Justin Beck, CEO of mobile and social gaming company PerBlue, give his Bootstrapping 101 presentation at GDC Europe. For questions or feedback, email press@perblue.com

1. Bootstrapping 101:
How college kids built a thriving
game company in under 3 years
Justin Beck
Co-Founder and CEO
PerBlue, Inc
@PerBlue
@JustinKBeck

7. Virtual Goods Expenses
Purchase Swag 37%
Level Up 22%
Refine Oil 15%
Customize Weapons 16%
Change Skill 10%

8. $100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$50,000
$0
Jan-10
Feb-10
Mar-10
Apr-10
May-10
Jun-10
2010
Jul-10
Aug-10
Sep-10
Oct-10
Nov-10
Dec-10
Jan-11
Feb-11
Mar-11
Apr-11
20102011
May-11
Jun-11
Our Revenue
Jul-11
Aug-11
Sep-11
Oct-11
Nov-11
Dec-11
Jan-12
2012
Feb-12
Mar-12

9. Our Users
• 1.5 million user accounts
• 15,000 DAU
 40 – 50 Cents per user, per day
• 50,000 MAU
• 1,500 concurrent players
• 70% male, 30% female
• 65% USA, 35% rest of the world
• 85% Android, 15% iOS

12. How did this start?

23. We got offered really early money.

24. Take The Money or Bootstrap?

25. Why did we turn it down?

26. Terms That Stink
• Small investment
• 1 board seat out of 3
• 10% share of the company
• Preferred Stock – protective provisions

27. We didn’t trust them.

28. We’re officially Bootstrapping.

30. My life @ Microsoft
Sleep!

31. The real cost is not just time.
Stress
Focus

32. Microsoft offered me a great job.

33. Take M$ job or continue to bootstrap?

34. Why did I turn down the job offer?

35. Mobile Opportunity

36. Microsoft will always be around.

39. The real value isn’t the money.
Education

40. Don’t let upfront cash buy you.

41. Let’s do the math
40 hr/ week
x 52 weeks___
2080 hours
3 hr/ trip
x 15 trips on the boat
45 hours
Is $35k worth 45 hours of fun and 2080 hours of misery?

43. Assembling the team

44. Stock Options

45. How do stock options work?

46. Early Stage Employee Stock Options
• Really low price per share
• PT work .1% for a year
• FT work .4%-.8% for a year

47. Key to compensation:
Good outcomes for the company and employees.

48. Why did people choose this?

49. After 11 months of development…

50. We still weren't shipped.

52. We have to ship.

53. Kingdoms Spells Invites
Send Messages Water Cities
Crafting Event feed Global chat
Mines Alliances Quests
Caves Geotargetted marketing Giant turtles
Warp travel Ranged weapons Scrolls
Armories Magic Grove
Crystal Web view Rankings
Oil Tutorial Kill Monsters
Weather Customizable items Hats
Towers Item naming Research
Leveled Weapons Territory naming Academies
Ranged Weapons Sheep Armories
Pets Avatar customization Societies
Mini games Dungeons Oxen
Trading Collect Gold Sign Posts
Merchants Payment Flowers
Mingling Subscriptions Statuses
Female character Tradeposts Larva
Flags Claiming Land Plants

54. The easiest way to kill your company is by not
keeping an eye on scope.

56. We launch!

58. Some Context

59. “Got a lot of potential.”

60. “I don’t have enough creatures in my circle.”

61. “I am sick of driving around.”

62. People don’t move.

63. “I hit my neighbor’s cat while driving
because I was playing PK.”

64. How do we make a location-based game
not so... location-based?

65. Sh*t.

66. There is more to location than just being there.

70. Bam

71. We adjusted our strategy.

72. We’re broke.

73. When you’re out of money, the ship stops.

74. Initial Revenue Model: Subscription Based

75. This was before Virtual Goods
were pop culture.

76. But we were scared of a pay wall.

78. Virtual Goods Expenses
Purchase Swag
Level Up
Refine Oil
Customize Weapons
Change Skill

79. Where players spend Food is important.

80. Tradeposts

81. We had the revenue model.

82. We needed money to launch.

83. How can we fund this?
Angel or Friends and Start doing
VC round Family round contract work

84. Friends and Family

85. Friends and Family: Important Things

86. Family and Friends Terms
• $72,000
• Common Stock
• 3.5% of the company

87. The night before launch…

88. It Worked!

90. Raising Growth Capital

91. Raising Growth Capital
• We were profitable
• We employed 7 full time people
• Increasing cash flow
• Had a solid team

92. Many investors asked us to move to CA.

93. Perks of being in the Bay

94. Perks of not being in the Bay
Madison, WI

95. The Results
• Oversubscribed
• Looking for $300k, total of $800k raised
• Good investors that are trustworthy
• 40% West Coast, 60% Midwest

97. Scaling Revenue

98. Niche products have more legs than you think.

99. Stay Laser Focused

100. Starting multiple new products
with small teams didn’t work.

101. Things that worked

102. Improving new player experience

103. Optimizing profitable features

104. Improving referral systems

105. Improving payment flow

106. Investing in ROI positive marketing

107. Scaling Customer Acquisition

108. Cost of Customer < LTV of customer

109. Cash flow growth is awesome.

110. We reused $800k to grow our team 3 times.
35
20
12
7
Employees Revenue

111. 2011 Results
• 3.4x revenue growth
• 2x DAU growth
• Record new accounts
• Record daily revenue

112. 0
1000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
2000
3000
Jan-10
Feb-10
Mar-10
Apr-10
May-10
Jun-10
2010
Jul-10
Aug-10
Sep-10
Oct-10
Nov-10
Dec-10
Jan-11
Player
Feb-11
Mar-11
Apr-11
May-11
2010 2011
Jun-11
Jul-11
Aug-11
Sep-11
Oct-11
Nov-11
Graph
Dec-11
Jan-12
2012
Feb-12
Mar-12
Year+
<1 Month
3-6 Months
1-3 Months
6-12 Months

114. What are we working on now?

117. Benefits of this strategy
• Build a “Parallel” brand
• Shorter dev time
• Stick to our strength
• Stackable revenue streams

118. Go forth, bootstrap!

119. Justin Beck
justin@perblue.com
@PerBlue
@JustinKBeck