Everyone I speak to seems to ignore Roblox. Why do you think that’s such a mistake? If I take a game like this, a game like

this is going to bring in north of $100 million. It’s probably not more than a

couple of months development time. That’s the beauty. Today’s guest is a digital veteran with

25 years across SEO, lead genen, marketplaces, and now UGC gaming over

the last 5 years. You can do a very short development and then see is it going to fly and then if the if you see

early traction then you can start to invest more into it and you can start to pour in resources. So it’s the other way

to look at it. We talk about how to scale gaming companies without VC money. The rise of UGC platforms like Roblox

and what’s the next shift for people in the games industry. You built the gang to 300 people without VC money. How the

hell did you do that? We didn’t plan to build a company. We plan to have a hobby and then we said let’s take in funding from brands

because then we have a stability profit from it that we reinvest. We never did any dividends in the company. We

reinvested instead bootstrapping from 0 to 300 plus staff. This is a playbook with Marcus

Holstrong. Marcus welcome to the show.

Thank you very much Harry. Very very excited for this conversation. So for everyone at home, we’re talking

25 years across SEO, lead genen, marketplaces, and now UGC gaming. So

marketers is the founder of the gang, and it’s the studio that has brand experience for FIFA very recently, uh,

Amazon and Netflix, and original titles as well with out of sight and strongman 2. So just to brace everyone at home,

we’re going to talk about how you can scale a gaming company without VC money. Also, what the hell is Roblox? Like what

is actually happening in terms of where’s the money going? And then what’s the next shift in the games industry? So

bootstraps to 300 plus staff. So very excited to get into today’s conversation. So my first question is

when you like how do you build that company? Like you started from zero and

you’ve gone to this. Could you just paint a quick picture for everyone at home? Of course. Love to. And um no so we

started the company as me and uh four co-founders and we started it five and a

half years ago now. And the original idea was actually not to create a company or we we were going

to build a game a traditional game on Steam. So all my co-founders are coming from the traditional gaming industry and

I’m more from the marketing I would say marketing and finance side.

And then um we had this idea let’s build a game. We had a grand idea and we

started actually to um plot it out. And then we got into UDC platforms and

Roblox in particular uh by coincidence. So it was a guy that we knew from um one

of the big music labels. He came over for coffee and then he uh heard that oh

you guys are starting a studio. Great. I need a game. Can you build it?

So we uh we took that gig and that was in Roblox. So we thought why not? That’s

good fun. Uh and this was 2019 before no one or anyone spoke about Roblox. So it

wasn’t anywhere and even if a mention to anyone in the gaming industry they would be like

why would be the answer. Were they judging you?

No, actually we we didn’t talk that much about it to be honest because the most

interesting thing was this. We um we built the game, launched it around

Christmas and um it became a big flop.

Oh wow. So the first Roblox game you made was actually a flop. Yeah. Yeah. Complete flop.

It was um No, everyone hated it. So um so what we did was that we um we

actually got a bit curious because we thought we knew everything in this world. Uh coming

from been building console games, PC games, mobile games and they’re very

very senior guys in the gaming industry I’m working with and I’m also really been in marketing for a long time and

then um we saw this happening. So it was quite good actually. was refreshing to

be honest. So what we did was that we instead um started to look into okay what is Roblox? Yes, like the question

you asked now and yeah let’s maybe answer that question. So, I have an idea of what Roblox is and

it’s actually come up on the podcast a lot. It’s like the next generation zoo on Roblox and it’s like they talk about

it like a black box and you’re like very uniquely placed and I want to share for everyone at home like you mentioned

right before we started recording like you just came back from New York at FIFA and like FIFA has an activation a game

in Roblox and you’re helping them do that but there’s also devs making games

on Roblox. So for most of the people who have no idea what Roblox is but they actually know about making games, could

you just give a quick 101 like what is Roblox from your perspective? Of course. Roblox is a platform. Um so

originally when Roblox was built, it was built to educate younger people to

develop. So you could go in and you can build your own experience or game. And uh

that’s the beauty with it. So Robux is not a game itself. Robux is

just a platform. So without all the games that has been buil being built by

all the devs, there will be nothing. It will be like an app store. If you take

uh uh a traditional app store for mobile

and you don’t have so it’s actually a very different to like I grew up with Minecraft, but

Minecraft is a game. You don’t need mods. You don’t need friends and it’s still fine. But Roblox doesn’t work unless you play something that someone

made. Exactly. So Roblox itself didn’t make any games.

They just made a platform where you can build upon and and what they did was that they

simplified everything because it was an educational tool from the beginning. So simplified coding, they simplified a lot

of assets and everything. So you can put in a game quite simp uh quite easy

yourself if you want to build a simple obstacle course for example. Yeah. Then

you u have a lot of plug-andplay things so you can get started quickly. But then

you have the more uh serious developers the bigger games

they do obviously everything from scratch. They don’t take plug and play on Roblox

on Roblox still. So um just like a traditional gaming um or a traditional

game and game development but without a few things uh you don’t need server um

knowledge because they have all of that already. So when you create something

they allocate servers for you and uh there’s also a lot of other things

around it. So you have the security and all of these tools and distribution, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Distribution and traffic, especially the traffic, I would say. So if you look into they have I think now

around 400 million people every month uniquely. Uh

is there a game that or a platform that has more than that? Isn’t is that the most in the world or

uh well well that’s the platform itself. The game that has the most right now is

called uh Grow a Garden. It’s not our game. I wish it was. Uh I think they

reached I’m not 100% sure the exact numbers. I’ll search it now. Don’t worry cuz I I

saw it on the headline like Grow Garden is the most popular game of all time.

