuff, but also, like, you know, work for hire things like, you know, enterprise software and websites and games with random IP that don't make sense, you know, just kind of whatever.

And it seemed fun and it was kind of gaining popularity and I was like, okay, this is my chance. I can like, finally start a company, you know, like, which I've always wanted to do. so I quit that job about like maybe two years in, and I ran the mega booth full time for like about 10 years after that.

And when people, when we started getting more games than we had space for or, you know, that I, I didn't know what to do with everything. I was like, okay, we need to start like, 'cause at first it just sort of started off with like a group of people that were like in the industry that knew each other that was like, you know, all had kind of quality games. And then as word spread more people that like we didn't know or weren't familiar with their projects were like interested.

And so we started building what became like a fairly complex like curatorial system. But I remember people like would play because I was enlisting help from people and they would play the games. They're like, well, I don't like this game, or I don't like the genre game. And I'm like, well, this is not the games that you like showcase, right? Like, this is meant to be like a showcase for like everybody, right?

and it kind of gave me this perspective on like, how do you view, how do you view things through lots of different lenses, you know? And so it was kind of a combination of trying to get good representation of, of kind of what we thought was going on in the industry at the time, and then also sort of bumping up the stuff that we wanted to see more of.

and then kind of like highlighting trends and like I said, like doing kind of behind the scenes advocacy work to like get, you know, more in different kinds of voices involved in the industry. you know, and with this, the case of among us. So that game I think, had been out for a little while. You know, we played it, we actually had a couple discussions about it. but one of the things was that like getting internet at the show is really expensive.

And also, doing like a, like a local network hookup thing would like kind of work. But games like that also tended to show really well on the conference floor. 'cause it's like you get all your friends and you're at a conference and you're having a good time and you play the game. And then these games would come out and just like flop, you know, because it was like, they were like, oh, it was like, it seems so popular at the show. Right.

But it was like, because the, the experience and the circumstances were like not able to be recreated at home. So there's like a couple things going on with it. And we tended not to show stuff that had been out for a while or, you know, there's like kind of a bunch of like random, like external criteria that just went into like, okay, like how can we help to like call this out?

and you know, but generally we were really looking to try to like, yeah, get a good representation of, of what we thought was was going on. And also just to help to like support as many teams doing like cool and interesting things as possible. I used to have an unofficial motto for the mega booth. Which I refined a little bit later was like, I don't wanna work with assholes. Mm-hmm. So it was kind of like, I was like, I'm gonna have my own company. That's a good

just because I was like, it's not really like, it's not worth it at that point for me. Not worth it.

Yeah. which, the way I hear that is, you know, there's also sorts of really cool, great outcomes coming from Indie Mega Booth, but the impetus for starting it was, Hey, it's a business. so was it a. Was that like the number one intention? Like

And so, like working in jobs where I was having to do things like, you know, that were being dictated by other people, I always sort of struggled with it. you know, I, I mentioned a little bit of this, but like, once my parents got divorced, our financial situation changed drastically. and you know, we grew up pretty poor and so I had had a lot of like, hours, like my first job was at a McDonald's and I've been working since I was a teenager.

And it's like a lot of like, you know, like people telling you what to do on hours that you don't like, and just a bunch of this kind of like, it feels very constricting. And so the idea of. Being able to like run my own business was more about like the freedom that I felt like that was gonna give me, and also the opportunity to just like, basically do whatever I wanted.

You know, like I'm like, I can leave my stuff in my mom's basement and travel the world, you know, and like work and like, nobody's gonna hassle me about like whether I'm answering emails at the right time or something. 'cause like that's my decision now. Yeah. so it was a little more about that. And then also I just thought that the opportunity was really neat. Like it was this thing that kind of was coming about in my life.

'cause the first time that I ran it, it was just a little bit more to like get to know people in the industry and like learn about it. and so at, at the time, there's a studio in, Boston called Fire Hose Games and a AAN runs it. And he had been kind of like talking to people about putting together this like, indie space but didn't really wanna like, logistically run it. And I was like, oh, well I'll run it.

'cause I'm like curious, you know, like to meet more people and like learn about the industry. and so I had kind of done it as like an experiment and then people really seemed to enjoy it. And so I was like, okay, well I'll do it again. and then it just kind of kept like snowballing from there. So it was a little bit more like, I had like followed this, the thread of this thing that seemed to be picking up traction. And I was also like soliciting. And I still do that.

