Two Dozen Things that affect my investment decisions.

A dozen things that turn me OFF

1) Founders have other projects \ jobs and the startup in question is their side gig.

2) Founders have < 50% of equity before round A. In extreme cases no equity at all and the company is wholly owned by a passive investor.

3) The person who is fundraising is not a decision-maker, sometimes not even a shareholder.

4) Founders don’t look to raise investments, they look for feedback (aka free consultation).

5) Founders are looking for cash-out on early-stage rounds.

6) After we’ve got an agreement, the founders changed their minds and now want more money.

7) Founders don’t know what they want and expect me to offer them something.

8.) Existing investors do not want to participate in the current round.

9) Founders want to start the development of 5+ games or 2–3 games in absolutely different niches simultaneously.

10) Founders do not want to grow their business and focus on regular generous dividends.

11) The company running out of money and has no more than 2 weeks of runway.

12) Existing investors or publishers have the first refusal right in the next round or with the next title respectively.

A dozen things that turn me ON

1) Founders are excited about their idea, did some market research to support it, and are able to clearly formulate it and get me excited.

2) One of the founders has a tech or marketing background

3) Founders are focused on creating original IPs and developing a franchise \ universe.

4) Founders want to create something bigger than they were (successfully) making before. For instance — a hyper-casual studio wants to transit to hyper-core/mid-core/casual.

5) Founders want to create something disrupting and there is an insight why nobody has done it yet and why it is worth trying.

6) Founders have some unfair advantages — proprietary technology, access to the pool of talents, strong players community, excellence in live ops or analytics, etc.

7) Founders (and preferably the core team) have been working on a $1m+/month game. Scale matters, it forms the mindset, expectations, and goals.

8 ) Founders are able to (gently) push back on my feedback, defend their vision, and provide reasonable arguments.

9) Founders are thinking about how to retain top talents, considering equity options for the core team.

10) Founders are just easy and pleasant to talk to, and we had fun discussing the opportunity.

11) The demo is fun to play even if there is virtually no content yet, and it demonstrates the very idea of the game, its unique feature(s). Major risks are addressed or known how to be solved.

12) Founders are passionate gamers

It is also great if the company has reputable investors on board or if they are committed to participating in this round. But as we are focusing on the early stages we expect to discover talents before anyone else — so that’s not a mandatory requirement.