Thought|Post - Success

The theory is: success is a habit.
Habits comes from practice.
Practice comes from motivation.
Motivation comes from inspiration.
Inspiration comes from success.

Put the five points in a big circle with a one way arrow going around. The trick is to figure out where your strengths are in the circle, jump on from there and work your way around to where you want to be.


-Anthony

the only wrong way is to not do it

Thought|Post - Nature of Business

It turns out that when it comes to writing, there's an inbetween state where I find something I want to write about, the idea is longer than 140 characters, but shorter than a typical blogpost. Mainly I've been storing them up in my head, but that's starting to take up too much space. Instead, I'll just start posting them here as mini-posts.

Anyway, little bits of pith always sound trite over Twitter.

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The nature of business isn't an objective science. The trappings of business can be charted on graphs and defined by trends, but the nature of business is personal, emotional and coincidental.

We don't purchase items - we buy experiences.
We don't obtain services - we hire personalities.
We don't invest in enterprises - we buy into people.

I'm certain you'll never hear someone like Richard Branson claim he has business down to a science. The only people who would boast something like that are the people who aren't aiming high enough to break out of their numbers and graphs.


-Anthony

The Indie Team Startup.

Starting as an indie is a pretty daunting task. You don't have to just make a game, you have to make a business. You can't get away without knowing about your target markets, press release distribution or how to lodge a BAS. Ignoring any aspect of your business can very easily make the time you spend on game development moot, which is a scary notion when you're in this by yourself.

So at first you might think that bringing more people in can make things easier. Time to team-up! But creating an indie team has its own hurdles and issues that need to be considered before you start slapping high-fives and chanting "C-C-C-COMBO" with your best buds.

Here's the response I gave to some fellows over east looking to start up a medium sized indie team, similar to RocketHands in scope. I talked mainly about the issues that team start-ups face, although quite a bit is still relevant to the lone wolf start-ups. Enjoy, I hope it is helpful to you guys as well.

Game Design for the Non-Technical.

So lately I've been getting a number advice requests over email from indie developers, ranging from business structures to game design. In typical fashion I'm unable to reply to these emails in anything short of five paragraphs, so I figure: "Why not kill two birds with one blunt object haphazardly hurled in the direction of my blog?".

The following is my lightly edited reply to an email I received from a fellow non-technical type asking how to get a game made without the development know-how; something I can very much relate to!

Contracting Basics.

I've recently had some stories come to me about friends (or friends of friends) being burned by nefarious schemers practicing unethical business. I feel really bad for my (friends of) friends, not just because they've been pushed out of pocket for no good reason, but also because if they'd come to me first, they might have had a few more tools to cope with the situation, perhaps even prevent it completely.

Here's a couple of things to keep in mind if you are planning to get yourself an ABN and go the route of working as a sole trader. These are just some tips mind, not a complete overview - there's some extensive sources available from federal and media bodies - but if any of these points can save you a day of stress, then my job is done!

The importance of clean underwear.

Over a month ago now my wife and I were involved in a car accident. We are both thankfully fine and have since moved on, but at the time it felt pretty horrific. My in-laws took us to the Joondalup emergency ward after we had moved my poor little car off the main road; I had insisted we go due to my wife's pregnancy, and my wife insisted because of some little thing about me not being able to move my neck.

One of the key memories I have of this experience is lying on a hospital bed with a neck-brace on and sandbags around my head, my beautiful wife standing on one side and a cute nurse on the other, both of them pulling at my jeans and telling me to stop fidgeting. And despite the frustration of having to lie still and not being able to move, and the concern for what my x-rays were going to come back with, at that time the only thought I had was; "Gosh, it's a good thing I put good undies on this morning".

The important things in life, huh?

Cents sense.

I get annoyed pretty quickly when it comes to other people's business, mainly because it's my job.

I get to see quite a few business people in their work environments with my job, ranging from the struggling to the highly successful. They all undoubtedly work hard at their business, and many of them have piles - if not shelves - of business and management literature.

And I always seem to see the same mistakes.

I don't know what these books and DVDs are saying to my clients, but there must be something fundamentally missing in the self-help sections that we consistently see similar mistakes over and over and over. Unnecessary mistakes that cause stress on the business owners and the business itself. They may not be fatal to the business, but all the unnecessary stress sure isn't making their job* any easier.

Here's my four-point guide to business that you don't have to pay $29.95 at Borders for. It isn't going to solve all your problems, but they're healthy fundamentals that aren't missing from good businesses.