And I was like what? What are you like how is that even possible? Like if someone’s listening to that, how is that

even possible? cuz for someone like me, I’m looking at the images here and it looks quote unquote childished, right? And I’m

like, “Okay, what is happening?” No, it’s it’s actually a really really good game. That’s the thing. It’s uh it

doesn’t have to look great. Uh it’s not about the graphical fidelity or the

things here. The players go in because for two reasons. One, it has to be

really fun game. This is a really fun game loop. Very simple.

uh easy to understand. You don’t need a big text in order to get into it. You

just get in and then after super short time, you understand?

Uh and if you look here right now, the active number of users is 2.6 million

at this this minute. and they reached um I think it was

around 20 million which is the biggest of any game in the history of the world.

M wow. So, and if you and you mentioned

before money. So, if you look into Roblox as a platform,

they are uh they’re obviously super valuable because it’s uh

it’s a huge platform with uh so many so many players. So I think they are valued to um 6070

billion somewhere there traded on stock exchange. But if I take

a game like this, a game like this is going to bring in north of $100 million

for the devs. Okay. Um yeah, I want to spend a few minutes on

this. So, these devs made a game, which am I wrong to assume?

Could you say it’s a good game, but is it maybe like a great idea? Like, this doesn’t look, again, please correct me

if I’m wrong, like it would take a stupid amount of time to make. Like, we’re talking hundreds of millions, but

this development cycle might be a few months. Maybe I’m wrong. Like,

yeah. And that’s that’s the that’s the beauty. It’s probably

not more than a couple of months development time. But then now however

they have a team, but they did it after, right? So yeah, they hit product market fit and

yeah, if you’re getting a few meal coming in, yeah, we can go hire a few devs, right? I can understand that. But like it’s so crazy when you come from a

conference where everyone’s hurting, everyone’s talking about kind of how they’re trying to survive and there’s

some people trying to raise 8 million for a game that’s going to be released in six years. And then you obviously

this is the creme de la creme example, right? But um yeah, but I’m just saying like the

fact that this is possible makes me think, okay, what how can these both be true? Like there’s clearly people

willing to spend money on games but then all these other games are not seeing the light of day at all.

No, but it’s it is quite simple in a way. Uh f first of all this to spend a

significant amount of money for something that is going to come out or maybe come out

uh in quite many years because also if you look into traditional gaming

investments a lot of games that are being invested in never see the daylight.

Oh really? So so so do you know the stats on that? I wouldn’t think I don’t I don’t but uh it’s a big chunk.

Yeah, that’s a fact. And look into now, for example, just look into the

companies that have fallen in the in the last take half year.

There’s been significant amount of companies have been going under. Yeah. Yeah. And the games were like two or 3 years in, but they actually never

released or buy several developments uh ongoing and

a lot of cash has been coming into into this. So, of course, I would be if I put

on an investor hat, I would be cautious. Yeah, it makes sense.

And then if you look into this instead, so you take the other side.

So you see here you can do a very short uh development and then see is it gonna fly?

Are people going to like it? And then if the if you see early traction then you can start to invest more into it and you

can start to uh pour in resources. So it’s the other way to look at it rather

than the first one. So how many games on Roblox has the gang

made? Oh, that’s a really really good

question. Um, we have original games that are our own. I would

say approximately some 30 40 games. The reason I’m asking this question because obviously you’ve one of the if

not only like you’ve done the most cycles of this, right? So, you probably have an idea of what’s not working and

what’s working, right? So, how many years did it take to make those 40 games? No, we’ve been doing it now for

five and a half years. Uh but but we also do one every few months. Yeah. But uh the majority of our company

has been working with brands and IPs. So we uh we work with u some of the

world’s largest brands. So if you take Netflix, u spin master, FIFA,

um Amazon, three of the four grand slams. Uh so Wimbledon use open Australian open

so it’s and that has been so in the beginning when we started the company we said let’s do 5050 let’s do 50% regional

games 50% working with brands but then u we became quite popular uh

and was seen in a lot of media so a lot of brands started contacting us

especially after Vans the shoe company that game became super popular and then

um a lot of big companies started contacting us. So after about a year we

were probably spending 95% of all our resources on brands.

So I wish we would have done more original and that’s what we’re changing now. So now we’re actually going a bit

back to basic or back to scratch. So we are dividing the company into parts. So

everything was sounded the same before but now we are separating the company into two parts. So one of the companies

now is going to be solely focusing on brands and IPs and the second one on the regional games.

This is funny cuz I’m listening to you and I’m drawing parallels from the other

people we’ve had on the podcast where a lot of traditional game studios that exist today start

with an outsourcing story like we need we’re working our own IP. We run out of

money. Let’s do some outsourcing. So they’re not necessarily owning what they make and then they bring money in make

IP and the dream is let’s make money from our own IP and then become a good normal game studio. That’s the vibe I

get. And it feels like we’re doing this but with a quote unquote a lot less risk

because we’re doing it on a platform like Roblox. No, that that was the original idea from the beginning and that’s why we set it

up that way. uh because I I’ve been starting a few companies and

I had um a few agencies and

like I said before if you invest say that you invest your own money and you want to build your your dream game

and uh it’s a passion project and you sit there and you want to put in everything you have into it,

you are going to have a deadline regardless of the amount of cash you have. You’re going to have a deadline.

