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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Concur CEO Steve Singh (Part 1)
Concur CEO Steve Singh recently did an interview with me to discuss the development of Concur Technologies (CNQR). Concur helps corporations lower travel and expense processing costs by streamlining the expense reporting process. It is one of the companies I have covered as part of my Enterprise 3.0 series. SM: I would like to trace
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 8)
SM: How did you finance the different phases of the company? Seed? Angel? VC? Corporate? JW: I supplied a very small amount of seed capital that basically covered expenses while we secured our first round of venture funding. The $5 million Series A was led by Trinity Ventures and Mayfield Fund in mid-2004. Rustic Canyon
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 7)
SM: How did you penetrate the market and get early traction? JW: While I was at Shockwave, I had the privilege to work with some of the top developers in casual games. We saw the opportunity to help those developers do what they love – focus on making games – by becoming the first publisher
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 6)
SM. How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM (Total Available Market)? JW: The casual games market is expected to hit $1.5 billion next year. More than 200 million people play casual games via the Internet today, with about 60 million downloads each month (Computerworld). Analyst firm DFC Intelligence predicts that casual games
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 5)
SM: What was the market landscape like when you founded the company? Competition? Competitive Positioning? JW: There was no formal publisher in the casual games space prior to PlayFirst’s entry. It was like authors not only writing books with no editor and no research staff but also having to scurry around from bookstore to bookstore
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 4)
SM: Sounds like Shockwave was a great place to experiment and learn! JW: During this time I built a friendship with the principal software architect of the project, Brad Edelman, who is now co-founder and CTO of PlayFirst. I also met three other great people who now work at PlayFirst. Unfortunately, Shockwave spent most of
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 3)
SM: Where did you get the idea for your current venture? What is your domain experience in the segment? Any particular reason that led you up to this venture? JW: I co-founded my first startup in 1997, with that same roommate from Boston. While trying to raise capital and recruit a head of engineering, the
Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 2)
SM: Mowing your way to MIT! JW: I used my mowing money to pay my half of the cost for one of the first Intel 8088 processor personal computers. I guess I didn’t use my old TI-994A enough, so my parents were convinced that the new ‘toy’ would just gather dust unless – or even