Like, I like to solicit advice from people and from the community about like, what do they actually want outta this, you know, and like, what works and what doesn't work? So I didn't really think of it. I mean, I didn't even call it a business or a company for like, probably six or seven years. Like, I really didn't like the idea that I was like doing something capitalist, you know? Mm-hmm. I was pretty disdainful of the idea of earning money, which is like a whole other thing now. What's your

but basically we were just sort of like a middle person, for like the actual sale of the show floor. We negotiated like discounts on the spacing and, you know, like where we were located. And we also helped to like. Basically coordinate all of the timing on the orders.

'cause like, if you've ever shown at a conference before, it's like there's an a crazy amount of stuff that you don't know, that you don't know until you like, are getting into the process and there's a lot of deadlines and unions and vendors and rules and like stuff that you just, oh yeah. And you're like, you know, you're like, what? Where do I buy signage? And so like, we kind of like ended up with, like kind

of a, a, you know, a pile of vendors that we liked working with people that were through the conference. And then we would have a mailing list, like in the lead up to it where everybody would share, like, you know, ask each other questions and say like, okay, like for people who've done this before, like, is the padding on the carpet worth it? And like, you know, what size TV should I get? And so like, people would help each other out, in the process of it.

So it really made it like a lot more, not turnkey. 'cause we were, we had an area called the Mini Booth. It was a little more turnkey, but it was kinda like helping people. Navigate this in the easiest way possible so they could just show up and like, hopefully be successful.

you know, and over time it became like a draw for press and, you know, publishers would do walkthroughs and we'd walk through with our sponsors and so it was really kind of like, you know, this is sort of all in one package.

Yeah. and we would run networking events and stuff outside of that, like, you know, parties and stuff during, during the thing, with our sponsors and, but yeah, it was, it was all sponsorship based and so we were pretty like break even, you know, like I think we were kind of functionally running as a nonprofit for a long time, even though we weren't, and like every six months I was essentially fundraising for like 10 years, which when I look back at it, I'm like, that's bananas.

But we never really got to a point where we could grow. And that was something I'd been thinking about in the, in the year or two leading up to the pandemic. And I had actually like, started thinking of it more as a business. And you know, after, after almost a decade I'm like, what am I doing?

You know, here, like I was like, at least I was starting to pay myself and you know, like I was, it was like, it was, you know, be able to like support me and stuff, but I was like, what is, what is my end goal here? You know, like, what am I doing with this? And like, can I retire off of this? You know what I mean? Like what am what's happening here? and so I'd been exploring ways about trying to fundraise or potentially like sell it or do do something with it.

And I was kind of in the middle of all of that when the pandemic happened. And then at that point I was pretty burnt out to say the least. And like, it just kind of felt like the hand of God came down and was like, stop. And I was like, okay, I'll stop.

So it never really kind of like, like I was able to support myself for a little bit after that and I had had some savings and, you know, so, and we did this like, steam sale that we organized at the end, which people were super gracious about, like donating into. and so that let me like, give the staff like a couple months of severance, which wasn't something, you know, that we had saved up for. And so it was kinda like a, a smooth landing, I guess, in the end.

but it never really, yeah, I don't know. It, it was like in this weird stasis point Yeah. Where it was like we kind of didn't have the time and money and resources to grow. And every time that we tried to do it, it would just get like sideswiped by like, well now we have a priority of like a new conference and new sponsors and stuff like that. and it's still something that like, I think, not that I like struggle with, but I just think that like my, my.

The way that I deal with money is like, it's money and money out, right? Like it's, I think the idea of like borrowing or like, like spending against future stuff and like the things that I feel like you might need to do or like take investment or something to like grow as a company is something that I think, especially at the time I was like really not financially comfortable with like, the idea of having debt or something. To me it was like, mm-hmm. It was like, no.

and I had to go and a decent amount of debt to make my way through college. And so then when I got out and I kind of on. Like, got myself outta that. I was like, I still don't do it. You know, like, I'm like, I still, I have, I have no, you know, like I think I, I might get a car loan again soon.

you know, but like, other than that, I'm just like, I'm very, and, and I think also too, the idea of like handling, like the volume of money that we were handling, even just for like the shows was like more than I had like ever seen in my life or like, you know, anybody in my family had ever seen in their life. And so it was just like, I was like, I don't know what to do with this kind of stuff.

and it's funny getting into tech stuff and, I mean, not, not as much games, but there is a lot of this in games and in tech in general as like, I don't know too many people who grew up in the same financial situation that I had. And so it's kind of hard to like, I'm like, where do you, I don't know.

