Last Friday, I resigned my position at Nokia.

It's time to put my foot money where my mouth is.

I suspect it will come as no surprise to those who've read the GDC Rant, my Free Play presentation, or my recent screed in The Escapist that I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about how to foster the development of a thriving independent games sector--and have come to the conclusion that it's possible to build a viable business to do so.

So I'm pulling the trigger. At this point, I have no funding, other than a little money myself; nothing ready to launch, either. But I do have a partner, the offered support of some other companies, a clear sense of what I need to accomplish in the next few months, and a draft (not a final one) of a business plan and financials.

This is, of course, terrifying; I'm leaving a nice comfortable job for an extremely early stage startup, with the prospect of no income for possibly as much as a year (or more). But there does come a time when you have to stop whining about things and try to change them.

The new company will be called Manifesto Games (there's a placeholder website here); its motto is "PC Gamers of the World Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Retail Chains!" And its purpose, of course, will be to build what I've been talking about: a viable path to market for independent developers, and a more effective way of marketing and distributing niche PC game styles to gamers.

At this stage, I would like to thank a bunch of people for advice and support leading up to this decision, including Eric Goldberg, Ben Palmer, Eric Zimmerman, David Heath, Kathy Schoback, Nathan Solomon, Alex Macris, Tom Kurz, Len Quam, Dalia Hierro, Andrew Friedman, Charles Ardai, Peggy Oriani, and the principals of Polaris Ventures. And, of course, Johnny Wilson, who will be joining me in the venture.

And I'd like to make another announcement: I'm going to be taking another risk, and blogging here about the whole process. One of my theories is that the kind of company Manifesto aspires to be must be utterly open to, and responsive to, its customers and prospective customers--that to build the kind of enthusiasm, commitment, and verve we need to succeed, and to make of our customers our own best advocates, we need to treat them as partners, and not (as so many companies do) as sheep to be fleeced. Thus, my intention as Manifesto becomes more of a reality, is to be as open as feasible about its plans, practices, and intentions--for management to blog frequently about what they're doing, and to participate frequently in forums with gamers. Since that's so, why not start the practice now?

Thus, I will be posting various documents here, up to and including the business plan and financials (when I'm happier with them); and I'll be talking about the whole process of fund-raising, site development, business development, and so on. This should, I think, be interesting for anyone who wants to understand what entrepreneurs do, what issues they face, and how they solve (or try to solve) problems; this is normally stuff that all happens behind closed doors, and I think it will be interesting to make it public.

Making it public may well bite me in the ass, at times--but on the other hand, it may also work to enlist others in helping us make the company work. And I should note that I won't necessarily be blogging everything, particularly if, say, a potential investor is uncomfortable having details of a meeting made public. But I do have cop-out language above, you'll note: "as open as feasible."

I will certainly be elaborating on all this over the next few weeks. But for now:

Please contact me if any of the following are true:

1. You have excellent web development skills (PHP, Linux, Apache, mySQL, HTML--some or all) or graphic design skills, and are willing to work on something like this for, in essence, equity and air.
   
2. You are an independent developer and/or publisher of games aimed at niche audiences, or the operator of a niche MMO, and are willing to offer a non-binding LOI announcing your willingness to work with Manifesto Games.
   
3. You have strong game industry and/or e-commerce credentials, and are interested in helping us achieve our goals.
   
4. And, of course, you think you might be interested in investing.
   

Wish us luck... We're going to need it.
posted by Greg at 4:40 PM 5 comments