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Two days ago I’ve read something that sounded really familiar: startups don’t work with other startups. I am sorry, I can’t find the article right know, but this is something I’ve been thinking in the last 18 months, since we started MavenHut. Maybe a little more nuanced: early startups don’t work with early startups.

One of the most difficult things to do when in a startup is to convince your potential partners to work with you: startups, by their nature, are a fiddly beast. Most of them don’t survive the first several month, let alone the first year, so everybody starts with the assumption that a startup will not deliver.

To makes matters worse, a startup has even less incentive to work with another one. And the reasoning is simple: the startup you build is already on the edge of survival (as any startup is). You don’t really want to base your own existence on somebody else’s capacity of making it to the shore. And startups make mistakes, and first versions of the products are rarely the ones the customer needs. And I have limited resources (money and work hours), I don’t want to lose anything because of your testing/mistakes. I lose enough on mine.

Yes, working with a startup may be cheaper, even free. But I would rather pay more for something or make it without the specific thing that startup offers, than to base my livelihood on somebody else’s promises.

I am keeping in touch with startups we talk to for partnerships, though. We can still help each other and thrive together, but working together? Later down the road, once we’ve both crossed 2 years of building the same product. By that time you should already have a version stable enough for us to use.

Does this make life more difficult for startup founders? Hell, yes! But it’s the way it is.

P.S.: actually, I remembered that when we started, Cristi, my co-founder, kept saying: “While I am a startup, I am not going to be the first customer of another startup. Too much uncertainty involved.”

Photo from Shutterstock

Yesterday MavenHut’s entire team went to the movies: Jobs. While the experience of a VIP cinema room just for ourselves made us feel a lot better, I have to say I really liked the movie. I was quite surprised, especially after reading all the bad reviews the movie got on IMDB and similar sites.

Ashton Kutcher, which I actually like, especially because of his business acumen, creates a believable Jobs, down to his behavior patterns, his walking and, especially, his eyes. Really, when the images of both Kutcher and Jobs appear at the end of the movie, look at their eyes.

Anyway, the movie is a series of short moments that take you from the launch of the company to the launch of the iPod, without respecting the timeline. At times it feels like a series of sketches, but, if you already know the timeline, the movie is quite enjoyable. And the acting, I have to say, is good. Including (or especially) Josh Gad as Wozniak.

Yes, the movie has some off beat moments, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

My advice: if you have the time, go see it, regardless of the bad reviews. I think you will really enjoy it. Especially if you read Isaacson’ biography on Jobs or Adam Lashinsky’s Inside Apple (which I actually think is the better read).

Finally, an interesting thing, the official site for the site is a collaborative effort on tumblr.

We are always testing new games here, at MavenHut. On all devices, from anybody. Last week we’ve discovered Wooga’s Jelly Splash.

The game is a cross between Dots and Candy Crush Saga. It starts a little bit slow, but I got really into it after the first 7-8 levels. Now I am at level 50, to give you an idea :)

It’s a free game with inApp purchases. I managed to get to level 50 without spending any money (you start with some credits that can be used to unlock new areas, so don’t spend them in the first levels).

My advice: if you’re looking for a Candy Crush Saga like new game, try Jelly Splash. But don’t blame me for the lack of productivity :)

Brad Feld is on of the most visible VCs around the world being a blogger at feld.com, ex-entrepreneur and, even more, the founder of TechStars, the US accelerator that recently launched their first European version in London.

Brad was also invited, recently, via Skype, to a meeting with Romanian entrepreneurs at TechHub Bucharest.

In this video he is the guest of Mark Suster, another star VC and blogger, at his show called This Week In. Mark writes at Both Sides of The Table, another great VC blog.

And, finally, Brad is an accomplished writer, among his books being Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur, which is the first book touching the personal life of an entrepreneur, including the difficulties you and your partner go through.

The video touches subjects like: blogging, entrepreneurship, VC investment, accelerators. It’s an interesting video, especially because of the combined experience of the two participants (host and guest).

Unfortunately, the video is no longer available, but here is a synopsis of 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Did you see “Indie Game: The Movie“? If not and you are interested in the world of gaming, stop reading this and go watch it :)

In this documentary, you follow 3 indie game developers going through the process of launching their games. One of those developers is Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid. The guy is considered “the philosopher” of the gaming industry and his game, Braid, on of the best indie games ever.

Braid is a platform and puzzle cross-platform game (I play it on my Mac, but you can also find Windows versions, XBox, PS3), a game that initially seems a clone of Mario Bros, but it is so much more than this.

You, basically, look for your princess in different worlds, jumping your way from room to room. The thing is, though, that the game is not as simple as it initially looks. It took me several hours and, in frustration, watching some YouTube walkthroughs to finally finish the first world. The thing is, the game is solvable all the time. If you cannot find the solution, you are not thinking the right way (not my words, but the developer’s).

If you love pixel art, Braid is a game where pixels look as great as they can ever look. The graphics in the game are perfect (every color, every move, every character is perfect in every way). And the soundtrack gives you the feeling of a triple-A title.

Finally, if you loved the Prince of Persia series and the fact that you could take back time, you will love Braid :)

Go, play the game, have fun. At the top of the article there’s a big sort of infograph I’ve “stolen” from their site, one that will explain the game a little bit better and give you some idea of what to expect (I bought the game cheaper in the Mac App Store and I think you can find good deals on Steam).

P.S.: the game made several million dollars, just saying.