The founder of the Tallinn gaming accelerator GameFounders told Pocket Gamer exactly what game developers who dream of an investor and his money should pay attention to.
According to Kadri Ugand, it is necessary to understand the following things:
1. The investor values the team more than the project
When startups come to an investor, they want to find money to make a project. They begin to tell the investor about their game, how wonderful it is, how users will definitely love it.
Investors from the gaming sector are the players themselves, they understand everything perfectly, they may like the idea or prototype. But if there is no single team behind the project, there will be no money.
Investors do not invest in games out of the kindness of their hearts, they want to get a huge ROI following the release of the project. This ROI is provided by people working in the studio. It often happens when they invest in an unprepared game, but no one ever invests in a game without a team.
2. Size matters
One person is not a team. When a studio consisting of 1-2 people turns to an investor, it is clear to the latter that before the ROI goes, the team will need expansion, and therefore, why not do this before asking for money?
A big team is an advantage in itself. However, the optimal number of developers is from 3 to 5 people.
3. Make your experience count
Usually new gaming companies are founded by employees of other gaming companies or guys who are passionate about games. Many of them often cannot position themselves correctly. They call themselves code aces, talented artists, something else. Such things don’t say anything about you (or rather, they do, but not in the best way).
Therefore, it is very important to say where and what your employees used to work on, what awards they received, sometimes even what they finished (the latter, however, does not always matter).
Also important is the experience of joint fishing, the presence of an internal culture, as well as the ability to tell exactly how you work, how you make decisions within the team, what tools you use in joint development.
4. Know your advantages and be able to focus on them
Investors want to see teams in front of them who know what to do, who have a clear plan, an understanding of how to develop the project. They should understand its strengths and weaknesses, and be able to minimize the latter by making the advantages of selling points.
5. Know your numbers
It often happens like this: the team asks for a certain amount, and when asked how it intends to dispose of it, its developers just shrug their hands.
This makes it clear to investors that you want to make a project, but do not think about the business side, which means that in the future you will not work on ROI.
The same applies to metrics like LTV, DAU and ARPU. Look at projects similar to yours, how much and how they earn. Try to calculate how many players you can attract, how much they can bring you.
Understanding these processes is important not only for the project, but also for its presentation to the investor.
A source: http://www.pocketgamer.biz