Tutorial Videos - Because Users are Stupid...

LAUNCH DAY!!!!!

It's like Christmas, your birthday and the first time you.... well.... you know... all rolled into one!

For me today represents two and a half years of blood, sweat and tears. We've literally been around the world to get this site online. We started from a few scraps of paper in a Montreal coffee shop and have grown our concept to be one of the most complex systems on the web today. We still have work to do to prove that, but that will come in good time. We've heard a million no's, you're crazy's, and even had a person fall asleep in an investment meeting lol. But we're finally here. Finally ready to show everyone what we've been doing - where we've been hiding.

We would not be here today without the friends and family who have supported, encouraged and guided us over the past few years. Francisco and I are so fortunate to have networks full of people who believe, not only in us, but in the boundless possibilities life holds. Their positivity and wisdom have given us strength in our darkest times when all hope seemed lost, and the fortitude to be brave when times got tough. You all know who you are. Thank you.

Even though we've come a long way the journey has really just begun. The hardest parts yet lie ahead - survival and large scale funding. The vast majority of tech companies, no matter how brilliantly conceived, fail. We need to be able to grow fast while providing great service and rolling out new products at breakneck speed. We need to connect with our audience and make them believe in and buy into our brand. We need to prove to investors that our lack of world experience is more than compensated by our passion for our market and our absolute resolution to succeed regardless of personal cost.

It's going to be extremely hard. Difficult decisions will have to be made and priorities set every day. Creative solutions will need to be found to insurmountable problems. Constant learning will need to be done on an ongoing basis. New relationships will need to be forged and old bonds strengthened.

This is tough, risky and taxing. I love it.

Slave Labour (in American that's spelled "Slave Labor")

The great empires of the world have all been been built on the backs of slaves. I'm not going to argue the morality of that, but rather speak about how it applies to business, because large corporations are the empires of the modern age. In order to build one you need to find a way to get things done at a fraction of the cost that larger competitors can. The primary cost in early online ventures is labor. It's critically imperative to keep this cost down by getting people to work for free, for stock, or for deferred payment.

Problem: Most people can't see the forest through the trees. It's hard to find those special people who believe. It's hard to find anyone that will give up even a few hours a month for anything other than cash. Occasionally you can find someone who's interested... at least for a little while. Take for example the comic strip we did for a while over at Miss Video Game (I've inserted it below). We looked a long time for a person who had talent and was looking to build a fan base and I thought that we had found the guy. His art work was a perfect fit for the site - the comics were popular and we had a good dynamic between my story lines and his illustration.

(Story by Mark Donovan, Illustrations by KevRoche)

We got Kevin on board by offering to insert Google Adwords into the comic strip pages on MVG, and giving him 100% of the revenue from these ads. Our concern was driving traffic and building community within our sites, so having the comic was much more important to us than fighting over ad revenue. After a couple of months it became harder and harder to get a hold of Kev, then we didn't hear from him at all. I think he was disappointed that he had accumulated a modest balance in the adwords account after a month. This is where the forest from the trees reference comes into play - the comic was popular, it was growing and receiving great feedback, but most people want success right now. They look at other successful companies and expect to be at that level within a few weeks; unfortunately for us all that's not how it works. Getting to the top requires patience, fortitude and hard work. When he didn't get instant success he fell off the radar.

Lesson learned: Never create a similar relationship until I'm positive that person has the vision to see project out to the end.

If you're starting a project, whether it's a large business or a comic strip, make sure the people you take into the trenches with you are there for the long haul. Make sure they're passionate and love what they do so much that they would do it for free, because at the end of the day they'll probably have to. If they're worried about getting cash, send 'em packing.

A Blank Splash Page

Coming Soon!!!

Here's a tip to anyone releasing a website. Listen to it, assimilate it, learn to live it. I've looked pretty... well... down right stupid a few times by committing to dates. (there I said it - I do dumb things sometimes. I'm pretty smart, but sometimes I engage in some very head-slap worthy acts of idiocy. If you don't want to be my friend any more I'll understand)

It's your job as the person at the top (or near the top) to know that software developers lie. Not always on purpose - Some developers are scoundrels and will royally screw you (DO YOUR HOMEWORK), but most of them genuinely believe they can deliver in the time they quote. The problem is, in all of the websites I've been part of building, I have NEVER, not once, nadda, zero times seen one delivered on time. Late deliveries vary, but a good rule of thumb is to take whatever time a contracted or in-house developer quotes you and add at least 25%. This is true for seasoned vets too - add extra time if you are employing a noob.

As you might have imagined from the tangental odyssey above, today's blog is about delays. We were supposed to launch on Friday, but when we transfered our code from the test servers to our live environment all hell broke loose. We were seeing bugs we hadn't encountered in ages and the intro page we had implemented was not behaving. With broken hearts we delayed the launch. The idiotic part is that I had told many of our investors, friends and family that the launch was going to happen. That's the risk you run when you commit to dates without a finished product in hand. At least we were smart enough not to issue press releases or alert the media. I said was dumb not a lost cause!

