With 2022 coming to an finish and the final working day of the 12 months shedding steam, I needed to replicate on the great and dangerous we skilled as a workforce. Personally, I see it as a technique to course of what we did properly and never so properly within the final 12 months and as a springboard to maneuver ahead.
the victories
We’re turning 10 years younger! It’s not a stunning feat contemplating the previous few years in financial phrases and for those who have a look at enterprise on the whole, many firms disappear lengthy earlier than reaching this milestone. I’m very pleased to have surpassed the statistics and I stay up for one other 10 nice years.
Effectively, 2022 introduced us some unimaginable wins: we acquired 2 software program firms:
- My digital workplace – the start of what we see as a metaverse for work the place we need to create an excellent place for people to do their finest work.
- Hundreds of thousands of minds – a quiz and gamification platform that enables companies to actively entice new leads in enjoyable methods, to which we can be including extra sport codecs.
The acquisitions have been made potential as a result of a number of folks believed in us sufficient to make these instruments shine and provides them a return on their funding. Whereas we’re nonetheless engaged on the latter, we’re grateful for the funding and belief in us to develop software program subscriptions and switch them into worthwhile income streams for the corporate.
We welcomed a number of new prospects to our books, who got here to us for the next causes:
- Appeal to new workers of a really particular sort
- Buyer loyalty in a digital house with video games.
- Encourage app customers to do extra and work together extra with the app to realize your prospects’ objectives.
- Strategic work for a wide range of purchasers to include gamification into their utility, onboarding, recruiting, and studying.
- Exploring creating board video games and digital video games for a studying group.
- I designed a number of video games for model promotion, recruitment and lead era.
Buyer sizes ranged from cellular and desktop app house owners with small groups to multinationals and authorities companies.
the losses
Yearly has its challenges and this 12 months is not any completely different. We misplaced loads financially when a crypto shopper we have been creating a number of video games and digital house tasks for defaulted on its obligations. We nonetheless have a few of their video games on the market if you’re on the lookout for a drag racing sport, a on line casino metaverse with a number of video games, or a sequence of arcade video games.
Because of the monetary results which have unfold all year long, we additionally misplaced some unimaginable workforce members and a provider we valued working with. As an proprietor, it at all times hurts when this occurs, however typically you actually haven’t got the means to vary the scenario rapidly sufficient to fulfill some folks. Both manner, we want them one of the best of their future endeavors.
I spent a lot of the 12 months on the lookout for investments, $6 million to be precise, and failed to achieve this determine. We attracted some funding curiosity which helped generate among the income and a few have been ready for a lead investor, which we by no means received. We got here very shut twice with 2 completely different traders promising to pay the complete quantity, just for different causes to pressure them to again out. Consequently, we misplaced some acquisitions and I wasn’t capable of understand my whole imaginative and prescient in a single go. Our metaverse imaginative and prescient for MyGNation will take longer to appreciate than initially deliberate, which I believe is a disgrace, however given the state of the financial system it is probably not a foul factor in the long run.
the teachings
Once you’re formidable as a enterprise proprietor and you do not attain your massive purpose, it is simple to beat your self up about it and lose observe of the belongings you completed. For me that is essentially the most tough factor to just accept. A smart mentor as soon as mentioned, whenever you goal for the moon and land among the many stars, you might be nonetheless a part of the trail there and that too is to be applauded.
From a philosophical perspective with hindsight information, I’m wondering if I had put the identical effort into looking for gross sales as I did into looking for investments, would I’ve been in a greater place both manner? Clearly I do not know a definitive reply to this, however my hunch is that we could possibly be in a greater place, at the least financially. Within the funding world, ladies nonetheless obtain just one% to 2% of all accessible cash, even with safe enterprise fashions corresponding to software program as a service, so by some means I knew it was yet another battle. massive after I began, however I labored on it. laborious to win. Moreover, the truth that the mandatory financing was used for acquisitions provides additional limits to traders. That’s the reason we are actually reviewing and reconsidering our path ahead. Both manner, I realized a variety of new terminology from going by means of the investor journey and what traders are on the lookout for. For the subsequent 12 months, I’ll shift my focus to gross sales to reach on the definitive reply to this philosophical query.
From a really sensible perspective, we now have a newly revised fee coverage the place we’re looking for an rising pool of recent and doubtlessly dangerous purchasers. Sooner or later, we may even cease being a monetary firm for giant multinationals which have fee phrases of as much as 120 days, which is just not sustainable in our enterprise mannequin, the place we rely on a number of freelancers who need to be paid. prematurely. Typically I want individuals who work for giant firms understood the impression that limitless credit score and limitless adjustments have on a small enterprise. Anyway, we have been tweaking this coverage yearly to ensure we will nonetheless assist ourselves and our folks, however 2022 was not the 12 months we received it proper. It’s also one of many most important driving forces for shifting from an company mannequin to a subscription mannequin in order that we will have extra predictable income and extra sustainable work for our inner workforce.
Through the years this has been a problem, however what does not kill us makes us stronger. So let’s wait and work laborious in order that in 2023 we flip the ship round and set sail in the direction of a lot happier horizons.
Thanks
I want to thank all our purchasers and traders for the belief and religion they’ve positioned in us in 2022. We are going to do every little thing we will to make the tasks an incredible success in 2023 in order that all of us get the rewards we deserve.
Most of all, I want to thank the members of the Gamification Nation workforce, who’ve been with me throughout this quite bumpy 12 months; With out you we could not have achieved what we did this 12 months. I sincerely hope to have you ever with me for a very long time and proceed constructing what we got down to do with nice rewards to share.
Every closed 12 months is a ebook full of fine and never so good experiences, stuffed with reminiscences that enrich us. Each starting of a brand new 12 months is a brand new chapter of a brand new ebook that hopes to be stuffed with pleased reminiscences, let’s make 2023 an incredible 12 months!!!
Blissful new 12 months!
