1. SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: The following speech contains;
gross oversimplifications, unverified correlations, nonsensical
assumptions, illogical conclusions, and downright stupid stuff.
Historical performance not indicative of future performance – your
actual mileage will vary. None of the claims made in this speech
have been verified by the Federal Food and Drug Administration.
Produced in a facility that hires and retains nuts.
Jordan
Weisman
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2. Entrepreneur
Restaurateur
Dictionary Definition:
Likely to FAIL.
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3. Entrepreneur
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4. Entrepreneur ( Icarus )
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5. WARNING: STARTUPS MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR 5

6. WARNING: STARTUPS MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR 6

7. WARNING: STARTUPS MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR 7

8. WARNING: STARTUPS MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR 8

9. WARNING: STARTUPS MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR 9

10. ICARUS’ JOURNEY
1. Vision
2. Leadership
3. Funding
4. Creation
5. Hubris
6. Failure
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11. VISION
• Perceiving something via the eyes
• Seeing something that doesn’t exist
• Seeing something that doesn’t exist
BUT should exist
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12. LEADERSHIP
You must convince others to BELIEVE in
something that doesn’t exist.
CON MEN
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13. FUNDING
• The Rumpelstiltskin equation
 Straw + Labor = Gold
 Alchemy
• The transformation of common materials into
precious metals (i.e. weaving straw into gold)
• Sources of Funding
– Friends & Family
– Angel
– Venture
– Crowd Funding
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14. CROWDFUNDING
INSPIRE them with your vision.
ILLUSTRATE that vision for them.
PROVE that you can realize that vision.
MARKET the KS Campaign.
People will only “invest” in your idea AFTER
YOU have invested in it.
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15. COSTS of CROWDFUNDING
• Website’s share & credit card processing
– Figure on a combined 10% off the top
• COGs AND Picking, Packing, & Shipping
– Figure on 15% to 20%
– On the higher side for smaller campaigns
• Community management
– During the funding campaign AND Throughout the
development period!
• Early adopter audience has already “bought”
– Your best costumers will produce 0 revenue at launch
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16. CREATION
To create games and game companies requires:
 Talent
 Time
 Money
 Human Sacrifice
Giving BIRTH to something is:
MESSY and PAINFUL
Just ask your Mother
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17. HUBRIS
• Hubris
– Excessive pride or self confidence
THE MECH & THE MOUSE
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18. THE MECH & THE MOUSE
 1980 Founded FASA
Corporation
 1987 Founded
Virtual World
Entertainment
 1989 Opened
BattleTech Center in
Chicago
1978 U.S. Merchant  1992 Tim Disney
Marine Academy
buys a majority of
VWE
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19. THE MECH & THE MOUSE
Cheap to build
Cheap to operate
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20. THE MECH & THE MOUSE
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21. THE MECH & THE MOUSE
Expensive to build
Expensive to operate
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22. THE MECH & THE MOUSE
Morale of the Story:
1.Don’t let early success go to your head
2.Don’t believe your own hype
3.Track data and rely on it -
not on your “gut” or emotions
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23. FAILURE
It Sucks !
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24. A team’s ability to FAIL is the
best predictor of it’s eventual
SUCCESS.
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25. SUCCESS & FEAR
A Tale of Turkey
and Clix
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26. Turkey & Clix
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27. Turkey & Clix
What Kids Want: Barriers to Entry:
• For Kids
• Cheap cool looking figures • Having to Superglue and paint
• Big armies • Figures are expensive
• Figures don’t break easily • Games take forever to play
• Fast playing • Figures break easily
• Rules they can understand • Rulebooks are huge
• For Retailers
• Takes up too much space
• Low margins
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28. Turkey & Clix
Low cost, Prepainted, Preassembed figures
Gameplay: Retailers:
Fast playing Small footprint
Short Rules High margins
No in-game Organized
tables or charts play
Tooling usage and amortization
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29. Turkey & Clix
 FASA Passed – too risky
 Started Wizkids
 Wizkids grows quickly
 Wizkids buys FASA
 Topps Inc buys Wizkids
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30. Turkey & Clix
2 years later . . .
New product
concept
Wizkids team had
become risk
adverse
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31. Turkey & Clix
WHY ?
 No personal financial risk
 Low corporate financial risk
 No distribution risk
Fear of Failure !
 3 Hit lines in a row
 Wizkids was “Golden Boy”
 Any Failure would be Very Public
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32. Who would you rather be?
23% 77%
Source: World Renowned statistician Jerry Seinfeld
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33. 5 years Length of
Development
3 years
1 year
6 months
We now develop products
3 months LIVE & IN PUBLIC
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34. WHY do I LOVE Start-Ups?
• Start-Ups have Less of everything:
– Less resources
– Less access to talent
– Less access to capital
– Less bureaucracy
– Less competing agendas
• Start-Up’s Superpower are that . . .
–They are expected to FAIL!
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35. Thank You
Jordan Weisman
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