Like I had to learn a bunch of stuff along the way and kind of fake my understanding of like the world and the social etiquette of like, being in these spaces and going to dinners that were like, to me, an insane amount of money, you know? And so it was kinda like a whole. A whole weird learning process that like completely

So I kind of would take on contracts to help supplement my income at the mega Booth. 'cause like I wasn't really getting paid enough to like co I was cobbling together a full salary, you know, through a couple different things. And,

And, so I initially joined just part-time to run and build a community side, which, which I did for a handful of years. and so I, I did that through this, the early part of the pandemic, which again, was very helpful because I had to close the makeup booth. So it was like I was still doing the IGF and the one up fund, but I was kind of taking a burnout break, I guess is like a good way to say it. Like I just spent a lot of time resting and thinking about what I wanted to do next.

and when I felt like I was kind of ready to start working again, we were just finishing up, making investments outta the first fund and we're like thinking about, or you know, presumably thinking about going into doing a second fund. And so then that's when I joined full-time. So I've been full-time or as a partner for like. Three-ish years or something, three, four years. And then I was doing the just part-time community stuff for the three or four years before that.

So the fund's been around for six or seven years I think now. And like I've been there, like, I think Ed was just paying me outright before, 'cause it wasn't like formed yet. Like no money had come in. And so I think, I think Ed, but I was like, I'm not working for free. So I was like, so I think Ed Good Ed made me for you. Yeah. we, we

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Yeah. you want, can you just maybe kind of like describe some of that? yeah, a little bit.

clearly I knew that when we talked, but then later I was like, oh, that's clearly true. and so we make a large number of investments. So we make about 50 investments per a fund. and part of the point of that is kind of to get like a snapshot of the industry to have like a broad and diverse portfolio approach, which is kind of similar to what publishers will do, which is, you know, what Ed had been doing partially at Microsoft.

And, and the way that nbc, that you can do that number of investments is to do follow on investing. And so. We actually, we did a talk at GDC a few years ago that we put on the one up website. There's, there's like four tabs. ed and I made this website in WordPress us, so it's very minimal. but, but there's a link to a video there, so if anybody's watching this, it's like really interested in learning about like, how the VC space works for games.

We kind of did a, like an equity investing 1 0 1, talk that like describes what a lot of this terminology is and you know, the. Things that you might hear and the deal terms and stuff like that. So there's a thing called a lead investor. When you have a priced round, which is just like a, a way of, equity investing and equity investing is different from project financing, which is kind of closer like publishing and stuff, which is what people are used to.

And equity is when you're buying like a portion of somebody's company instead of like getting proceeds from a project for example. There's a bunch of different ways you can set it up. but a priced round, which is the typical way that people will raise money, has a thing called a lead investor and they set the valuation of the company, they set the deal terms, they typically put in the most money. and as part of that one is you have to do a lot of work. There's a lot of like legal stuff.

you have to form the board, you have to have somebody sit on the board, which, you know, somebody you can probably sit, this is from Ed's experience 'cause he has more board experience than I do. But I would agree, you could probably sit on six or seven boards before it starts to kind of become. A full-time job or more. And so if you're a lead investor, you have to have a pretty big staff, to be able to support the kinds of work that you're doing with it.

and so there's a lot of people that do follow on investing. 'cause it's just, it's technically easier. It's you like the returns don't have to be as crazy, you know, like all of, like your staff can be smaller, all the stuff. But then, because there's so many people doing follow on investing, like why would somebody take your money over somebody else's money? Because it's like, once the lead is in, then everybody's like, oh yeah, me too, me too, me too. You know?

So they like throw in their money. in theory. it's hard to raise right now, so I don't know how true that is, but, so you get the lead and then the follow ons can just kind of like Yeah. Hang onto the, hang onto it. And so one of his thoughts on this was like, how can we get more people interested in taking our money instead of other people's money? And that's where like the community aspect of it comes in. And so it's like, how can we do a value add? that's really important to the teams.

and then also something that like means a lot to both of us. And so Ed's been part of a, a developer community for a long time that he is found very meaningful, that he really loves and like this model is kind of based off of that. And so when we first talked, you know, he like is very passionate about what he wanted the community to look like. And like even kind of describes it as like, we're a community with a BC rapper.