You’re going to have some point in life you’re going to end up being okay can I

invest more or not and uh

then you will go out and fund raise and everything and you will try to look for other people it’s money uh what we

wanted to do we wanted to build a sustainable uh kind of

because the thing here we didn’t plan to build a company first of all we plan to

have a hobby and we we plan to build build things we

like to build and then we said let’s take in funding

from brands because then we have a stability that stability is going to pay the fixed

costs that’s going to pay our salaries it’s going to pay uh your computers and all

the things you need then the um the thing on top. So the profit

from it that we reinvest. So we never did any dividends in a

company. So we just reinvested instead into building our own things, the things

we love and want to build. So you said you started as a hobby. Um

I’m curious like is there any funny stories at the start where someone said, “Hey guys, I think this is a real

company now.” Like did you ever have that day where you realize oh this is something bigger than what we thought it was going to be?

Yeah. Yeah. We have a few. So first of all we we had one thing for example when

we were because we’re five founders and then we grew to I think it was like eight or something

they were said we’re never going to be more than 10 people in the company. And all the founders were like we really

agreed on that. Yeah let’s stick with 10 max. And now I think we’re 220 or

something. Why did you change your minds? Uh because we saw the opportunity. We’re

opportunists. And um it’s like in the beginning we try to

stop it from growth, but uh we saw that it’s just stupid not to because if

Why did you want a team of less than 10? And is that because of past experience or Yeah, because we didn’t want to have too

much headache. All righty. I’m going to ask a tactical question like I’m guessing because

you’ve felt that headache before. You have any kind of mistakes that you’ve avoided in the previous companies in

this company to avoid that headache when it comes to scaling for context Marcus? Like my team is five. I’m thinking I’m

going to go to 10, but like I’m already feeling headaches. No, no. I think 10 or 20 is all right as

well. But uh I would say when you come to a certain point in a company when you

don’t start to know everyone as well as you would like to then um then you know

that the company has been growing and we wanted to keep it as a small kind of

tick group uh who knew each other. uh they like to hang out with each other

also after work. So that was that was our intention. Um then uh I I wouldn’t

say we tried to avoid any mistakes. It was rather that we just wanted to have

fun and um but then we saw that there was such a huge opportunity. So it was

really not intelligent to um to stop. we had to

grow and um and that’s also when when you decide that okay let’s build a

company let’s double down on this and um let’s do it for real yeah then we started to run then we started to set up

every everything with previous knowledge obviously so we have um all the things

in the company that you need and we put it up quite early on so we have

financial department we have HR we have legal everything inside inhouse.

Um we work only with full-time

employees. Why? We don’t um because I believe in dedication.

I believe that if you work half time, you might get out 30%.

What if you work full-time on a contract basis? Cuz in games industry, I see it like maybe like the movie industry where

sometimes you have a project and you’re going to need someone for x amount of time. Maybe in Roblox context is a bit

different cuz the skills are always transferable to the next project, but I found like a lot of people using

contractors now, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I I fully agree that’s better, but it’s not optimal. um

nor for the employee or the company for for the simple reason is this. For the

employee um it’s uncertainty. You know, you’re going to have this project for a

certain period of time, but then during this project, you will have to

allocate time to look for what’s next.

And actually, so your mind is not going to be fully in there. And for the company,

it’s also you educate someone because that’s more or less what you do. You start to work with someone, you educate

someone. Especially in our field where it’s Yeah. You’re probably one of a few

companies that are doing something similar. Surely. Yeah. Exactly. So, we are going to educate in how we work, how it works,

like Ro said before what Roblox is and everything. And then when you have

educated someone, you want of course to retain the person in the company. You don’t want them to go to someone else.

Yeah. So um that that so so I would say yeah having a contractor for

for but then again for some parts it might be uh optimal to have it but I

would say we as a company as a whole 95% we want to have full ten.

Yeah, fair. I was just curious because I see my background was pure contract recruitment before my current role,

you’re right, with the marketing agency. And it was interesting um because you’re

based in Sweden as well, like contracting is more common there I found than other countries.

Yeah, actually I’m based in Portugal uh since three and a half years.

Studio though. Yeah, we we have four companies in the group now. So we have

okay so we started up in Sweden and that’s one of the companies and then um I moved to Portugal three and a half years ago

and um so we have one here we have one in the UK and then we have one in uh in

uh Malaysia. Can I speak on this part? Because of course I was engaging more with the Swedish I

guess the gang people were there and then I guess in my head I’m like oh yeah they’re probably going to have an office in Sweden and then everyone else is

remote but you mentioned four different studios. So this is tying back to kind of the topic that we’re here for like

scaling a company and I’ve heard so many different opinions on this when it comes to like the remote and inerson stuff.

So, I’ve got people saying fully remote all the way. You just need to know how to do it right. And some other people saying no, everything’s in person and

use people that you trust and know because it just takes way too long. So, I’m not saying like choose a side or

what have you. Just saying like what has worked for you when it comes to like scaling a company of your size. Well, first of all, we are remote. So,

we’re uh remote first and we started that one precoid even. So when we

started the company because I knew I was going to move abroad um I didn’t want to be tied up to a

certain position in the world was or place in the world. So we said from day

one let’s set everything up so we can work from wherever we want. We did have

an office actually in the beginning but anyway so we set up Discord uh we did

everything from day one as a remote company. And then co came and that

didn’t change a thing for us because we were already

there in the mindset and then we started to grow obviously mostly in Sweden

and um then after co then I moved

and I came to Portugal and set up the company here. So what do we do and remote for first what it is for us is

that we allow every employee to work from where they want. They can sit at home and work or wherever. Uh but we

also in each major city have an office. So we have an office in Stockholm, we

have one in Lisbon, we have one in London and one in Kalumpo. So if you live nearby

then you’re more than welcome to come and sit and work at the office. And in Stockholm quite many people do. I

think we have 50 or 60 seats there. So it’s uh quite many people that go there.

