Today is my last day at , and it’s been a wonderful year. I learnt a lot in my time here, and worked on some . At the same time, I’m looking forward to starting a new adventure at and help them become the ! I will be looking for talented engineers to join me at , check out the for more detail. Space Ape Games challenging technical problems DAZN Netflix of Sports DAZN job spec I firmly believe that is one of the best startups you’ll find anywhere, based on culture and potential. Here are 7 things that make such a great company. Space Ape Games Space Ape Games Define what culture you want, and organize yourself to optimize towards achieving that culture Lots companies talk about how great their culture is, but few talks about . Worse yet, I suspect most end up with a culture they don’t want, because the culture grew organically without guidance. what is their culture To this day, the from 2009 is still the best thing you can read about culture. Netflix culture deck Real company values are the behaviours and skills that we particularly value in fellow employees. — Reed Hastings the 9 behaviours and skills Netflix looks for in its people From the beginning, the founders of were clear about the culture they wanted to build. Space Ape Games : you have a passion for games, and you want to build games that are fun and engaging. Passionate : you are not afraid to stray off the beaten path and try something new. You accept the risks that come with creativity. You won’t let failures stop you from succeeding. Creative : you make smart bets. You balance the risks of creativity with methodical analysis of the potential reward to make smart bets. Judgement : you are dependable and trustworthy. We believe in small, autonomous teams. For this to work we need to be able to depend on every individual in the team. Dependable : when required, you can put aside personal projects and focus on delivering the best game possible. Focus : you are a master of your craft. You want to become the best version of yourself and are always looking for ways to improve. Mastery : you work well with others. You are willing to make sacrifices and compromises for the greater good of the company. Game making is an inherently creative and collaborative process. We need people that can thrive in a collaborative environment. Collaborative : you welcome others for who they are. You treat others equally and fairly, the same way that you expect to be treated. Inclusive The founders reiterate this vision at every quarterly company meeting. New employees are imbued with the same vision. Existing employees are reminded of their duty to maintain this proud product. “People are our most important product.” — John Earner (CEO, Space Ape Games) Culture lives and dies by the people you hire and fire This shared understanding of culture filters through to every hiring decision. Both founders, (CEO) and (COO), are involved with every hiring decision. John Earner Simon Hade “ ” is often used to enforce existing biases, when said culture is never defined up front. That was never been the case in any of the hiring committees I have sat in. Whenever “culture fit” is raised as a concerned, you must give clear examples from your interaction with the interviewee. culture fit At the same time, we wouldn’t hire someone who might be detrimental to our culture. Not even when we are desperate for another pair of hands on deck! The cost of a bad hire on our culture is too great. The founders also act as the vanguards for our culture. Watching from afar, but never afraid to step in when they see danger signs. If a long time employee starts to show signs of self-entitlement, then expect a gentle reminder about our commitment on inclusion. mentions this regularly, and I think it’s a message worth sharing. John “We have a great culture, but we can’t afford to take it for granted. It’s the duty of everyone here to keep that culture.” — John Earner (CEO, Space Ape Games) People are our most important product This is true for most companies. Which is why it should be a no-brainer to invest in the people and help them grow. Offer training budgets to everyone, and provide managers with management coaches. At , every manager including the founders see management coaches regularly. Space Ape Games Founders need to communicate the vision of the company openly, clearly, and frequently Avoid impressive sounding but vague mission statements. Vague goals that does not define clear, actionable targets are hard to follow and apply. Collaboration suffers when people do not have a of the company vision. shared understanding reiterates the company mission at every quarterly company meeting. The has been important in reinforcing the of the goal. I recently also saw , the CEO of say the same thing on Twitter. John repetition shared understanding Ryan Caldbeck CircleUp ’s mission statement is . Simple, unglamorous, but easy to understand. Our partnership with also showed us what a top grossing game looks like from a retention and monetization point of view. Space Ape “to build a top grossing mobile game by owning a genre” Supercell Be honest about conflict of interest Managers usually have the best intentions when they set out personal objectives for their charge. Everyone gets a set of objectives that align with the company’s goal. Where is the conflict of interest? What you might think when assigning everyone’s personal objectives. Things never work out as you expect though. What always happens is that some projects will go more smoothly than others. At the same time, some projects delivers more value to the company than others. Nod if this scenario sounds familiar. You’re working on project X, and your end of year pay rise, bonus and promotion hopes are all riding on the success of project X. A colleague is working on project Y, he needs you to work on something to unblock his project. Project Y is more valuable to the company, but helping this colleague means losing progress on project X. What do you do? Do you do the right thing by the company and help this colleague? In the process you might lose the pay rise, bonus and promotion that you have worked so hard for? Or do you put his request on the backlog and focus on project X? Hello, . conflict of interest What actually happens when people are asked