Wild Pockets Shanna Tellerman - Part 2

Previously we'd been talking to Shanna about how she accidentally fell into the industry and the Wild Pockets engine itself but in part 2 we discuss setting up your own small business, how she's been treated as a woman in the industry and more.

You can catch up with Part 1 here and a big thanks you to our freinds at Girl Geek Scotland for putting us in contact.

You've built the groundwork for such an intensely collaborative environment. Do you have visions about where that's going to lead?

ST: The only reason we're not entirely open source is because the plug in for the browser needs to be secure. As a user you wouldn't download a plug in that had been collaborated on by thousands of people across the globe as you'd have no idea what might be in there. Everything else from our tools to the physics system exist to open up the eyes of the developers.

We want it to be a very open system. It is free and community based and just a step away from being open source and one of the exciting things is what does it mean to have it all hosted and all online working in this shareable system where anything can be shared with anyone else.

I think that's the future of how many products will be built. You've seen it happening in other industries and this is just repeating what is out there.

So has the process of building Wild Pockets from the start been good for you?

ST: It's been a crazy journey.
It's been four years and I started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Not in Silicon Valley and I think people in Scotland are more technologically saavy then a lot of us were.

In my interview with Tom Griffiths he said one advantage of being away from Silicon Valley was being able to separate yourself from the bleeding edge buzz. Did you find the same in Pittsburgh?

ST: One hundred percent. Our engineering team now represents my best balance now I'm based in Silicon Valley because everyone there wants that bleeding edge buzz. They'll ask when the iPhone application is out and with so many developers making apps for the iPhone you couldn't possibly expect to stand out. So it's good to catch it right at the beginning and not so much at the tail end.

Its beneficial being in a place where you can see new trends but you can also see the size of the trend which may be good but might also be an area many developers are looking to move into. So if you are developing an iPhone app you need to consider whether to make a web version to and that impact can be huge.

The downside of starting in Pittsburgh was that I had little experience and hadn't planned on starting a company. I also thought that when I started it that an investor and a CEO would come in and I was going to concentrate on the product side. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how I was going to set up a company I just expected that someone would join the team who knew that.

Also because it's not in Silicon Valley you don't have the really unique systems in place to help you set those things up at the start so I made a ton of mistakes. All kinds of little things and the legal, banking and accounting side of things is a little more expensive because the business environment is different.

In Pittsburgh things are cheaper and people are a lot more loyal, in Silicon Valley they jump about a lot and charge three times as much as the last job. So as I said people are loyal, dedicated, smart and super eager to try something new. I'd have to sell three companies to be able to afford a house in Silicon Valley.

It's the best of both worlds now because two years ago investors and other people were saying that you really need to have a presence in Silicon Valley if they we're going to put money into the company. Now I'm there it means we have the connections and resources, access to money, access to experience and the network that comes out of the area.

I didn't move anyone else though as they're a team and I wanted to maintain that creative development hub outside of that area.

So they keep you grounded.

ST: Yeah. There are times when I'll tell them about this really great thing I've been told about, "You can use Twitter to do this".

Sometimes they get it and sometimes they'll say, "Yeah, we need to finish this first."

Are you happy to talk a little more about the company development?

ST: Yes of course. A large part of what my talks are about is what I did wrong.

It was much easier to start than you would think. If there's an end message to my talks it's, "Get started immediately". The sooner you start the better because you have to get that idea out there and you learn from trying it. In fact it's so valuable what you can get from the experience.

Starting wasn't bad and the first thing we did was get a contract which had little to do with the project we wanted to build and the profit it would make was tiny but it still allowed me to bring two other people onboard.

The three of us then worked on this little project and apart from that I hired people to draw up contracts and an accountant, because the last thing I wanted to do was get the taxes wrong, but none of that was too expensive.

We worked out of a small corner of someone else's office space and I remember we had to use a door as a desk top but that was after a month and a half working at my kitchen table.

If you have a little bit of savings then you can start in your kitchen and then move on to a corner of office space. At first no one was giving us funding and you need to get over the mental hurdle that it's not so scary and that what you're doing is quite cool. The harder thing is drawing out a license with a third party. That took a few months.

In June of that year about 6 months after starting we got a tiny droplet of funding but it got us moving.

You asked me about mistakes though and one of my biggest was with co-founders. I made advisers to the project from university co-founders. If they don't actually join full time then it's going to be a mistake. A co-founder for a company has to dive in there with you.

Major advice would be that if you're unsure of their commitment then add them in as advisors, make them stakeholders, whatever but if they're co-founders and not directly attached to the company then it can cause problems later. Everyday there will be this problem or that problem and if they've got another job that's paying them and taking up their time they'll send you an e-mail saying they haven't has a chance to look at things or they're going away.

You want to say, "No. I need an answer in the next hour". If they can't do that then they're not a co-founder they're just an advisor. It's a lot easier if they're not co-founders because then you don't have to run it by them.

