One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is not understanding the relationship they have with their investors. At times they confuse VC’s with their friends. Lets Go to Lunch At Rocket Science our video game company was struggling. Hubris, bad CEO decisions (mine) and a fundamental lack of understanding that we were in a “hits-based” entertainment [...]
Filed under: Rocket Science Games, Venture Capital | 31 Comments »
It took losing something important to understand the difference between a commodity and an opportunity. Along the way I also learned yet another way entrepreneurs see the world differently from their investors. Advisory Board In the early days of Rocket Science I realized that we needed high-level advice on multiple fronts; technology, game development, video [...]
Filed under: Rocket Science Games | 22 Comments »
In my 21 years of startups I’ve had my ideas “stolen” twice. Once it almost mattered. This is about the time it didn’t. Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working [...]
Filed under: Rocket Science Games | 14 Comments »
What Business Are We In? While the Rocket Science press juggernaut moved inexorably forward, a few troubling facts kept trying to bubble up into my consciousness. The company was founded to build games with embedded video to bring Hollywood stories, characters, and narratives to a market where “shoot and die” twitch games were in vogue. [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 7 Comments »
At Rocket Science while my partner Peter was managing the tools and game development, I was managing everything else. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Marketing, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 10 Comments »
What do you mean you don’t want to hear about features? I was now a CEO of Rocket Science, and having a great time building the company (more about that in future posts.) Unfortunately, while I had gone through phases of video game addiction in my life, in no way could I be described as [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 7 Comments »
Sometimes faith-based decisions can be based on too much faith. Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 11 Comments »
In 1994 Rocket Science Games was the only video game company with a rock in its lobby. We had moved our game development facilities from Berkeley and Palo Alto and consolidated into one building on Townsend Street in the “South of Market” neighborhood in San Francisco. (We’re were just around the corner from the future [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 4 Comments »
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