Journal

Iterative development vs. business. How do we as an industry still tackle it wrongly most often? Where is the trust in real iterations?This article focuses on stakeholder and executive expectations management during iterative development and it’s partly a continuation post to my post about iterative game development (see more: https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/2-get-iterative-game-development): Business vs. Real and True Iterative DevelopmentOverall, trying to keep it a bit shorter this time; if we would follow right type of iterative approach, we shouldn't limit ourselves with the constraints of business too much. Yet, we do that by setting strict timelines, deadlines, budgets, and such — and, sometimes, even set in place strict game design documents, and similar things, to be followed madly beyond true iterative means. What is set in place, in this context, it is usually done by management, or team in collab. with management.Real […]

Yes, Arcane was a disaster and a function of IP narcissism. It's transmedia bingo 18 different ways. From the Bloomberg exposé:• Riot spent about $250 million on two seasons of the series• Four people with knowledge of Arcane’s production said the company didn’t have a robust plan to recoup the cost of the show before it launched.• Riot believed the show would be the first of many produced by its new entertainment division, which would transform the Los Angeles-based company into the next Walt Disney Co.• Netflix paid Riot $3 million an episode and Tencent an additional $3 million for the rights to show it in China.• Those payments amounted to less than half the total cost. • The company scaled back its Hollywood ambitions recently, ending Arcane and pausing development on other adaptations. • The pricey passion project, backed […]

At the end of each year, I’ve reflected on the past 12 months, what have gone well, what hasn’t gone well and what things I look to improve. The format has been evolving pretty much every year. Here are my previous reviews from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.I’ve always used templates to examine my year in review. These are Sahil Bloom's annual review and Steve Schlafman's Ultimate Annual Review. Also I’ve used the ones from James Clear and Chris Guillebeau.Let’s get into the learnings from this year.What went well this year?After much reflection, browsing my journals from 2024, these are the things that went well this year on all fronts.Personal Life Developments2023 has been a transformative year on the personal front. My kids have grown a lot. They're doing great in school and developing amazing personalities. We moved into a […]

The hardest things about helping founders as an investor: - Making the founder feel they're not alone. It's "against the odds" difficult to make a startup successful- To not work from the position where the founder feels they need to interact like a subordinate- Finding the balance between being supportive while maintaining necessary objectivity- Knowing when to be hands-on vs when to step back and let founders find their own path- Building genuine trust that enables founders to share real problems, what keeps them up at night- Accepting that sometimes the best help is simply listening, not trying to solve everything- Resisting the urge to pattern match too quickly based on past experiences- Understanding that each founder's journey is unique, even if challenges seem familiar