With 2022 coming to a detailed, and the final working day of the yr working out of steam, I wished to replicate on the great and unhealthy we skilled as a group. Personally, I see it as a option to course of what we did nicely and never so nicely previously 12 months and as a springboard to maneuver ahead with.
The wins
We turned 10 years younger! No unamazing feat given the previous few years in financial phrases and in the event you take a look at enterprise on the whole loads of firms disappear nicely earlier than hitting this milestone. I’m actually blissful to have overwhelmed the statistics and hope for an additional 10 nice years.
Nicely 2022 held some wonderful wins for us, we acquired 2 software program firms:
- My Digital Workplace – the beginning of what see as a metaverse for work that we need to make a great place for people to do their greatest work
- MillionMind – a quiz and gamification platform permitting firms to actively entice new leads in enjoyable methods, to which we are going to add extra sport codecs
The acquisitions have been enabled by some folks believing in us sufficient to make these instruments shine and return funding for them. While we’re nonetheless engaged on the latter, we’re grateful for the funding and perception in us to develop the software program subscriptions and construct them into worthwhile streams of revenue for the corporate.
We welcomed a number of new shoppers onto our books, who got here to us for the next causes:
- Attracting new workers of a really particular sort
- Engagement of shoppers in a digital area with video games
- Encouraging app customers to do extra and work together with the app extra to realize their consumer’s targets
- Technique work for quite a lot of shoppers to include gamification of their app, their onboarding, their recruitment, and their studying
- Explored board sport and digital sport creation for a studying organisation
- Designed a number of video games for model promotion, recruitment, and lead technology
The sizes of shoppers assorted from cell and desktop app homeowners with small groups to multinationals and authorities companies.
The losses
Yearly has its challenges and this yr isn’t any totally different. We misplaced out badly financially when a crypto consumer we have been creating a number of video games and digital area tasks for didn’t stay as much as their obligations. We nonetheless have a few of their video games on the market in case you are in any respect out there for a drag racing sport, a on line casino metaverse with some video games in it, or a sequence of arcade video games.
Because of the monetary knock-on results which have stored on rippling via the yr, we additionally misplaced some wonderful group members and one provider who we valued working with. As an proprietor, it all the time hurts when this occurs, however generally you actually don’t have the means to show the state of affairs round rapidly sufficient to fulfill some folks. Both approach, we want them nicely of their future endeavours.
I spent many of the yr on the search for funding, $6M USD to be precise about it, and failed to realize this quantity. We did entice some funding curiosity which helped generate among the wins and a few have been holding out for a lead investor, which we by no means secured. We have been very shut twice with 2 totally different traders promising to foot the entire quantity, just for different causes to make them pull out. As a knock-on impact of this, we misplaced out on some acquisitions and I didn’t realise my full imaginative and prescient in a single go. Our metaverse imaginative and prescient for MyGNation will take longer to grasp than initially envisaged, which I discover a disgrace however given the state of the economic system might not be a foul factor within the lengthy haul.
The teachings
When you’re bold as a enterprise proprietor and also you don’t hit your massive objective, it’s simple to beat your self up about it and lose monitor of the stuff you did obtain. For me, that is the toughest factor to return to phrases with. A clever mentor mentioned sooner or later, if you intention for the moon and also you land among the many stars, you’re nonetheless a part of the way in which there and that additionally must be applauded.
From a philosophical perspective with hindsight information, I ponder if I had put the identical effort in chasing gross sales as I did in chasing funding, would I’ve been in a greater place both approach? I clearly don’t know a definitive reply to this, however my hunch is we is perhaps in a greater place on the very least financially. Within the funding world ladies nonetheless solely obtain 1-2% of all the cash accessible even with protected enterprise fashions similar to software program as a service, so in a roundabout way, I knew it was a much bigger battle once I began out, however one I labored onerous to win. Add to that, that the finance wanted was getting used for acquisitions provides extra limits to the traders. So we at the moment are revising and rethinking our approach ahead. Both approach, I realized loads of new terminology from happening the investor lane and what traders search for. For subsequent yr, I’ll shift my give attention to gross sales to get to the particular reply to this philosophical query.
From a really sensible perspective, we now have a but once more revised cost coverage the place we search for an ever larger deposit of recent and probably dangerous shoppers. We additionally going ahead will cease being a finance firm for large multinationals who’ve cost phrases of as much as 120 days, which is just not sustainable on our enterprise mannequin, the place we depend on some freelancers who have to be paid upfront. Typically I want that individuals working for large gamers perceive the impression on a small enterprise of limitless credit score and limitless modifications. Anyway, we’ve got been tweaking this coverage yearly to make sure we are able to nonetheless maintain ourselves and our folks, however 2022 was not the yr the place we bought this proper. It is usually one of many fundamental driving forces to maneuver from an company mannequin in direction of a subscription mannequin in order that we are able to have extra predictable income and extra sustainable work for our in-house group.
As years go, this one has been a problem, however what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. So let’s hope and work onerous at making 2023 the place we flip the ship round and set sail for a lot of happier horizons.
Thanks
I wish to thank all of our clients and traders for the belief and perception you may have positioned in us in 2022. We are going to do our greatest to make the tasks an ideal success in 2023 so all of us reap the rewards we deserve.
Most of all I wish to thank the group members at Gamification Nation, who’ve caught with me for this relatively bumpy yr, with out you I couldn’t have achieved what we did this yr. I sincerely hope to have you ever with me for a very long time to return and to maintain constructing what we got down to do with nice rewards to share round.
Annually closed is a e-book filled with experiences each good and not-so-good, filled with recollections that make us richer. Every begin of a brand new yr is a model new chapter of a model new e-book hoping to be stuffed with blissful recollections, let’s make 2023 an ideal one!!!!
Blissful New 12 months!
