
Looking for cofounder/hacker for MMO - JeffL
I have a growing space MMORPG with paying users and positive cash flow.  Last year I decided to really go all out on it and refocused my efforts more on marketing which has worked wonders.  I now have way more paying users than I can handle and need another programmer who is expert in networking/DB/back end C++ programming to take the lead in scaling things up.  I have a gorgeous new graphics engine that will be ready to launch in a couple months and I would love to be able to handle the accompanying influx of new players.  I would prefer someone looking for mostly equity and a cofounder mentality to help me grow this thing.<p>Please email me at Jeff at StarSonata dot com if you have any interest.
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bprater
Check out the book, "How to Get Rich" by Dennis Felix. He's the guy that owns
Maxim magazine. One of his tenets is to never give up any of the ownership of
your company. Period.

One of his stories is about the time that four key employees sat him down and
told him they wanted 25% of the company or they were going to go out and
compete with them. He told them to hit the road. He'd rather do all their jobs
while we found replacements than give a share of his company.

Later on, he estimated that 25% share at $80 million. Oh, and the company they
tried to start folded. And a couple came back to work for him.

You obviously have traction. You have a raving fan base. Don't give up a
substantial portion of your company to someone you don't really know because
you don't want to cut a paycheck.

If your marketing is working and you are making some money with the project,
pay a hacker 100% of the profits and eat beans. You are going to win in the
end.

You may "lose" a few bucks now, but those few dollars could get you your own
island in 10 years.

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jmatt
Balance this against the richest people in the world who did give away equity
when it was appropriate. I guess it depends on the situation.

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mattmaroon
I'm not even sure it depends on the situation, it could be a uniformly dumb
idea that he succeeded in spite of. Every business has at least one of those.

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BlueSkies
I can't help you here - wish you luck, but ...

I was wondering if it was cool with this list to post a job listing for a
cofounder for a startup? I was thinking about doing the same thing, but wasn't
sure about the HN list etiquette?

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antiismist
I think the idea here is that if you think it would be interesting to readers
then you post it. If people like it then they vote it up.

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BlueSkies
Quick newbie question: Does a post require a certain number of points to make
it into the RSS feed? I noticed that not all threads from HN make it into my
Google Reader subscription...

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antiismist
I think the RSS is the same as the front page based on a casual perusal of the
source code:

    
    
      (newsop rss () (rsspage nil))
    
      (newscache rsspage user 90 
        (rss-stories (firstn 25 ranked-stories*)))
    
      (def gen-topstories ()
        (= ranked-stories* (rank-stories 180 1000 (memo frontpage-rank))))
    
    
      (def rank-stories (n consider scorefn)
        (bestn n (compare > scorefn) (recent-stories consider)))

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Luc
Could you please expound on the marketing you did? I have been in a comparable
situation (indie games developer) but found myself a bit lost when it came to
successful marketing. I basically ended up spending thousands of dollars on
Google Adwords, and the return was questionable. I also dropped $1000 on
GamesBannerNet, which had horrible return and was a waste of money. What
worked for you?

~~~
JeffL
I did Google advertising for over a year with very questionable returns and
then I added a new landing page, tons more graphics and screen shots all over
the web site, worked on the first 5 minutes of the game play experience a
bunch, and added a lot more key words to the Google campaign and reduced my
bids by a lot so I was only basically getting the dregs, but getting them
cheap. All these changes took the ROI on advertising from about 1:1 to about
3:1 where it is now. It seems to be almost all about the landing page and the
web site, at least in my experience.

Before I focused on marketing, I spent a solid year just improving the game
with negligible financial effect. The first month I spent enhancing the
website had 10x more effect than all the game play improvements I've ever
done.

~~~
Luc
Thanks, that's really useful, and makes a lot of sense considering my
experience too. I am going to take this to heart and work harder on the
website!

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allenbrunson
that looks really, really cool. i have significant experience in all the areas
you mentioned, and was pretty close to emailing you, when i saw your client
app appears to be windows-only. and since it looks like you're using directx,
the possibility of a mac port seems slim. i just can't bring myself to sit in
front of a windows box all day.

best of luck to you all the same. looks like you've got a winner on your
hands.

~~~
JeffL
Our new graphics engine which will be coming out in a couple months is based
on the open source Irrlicht graphics engine which is Windows, Linux, and
MacOS. We're just going to support Windows at first, but in theory, versions
for the other systems should be pretty easy as we're using cross platform
sound and networking libraries as well.

I am torn, though, in deciding whether or not to support these other platforms
even if the port is quite easy. I don't know if the extra people that it would
bring in would be worth the extra QA to maintain three different versions on
the client.

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maxniederhofer
sounds interesting - depending on how much revenue you generate and how you
see yourself strategically in relations to folks like EVE/CCP games, it may be
a good time to speak to a VC...

max (maxniederhofer.com)

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JMiao
man, i wish i could check this out. good luck.

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JMiao
i mean, i run a mac. jesus.

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ajkirwin
Nice game, Jeff, if a little buggy. :)

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ajross
No offense, but this sounds a little shady. Maybe part of this is because it's
a game project, which inevitably suffer from terminal optimism. But if you
really have a working product and more paying users than you can handle, why
are you looking for another "founder". This is the time where you should be
hiring employees, not splitting the business risk.

~~~
JeffL
I could raise more money and hire an employee with the expertise I need, but
then I would dilute and give shares to the investors. I would prefer to dilute
by giving shares to another programmer who wants to work with the start-up
mentality and really shoot for the stars. If I don't find someone with the
skills the project requires who wants to work largely for equity soon then I
will hire someone to do it as an employee or a contractor. Didn't PG write
that you should always prefer employees who want as much equity as possible?

~~~
swivelmaster
Maybe co-founder isn't the right word. That implies an even split of equity.
Is that what you mean? Is this about offering someone 40% or 5%?