And then um if you live at some other city a bit more remote, we also um

uh can give uh possibility for a remote office like a co-working space or

similar because not everyone have the possibility to work from home. it might not be optimal with the with kids or

whatever. So, um that that’s the way we solve it. But then if you look at the

company as a whole, most people work from home and they like being home and then they maybe come in

one to two days a week just to meet colleagues. So, you’re saying it like it’s normal,

but then you said earlier in the podcast it’s hard to get to know everyone, and I feel like remote makes that harder,

right? Um, I have this in my company. I’m working with my brother. Sometimes we work in the coffee shop. Sometimes

he’s off in his own coffee shop to lock in and I have someone who’s based in Ecuador and then I have someone based in

Ukraine. And like I’m trying to, you know, make sure you understand the person and we keep everything connected.

So I guess any best practices to kind of run a remote company? Well,

well, well, we’re constantly learning. So I’m not going to say that we have figured everything out because we

haven’t. And that that’s the beauty also running a company. There are always going to be challenges that you have to

uh kind of fix. But but we have set up a structure that I think works for us

quite well right now in a way. And uh so what we did is that we use discord a lot. So we um and with discord we have

because we work in I would say small cells. So when we create the game, we

allocate a team for it and this team is going to work together. So it might be

coder, artist, designer, yeah, team lead. Yeah. All of this,

producer. So we have um so we assign a team and then every day they meet and

sit on discord and uh talk. So when you say every day they meet, is

it like I’m imagining when I was playing a game and you just like you’re in that call and the call’s just on. Is that what

we’re talking about? That’s exactly how it is. It’s so funny you say that. The first ever podcast I did on remote work was

with head of studio at Endreams at the time, Glenn, and he did what you describe on Teams, you know, just an

open call on all the time. And I’m like, yes, that makes sense. I used to do that

when I used to be a degenerate professional gambler. We’d have this little community. We’d be online all day

and just shouting stuff to each other like for like six hours and yeah. Um so

how do you do you encourage sorry to interrupt I’m thinking do you encourage that? Is that natural?

Yeah, we we set that up from the beginning. So we said that this is how we are going to work because then

see it as being in an small office with your closest teammates and if you need

something if you want to run something by someone or uh uh you also you need to

work close together and sometimes you of course need to sit and focus a lot. Then

we have silent channels. So you’re still on Discord, so you can still reach everyone, but then we have the silent

channels and um but most of the time you sit in the actual team meeting and it might be

quiet, but it’s still running. Yeah. And then if you need something or want to ask something, then you just talk and

you know that your team is going to be there. Very cool. How have did you used to work like that?

Is this the first company you have this set up? Yeah, it’s the first. I had I had

distributed companies before with uh people in different locations, but this

is the first time we have been doing it this way. And um and as I said, we we

set it up for me and the co-founders in the beginning. So it wasn’t

so so it was kind of this worked for us and then we just scaled it. So no weekly meeting. Is there any

recurring meetings? Because if you’re showing up all day, do you need a meeting? Uh yeah, we we have company meetings

obviously. uh because if you sit and work on a specific u project or with a

specific team, you might not be fully

knowledgeable of what’s happening at the company as a whole. So of course we have that recurring company meetings to kind

of inform everyone. Uh and we have standups as well.

So we kind of more in in detail go through exactly what have we done, what

are we going to do. So we have the focus, right? So it’s not just jump in and then you sit and do whatever.

You still need to have dedication. And then we have a lot of other support systems, of course. So we have Slack for

written communication. Yeah, we have um a lot of other ones for

the actual development as well. So you can see exactly where we are in each

project. Did you say Slack for documentation? Yeah, for written communication, not

documentation. Written communication. I think Okay. I thought people would be texting on Discord. So, Discord is only

for the calls. Yeah. Because we found that Slack is better with the with the written content

and then the Discord is better for the spoken. Nice. And um and also when you close a

discord server for the night for example it might lose information but in Slack

since we set up a structure for it we have everything uh defined.

Nice. Oh lovely. So you got the best of both worlds. saw it. So, I’m thinking for the person working

in the kind of I guess more traditional gaming industry, this is a question for

them where like I’m hearing this podcast. This is interesting, but I’m not going to make a Roblox game. I don’t

want to. Is there anything that they should be aware of which is kind of being like

more innovative that you think they’re in their bubble and they don’t know? Like, is there anything that you see? I

I I think that’s quite that’s quite a good question first of all. Um because if you look into who are

on the UDC platforms, Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, the three biggest ones,

there’s a lot of younger people. No doubt about it. The majority is younger.

uh regard I would say on Roblox it’s

according to Roblox numbers they have 30 to 40% uh 17 plus

uh but that means anyway so you have 60 to 70% that is under or 17 down

uh and I would say it’s everyone from 5 year old up to um the majority I would say

probably 12 10 12 14 around there

just kind of uh but it’s I I don’t have exact numbers

or stats but I would say um Roblox numbers 30 to 40% um are adults and then

that’s interesting. I’m just reading now Roblox recommends the platform for users aged 30 and older. However, there’s no

strict age minimum. Yeah. So interesting. So you have so you have very young

people and then you have um more mature people. Fortnite uh slightly more mature I would

say and then um Minecraft that’s actually quite widespread as

well. Yeah. Uh but if you look into who are there so you have a lot of younger people

regardless the age. So let’s say that they are 14. Uh so

these are the ones that going to buy the games of tomorrow

and these are the ones that are going to educate themselves how games are built

and uh what’s fun or not. Yeah. Like their taste is being formed

on Roblox. 100%. And and Roblox is also a very social platform. And I think a lot of

people miss that that it’s they think it’s just a gaming platform, but it’s equally much social. So you go in, you

meet your friends, you hang with them and uh chat and do things together.