to make sacrifices for the good of the company. If you think this only happens in poorly run companies, then you’re wrong. Even Google is not immune to this conflict of interest, as is evident in Michael Lynch’s on why he quit Google. article Teamwork requires sacrifice. willing In football, a “team player” carries the connotation of being willing to sacrifice oneself for the team. Be it risking injury in a 50–50 challenge, or passing to a teammate who’s more likely to score. How do you translate this to the work place? How do you encourage people to make willing sacrifices for the good of the company? You have to start by being honest about this conflict of interest. Your employees are not saints, they are flesh and blood with real world problems. What if they need the pay rise to start a family? And what’s wrong with wanting career progression? Employees have every right to act in their best interest. It is your job as employer to . create an environment where employees are not penalised for making self-sacrifice does this in several ways. Space Ape Games The biggest one is to . separate personal objectives & 360 reviews from performance & salary reviews Personal objectives are for your personal development only. Your manager can help you decide what areas to improve on, but the final decision is yours. You’re encouraged, but , to set personal objectives. not required 360 reviews are also for you and you alone. You choose who you want feedbacks from, and how to proceed with the feedbacks you receive. The feedbacks are anonymised, and only the manager of the reviewer can see the feedbacks. This is mainly to mitigate any unnecessary tension from ill-considered feedbacks. Your manager and the founders are also there to help you process the feedbacks if you need them. Performance and salary reviews are based on what you , not some arbitrary targets that were set months ago. actually contributed to This unusual way of working started with a frank discussion about this conflict of interest. It has been iterated upon over time and will continue to evolve. It’s been such a fresh breath of air for me to work for a company that not only recognizes the problem but actively seeks to tackle it. Marry creativity with ownership To cultivate creativity from the whole company, we use one or two days every month for . Which is a time for game jams and hackathons. Ape Space The game jams generate ideas to feed the top end of our creative funnel. Everyone can come up with ideas for new games. You have the and to polish your idea and pitch it to the rest of the company. ownership responsibility Our creativity funnel for new game ideas. Teams form organically around ideas that we’re excited about and believe can be top grossing. . This is NOT a top-down decision The founders are there to offer guidance and help with personnel movement. Whilst your idea might be great, the founders can guide you on shaping the idea to fit our mission. Is it economically feasible to build? What is the market competition like? Is the genre saturated with high quality offerings already? Does this genre have top grossing potential? Do we have the technical expertise to build it? If not, how difficult is it to hire those expertise? Creativity needs to be guided, and hypothesis needs to be tested. The teams that form around an idea would focus on prototyping and iterating on the idea. The idea becomes a playable game, and the rest of the company would play and provide feedback. The team owns the idea, and is trusted with making the decisions to keep going or kill it if they no longer believe in it. Again, , the decision is with the team and the team . this is NOT a top-down decision ONLY Which brings us to the next point. Recognize that creativity requires mistakes . Creativity needs failures to succeed Being creative and experimenting with new ideas means taking on risks. If you don’t risk you will not win big, at least not without the marketing budget and brand that goes with established brands. To let teams take on risk, and to trust them to make the right decision on the company’s behave to kill a prototype is hard. For this to happen, you need . an environment where employees are not penalised for making self-sacrifice At , we do this by creating a . Space Ape Games safety net for jobs Your job is not tied to the prototype. If a team decides to kill its idea then the team members would move into other game teams, or they’ll stay together and prototype another game idea. To prove this approach works beyond our scale, consider and . The team behind was working on another idea before it. The idea tested well in beta, it had good retention and monetization stats. But it was not great, certainly not on par with . Supercell Clash Royale Clash Royale Clash of Clans The team made the decision to kill the idea because they believed they can do better. So they took the learnings from the previous game, iterated on the ideas further and they created . Clash Royale We recognize that people and their talents are our greatest assets. We choose to over . After all, we have more ideas we want to prototype than we have people to build them! hire and keep great people hire and keep roles The safety net also applies to live games that goes into mode. liveops Conclusions So there you have it. 7 things that I learnt from my time at , one of the best run companies that I have encountered. It has a clear idea for who they want to be, and organizes itself to become that company. Space Ape Games As much as I love the ethos on small autonomous teams and a flat organizational structure. At this stage of my career I am accustomed to having a wide range of responsibilities and I crave it. The opportunity to join Space Ape Games and experience this great culture was too great. But as time went by I felt that itch for more responsibility creeping back. When my old friend pitched me the idea of joining and all the things they’re doing, it was hard to say no. Bruno Tavares DAZN So with a heavy heart, this is my farewell letter to and the great people within. You guys are truly special! Space Ape Games If you want to work with Scala and build fun games whilst tackling challenging technical problems, then is hiring. Check out their page to see the job specs. Space Ape Games careers