I can understand that.

ST: It's really important that people are compensated in both equity and ownership of the company. People need to know their responsibilities so when you have a title like founder or co-founder they take the responsibility on their shoulders and if the thing doesn't work then they help make decisions to make things happen, or not happen.

If they're not in there totally then it's easy for them to step out and say, "Well this is up to you", or "I have no other income, I barely have enough income for this." You have to make it work or you have to go and get a job.

You can't really dabble. If I was to start another company I would be a little more careful who I got involved. If you develop a prototype with a group of people who have played around with it together you generate a sense of ownership. You're either in or you're not.

We had to deal with this pitfall a little later on but we did so well.

Another issues marketing. With the technology we were focussing on in the university we had a very narrow vision considering the technology we were dealing with. We realised we had to start thinking of a much larger market size to be funded and also to have something to grow that would be interesting. It's not just focussing on a slice of the market but ensuring that you're focussing on the right slice and the right entry point into the market.

Originally we were looking at education and training but obviously given the technology and the 3D environments gaming was a much more logical environment so we switched into gaming.

Have you encountered any blocks as a female in the industry?

ST: I think it's the opposite actually. There have been lots of opportunities, really cool things like this [The opportunity to do talks and meet the industry in the UK].

This never would have happened if I was just one more guy who started a game company. It's been a chance to integrate with really excellent networks and some great things have happened as there are not that many women in games in the first place let alone a woman who sets up a game company.

Although there are more women coming into games studios Wild Pockets is creating a game engine. We're in a very male orientated environment and I find the potential disadvantages of being a woman are far outweighed by the advantages I have found.

The nice thing for this generation is that I have rarely had to think about gender ever so it doesn't block me.

How did you build the team?

ST: It hasn't been so hard to recruit because games are cool and a lot of people want to work in games.

In Pittsburgh there are not so many games companies so if you're a student there it's easier to see the companies that have a good reputation. One of the first artists we hired worked with me in university and I knew him and he's still part of the company. The other programmer we got right at the beginning was also from Carnegie Mellon University, a computer scientist and a creative guy who sounded really cool.

The team resonates with the product we're trying to produce because there's this cool gaming outcome and also because they get to use their talents in an open environment. If we can help the small guys do that it's great. Recruiting hasn't been so hard and for me it's learning who, how, when, what experience and how this new fresh talent is going to help energise the product.

You have to know the stakes. Energy isn't always experience and you have to find a good balance.

Do you have any advice on the best solution?

ST: I'm still figuring that out. I'll try one thing and then another to see how best this balances out. There's this careful balance between confidently knowing exactly what you're building but also letting other people have input.

I rely very heavily on the fact that one female trait in leadership is they like to involve people in the decision making process whilst males tend to take a direct lead. They're just different styles. I spend a lot more time asking peoples opinions but you can only do that to a certain extent before you have to make a decision.

The excitement and energy of someone new meeting the team can be infectious. If you feel very good about how things are going, whether you're at the bottom or top of the "rollercoaster ride" then that can maintain that momentum.

It's a lot harder when I'm on the other coast to maintain that energy in the company but I try really hard to keep it up. We have Monday and Friday meetings on Skype and I try to maintain communications as much as possible.

I'm really waiting for really good videoconferencing that's free on Skype.

Is anyone else working on your browser based model?

ST: In terms of broader based browser engines Unity is one that's seven years old so in some terms they are ahead of us but we don't see them as a competitor.

The other big challenge is around plug ins. Something like Flash is ubiquitous so there are certainly elements of what we're doing for Flash but there are other less common elements. There are other communities where you can congregate as a developer and get your Flash game up there. So there have definitely been models that have shown that Wild Pockets will work and we have the advantage of introducing 3D modelling

It's actually nice to know there's only one competitor as the games industry has so much going on that to find a narrow area, which we think is bleeding edge, with 3D browser based game development and only one other company developing and pushing it makes it much easier for us to build the infrastructure.

On the asset side there's a lot of music companies that have assets. One company called Music Shake allows you to build your own music tracks and mix them together. Quite a lot of sound related companies approach us as they're looking for a way to get their sounds used by game developers. They're probably not artists or sound developers but some of them are great musicians.

Having access to great music and sound effects you can add to your game is so much a part of the gaming experience. It's vital so we become a connection point where they come into our marketplace and sell it to developers.

If your mind was a place what would it look like?

ST: Oh God!

I imagine a really high ceiling and tons and tons of draws you can reach for. There would be ideas coming out of everywhere all the time and they're possibly not prioritised in any order.

Then there are a few that come back and are focussed on. Like my company.

You'll come back to us when you remove the Beta.

ST: Oh yes but we'll probably remove the "Beta" label quietly one day.

We'd like to thank Shanna for her time and offer both the Wild Pockets team and her our best wishes for the future.