BobbyVoicu.com

A month ago I read an article on a friend’s blog (here, in Romanian) in which he was saying he wrote daily on his blog for the last 3 years. And he started from a post I’ve written 4 years ago on my Romanian blog.

And I remembered that I loved writing on the blog. Until I didn’t. The reasons are different and unimportant right now.

Anyway, last month I had an epiphany. I remembered I loved writing and I remembered having fun writing. So I decided to start writing again. This time, though, in English. I wanted to improve my English and blogging seemed as good a way to improve as any.

Still, it’s not the first time I thought of writing again. I’ve always found reasons not to, though: it takes a lot of time, I don’t have what to write, should I write long or short articles? The reasons not to do it are so many, I will stop here.

And then, I just started to write. I wrote one day, the second day, then I decided to write daily for a month. And that was a month ago. Now I want to write daily for another month. And so on.

It wasn’t easy. Finding time was the most difficult of all. Especially finding an hour or so, as it took me initially. Then I decided on 30 minutes. If an article is not ready in 30 minutes, I publish it as it is.

Then finding a subject to write about. This had become easier now, since I know I will write articles on the blog and, actually, I had plenty of ideas, I just forget them easily. So I write them down (I send myself an email, most of the times). And it’s easier.

Finally, the 30 minutes are almost up (I still need to find a photo for the article). I am just glad I’ve been able to find 30 minutes to write every day. Now I need to find an hour to do some sports :)

Photo credit: Doug Wheller

Here is a link to the meetup I moderated yesterday on “Creating Killer Games”.

Start looking at the video starting with minute 42 or something like this, until the there’s just a placeholder.

I hope you enjoy it, the panel was really great and the questions afterwards were even better :)

We talked about starting a career in gaming (entrepreneur from the start or go through the ranks in another company first), about the process of Acquisition – Retention – Monetization, about copycats, financing and more.

Later today I will moderate a great gaming panel: Mihai Sfrijan, Head of Studio in Bucharest for King, George Lemnaru, founder of Green Horse Games and last, but not least, my co-founder at MavenHut, Cristi Badea.

The thing is, I need to prepare some questions for the 40 minutes of panel talk.

Some ideas are:
– how do you analyze metrics in your company
– what are the most important metrics that a game creator should follow initially
– how much should you force the monetization, where do you stop?
– how do you react to players revolt (it happens!)
– what are some numbers that define a good game
– what is the most important element in acquisition-retention-monetization process?
– some suggestions on acquisition, both free and paid?
– some suggestions on retention?
– suggestions on monetization?
– how expensive is to create a hit game?
– how big should the team be? is it possible to do it by yourself, with a small team? who should be in the team, what skills should be there no matter what?

OK, it should be enough for 40 minutes, but do you have some questions of your own? If so, the comments below are at your disposal :)

P.S.: if you want to come, the event is today, 6:30, at TechHub in Bucharest.

We work hard at MavenHut. We really do. The culture of the company is to work hard and have fun about it. Cristi is the one taking care of this when it comes to MavenHut (to be sure that everyone in the team understands what is expected of them) and you can feel it: people really try hard to do their part.

Still, we are also trying to relax from time to time and the team is actually happy to join in.

Several weeks ago, we had a lot of fun at karting (and I missed my first ever medal in internal competitions by 4 hundreds of a second!!!). In the photo below there’s a heated moment between me and Cristi on the race track:

Then we went to see Jobs at a cinema VIP room. You can read more about the movie here. The certain thing is that I’ve never seen so many people not wanting to leave their chairs at the end of the movie and actually sitting in through the entire credits.

But these one-off events are nothing compared to the massage we receive at the office. Not all the time, of course, but we have someone coming constantly to give us 15 minutes massages. And it’s great, as you can see below, when I was almost falling asleep in the chair :D

Finally, the XBox hooked to the video projector makes games like FIFA and Mortal Kombat a totally different experience.

Work is good, you need perfection in everything you do and that’s not easy. But fun is also good. From time to time :))

So don’t forget about it. It makes work a lot easier and more productive.

Photos by Elvis, Cristi and me.

If, by any chance, you are in Bucharest and you are interested in gaming or entrepreneurship, this is an interesting event to be at: TechHub Meetup: Developing Killer Games.

You can ask questions to and listen the experiences of:

– Mihai Sfrijan, Head of Studio at King. Mihai is a great guy, that we got to know better this year and is one of the great resources about gaming in the Romanian market, especially when you are talking about Facebook/mobile casual games (I mean, they develop Bubble Witch Saga in Romania and King is the studio behind the crazy successful Candy Crush Saga).

– George Lemnaru is, I think, a pioneer in the gaming entrepreneurship in Romania. He co-founded eRepublik and he is now starting another gaming company, Green Horse Games.

– Cristi Badea, my co-founder at MavenHut. He is the guy behind the mechanics of Solitaire Arena, the one that crunches numbers for breakfast in order to create the best games that we can create.

Of course, I will be there. I will be the host for this event, the one that will try to squeeze as much information as possible from the guests. I will appreciate any kind of questions you want to ask, so don’t be afraid to write them in the comments below.

If you can be in Bucharest, come to TechHub on Thursday at 6:30pm. You’re not gonna regret it.

When you think of advice for your business you are usually thinking of specific, detailed advice. Steps to take to make your business great. The truth is that nobody can give you this kind of advice: your business is your own, you know it better than anybody else, so most of the time you will get basic ideas, nothing world shaking.

I’ve written recently an article about the TV series I watch. One of the comments refers to the fact the host of Hotel Impossible, Anthony Melchiorri, offers only basic advice. And, frankly, the commentator is right: the advice is pretty basic.

The thing is, though, that most of the businesses in disarray need exactly this: basic advice. They need to be reminded to focus on what they know, to understand what hurts them and what is the general path to take to get back. They do not need specific tactics, because they lost their way.

I have to say that about 15-20 years, when I first started something on my own (selling computers from my parents home or repairing computers for friends), my parents gave me a lot of advice. And it was really basic: “before starting a company, get some customers!” was the one I got sick and tired of hearing. I thought I knew better: I need a company, otherwise nobody will trust me. Of course, first I need an incredible logo. Oh, and business cards, right? I finally got my first clients (my parents forced their friends into it, I am sure of this) and I started to understand business a lot better. And I never had a business card and I used a friend’s company to invoice the clients. And they never cared I was a 16 years old kid as long as I was coming to a bad computer and I was leaving from a working one.

Right now, when I talk to people and ask for advice I expect basic advice most of the time. The thing I need is a pair of eyes seeing my business from outside. And then, after getting the basic advice, I put it through my own filter and create the necessary tactics to get to where I want. But still, the advice I get doesn’t go too far from these kind of things: get revenues, get more users… basic, right? :)

Basic advice is great advice. It actually is the best advice. It is up to you how you understand it, what you ask about it and what you do with it.

Photos from Shutterstock