You know, it's like the community is the center part of it and the BC thing is just this like thing that is like holding it together technically. and you know, for me it was kind of like taking what worked for me and what I really loved about the Mega Booth and like putting that into the concept of this founder community, with the portfolio. And then the very exciting thing for me was that there was a budget. 'cause the mega booth never had a budget.

So everything that I ever wanted to do, we never had any money for. but the one up fund has money, which is great 'cause when you run a venture fund, the way that the fund. Administers itself. I don't know, like pays for itself is that you get a thing called management fees, from the overall investment and you get that through the lifetime of the fund. and so those management fees are what we use to like pay for all the community initiatives.

And because we keep the team small, we can like reinvest a bunch of that, that money and resources and stuff back into the community. And so, you know, we only invest in game studios. We only invest in games content. So it's like not tools or technologies or platforms we invest globally. You know, we invest across all genres and all different types of founders. And, and so in that way it's like, it's kind of similar to like, I guess the spirit of the mega booth. yeah.

And then we connect them all up and it's, you know, they. And talk to each other on Slack channels and ask questions. we run virtual meetups, we run workshops, we do a yearly retreat. We buy data and analytics. You know, it's like we have purchasing programs with discount codes and it's just like everything that we can think of to do to try to help, to support.

Yeah, it's, and it's like, but it feels to me like that's not really your guys' vibe.

But like, just for example, like the mega booth, we would get like. Three to 400 submissions every six months. And then the IGF was getting about like 700 to a thousand submissions once a year. And for the mega booth, at least for I would say eight or nine of the years, I played basically every single game. later I was having a team and, you know, I wouldn't kind of play, you know, I wouldn't play every single thing, but I would play most of the stuff.

and then for IGFI was managing the jury and judging process. And so I was also like reviewing all of the information and, you know, helping manage the QA and like the jury discussions. And so, you know, I've probably looked at like literally thousands and thousands and thousands of games over 10 now, 15 years, and I've seen which have been successful and which ones haven't. And which ones submit to the mega booth, which ones submit to IGF, which ones go to publishers, which ones get investment?

And like I said, I think. There's been a handful of games that maybe I could have been like, yes, this is totally, like, a hundred percent gonna be a hit, maybe. And like, I, I just think that it is like, it's so hard. Like it's, it's a combination of so many things that are like in your control and out of your control.

And, you know, like, like I'll go back to among again, not to just keep talking about it, but I mean, one of the reasons that that game did well is 'cause there was a global pandemic, which I was not mm-hmm. On my Bingo card. among us. Among

And so it's really like you can kind of, you can. Put this little conglomerate together. Right. but I actually don't envy the situation where people are in, where they're like, only making a small number of guesses on what's gonna be a hit or not a hit. And then also stuff like Minecraft. Like I played, like, I like not Chung around in the indie scene. Like I knew him, you know, when it was like, not even really a playable game yet.

Like, it just like, like developers were just playing it and stuff. And like, I mean, I thought it was cool, but I didn't think like, you know, 15 multi billion later it would be like whatever it is. You know what I mean? And so like, I think that the, the way that you kind of need to like, yeah, look at this is through like this lens of like, like you can sorta, you can sort of guess, but then like the rest is sort of left up to, you know, whatever is going on in the universe at the moment.

Right. whether it's gonna hit or not.

Unless, like I said, like, you know, for me I realize like, oh, the skillset that I have is like this kind of like being able to do curatorial stuff. Like look at things and be like, what, what is the cultural value of this? What people would like this? You know, like what are the, what's the background of it? Like, you know, looking at it in this kind of holistic way. And also like, I, I love art and music and culture and pop culture and like all this other kind of stuff.

And so those things to me don't scare me. Like they're not confusing or, you know, I don't need numbers to back it up and a whole bunch of other stuff. But I think that like when you're investing in. Games, you know, which are in entertainment media and have all this other kind of stuff along with it. You need a lot of like fuzzy logic to kind of invest in it. Mm-hmm. And so I think just telling someone like, Hey, just make a billion dollar game.

