ABOUT JOAKIM: LinkedIn | F4 Fund | EliteGameDevelopers

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KEY HIGHLIGHTS

🎮 Transitioning from operations to gaming investments 🕹️
🚀 The journey from founder-operator to angel investor 👼
🧠 Content creation driven by curiosity and insights 📝
💃 Balancing engagement with personal style in writing 📚
😄 Emphasizing the joy of content creation over metrics 📈
🌟 Openness and transparency in the VC approach 💼
👨‍🏫 The importance of mentoring and lessons learned 📚
💰 Challenges in gaming fundraising and advice for early-stage founders 🎯
🎨 Maintaining a unique content style 🎭

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Shamanth:
I’m excited to welcome Joakim Achrén to the Mobile User Acquisition Show.
Joakim, welcome to the show. 

Joakim:
Thanks. It is great to be here.

Shamanth:

I’m thrilled to have you here because you’ve been on our invite list for a while, and for good reason.

You’re a prolific writer and a respected figure in the gaming community, admired by many developers and entrepreneurs.

I would love to start by understanding the transition between your past roles and your current role.

What inspired your transition from being an operator to an investor?

Joakim:
For 15 years I was an operator and founded many gaming companies. My first company started in my twenties, it had to do virtual worlds and I ended up pivoting to social games. I ran that quite well for a few years, then ended up not being able to raise another round of investing when Facebook became an inhospitable place for gaming.

I then took a break from startups and joined Supercell for a period, witnessing the launches of games like Clash of Clans and Hay Day, and wanted to get back into startups.

I started a company called Next Games, which made games like The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land, and The Walking Dead: Our World. We worked on a lot of external IP.

Then, we built a game called Stranger Things with Netflix and that ended up becoming an acquisition where Netflix bought the company.

In 2019, I transitioned into angel investing, driven by my curiosity for entrepreneurship and a desire to stay involved in the startup world.

As an investor, I could continue learning and supporting entrepreneurs while avoiding some of the existential challenges of being a founder.

Now I’m building a venture fund called F4 Fund with David Kaye, and it has its elements of being a founder where you’re operating actually.

Shamanth:
Yeah, having been an entrepreneur and an operator gives you a unique window into what’s important for entrepreneurs and operators.

Your writing reflects this understanding, which is very refreshing as compared to some of the writing that can come across as out of touch with what the day-to-day is.

You’re notably in tune with the industry.

To switch gears into your writing, it’s not an easy skill. What inspired you to start writing and sharing your thoughts and experiences online?

Joakim:

Inspired by content creators, I tried blogging earlier but got busy with founding Next Games.

After leaving, I resumed creative outlets with my 2019 newsletter and podcast, “Elite Game Developers,” focusing on entrepreneurship and gaming.

I find joy in sharing thoughts and reactions through this outlet.

I’ve always skewed towards this kind of content creation – sharing what I’m curious about.

Shamanth:
Yeah, and I like how you mentioned that it’s almost an outlet for your curiosity.

It reminds me of somebody, they said, and I quote “Writing is thinking, and writing is the process by which you figure out answers because there are some answers you can’t think your way to unless you put them down on paper.”

I like the way you connected your curiosity to the act of writing.

Yet, on the surface, there would appear to be not a very clear connection between writing and investing.

So is that a relation, or how do you see the relationship between your writing and your work as an investor?

Joakim: Yeah, sharing your thoughts and insights can lead to meaningful connections.

In four years, I’ve grown my LinkedIn following to nearly 20,000 people. 

As an investor, it’s not just about deploying cash, but also about joining exciting journeys with founders who resonate with my thinking and seek me out to be a part of their journey.

Shamanth:

Yeah, your approach is about finding people who resonate with your thinking and philosophy, potentially a good fit for your fund.

You don’t focus on clickbaity content like “take my 200 ChatGPT prompts.”