And I think that’s going to form how uh games are being uh built in the future.

So if I were in traditional gaming industry, I would at least I understand if I don’t want to build the game on the

platform, but I would at least understand the platforms and see what’s happening and see what’s trending and

why it’s trending and educate myself. It’s like with everything. It’s like when social media came, if you were

saying, “No, I have a website. I don’t need I don’t need Facebook

and then and look at it.” Yeah. Yeah. And the people who did both the others for breakfast.

Yeah. That that’s the thing. So, so I would I would definitely

try to understand it and look into it and um and to be very frank, we have

quite a lot of dialogues now with more traditional gaming companies who are I

mean increased interest of uh Roblox as a platform and they want to make

variations of games on Roblox. Oh, interesting. So, you’re saying there are people who have games already published

and they’re talking with you to port or make a variation of the game for

Yeah, I I would say a variation. I would probably say um uh a variation of the game that’s more fitting for this

platform. But, uh in order to for example increase the IP IP value,

it’s like Yeah. So, it’s more the IP. They can obviously make some features me similar, but it’s definitely a new game

from scratch. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it’s not one to one and has there has been a lot of attempts

with onetoone but it never I haven’t seen it work ever. Have you seen any games work where

they’ve taken a game IP and put it into Roblox? I I would say there is a lot of

inspirational games on Roblox from uh more traditional games.

So that’s nonlicensed. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

And uh so they’ve been taking inspiration which shows that yeah the the game play works but they have done

it and for the platform for the audience and um taking a license game instead and

then put it in there might be a really really good idea because then you also have the

uh IP so you increase that one. You might also make money from it

and you can also upsell. I just realized. Yeah, of course. That’s so funny. So, you could upsell to

the normal version. Yeah. No, so that’s the thing. So, you can kind of intrigue people, go in,

play, have fun, and then also promote your uh your

uh bigger game. Very cool. Um, sorry for asking so many basic questions on Roblox. I have one

more here. So you mentioned, you know, like Grow Gardens making hundreds of

millions. I’ve not played Roblox. Maybe I should just to understand, but from my understanding, it’s a free-to-play

platform and you have the option to buy in-game uh purchases.

Is that the same thing? Like is there some games that you have to pay to play?

Is it you do whatever you want in terms of how you monetize? So, like if someone you don’t have to share like the

conversations you’re having, but I’m thinking if I have a normal IP game and I want to go to Roblox, is the only

quote unquote efficient way to do a free-to-play game and then inapp purchases? Is there premium situation

here? Like, could you paint that picture? Yeah, absolutely. I would say uh the freeto play is by far the most popular

on the platform. You have a few games where you pay to play,

right? where you uh pay an upfront cost and then you get access to the game.

It’s very unusual on Roblox and u because also most of the Roblox audience

they want to test the game before they buy it. Yeah. So um so you are you are going to take

away a big chunk of the audience by doing um just to double check like on mobile

gaming I’ve had that buying experience myself. There’s a weird thing where they release a free-to-play game and it’s

like the level one. I don’t know if this is super widespread and I’m like the most niche player ever, but like you

play it and they say, “Hey, do you want to buy and unlock the full game?” I’m like, “Okay, can’t they just do that on Roblox?”

Um, not really. Uh, no. No, not really. Because there you either uh have the

game as freeto play, but what you can do, you can unlock new content within the game that you can do.

Uh but that’s not very that’s not very common either. Mostly what’s common is

that you u you buy additions to kind of

be able to uh proceed faster when game. So it’s kind

of pay to win is very more like the mobile gaming monetization model.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even more uh pay to win which is not very popular on more

traditional platforms. So here you can have for example uh uh 2x of everything.

So everything every time you grind something you get double amount. So you

kind of like really really um I think they do this more in Asian

MMOs I think like it’s super normal. Yeah that that’s very exactly that’s more common. So that you have a lot here

and and also you have younger audiences but the cost for each is super low usually and u and the beauty with it is

that you can also play the game entirely free. Yeah. So

so yeah I’m just I’m just curious. I’m just like is the inapp purchase amount

like we’re talking less than a dollar sometimes like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No. So it’s it’s very small

amounts. It’s like a volume game. It’s just there’s so many players where it just makes sense. And you have every day on Roblox you

have approximately 100 million unique people every day. So it’s just a fraction. It’s almost

like I’m not saying it was like the ads monetization model like if the game is

played by so many people there’s a percentage which is just going to buy the thing. Yeah. And there is a percentage never

going to buy anything obviously. That’s fine. Yeah. and uh but that percent is not going to buy. They’re

going to add to your numbers of um ICCU. So if you have a game, you want to have

as many players as possible because then you’re going to end up on top lists. Of course, just like Twitch. So it’s like if the

game’s doing really well, everyone else is going to see it. It’s like winner takes all of course. So like cuz that’s not necessarily the

case. Most trending, most played, all of this. And if you then have a paygate right at

the start, you’re not going to end up on those lists. They don’t have that on mobile gaming because they just have download number.

Like imagine they have the active number. That would actually be very interesting. Exactly. That’s uh very different.

Yeah. Because the download number that’s historical numbers. Active. They usually don’t say this game came 20

years ago, so it’s actually quite bad number. Like you have to go in and probably No. So if you’re new,

it’s more difficult on mobile, but here you can trend quite quickly.