Like, I don't know, it's kind of like, hey, be a be a bestselling author. Like, hey, be the best artist. You know what I mean? Like, hey, be, be Beyonce or something. And it's like, okay. Like lots of people have the idea like, I would love to be Beyonce. Not easy. Yeah. That's identifying that as easy auto. Yeah. Doing it is like way harder. Yeah.

So it's like they need to be raising at seed stage, they need to be raising a certain amount of money, which is typically between, I'd say maybe now a little bit more between like two and 7 million, but typically three to 7 million. They need to have a lead investor and needs to be a game, you know? And so like once you kind of like use all that criteria to, like, it eliminates a large number of stuff.

we do talk to teams even if they're not raising that amount or you know, like kind of depending on what the situation is. and so like once we're kind of inside of that criteria and they also have to want to raise equity investment, right? So like not a publishing deal or project financing or. Kickstarter or whatever other things that they're doing. so kind of once you're in that, you know, I'm like, how far should I go down the whole process?

So we have a couple like avenues for people sending us stuff. Like we have a contact form on the website that's like cold contact form that people can send us stuff and we literally, like, I literally review everything and there, and then Ed and I have a call, once a week where we review the stuff that's like potentially interesting on whether we wanna have a call or not.

I'd say a large portion of those, I end up just sending them, like additional information about how investing works and, you know, if they raise more money or, you know, trying to point them kind of in the right direction. and then we also get referrals from other investors. We get referrals from the community, and, you know, people that I know and that Ed knows, and then we'll generally if we. Something, you know, catches our attention about it.

Like it falls with inside of all that criteria, the game looks interesting. The team either seems experienced or seems to like, kind of know what they're doing or don't know what they're doing in a way that's good. But sometimes we, sometimes we get a lot of like, you know, I have never made a game before. I work in a totally unrelated field. I am spending $40 to make the next moa. You know what I mean?

It's like stuff that's just like wildly mismatched from an understanding of like what the reality is of like making a video game. then we'll typically take like a, a pitch meeting with the team. And for us, like, and for me in particular, and I found this with almost everything, I feel like the team matters a lot more than people give it credit for.

I think that people really focus on the project and the game and the idea and like, there's a lot of cool game ideas and a lot of people have a lot of really interesting ideas and like, you know, I love seeing something new and unique and like a twist on something or, but really it's like if the team can't execute on it. None of it matters. Right? And executing on it can mean like they're technically executing on it.

But there's also, I mean, you've run companies, I've run companies, like there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of emotional things and twists and turns and hurdles, and it goes well, and it goes bad. And like there's just, there's so much other stuff in there and like, you need to be able to navigate that in a way that gets you to some end point, right?

Or to be able to like, kind of, I don't wanna say like handle the, the pressure of it necessarily, but it's like, can you, can you run a, can you run and build a company? Like, you know, is the culture of this company gonna produce something period? Or is it gonna produce something good? Is it gonna produce something bad? Like, and so it actually put a lot of weight. On that, that component of it.

And then the secondary kind of consideration for us too is like, how do they fit into the community? You know, and like, kind of like, either personality wise or with inside of the portfolio or just like, you know, and do, do we wanna spend time with these people for the next 10 years? You know, like, do we wanna be on the, the founder journey, with them? And so it's kind of like a combination of a lot of different things.

And we're looking at games like so early that the, the concept a lot of times like, it, it's not like it doesn't mean anything, but it's, I would be shocked if anybody made exactly the game that they described to us and they're pitching. I know, right? That would be crazy. So,

are, are there. So I Do you say the fund's been going six or seven years? Yeah, I, I forget exactly. You must have some folks that are kind of, their games are out, maybe they've exited. how was the thesis plan panning out in terms of results, I guess?

So we have about like three, four years left on the first fund. And so, I'm gonna zoom back like a tiny bit on this. And so say, when I said a venture fund runs for 10 years, so ours is set up for 10 years plus, there's two one year extensions that we can do if all of our investors vote that they wanna let it extend. we haven't gotten to that point yet. So I'm not totally a hundred percent clear on how this works, but basically at the end of the 10 years, like something has to happen.

Like we may have to sell our shares on a secondary market, or we need, we need to do something to try to like get our investors their money back essentially. Because like investors, I thought that this was crazy when I first learned this. investors don't make any money until you sell their com, until you sell your company.

