Startups: Real Life Games
Startups can be many things. Besides the dictionary definition, there aren’t two entrepreneurs to define a startup in the same way. For some, it may feel like being a student: you never stop learning (or playing). For others, it may feel like an all-day job: it starts because you have to put food on the table.
No matter the reason why a startup is born, almost every time it transforms into a real-life game. As entrepreneurs, we’re so aware of the gamification technique:
We want to keep our users addicted to the products and services we create, but we also get addicted to our own startup.
It consumes us, just like games make us stay in front of the screen for many hours in a row and not even go to pee. But never once does it feel like “work” or something you had to do. At some point, the reason that made you start this venture no longer exists. However, you’re caught in the game and can’t stop playing it.
There’s even more to this than you can imagine. Different startup phases can be found in games too. Take Need For Speed (NFS) for example:
1. Start the game: Create an MVP
When the game starts you have the worst car possible, with limited functionalities: wheels are spinning and steering wheel is turning. Not much, but it’s just enough to start playing the game and get the feel of it. After all, it’s an MVP, and that is exactly what it has to do.
Take it for a spin, and after a few races you have the validation, it might work out well, but it needs some improvements before you can scale it.
2. Get Traction
Can’t get traction without some good tires, right? After playing few races, you surely gathered enough money to upgrade your tires and get some initial traction. This will help you to continue gaining additional resources (money and reputation) and prove you can handle it.
The resources you earn at this step allow you to continuously make small improvements to your product and even make a new release, or in other words: change the car’s body.
Then you reach the point where the next upgrades are expensive, and big money is hard to earn, even in NFS. You start searching the Internet for cheats. That’s how badly you want that new, shiny engine under the hood of your car.
3. Grow: Get investment
In real life, there are no cheats, and you feel like it will take years to make the next big step in your startup. That’s the moment when startups start seeking investment. Changing the engine will bring you great growth, and you’ll no longer need to struggle to get resources.
The struggle is gone, the growth is expected to continue, and the game easily turns into a routine. You can either keep playing it and beat your highest score (revenue) over and over or exit the game and start a new one.
4. The End?
When playing virtual games, you are aware in a certain manner of their addiction and quitting is a matter of will or just boredom with no further implications as it doesn’t affect people’s lives.
Routine in a startup transforms the addiction into a comfort zone.
In the startups’ world, this is the point where the addiction transforms into a comfort zone. Some are not aware of it, just feel cozy, get caught in the unnoticeable game and dance along. Others are thinking of ways to push for further expansion or to exit the business.
What turns startups into real-life games?
Our burning desire to climb as high as we can on the entrepreneurial ladder pushed us to unknowingly apply game-like elements to the evolution of startups. Pretty much like the gamification method used by many to keep their users addicted.
Games have very specific milestones, achievements, and the whole path from beginning to end cannot be changed, only crossed in different ways. We have websites ranking startups and websites listing startups’ achievements.
Moreover, some startup founders, tend to follow a successful pattern rather than learn and iterate on their own. Startups should have a fluid evolution that’s impossible to predict.
You need to control your startup and not let it control you. Listen to your instinct and use your practical business sense.
The most important consequence of turning startups into games is the potential of addiction and how it consumes us without even realizing it. It is quite disturbing what a huge impact this might have on us in the not so distant future, and we probably won’t notice it until it’s too late.
Startup founders are spending their entire young adulthood working hard to achieve their goals and forget to live their own lives. So every now and then, please shut down that display and live life the real way!
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s leading publication for entrepreneurs and startups.
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