So how do you think about writing that is optimized for likes versus what you currently do? Is that even a dichotomy you think about or make a conscious decision about?

And I’m also just fascinated because I see a lot of traction and engagement in posts that say, “Here’s my prompt” or “Here’s my five secret formulas to explode revenue overnight.”

versus something that’s much more sober, but much more sensible like you do.

But my question is how do you think about the dichotomy between your style and what could very well be the alternative? 

Joakim:
I do think a lot about showing up and talking about what is on my mind versus what generates the best reaction and engagement on the platform.

I’d do more of that work if I saw it as a means to an end, in a way where it leads to something where I can leave my way of working behind.

It’s a way of life for me. It’s not about likes or validation; it’s deeply personal.

Shamanth:
Certainly, and it takes courage to tread that path. I have seen people who have gone over to that dark side and have become somewhat unrecognizable mutations of their former selves.

So especially when you have an audience, it’s tempting to go big, but it takes courage not to. I observe that, for you, it’s a very personal journey, even though you have metrics you’re optimizing for, like your email list, course, and book.

So, are the metrics of the outcomes important to you, if not the likes, considering there’s an email list or books you seem to be optimizing for?

Joakim:
To be honest, I used to focus on gaining reach, especially to connect with startup founders.

Now, I’ve reached a point where many gaming entrepreneurs are already newsletter subscribers.

I’m thinking less about numbers and more about doing what I love without obsessing overreach.

Shamanth:
That makes sense. In the earlier days, you had to earn that attention, but now that you have a following, it’s become less critical to constantly earn it.

Joakim:
True, if I were monetizing my content through ads or sales, I might track more numbers. But my focus is on being a startup investor.

Shamanth:
That’s an interesting perspective. I have a course and a monetized workshop series called the Mobile Growth Lab, along with a free podcast like this.

My observation has been that the monetized service is something that people take more seriously as compared to the free service.

I’ve noticed that the monetized service tends to attract more serious individuals, acting as a filter, despite the absolute dollar amount not being critical for me.

It doesn’t make as much. I think it was very interesting to see your perspective being very different in terms of the shift away from looking at monetization.

It sounds like we had very different takes on that, and very likely just because we have different goals.

Joakim:

I used to do a pitching course. I haven’t been promoting it because I don’t have the bandwidth to take more enrollments.
The clients who took the course were quite serious, and many of them have gone on to successfully raise funding.

I’ve even invested in a few of the companies that were in my pitching course. So it totally resonates.

Shamanth:
Right, to switch gears a bit, I get the impression that not every VC is comfortable sharing online because there is a potential for repercussions. There are certain perceptions that can be created.

Is that something you think about? Is there a needle you have to thread as an operator/VC that’s also sharing online?

Joakim:

Personally, I’ve adopted a model of sharing my thoughts openly without holding back, even though there might be misinterpretations.

For some VCs with LPs, it’s about aligning with a larger group, which can be tricky when views differ.

As a fund manager, my focus is on LPs aligned with my transparency.

It’s also about personal preference – how much you genuinely enjoy the activity versus feeling pressured to do it because it’s a trend.

Shamanth:
Indeed, independence has its advantages, like the ability to speak candidly without PR constraints.

It can be immensely valuable to offer a different perspective when others are conforming to a PR-driven narrative.

Shifting gears, I’ve admired your transparency and candor, especially in openly discussing your failures and mentoring experiences, which caught my attention during my research for this conversation.

Tell us briefly about those failures and tell us how these have shaped your approach to mentoring now or investing for that matter.

Joakim:
There’s a piece I wrote last winter called, “Failures in Mentoring”. 

10 years ago, I was spending a lot of time in Northern Finland, in a city called Oulu, where for instance, Fingersoft Hill Climb Racing is the biggest gaming company there.

There were a lot of startups when Nokia closed down. A lot of engineering talent were getting startup funding and they were doing gaming companies.