I see. Very cool. So and and on on that note as well, there was one game called um Welcome to

Bloxburg that got acquired by I think it was Coffee Stain uh about

two years ago and uh they used to be a pay-to-play game. So it

used to be pay wall to play the game and uh then they removed it about half a

year ago. So they went actually the Yeah. this game. So they went the other

way and they have now 30,000 active players. Wow.

And they have 9.4 billion visits. Yeah. Cuz the crazy thing here, I’m like

on Steam if you had like what does Hell Divers have as right now? Like I’m Isn’t that less?

Yeah. But then again, everyone has paid for it up front. Okay. So, Hell Divers has 45,000.

Um, which is, you know, one of the top games of, you know, the last 12 months. But this

game has 30,000. Yeah. And I’m guessing, is this like a top 10 game or is it like a top 100 game? Do

you know? Uh, top 100, I would say. Top 30k.

Yeah, you’re probably going to end up top 30, top 40. Oh, there’s charts.

I’m sorry. I’m having a good time here, everyone at home. But it’s just because if you look into these top

trending at the moment, still a brain rot. They have 8

57k CCU right now. What? Yeah.

And grow a garden. As we said before, 2.6 million still, right? No, that’s actually more.

Wait, I guess the numbers get too big where I just I just don’t know what it means.

It’s It’s weird. I know. It’s insane numbers on this platform.

Like what I want to tell you a story. Um, one of my clients, his children,

the only game they’ve ever played is Roblox. And they just think gaming is Roblox. And it’s very simple for him as

a parent. and he had a situation where some of the games on Roblox because it’s

all UGC, some of them are weird. Like some of them, like, for example, there’s

no, from my understanding, age rating on a game, but like it could be a game where you have a knife and you’re chasing someone, but you probably don’t

want your seven-year-old playing that game. So, what they’ve done now is any time they need to play a new game, ask

permission from dad first. Um, so I don’t know why. Um, you bring it up.

No, you do actually have a possibility to age gate. Uh so you can do for

example 17 plus or 13 plus on the game and then it’s restricted to those that

are above that age. So so that that is

is is Roblox checking that though? That’s what they’re thinking cuz like is that just self-imposed? Um well 17 plus you need to verify

yourself a bit more. Uh 13 plus uh self um

informing so there it can be a lot of lies.

Fair. Really cool. So, in terms of

like the game, would you say Roblox as a platform because like it’s

like from my understanding Minecraft like all the where you play looks like a certain person, right? Um I’m just

thinking about the future of Roblox. Is it going to be where you can even have more customizability or is it always

going to have a Roblox feel like or is it going to be a situation where it can become like Unreal Engine where every

game can look completely different? Um I think it’s shifting and I think

it’s shifting slowly. M so you have because some of the most

popular most popular games on the platforms they have the more classic Roblox feel to it and um kind of

graphical uh layout and everything. But um there are extremely good

possibilities right now to build high fidelity games on Roblox.

So way better than most people think you can do. you can actually do

but but they don’t become super popular yet and I think for a

couple of reasons. One is that people want to come here and they want to do these kind of games that they feel

comfortable with that they know. The second thing is that a lot of the players might have a

a secondhand phone and they might be in a region where it’s not like the coolest

phone at start. Yeah. And then if you have better uh graphics

in the game or these kind of things, it might not be a pleasant experience to

play the game. So then you might want to play something with lower fidelity and

uh that actually works. I think a big one Marcus is

don’t know if you’ve done this but I have a very weird experience when I go to a conference I spend like half a day

just playing all the games and giving feedback and they keep saying no one gives us feedback and I’m like why? And

the most common feedback I give is I pretend I’ve picked up the game and I

have two minutes to decide if I want to continue playing. So I’m like, “What’s my day one minute retention?” And I’m like,

“This was too confusing. I don’t know where my health is. I don’t know what this is. This button took too long.” Blah, blah, blah. And I guess on Roblox,

you don’t really have a choice. like you need your 1 minute, 2 minute retention to be so high because the friction of

someone leaving your game and playing another game is probably like two buttons or something. So that’s

something I feel like is missed from traditional games because they put all this time into it and

someone’s going to potentially pay for it. I don’t know, maybe not respecting their time is what come to mind, but I

don’t know if that’s um made you think of something for like the traditional game devs out there. Like I feel like a

big thing they can learn is like that one day retention. Is there anything on that? Yeah, but I fully agree with you

there and that’s I can mention one of our games or actually the the game that

we have had the biggest success with so far and it’s called Strongman Simulator

and uh the first instance of the game was built

I think in like couple of hours. Oh wow. And um yeah so it was one of my

co-founders. He was having a discussion with one of his kids if you can compete in everything

and then um uh he talked about strength and then how

do you compete in being strong and then was like yeah you pull the tractor. So we have had right now we have 4 and a

half thousand uh players but we have had 15 1.5

billion visits. The visit is crazy. So is a visit an

actual click or is that an impression? No, no, that’s um uh players that have

played a game and in average they have played for this game um somewhere

between 10 to 15 minutes. Wow. So the impressions of this game is in the

tens of billions then if someone was like looking that on whatever the kind of platform looks like. So

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. No. So it’s so this one and then we had

a team of three people build it in uh a few weeks

and then we um launched it and became very very popular more popular than we

anticipated and what we’re doing right now actually so we this was almost four years ago and

we still have yeah somewhere between 4 to 10,000 players CCU

that’s still monetizable right that’s still like Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we we make money from it obviously.

