Who could I pitch to?
What's a good deal?
Accelerators/Incubators seem like a potential pitch target sure, maybe even solving most of those problems quite efficiently but they also seem like a path that comes with a bad deal, even more so for this industry
YC does basically 7% for $125k + $375k. Plus mentoring, discounts, access to higher level VCs and so on. https://www.ycombinator.com/deal
The deals seem to drop substantially from the top accelerator, but the bar drops too. I like accelerators though, because going in cold to a larger VC is hard, and just the "acceleration" of a few warm intros is usually worth the 7% or so. You'd be looking to grow 7% weekly anyway, it's not a huge cut even if you get almost no money.
The bad deals are generally the ones that slow you down. These are the guys that drop bad advice, interfere in how things are operating, scare off other investors. Like you don't want to give a portion to a bad accelerator and then try to join YC.
IMO if you're learning a lot just by talking to them, they're probably a good deal. Most will open the door for you, listen to your pitch, give you all kinds of amazing advice and data, then wish you luck. Those ones are good.
This would be my plan C. Although I already have a track record of being key to the development of many successful games, I never published one by myself. I do have something I could finish relatively quickly alone (few months) that would be good for this but it's not where I think I should focus my efforts yet.
However, I found myself often in a role detached from the specific releases, helping on many at once, focusing on the bugs others couldn't fix, on reviewing designs early to pinpoint what could be a problem or done better, jumping in early to establish some solid base to build on, etc. This means my name isn't even in 90%+ of the projects I worked on since I wasn't directly affiliated on it at the time credits were written and for the others, my role is probably nonsense. Those teams remember me, those credits do not. Might not be best at a glance for showing to potential investors but as far as knowing things inside out, I've been involved at nearly every part of developing many different types of games, at least once. I can easily demonstrate that.
I don't have a doubt there that I can build what I intend to and that there's a large market for it, also got various plans on how to reach that market. I'm also aware of how much work that is, how long that could take, places where I can use help that can do things better than I could, who that help could be, and more but I'm also unaware of a lot of things beyond developing and publishing, that there's a lot more I'll have to learn on the way and probably a lot of extra things to do I'm not even thinking of yet.
Starting with pretty much all the stuff that has to do with starting a business with more than just me
One of the options I'm considering is to straight up send emails to some of the business owners I've worked with that are aware of my impact and ask if they want to give this a shot-- but not sure under what terms I could present that
Still, if the goal is showing I can build the thing, easy. Showing it can be profitable? I can back this with numbers. Having plans on how to reach that market? I've got many before even considering involving a publisher. Will everything in there work perfectly as I planned? unlikely but I'll ramp up, adapt AND seek the help I can.
I'm currently refining the pitch and well, it definitely leaked into this answer
From that I'm getting the implicit information that maybe this is less of a thing I should learn and do on top of all the other things and more of a full time thing I need to learn to let someone else do anyway so I can focus my efforts elsewhere.
I was under the impression that a burst of investment in this early stage might be sufficient for now and that this might only take a couple weeks to sort out if I can find some guidance to make sure I don't forget anything major along the way.
There's also that I'm not convinced I know someone I'd trust to be that person
>and that this might only take a couple weeks to sort out
Unless you have the demo to end all demos and some VC connections, I don't think "a couple of weeks" is anywhere near realistic to sort our a "burst of investment". Not to any amount enough to hire to make a dev team, as you said is your goal.
"Six months to a year, and after quite a lot of struggle" is probably more realistic.
Been there, my experience can mostly be summed up by seeing how your work will become pointless due to internal issues of your clients. I was successful enough at it but it was killing me, I get too invested in the products I work on for staying at that kind of distance.
