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[Ajene]

Kinda stuck at the moment lol, OK here goes, it might be long (I have probably typed this out multiple times now) So I dropped out of college for my business degree and joined the army. I suffered multiple injuries and "soldiered" through them to deploy but wasn't allowed to due to injuries. I cant really draw anymore due to my hand constantly shaking, Programming has always been hard before and now with injuries to my head it seems to be harder.

I can still work well with business for some reason its something that never went away along with music.

I'm starting up with a 2 friends from highschool, would this be a good idea? One can draw a bit and is good with finance, the other can play multiple instruments and we use to collaborate together to make songs.

I cant really make a big business plan at the moment and we aren't applying for funding or anything, is it really needed? would a short hand set of goals and mission work better for at least setting a direction?

Funding isn't a problem at least for me, but I'm going to be putting forth most of the money, any advice for that?

I'm also wanting to know should I put in the papers to create the business now? (going with an LLC) Or should we wait to finish up a few projects?

there are just a ton of things going through my head, along with the fact of the many problems I've faced in service, I seem to understand explosives more then I understand indie games now and a lot of this frustrates me on how I'm gonna be able to get back into my old passion.

[Ant]

Wow that's a brutal story, good to hear you cracking on with it.  

Anyway I think a big problem you face is that you've got three people who don't seem to have experience in the stuff needed to make games on a professional level, lack of coder being the obvious one. The indie scene is hard enough to compete with thousands of teams out there at the best of times, but to do it with limited skills is incredibly difficult.

So I think the first thing you need to do is sort out your goals. Do you want to just do this as almost a hobby learning as you go and don't expect to sell a lot? The alternative would be write down all the skills you and your team have then outsource to fill in the gaps.

Also I don't think you need to worry about setting up a business and what not until you have some more solid plans.

[epicwield]

Yes,
I would say finish a game first and then go through the process of starting a business. Also, have you been to any places to help you restore your hand? Programming is not the hardest of tricks to learn, but if you can type a about 40 words per minute you can code...

[petertos]

First things first.

Everything seems nice. I think you should wait to launch a LLC until you have got a couple projects working and bringing revenues, otherwise you should have to close it if you see no profit coming.

Buy a domain name and make a website. Facebook, Twitter... (this is optional).

Approach to games (or any other activity your gonna perform): Make short stuff at the beginning. A quick game, perhaps on flash, to test the market and learn. Then switch to a quick game on Android (the platform is free and you don't need to have much hardware other than the typical), or start with Android. Make a nice graphics arcade and promote it. See how it is going.

A typical mistake would be to spend a year on a game without having experience on making games.

[SterlingDee]

Agree with the others - don't form an LLC. You most likely won't be dealing with a lot of income to start with. Each person should just include their portion of the business income/expenses in their personal tax return (at least that is how it would go down in Canada - I expect the U.S would be similar).

[frankatank34]

Not to just reiterate what others have been saying, but be sure to make a game first, or at least have solid progress on it!

[Muz]

Not to just reiterate what others have been saying, but be sure to make a game first, or at least have solid progress on it!

Not always the right idea. It's really cheap to register a business, like cheaper than getting a T shirt. It lets people quit their day jobs (if there's a salary). It gives accountability to everyone involved... which is probably the biggest reason to do so.


Don't do a LLC yet, it's a bunch of overhead (both time and money) for almost no gain.

Just a standard enterprise with a partnership agreement is good enough. There's overhead there too, but little more than keeping a domain name.

If you're going to hire people, look at passion first, then skillset. Purely random freelancers are poor choices. Never outsource design... you can outsource mindless assembly tasks (character data, beta testing) but never the actual engine or characters. Incentives make things worse; you'll want a good, steady wage instead.

Skills can be picked up fairly easily, but they need motivation and discipline first. Someone with a difficult, stressful job or a difficult degree is a good certification of discipline.

[Eraser]

Not always the right idea. It's really cheap to register a business, like cheaper than getting a T shirt. It lets people quit their day jobs (if there's a salary). It gives accountability to everyone involved... which is probably the biggest reason to do so.

Don't do a LLC yet, it's a bunch of overhead (both time and money) for almost no gain.

Just a standard enterprise with a partnership agreement is good enough. There's overhead there too, but little more than keeping a domain name.

Cheaper than a T-Shirt? Must be nice to live where you are Here in the US I spent about $250 to get setup with an LLC, and the yearly cost is about $200. Honestly, that's still pretty damn cheap. I agree though that's an unnecessary cost this early if you don't have a finished game you're trying to sell.

Things get pretty messy once you want to start including things like joint ownership, IP, and taxes with an LLC too...

[Muz]

Er, LLCs cost about $8k to set up here.

But the simplest kind of business (forgot the english term, the one with full liability) costs about $20 to register with a trade name, half as much if you use your full name. Similar amount to renew every year IIRC.

Here we use the term 'business' to mean the simple one with full liability and 'company' for something like a LLC. Plus businesses come with some legal protection on things like IP and partnership problems so it's well worth it. Otherwise, if you have some informal agreement, good luck trying to claim your investment back if one of your partners dies.

[SterlingDee]

Er, LLCs cost about $8k to set up here.

But the simplest kind of business (forgot the english term, the one with full liability) costs about $20 to register with a trade name, half as much if you use your full name. Similar amount to renew every year IIRC.

8K! woah.

The simple kind of business you are probably referring to is probably a "sole proprietorship" which is why you would use your name. Basically just a one person business.

[Ajene]

My apologies for not responding sooner have been busy with work but some good news.
My discharge has been upgraded due to medical conditions never being taken into account pretty much all this means is I get my college benefits as well now.

Started working with the Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP) and have written my resume and working on Transitioning out and not being stuck in "soldier" mode. Which is helping working with a team of developers doing Marketing and helping out with other parts of it.

Going to be working on own team soon possibly or might try to help other team projects to strengthen some skills such as Design, Marketing and music as those seem to be a few things that havent suffered from injuries. But mostly looking forward to being around Game developers again.

[mychii]

About business plan, as a startup, if you make a pitch, what matters is you; how convincing you are, how they like you, and how are you going to do with your idea. Business plan is just a piece of paper comes from your brain. It'll only be required for formality reasons in the end.
I'm not saying this for you to get investors, but I'm telling you that, YES, you have to set your vision & mission, your goal and objective; your directions. What do you want to give from your company to others? What can you do to keep your company alive? Without those, keeping the team/people inside would be the hardest one. If you're so convincing and have a goal that they see you can reach it, when you say the same thing all over again they'll still listen to you.

About LLC, many stories I heard would go for the game first before establishing a company, unless they're firstly funded by investors. For example, Minecraft, Persson finally established Mojang shortly after a successful paid model of his game.

Unless you're a business man that requires partnership with a few big companies who only accept an established company, I don't see why you have to go for LLC, especially when there are easier access to indie developers since XNA, App Store, and so forth.

Best of luck! hearing your story, I can see you have a potential success, just never give up.

[silverback]

Take a look at s-corp when you do upgrade from a sole proprietorship. It is more difficult to set up but provides a little flexibility if you bring on investors and gets more tax breaks.