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 in casual games. Game making is an art, but if you want to do it for very long you also need to focus on efficient production practices, business development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, etc. Shipping a good game is hard enough, but creating the foundation for a long-term business is even harder. We provide that solution to our developers. >>>

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 potential VP ended up recruiting us into SegaSoft Networks. I became the Director of Product Development. We started from scratch and made an amazing start to building what would have looked like Xbox Live Arcade, had it shipped. (Our system was eventually sold to Nokia and became the gaming network for the N-Gage.)

On top of the great technology, great team, and the fact that we were getting paid to make a video game network, the head of the (parent) company was an inspiring man. Okawa-san lived in Japan when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was his dream to end war by uniting the children of the world through multiplayer gaming, and he used some of his billions to make sure a modem shipped with the Dreamcast console. Unfortunately, SEGA couldn’t hold itself together. >>>

Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 1)

The Internet is changing the content business dramatically, and in this story, we will explore the casual gaming industry through the eyes of entrepreneur John Welch, a gaming industry veteran, who hopes to build a brand as high-impact as Electronic Arts in video gaming, through his venture PlayFirst. I met John a long time ago through the MIT alumni association, and his venture capitalist for PlayFirst is also a common friend of ours, Gus Tai, of Trinity Ventures, also an MIT alum. I promise though, that this will not be a MIT lovefest.

SM: Please describe your personal background.

JW: I grew up in suburban Western Massachusetts, which offered a lot of space as compared to the Bay Area. I was either running around outside or playing with Legos or video games. I loved to swim and ski on both water and snow. We lived in the halo of two world-class cities, Boston and New York. We never went to NYC when I was a kid, but loving the Red Sox and hating the Yankees was a way of life. The Red Sox 2004 World Series victory and the three Patriots Super Bowls were incredible for Massachusetts; we waited a long time to win at a sport we didn’t invent! (Basketball was invented a few miles from where I was born in Springfield, MA.) >>>

Narayan Murthy’s Speech at NYU (Part 6)

Based on my life experiences, I can assert that it is this belief in
learning from experience, a growth mindset, the power of chance events, and self-reflection that have helped me grow to the present.

Back in the 1960s, the odds of my being in front of you today would have been zero. Yet here I stand before you! With every successive step, the odds kept changing in my favor, and it is these life lessons that made all the difference.

My young friends, I would like to end with some words of advice. Do you believe that your future is pre-ordained, and is already set? Or, do you believe that your future is yet to be written and that it will depend upon the sometimes fortuitous events?
>>>

Narayan Murthy’s Speech at NYU (Part 5)

I want to share with you, next, the life lessons these events have taught me.

1. I will begin with the importance of learning from experience. It is less important, I believe, where you start. It is more important how and what you learn. If the quality of the learning is high, the development gradient is steep, and, given time, you can find yourself in a previously unattainable place. I believe the Infosys story is living proof of this.

Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions. >>>

Narayan Murthy’s Speech at NYU (Part 4)

A final story: On a hot summer morning in 1995, a Fortune-10 corporation had sequestered all their Indian software vendors, including Infosys, in different rooms at the Taj Residency hotel in Bangalore so that the vendors could not communicate with one another. This customer’s propensity for tough negotiations was well-known. Our team was very nervous.

First of all, with revenues of only around $5 million, we were minnows compared to the customer.

Second, this customer contributed fully 25% of our revenues. The loss of this business would potentially devastate our recently-listed company. >>>

eBay’s Vertical Classified Strategy

The WSJ reports that eBay has quietly opened its classifieds site, Kijiji (what a lousy name!) to the US audience, positioned to compete against the wildly popular Craigslist, in which it owns a 25% stake.

One wonders why eBay doesn’t just buy Craigslist; the answer to that question is that Craigslist’s founder, Craig Newmark, has no desire to sell. >>>

Narayan Murthy’s Speech at NYU (Part 3)

While these first two events were rather fortuitous, the next two, both concerning the Infosys journey, were more planned and profoundly influenced my career trajectory.

On a chilly Saturday morning in winter 1990, five of the seven founders of Infosys met in our small office in a leafy Bangalore suburb. The decision at hand was the possible sale of Infosys for the enticing sum of $1 million. After nine years of toil in the then business-unfriendly India , we were quite happy at the prospect of seeing at least some money.

I let my younger colleagues talk about their future plans. Discussions about the travails of our journey thus far and our future challenges went on for about four hours. I had not yet spoken a word.

Finally, it was my turn. >>>