Really? And then um and now we’re also building a Strongman Simulator 2.

That one is going to come out uh right after the summer. So that’s one thing we’re quite excited for in the company

at the moment. What’s the plan for number two versus number one? Is it kind of an easier

10-minute retention? A bit better graphics. Uh not too much, not going crazy but a bit more. Uh we

are um doing a few changes that we uh without going into details with the game

obviously but doing a few changes that we have seen might not be the optimal

and um yeah so that’s that’s kind of what we’re what we’re doing at the

moment and I think we have for strongman

two it’s going to be called strongman Ultra I But um so I think we have had now

6 or 700,000 favorites already before it’s uh launched. Oh, so wow. You can even So literally

you have wish list as well at this point. Yeah. So again, this is just for the curious

gamedev out there. Is that like people subscribe to your kind of Steam page? Basically

our group. So do these guys when they see you

release a new game or an announcement like Yeah. seen by like thousands, tens of

thousands. Yeah, exactly. So then they then they can get notification. So they are part

of our group and they follow us. So they follow our That’s crazy. Like imagine a game studio having 4 million email subscribers,

right? And say, “Hey, by the way, we’re releasing a new game.” You’re saying cuz I thought Roblox was good because like

ah you can log in and choose your game but like you can also like keep a player at some point or like you know re-engage

your community. Really cool. No, it’s it’s an ecosystem. So it’s more of an ecosystem and like I said it’s

more of a platform than uh than just the game and then you create yeah you can

create events or you can uh do these kind of things. You can um also build UDC items like you see here. These are

then items that are been created and can be sold on the platform and then they’ve been born on

your avatar and um then the then we get money back

from uh if someone is acquiring something we have uh

have decided. Does most of the money come from this premium thing or is it do you guys care?

Uh, no. No. Most come most revenues actually come from um in-game purchases.

So, uh purchases directly connected with the game itself. So if you’re in strongman simulator and then you acquire

something it might be um 2x or whatever

then uh that that is I would say the majority of revenues and then the premium

is probably around 10 to 20% of the overall

revenues. The reason I’m going to spend a bit of time on this is like when I

used to play Runescape. So I always used to beg my dad, hey dad, I want to pay

for Runescape. And it was my 18th birthday presents. It was like free games exist. Play the free games. I was

like, okay. And my brain because I grew up like that finds it really hard like

why is a 5-year-old, 14y old, 15y old spending money? Is this like them saving

up money and buying a gift card and okay, they actually using the disposable income and there’s so many of them or is it the parents just actually putting the

wallet down? Like if I’m just pretending to be a traditional game dev here I would have that thought like yeah but

they’re not going to have that much money like who’s going to be actually spending like how does it work? Um no so

it’s I I would say the majority of the time unless they are uh old enough then it’s the parents who pay for and what

they do then they either pay a premium subscription which unlocks so Roblox

have their own uh economy it’s called Robux.

Yeah I’m on the page here for everyone. Yeah. So, Robux is equivalent to the to

the coins that you acquire. And then, uh, these coins you can use

within Roblox to buy, for example, something within a game. You can buy clothes for your avatar, these kind of

things. Yeah. So, you look cooler. And um then when you buy something

either from uh within a game or clothing part then a

part of this get distributed to Roblox and a part of it get distributed to the

game dev. I mean it’s weird. You know what? I think I’m I think I’m biased. I think

I’m judging Roblox because of my idea of it for a kid game. But then I just turned what I said into Fortnite and I’m

like, “Yeah, if my kid asked me to buy a skin on Fortnite,” I like, “Yeah, sure.” But for some reason, because it’s

Roblox, my brain’s like, “Why are people spending money here?” And then you mentioned like buying clothes and stuff,

I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” Cuz they need to flex. Everyone wants to be the cool kid, right?

Everyone wants to be the cool kid with the new shoes and Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

No. So it’s it’s it’s not a new phenomena and also I heard from so many

parents because when someone when I speak at a dinner party or whatever and

they have kids and they hear that we’re building games on Roblox. Yeah. That’s

always a topic that becomes interesting to talk about. And if there

are kids in the right age or age category, the number one question the parents

usually get is can you buy me Robux for the parents? It’s like I guess it makes I mean I just

again I’m having all these imaginations but like when I have kids if my kid said what I want for my birthday is Robux and

I’ll be very very happy and I’m like I buy him physical thing he won’t be happy with or thing I know he

will be happy with. Yeah, I’ll probably do the thing he literally asked for. No, no, but also you’re a gamer, so you

you fully understand. Well, I just don’t want to. Maybe I because I’m going to become like my dad. I’m

like, you don’t have to spend money, so let’s not spend money. Like, let’s just go spend your own money when you’re 18.

Like, just play the free games. That’s maybe because I’m just going to pass on the next generation. No, but also I

think in Roblox because you have so many people. But I also think I like the connection and I’ve seen a few um a few

attempts with connection to offline online because you touch upon this here and I think that’s quite important as

well because you want especially younger people also to move and to be outside

and um so I we did one thing with one of the

big um sports brands. I’m not allowed to say which one. Uh, but then we had

we actually used the gyro in the phone connected to Roblox. So the more you

moved, you got extra points to use. No way. So like a geoloccation game like

a Pokemon. So you can even do Wow. Yeah. So you can even do that. So then Yeah, that could be something where

Mia is like ah it’s a health benefit. You’re going to go see your friends outside. Yeah, exactly. Very cool. Love it. So,

um, just in the final part of the podcast, I’m just want to ask

from a CEO perspective. My main thing I’m focusing on now is

like the thought of building a team. So, I’m I have an orc chart and I had a good

piece of advice a few months ago where it was like build the orc chart of the business you want to have. And like you,