In summary, development ALWAYS takes longer than promised, don't commit to firm release dates until you have a solid working product, you'll make dumb mistakes sometimes - be sure to make up for them.

Now I'm going to go stare at our blank splash page and cry.

Advisory Board Announced

We've been fortunate enough to put together an extremely talented team of advisers to help guide us through the battle to come! The team is made up of very diverse individuals who have all excelled in their areas of expertise.

Below are some brief intros and backgrounds.

Curt Ketterer

Curt is the Chief Operating Officer of First Quadrant. First Quadrant is an innovative boutique investment management firm serving investors around the world. Headquartered in Pasadena, California, the firm manages client assets of approximately $37.5 billion. He is First Quadrant's partner in charge of operations, finance, and administrative functions, and serves in the firm's executive office. Curt's 21+ years of financial and investment advisory experience include service as senior vice president of finance at Trust Company of the West and, prior to that, as chief financial officer of Security Pacific Investment Group. He also spent nine years with Arthur Andersen LLP, and is a certified public accountant. Curt earned an MBA in finance from Loyola University in Los Angeles, and holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from California State University, Long Beach.

Robert MacKalski

Professor MacKalski is an experienced entrepreneur and currently a doctoral candidate and professor at McGill University's faculty of management. After receiving his MBA from McGill Robert co-founded Stria, the parent company of the Peachtree Network. The Peachtree Network was North America's first online grocery portal. MacKalski took the company from the ground floor up to its IPO when he left the business to take a teaching position at his alma mater. Robert has served as a consultant to many leading companies in Canada and as an expert witness in court cases involving marketing and trade mark infringement. He is an expert in the field of branding and brand management and will add significant value to our mission of becoming the leading brand in online video gaming.

Timothy McCunn

Timothy is a Partner at the Borden Ladner Gervais law firm. He received his Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and his Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ottawa in 1985. Tim was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987. He is the chair of the Venture Capital Industry Group and a member of the Capital Markets Group. Tim has been involved in over 200 transactions involving the financing of both technology and biotechnology companies across Canada, acting as counsel to issuers and venture capital funds. Tim is fluently bilingual in English and French, and practices in both official languages.

Egidio Nascimento

Egidio has over 17 years of financing experience including filing prospectuses. He is currently the CFO of Variation Biotechnologies. Prior to joining Variation Biotechnologies, he served as the Vice-President of Genome Canada managing over 600 million USD in funds. Egidio was the CFO of two hi-tech start-ups, including a Nortel Networks spin-off, and also held various positions at KPMG LLP, most recently as Senior Manager of New and Emerging Businesses. Egidio is an officer or on the Board of several organizations including being a Trustee of The Portuguese Canadian Education Foundation.

We're looking forward to tapping the collaborative intellect of these industry vets and are sure that they will contribute greatly to making our company a global brand in the gaming industry. Oh, and they'll also hopefully keep us from doing anything too stupid!

Where's the brand?

I read a LOT of books about branding in university. In my humble opinion only one was worth the time. It's short, painfully simple and the best book on branding you'll ever read. It's called the Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier. Let me save you the time looking for it - you can read the simple slide show presentation below. Do it - all the cool kids are.

| View | Upload your own

The vast majority of the players in the video game industry don't get branding. Most community sites geared towards gamers look the same, are full of similar content and are a usability nightmare. The only people that understand usability, branding and aesthetics in the gaming industry seem to be the people who make the games. Think about it - when was the last time you saw a video game menu that was cluttered full of information, hard to navigate and unattractive? I can't think of one - especially not in the past few years. So why are all the gaming sites, which are geared towards the same audience, so dull and uninspiring? Why not make a site that looks and acts like a game menu? We think that very premise is where we will get a lot of our differentiation - how we will zig rather than zag as Neumeier puts it.

Our site looks, feels and acts differently than anything else in the space. It is designed to create the tribal gut feeling reaction that makes a brand charismatic. We're working daily on improving upon how we communicate the brand and we've got more work to do to make it clear, simple and compelling. We want to be the Halo of online gaming communities. Why Halo? Because it's got a great brand that's why! There's a reason why it's the biggest entertainment release of all time, why star director Peter Jackson has been trying for years to to make a movie based on the franchise - BRAND!

We're laying the ground work for extensions to our site to reinforce and bolster our tribe. We're building the story line and characters for a web comic based on the TitanStrike universe, a podcast discussing games/technology/music/movies, and challenges pitting our users against gamer celebrities. All of these extensions are meant to compliment the brand and create a movement.

We think this will speak to people - but at the end of the day as Marty puts it:
A brand is what THEY say it is - not what YOU say it is