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    We Weren't Facebook
    We Weren't Facebook
    We Weren't Facebook
    Ebook150 pages1 hour

    We Weren't Facebook

    By Malcolm Sutherland

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    About this ebook

    This book tells the story about a student-led new-start business project in the west of Scotland during the years 2010-2012, which did not succeed. The author was one of a few people in the Glasgow area who launched a digital media company in 2010. This book mainly focusses on the projects launched by the company TuDocs Ltd, of which the author played a central role. In February 2010, TuDocs Ltd launched an e-portfolios website and network for computer games students, graduates, academics and games industry employers. The aim was to encourage students to set up their own computer games new-start companies, build and sell games and programs, and build up experience in order to become more employable and to enter the games industry. A few students did succeed, but the e-portfolios werbsite was largely unsuccessful and was closed down in later 2011. TuDocs Ltd launched many other projects, which failed for a variety of reasons. A few students in contact with the author launched their companies, but they all failed to generate profits. This book tells the story of the whole vision, and what actually happened.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMalcolm Sutherland
    Release dateJan 22, 2014
    ISBN9781310032219
    We Weren't Facebook
    Author

    Malcolm Sutherland

    Brought up in East Fife, Scotland. Experienced research chemist and student support worker. Organised several projects on behalf of computing students, including an e-portfolios careers website in 2010. Currently a freelance proof-editor and editor-in-chief of an academic journal.

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      Book preview

      We Weren't Facebook - Malcolm Sutherland

      We Weren’t Facebook

      Written by Dr Malcolm Alexander Sutherland

      Copyright of the author

      Registered address: 5 Golf Course Road, Skelmorlie, North Ayrshire, Scotland (UK)

      First edition published 24 January 2014. Updated version 29 July 2014.

      Smashwords Edition - Licence notes:

      This ebook is licenced for personal reading and research only. This ebook may not be reproduced, re-sold or distributed to other people. None of its contents shall be broadcast or shared with the general public, e.g. in lectures, at conferences, etc. If you would like to provide a copy of this book to someone else, please purchase an additional copy.

      Please note that this book contains descriptions (and references to) real people, companies and organisations. Unless stated otherwise, the names of these people, companies and organisations have been changed or concealed for legal reasons.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Chapter 1: Introduction

      Chapter 2: The recession takes its toll

      Chapter 3: I can’t do this on my own

      Chapter 4: The launch of the e-portfolios website

      Chapter 5: The other new-start companies

      Chapter 6: GGG

      Chapter 7: The decline and closure of the e-portfolios website

      Chapter 8: The hopeless search for funds and grants

      Chapter 9: Trying to open a company bank account

      Chapter 10: The first TuDocs studio team

      Chapter 11: The Route 77 disaster

      Chapter 12: Resignation and reinvention

      Chapter 13: The Computer Games Journal

      Chapter 14: Saving Company S

      Chapter 15: Office space - the great escape which never was

      Chapter 16: The computer games academy project

      Chapter 17: Final attempts to make the games studio work

      Chapter 18: Termination

      Chapter 19: Final remarks – ‘making bricks without straw’

      Further information

      Chapter 1: Introduction

      On an early October morning in 2012, the latest edition of Develop magazine landed on my doorstep (see figure below). Its front page featured a headline about two men with no money who decided to develop a computer games studio and try to woo Microsoft. I could not believe my eyes. I was stunned. Part of me wanted to laugh; part of me wanted to cry; part of me wanted to punch the wall in a fit of anger; part of me wanted to cheer on these guys and tell them to go get 'em.

      I have never met these two individuals. However, I know enough to say that these intrepid men are either very well-connected, or are very naive. Whenever I see any poster or article with a picture of a smiling young person bragging about starting his or her own company, it breaks my heart. It’s like watching a wide-eyed, laughing teenage boy signing up to fight in a war. I write this because I am a veteran entrepreneur, and although I have learned so much, I often wish I had just spent all those lost years earning a steady income in a ‘straight job’.

      The front cover of Develop magazine (October 2012)

      During late 2009, I was a lowly scribe (a note-taker) working 10 hours a week at The Institute, a university in the Glasgow area. In early 2010, several computing students, lecturers, games industry pros and other people around me were invigorated with a big idea. We had a vision - the rise of dozens of new-start video games and IT companies run by students and recent graduates in and near the Greater Glasgow area.