I was like, ah, we need a finance person. At the moment, that’s me. But I’ve got some admin for that. Cool. At the moment, marketing and growth, all

me. And I’ve started with operations. I’ve removed myself from operations. I’m like, “Okay, great. Check box.” But then

I just see all these extra people I need to get. And then it’s so weird. It’s a bit of a long way to ask this question,

but when I was in recruitment before, finding a Unity developer for someone else, for some reason, so much easier

because I’m like, “This is my main job.” But when it’s my company, I don’t have time. And I’m like, I need I need to do

the interview. I need to build trust. I need to ask the right questions. And

like you’ve hired a lot of people. And I was just curious like any advice to people hiring other people whether it’s

in games or in my case like yeah any advice on hiring people especially with

the scale you’ve done it. This this is a massive question first of all. So thank you for asking. So let’s

spend an hour and no but no but honestly I think there’s a few things that I

think is super important around recruitments and um first of all the the

people we work with is the most important thing you have in the company u by far because that is the thing

that’s going to change the company or make it successful. Um, so you need to have the right people

and I think especially companies that get VC,

they tend to overhire and they tend to create an or chart and

they just want to fill all the boxes. So they want to make all the boxes green

that are red and um they want to do it as quickly as possible because then they feel good now

we can run but it might not be maybe the optimal person for it

and then it’s kind of a lot harder to realize that or change that when you’ve got 20 of those happening at the same

time. Yeah. Yeah. And and also the problem is that if you hire too many people at the

same time as well, they might come in with different objectives and u different mindsets and

everything. So I would when it comes to recruitment, I would and I I’ve been

doing this mistake myself. So I’m not saying I’m complete here. So usually everything I’m saying I I failed at

several times. So u and that’s that’s how I try to learn. But

make sure in the beginning for example we did everything ourselves me and my co-founders

absolutely everything. Um so we I was doing sales and product management and

microones were doing everything in dev and we were doing we’re testing every

single aspect of it and then we knew which pain points that were most crucial

and then we just hired that one. Nothing else. Even if we were in desperate need

of more people we try not to hire overhire. So, we kind of held back as

much as we could. And I think that’s quite a good learning because then when

that person comes in, you’re going to put extra attention to it and you’re going to feel a relief right away

because this biggest pain point that you have is going to be lifted from you. And if the

person doesn’t work out or not, you see it quite fast because if your pain point doesn’t go away, if it’s still there,

Yeah. then maybe it wasn’t a great recruitment. But if you do 10 of them at

the same time, it’s going to be very difficult to spot what’s working or not. Interesting. So

is that more organic way of growing the company like cuz you mentioned not to have an org chart, but I found that very

useful cuz then I realized, oh, what I thought I needed was not the bottleneck.

It was good for me to find out like I don’t need to go find a podcast editor right now. I realized the company will

never make more revenue if I don’t get a writer and I was postponing that forever because like oh I’ll write forever and

then I realized no I can’t. So when you but an org chart is still needed. You

always need an org chart. You always need to um know where everyone fits within the organization,

who is reporting to whom, and um what’s responsibilities? That’s always

important to have in any company regardless. What about prospective or chart? Well, my one is like what I imagine the

business to be. Would you say that’s more like Yeah. Yeah. More step by step.

This is a super interesting question because here it’s good to have it. It’s

good to have an idea where you want to go to plan ahead and say I think this

will be our biggest pain points or obstacles half year from

now. But this is not something that is set in

stone. So you have to be able to change. Yeah. And that I find is

something most people have a problem with. They change her Because if they have written

something down for a lot of people that’s fact that is

this is how we’re this is where we’re going to and then you might not actually look into

your situation where you are or what’s happening but you’re you’re going to

move into that direction. So I I would be cautious with it. I would I would say

it’s really really good to have it to have an idea where you’re going to but it would be very very cautious and I

would always question it if this is correct. Yeah, very interesting. I have more

questions but I will leave with this final question. So based on this conversation today

Marcus because we’ve covered a lot of ground like I understand a lot about roadblocks getting in the company. Is

there anything you feel like we haven’t mentioned that we maybe want to leave people with?

No, I I think it was super interesting conversation. I really liked it. Uh I

think we covered most of it and and also if someone wants to uh hear more, find

me. I’m on um yeah, LinkedIn at least. Perfect. So, how can people get in touch

with um the gang? Is that still through you on LinkedIn? Is there another way?

No, it’s probably better to contact us through the website. Uh, so it’s

dubdubdubdub.gu.io and um then we have all the contact

information there. So regardless if you’re a company wants to work with us or if uh you want to send in your

application, feel free to uh get in contact. Amazing. I’m going to ask one final

funny question. So if anyone listened through this entire podcast and they want to get a job at the gang, give them

one secret tip that will give them a higher chance. Try to understand what Roblox is. So um

I people that we like to work with are the ones

that are curious and knowledgeable of the platform. So we we don’t only hire

on previous skills that it says yeah you’re coming from this

massive interesting super duper gaming company but um also

if you have for example done something on Roblox you built something yourself showcase that of course that’s going to

be really really really valuable because then we’re going to know you are curious enough when you actually

you for not only saying it but you also do it. Portfolio always comes back I feel to

portfolio and that means different things to different companies but yeah yeah can’t imagine a better portfolio than

here’s the games we made on Roblox and here’s how I thought through them. Yeah. Perfect. Marcus, thank you so much for

your time. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much,