I met passionate, technically oriented founders eager to enter the gaming industry, but most lacked experience. I felt like a failure because over 90% of those startups didn’t survive.

When I reflect on mentoring, I’ve learned not to sugarcoat the reality, especially for those new to the industry.

Back then, I used to emphasize emulating gaming companies and KPIs without considering the foundational steps they needed.

They lacked an understanding of what makes a game fun and how to create great game design.

So I was throwing people into the deep end of the pool versus mentoring them about figuring out how do you make games. How do you design fun gameplay?

Over the years, I’ve gained personal insights into how games are made over the years. 

Shamanth:

That definitely resonates. It’s certainly something I’ve seen parallels to in my work because I’m approached by a number of early-stage apps and products.

It’s crucial to recognize that early-stage founders often don’t have everything figured out, and starting with the basics is essential.

Sharing these experiences openly does take courage, and I believe it’s important to accompany such openness with valuable takeaways rather than being self-indulgent.

It’s about helping others learn and grow from those experiences.

Joakim:

Yeah, that’s what I strive for with the content.

Shamanth:
Certainly. Shifting gears, as of the time of this recording, which is October 2023, isn’t an easy time for games to fundraise.

So tell us about what some of the underlying causes of this are, what are some of the pieces of advice you have for gaming companies and founders in this climate, and this is the climate in which you’re launching a fund. So tell us a bit about the why of that. 

Joakim:
Yeah. The funding landscape for gaming startups has shifted. In the past, cheap money was readily available due to low interest rates, leading to widespread capital deployment. 

Since the pandemic, we had inflation and then a hike in the interest rates. That landscape of funding for startups changed drastically because you had LPs who said that we can continue the rate we did before, we’re going to be more selective.

The downstream effect on VC funds is significant. Even those with large pandemic-era funds are now more selective due to LPs being cautious about capital calls.

These calls aren’t instantaneous; they happen in small increments, making LPs wary of allocating more capital amid uncertain market conditions when they may need to liquidate assets that are currently in the red to fund startups.

There’s a significant pause in many funds, making investors more selective. Raising funds has become five to ten times harder, especially for mobile game studios.

Investors are cautious, and startups need to show traction and positive signs to attract VC interest.

For founders seeking their first round, consider bootstrapping and showing concrete progress before seeking investment.

Demonstrating customer engagement and player interest is crucial in this challenging funding climate.

Shamanth:
And as you said, until somebody says things have changed fundamentally, this is going to be the state of affairs and it’s hard for a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are looking to fundraise.

Joakim, this is perhaps a good place for us to wrap.

This has been very insightful. I have always been curious about your creative process.

Before we go, could you tell folks how they can find out more about you, everything you do, and your fund?

And how, if at all, they may be involved, if that’s something they would like to.

Joakim:

You can find my writing and content at elitegamedevelopers.com and my partner David’s writing at gamestuff.substack.com

I think we have a different style of things we’re talking about, so I think they’re really not mutually exclusive.

For funding inquiries, visit f4.fund where we welcome submissions and try to respond to all applicants.

LinkedIn is a great place to follow me, where I’m doing a lot of posting.

Shamanth:
Of course, and we will link to all of that in the show notes for folks.

Joakim, it is a pleasure to have you on this show. Thank you so much for being a guest.

Joakim:

Thanks a lot, Shamanth.

A REQUEST BEFORE YOU GO

I have a very important favor to ask, which as those of you who know me know I don’t do often. If you get any pleasure or inspiration from this episode, could you PLEASE leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform – be it iTunes, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast fix. This podcast is very much a labor of love – and each episode takes many many hours to put together. When you write a review, it will not only be a great deal of encouragement to us, but it will also support getting the word out about the Mobile User Acquisition Show.

Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are welcome, whether on podcasting platforms – or by email to shamanth@rocketshiphq.com. We read all reviews & I want to make this podcast better.

Thank you – and I look forward to seeing you with the next episode!