> > Ah, I see - you mean that, even when they try to target social gamers, > they are more in the copycat posture (aka redoing Farmville) rather than > trying to address the needs of those who have played those games, got > tired, and wnat more. Right? >
Partly, yes :). I think some them will try to adress the needs of those who want more, but not specifically on niches, the big actors , from what I see, currently focus on staying mainstream and use their marketing leverage to gain market shares on this overall market. > > Hum, I think it really depends on the type of community you're trying to > reach. Being a niche alone doesn't mean that it's cheap to reach - from > a marketing point of view, it mostly depends on how much competition you > are facing and how saturated the ways to reach that community are. It's > true for ads, but it's also true for word of mouth... > > Here, I think it's mostly the fact that we are doing something new and > surprising that will help - along with working with the community to > spread the word. > > Also, it depends how hardcore/casual the game is. Hardcore players are > hard to please, but once they are the word spreads very quickly and > easily - it's often a structured audience with a lot of means to > communicate the information. With something more casual, even if it's a > very small niche, the players may not care as much about it, and it can > thus become harder to get them to spread the word. > > right - in brief, we aim at a niche because it's less crowded that the mainstream, because it lets us do something new that we are comfortable with, but within this niche we try to broaden it by being casual enough to attract non hardcore players. Ok for you ? > > > We need to talk more about Hackit! > > > > [David] I've added relevant links for HackIt in the following > > paragraph of the document -> > > http://community.hackit.cx/wiki/Business_Plan#Development_of_HackIt.21 > > I prefer to put links only and not content, to avoid additional > > maintenance of the document in the future. > > Would still be good to explain some of it there... Or to include content > from another page. It feels weird to talk so little about the project > itself. Same thing about the financials, btw. > Yep, I'll do that when I look at transclusion, it's on my todo > > [David] on the excel financials : > > > > 1) separated business plan financials and the growth model in two > > separate sheets, should be easier to manage > > Hmm, I'm not sure it will make things easier - the links you have in the > spreadsheets (both Excel and OOo) are relative to the position of the > file your hard-drive. I don't think I ever opened a spreadsheet with > external references without issues... What is the issue with keeping it > in the same file? > It was a little easier for me locally to separate things but i understand the issue, I've merged them again in one file > > > 2) started, in the growth model (new tab), > > Couldn't see it for the above reason. Looks like a great initiative. > now you should be able to see it :) I haven't added the formulas yet, first I'd like your feedback on the template - then I'll add the formulas to deduce the figures we're looking for. > > Btw, you wrote that "The metrics used will be the conversion rate from > visitors to registered users, the virality, the churn rate, the > conversion rate from active users to paying users, and the ARPU". What > are the numbers you need from the game every week to be able to feed the > spreadsheets and have them work everything out? > If you have a precise list of the things that you will need, we can > start specifying development that would ensure you can access those > numbers any time. > > Maybe the easiest way is if you have a look at the 'actual_figures' tab in the file. All the figures that are not in red are according to me the ones we need from the game. > Actually... I'm changing my mind on that one. I think I'd rather > transform it into an individual development budget. It can still be > linked to personal objectives - I just think the perspective of learning > new things is a better motivation factor than money. And this way we > could be able to pay for intensive external courses that are always > difficult to get even in large corporations. > > It shouldn't change much on the BP though, just the lable. On which > sheet is it? > > It's on 'variables' and 'cash-flow' tabs, I've changed the label. It's currently a yearly 20% of the complete salaries budget, that I've forecast to start at the end of 2011. But I have a small doubt : we already have somewhere else a budget for training that I think is interesting to help employees/contributors reach personal objectives related to work. Don't you think that employees also need a financial bonus that they use for whatever they want (it can be related to development but it's up to them) ? I understand the logic of not focusing on the financial part, but I still think that if our salaries are not very high (average of market but not higher) it's useful for people to have a complementary incom if they meet their objectives, nope ? > * How do you calculate the number of heads for code/graphist? It > switches from month to month... > for the leads, I assumed that we need some reviews from seniors from time to time, this is why I did not forecast fulltime for the first year. for the coders, I assumed, according to the month load, that we will use between 2 and 3 persons per month for the first year (i distinguished western and emerging for budget purpose). It depends on the choices we make later according to our metrics and co but the assumption here is to ramp up not too fast during the first year and cap at 3 ppl. Same idea with art given that I took an average of 0,75 per month. * What's the 2K for a dev lead in September and February? > see above what I did with leads - assumption of review or consulting from a senior from time to time. > * Why 3K in directors starting on February? > assuming that you and I start paying ourselves after the second round of investment > * You've left some budget for CS/CM in September... Maybe this > should only come when we have the proof? (ie when the activity > starts to take off) > Right - pushed it, but only to october - better be conservative (in this case it means optimistic :), that we'll need CS/CM soon) > * What's the 100 euros/month in PR for? > provision for one PR event in the course of the year at 1k€ > * We could need to ramp up the ads budget when we have the proof - > we'll know where to target to bring users, so this will be > especially true if we find a profitable way (COA > ARPU) > Yes, it's difficult to know when this will happen, but I raised it a bit more after Jan '11 (it was at 500, I put it at 800). By the way, I see that you compare COA and ARPU, shouldn't we compare COA rather with LTV ? Though LTV is not a perfect figure because it does not reflect the variety of behaviours, it's the only one I have in mind that we can compare to ARPU... ? > * We'll see how much Olivier Hugot charges for the legal tasks, > but the budget may have to be higher > I raised it a bit... I have no idea how much it's going to cost, I'll wait for his quote to update further more. > * Why 30 euros/month for mobile expenses? Not sure if it's the > right time to buy a cellphone : ) > you're right I removed it for the first year. Unfortunately we don't save much by doing so :) > * You can increase the bank charges IMHO - between the recurring > cost, having a credit card, making wire transfers, etc. It > wouldn't surprise me if it was around 100/month > done > * About the travel expenses budget - what did you count in there? > Is it to bring Vlad (and any other developer) to Paris, or to > travel to Canada? > It's just a provision of 500/month right now, nothing specific because apart from Canada, I don't know yet what the needs will be. * You need to ramp up the numbers with hosting - better to end up > with a budget excess there than not having the money to > correctly host the players > ok I kept the assumption of one server for first year, but assumed 150/month > * Why no budget for accounting? We'll need to pay Ubidoca & > Magalie, no? > Right - that was a mistake in the document, I put it back. > > - added costs for tools. Currently I've added it in Capex (as software > > we buy). We can put in dev cost later, if we want. I've added > > stats/BI, CRM > > You can remove the stats/BI fee, and the license for ZenCRM while we > remain small is $10/month. Afterwards, we'll need to develop our own > anyway, so it will be included in the development cost. > > oki > >
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