      Even now after all I have endured, I still marvel at the vision. We dreamed of a whole new Silicon Valley or Silicon Glen emerging in the west of Scotland. We egged on computing students in colleges and universities in and around Glasgow to go the extra mile, set up their own companies, and develop and sell programs and games. Managers and programmers in the games industry would benefit as these students rose above their station, and did more than simply complete coursework and pass modules. Students who were promised nothing except mass unemployment would invent their own jobs, build their own products, and generate their own incomes. Such experience was, and still is, highly valued by existing employers in the video games and digital media industries.

      This idea seemed foolhardy, but it was not unprecedented. During the 1990s, an entirely new industry emerged among the ruins of Dundee’s jute mills and dockyards. Local college and university students and other coders forged video games which became legend, including Lemmings™ and the notorious Grand Theft Auto™. We yearned for a similar ‘incubator’ in the west of Scotland.

      The wonderful thing about programming and building video games, is that all you need is a wall socket, a laptop, a few manuals, internet access (including a remote server), plus some CDs and pen drives. That’s it! No real estate; no landlords; no office rental; no hiring and maintaining a mass array of mechanical equipment (with all the health and safety regulations); no vehicles; no lifting and shifting heavy goods; no fixed abode. You might even get away with doing it all by yourself, without the hassle of recruiting and firing employees and other hired hands. Just build your program or game, and let the internet do the rest. Even back in 2009, the days of the physical boxed video games were numbered.

      You can set up an online company at home, strike gold, and make computers do all the hard work. It is possible - indeed, it has been proven. Need I mention Facebook, a billion-dollar e-company, which was started by two students on a computer in a student digs in Harvard? Angry Birds™ was created by two blokes in a house, and is now a multi-million dollar global phenomenon. Bloons™ was created by hard-up graduates working as shelf-stackers in Dundee. The list goes on. In theory, you can set up your own digital media company

      In theory...

      In practice, the processes of setting up a company, finding out what people want, building and selling products, and making a healthy profit, are so hard to predict, that I will not even begin to try and discuss how this can be done.

      So why am I writing this book? There is no shortage of ‘How to start your own company’ books, many of them written by successful businesspeople or consultants, who give the impression that they have all the answers. What makes this book different?

      For a start, I am writing about a real example of business failure, and not just of one business, but of a whole stream of them launched in the same region, around the same time. People like to publish success stories, and rarely sit down and examine failures. This is not the sort of story you would want to share in a job interview. I could be exaggerating, but in the UK today, there is so much stigma attached to failure, and people avoid talking and writing about it. Managers and workers will lie, make excuses, and threaten people around them, in an effort to conceal failure.

      This book is a tale of how a group of companies launched by ambitious computing students and staff at one university in the Greater Glasgow area either failed completely, or didn’t quite become massively profitable and successful. It is no state secret that the large majority of new businesses go bust within a few months or years. And this does not always boil down to the entrepreneur’s own stupidity.

      I aim to describe in this book what was planned, what did happen, and (where possible) why all our plans failed to materialise. I may suggest reasons why, but I am not writing a ‘How-to’ book. If someone is chronically lazy and refuses to do any market research or hard work, then of course his or her company will fail. However, you can be intelligent, possess relevant industry knowledge and experience, be ambitious and talk to hundreds of people...and still fail.

      When my co-directors and I set up TuDocs Ltd in early 2010 – for I didn’t go about this all on my own – we held high hopes, and we didn’t know what was waiting for us as we pursued a wide range of ideas. We had networks, and were in contact with dozens of people with brilliant ideas, skills, experience and money. Yet we failed. And it wasn’t just us. Several other students and graduates known to us launched their companies in 2010 and 2011, and did not even come close to achieving their original goals. Those companies either closed down, or became dormant, or remained as little more than hobbies.

      The Great Start-up Revolution That Wasn’t – Overview

      I now feel amazed and humbled that some companies were launched, and some students entered the games industry proper, as a result of the efforts of so many people including me back in 2010 and 2011. Within The Institute (wherein much TuDocs Ltd activity occurred), four other companies were being run by students and others in one department (see figure). Another one (Company L) was launched by a close friend of mine, who was not involved with anything at the Institute, but who became a freelance web developer in 2011.

      The new-start companies that were active alongside TuDocs Ltd, which were launched by people within The Institute (with the exception of Company L)

      In this book, I mainly describe all the ideas, events, decisions and problems, which my co-directors and I faced in our new-start company of TuDocs Ltd.

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