So it's like, if your game does well, there's some asterisk and weird little things around this, but it's like if you put out a game and it's making money, the investors aren't like making money off of that. They make money when you're, when you are, Like when you get bought or you sell or you IPO or something. and then the share, the owners and shareholders get money back. and so at, at the end of that 10 years, something, something has to happen.

Not totally clear what it is yet 'cause I haven't gotten there yet, so I haven't experienced it. But some, something will happen at the 10 year mark. It's gonna be exciting. It's gonna exciting, exciting, whatever. Whatever it is, whatever the thing is, it's gonna be thrilling. and so, so we have about like three or four years left until we hit that 10 year mark.

And this is also kind of a period where over the last year or so, so especially 'cause the market's been difficult, companies have gone out of business. Some companies have switched to code dev, some are kind of zombie mode. some are getting games out, some are starting to look, you know, potentially exciting. But none of them have really hit that. Like they've had a big hit and they're potentially getting acquired in, in an amount that would like return to the fund.

But there's, you know, conversations and there's things that, that are happening. Around that. And so I do think that there's still high potential. we also, I would say have had a smaller number of companies go out of business than it seems like every other fund that we talk to. Mm-hmm. Is surprised by our numbers. Mm-hmm. So I'm like, okay, that's good.

so I do feel like our model is working in that sense, and I think that like a lot of people in the community help each other out and try to support each other through like it being a tough time and like navigating that situation. So I, I like to think that hopefully that contributes somewhat to it.

and you know, this is kind of like the reason to have this kind of like big wide horizontal type of investing is so that like, at some point, I mean, most publishers are like this too, is like, there's basically gonna be one thing that returns everything and generally. Otherwise, it's just kind of like everything is either in the middle or it sort of like, you know, falls to the wayside.

And so the hope is that at some point we've placed kind of enough good bets at enough good times across a broad enough spectrum that when something hits, you know, like we'll be there for it. So on paper, the fund is actually doing like fairly well, especially comparatively, to other funds. But because there hasn't been like an actual literal exit yet, then there's not kind of like an actual return on it yet, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. the second fund I think is actually like, really strong.

you know, we have learned a lot from investing outta the first fund and there's a lot of really cool companies in it. We're actually still investing out of that one. so there's still, you know, a lot of potential even though that's basically coming up on like three years in. And so it's like a very, very, very long game. I still feel convinced that it's gonna do well.

Like I said, I, I think it's a smart way to go about doing the investing and I feel like if this model doesn't work, then I'm not quite sure. What the approach would actually be. I am doing a round table at Dice Europe where actually I, I wanna like, talk about this is kind of discuss like where the gaps in funding and like what are some ideas about like, you know, how basically, the lofty goals, like how do we fix funding the games industry?

Yeah. But, but I'm really curious about this stuff, you know?

And for a while there it sort of felt like, been kind of a little bit of a resurgence in sort of indie game making where the budgets are lower, the risks are lower. Maybe you could spread risk around. Do you see that? Are you seeing that or Yeah.

but I, I think a kind of semi similar thing had been going on where a lot of the indie studios that we were seeing were actually coming out of like layoffs or large AAA studios. Mm-hmm. Or kind of like the breakups of big companies or, you know, people just being like, you know. I dunno if I can curse on this, but like, fuck it. I'm just gonna go out on my own. And like, and you know,

You know, like I could help as much as I wanted to, I could see all these cool things. We could try and do this and we could do that, but like when it came down to it, if somebody on some, you know, three or four levels up in a corporation didn't want the deal to happen, or didn't care or didn't like women or whatever, like, you know, things just like wouldn't get funded.

And so, you know, I think that there's a lot of power in being able to like, make that kind of impact, like make decisions about how money is distributed, which is like not a saying that I think a lot of people like me get access to. And so when I like had an opportunity to be able to be in a decision making position about like, who is getting funding, you know, and who is getting the money?

I'm like, that's a really powerful opportunity that I think could have like a huge amount of impact and as long as I could do it the way that I wanted to. Right. And so, like, you know, ed and I, I don't think I've ever. I really disagreed on an investment. Like, and so, you know, to kind of end the conversation about like, how, you know, what's the fuzzy logic on it?

You know, we'll take a pitch meeting and we discuss it afterwards and like, you know, what we thought about it and what we thought about the team and like, we're pretty much always, yeah, always on the same page about like what we're interested in investing in. And if I really wanna push for something I can.

And if he really wants to push for something, he can, you know, but like, I, I think that we're pretty, we're very aligned on like what we think about the industry and what we think about people and what we think about the projects and what we hope to see and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, I, I don't think that I would do VC investing any other way. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like, I don't. Mm-hmm. And like, and I think because I get to do it. On the terms that I want.

And with someone who kind of has like similarly weirdly radical ideas that I do that wasn't, or wasn't totally freaked out by my radical ideas that I, like in our first call, I was like, I'm gonna pick some crazy shit and just see what he says. Yeah. You know, that makes a lot sense.

And also like it has this component of building community and like working with a bunch of people that I like and you know, helping founders, which is really similar to like helping indie developers 'cause they're just basically kind of like small startups that are trying to like find their way and figure out something and make something kind of like, you know, unique and creative and, and trusting.

'cause I think that that gives a lot of good like, like foundational background information on just like what an equity investor is gonna just like technically be looking for and like, you know what you can kind of expect to go through the process and like what yeah, like what you would be, what are the trade-offs, you know, on the whole thing.

I would also say, technically, I'll just go to the pitch deck thing real quick, is like, there is a surprising number of pitch decks that I look at that just do not give me any information. Like, they don't tell me who the team is, they don't tell me how much money they want. Like, it's not even really quite clear what they're making. It's very confusing the number of pitch decks that I get that just do not say what they want. I'm like, okay, I dunno what to do with this information.

And so, you know, I would really encourage. Encourage people to, you know, think, think about it from the other, like from the person who's gonna be looking at it, but like, definitely highlight the team and highlight them early. And definitely don't be afraid to ask for what you want.

You know, like, I'm not afraid of looking at people's money numbers, you know, and I think that this also comes from, I see this a lot with indie developers and like, you know, people would be like, I need $27,483 and 15 cents to make this game. And I'm like, that's a very small, specific number. And like, I don't think that it's gonna be that. And then when you ask people about it, they're like, well, I have to eat. And like, you know, and like, this person won't work for free.

And I'm like, that's all fine. Like, just please factor in. Like, everybody is eating, everybody is getting paid. It's not gonna be an exact number. Do you know what I mean? Like, don't be afraid to just like ask, like actually ask for the number that you, that you need. but the other thing that I don't think people think of when they're putting together a pitch deck is like, that's your opportunity to like.

I dunno, maybe dream sounds lofty, but this is like where you get to like sit down and like architect out and like design and really like, think about like, who are you and like what are you building and like, what is the team and the culture that you wanna make? And you know, like what are the milestones that are gonna get you there? And like, what happens if that doesn't happen and what happens after our first game?

And you know, like it's, you're not gonna get, once you start the company, like you're running, you know, like you're sprinting on a weird marathon that may or may not end, you know, at any given time. And you're not gonna have a lot of time to sit down and like, sink and design and like dream about like what this thing is that you're gonna build.

And I think, you know, for me some of this is like a, like this is, is maybe advice somebody should have told me, but like, I'm a very like, do it, do it. You know, like, I'm like, ah, it just seems to be working. I'm just gonna keep running this. Mega thing, you know, and like I'll just figure it out on the way. And I think there's something to be said for that. And a lot of entrepreneurs are, you know, minded in that way, which I think works really well.

but I would really encourage people to like, use it as a time to just like really think about what you're doing and what you're building.

And so that ends up getting reflected in the way that you're pitching it to an investor or you're pitching it to a publisher is like, if you're only kind of thinking about it in a very narrow scope, or you clearly haven't kind of sought through the whole budget, or you know, who's gonna be working on this thing and what's gonna happen, you know, that's gonna come across in your deck. And so this is like as much for you kind of as it is for the people that you're gonna be showing it to.

And this is a, a coral reef island, not a volcanic island, which is really interesting. Okay. So there's coral reef everywhere. So the snorkeling is like amazing. Are you

The, the investors' money. Yes. So the money is not hers. It comes from other people and she manages where that money goes

So like you have EA who has a ton of money and then they decide who to give it to to make game's. Does that, is that about It's, and then the fourth one is mom pays for everything and you live in the basement.

Really makes a lot of sense for, you know, what Kelly's doing because they're investing in the equity of the studio, which is, which is that team is, you know, hopefully it's not just that one game. You Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. and it's a very interesting career. Did you play any of the battlefield open beta this weekend?