What kind of things make cool merchandise?

I have spotted some items that are really cool as merchandise. While we will not be making them available as yet, they will be on our minds as we update our platform!

Q-bert earings

Apple Keychain

Storm Troopers Cuff Links

and Get Ready for this, Master Chief Mug!!

Pull factor in the Internet Space

Sites like www.cafepress.com that not only allows me to upload images that I like. It allows me to print it on items that I can choose from the whole list on the site.

There are not many sites that allows users to upload images and have them printed on a wide selection of items. I think this is a great business model moving forward and there are things that our startup can learn from. In our current social society, allowing users to be able to select what they want and understanding what they hope to see is definitely not only a pull factor and also a plus point to any startup or business.

We have been thinking of how we can have a different edge of marketing to users who visit our site and keep their interest there and at the same time help our contributors who put their games on our website to have another form of reach with their supporters. So I think the cafepress model will be something we should and can leverage on for our Startup.

GDC

GDC, a very big gaming event is going to happen in Paris. What is GDC? The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world’s largest professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games.

This is a great event not to be missed. This event attracts over 16,000 attendees, mainly are programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers from all over the world.

Below is a brief outlook of the event
* 8th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards
* 10th Annual Independent Games Festival
* Game Connection
* Video Games Live
* G.A.N.G. Town Hall Meeting
* IGDA Annual Meeting
* Art War

Good luck and have fun!

Deciding a Roadmap

I have been thinking and trying to come up with a roadmap where it will give us proper direction on what we have to do and help us move forward. People may think that start ups are easy but it is not so. Everything that we hope to do, I keep thinking if we are on the proper track in the business sense. I guess it makes sense and is important that all businesses need a proper roadmap as a form of direction for the start up to move towards to draw the users we hope to attract to our platform. Isn't this how your MNCs come up with their mission statements which are made to serve as a direction for all their staffs?

After going through books and textbooks(yes, you will be surprise it helps), I realised that having a roadmap is like looking for a process which is back to fundamentals and this is where your textbooks becomes useful. with the help of books, I came up with a rough roadmap, which will of course be enhanced along the way to be more in tune with our start up which I find quite useful to share.

| View | Upload your own

Mainstream retail is not the only distribution platfrom

Just saw this article on how one new startup called Cinetic Rights Management are helping film makers, who are unable to get cinema distribution, to get distribution on alternate channels such as web, mobile and cable on demand.

According to their CEO:

We’re going to make it our business to go to every portal, every mobile provider, every video-on-demand service and make the most aggressive deals we can,” Mr. Sloss said

This is what we need to do as well. Thousands of indie games have been submitted to game festivals and conferences but only a small percentage has been picked up. So, what happens to the rest? We need to help these guys get alternate distribution deals. We need to form partnerships with other smaller size distributors who are on the web, mobile and even IPTV. This what we need to do.

Customized Stuff

Customized Stuff seems to be small business to everyone. It looks like one or a few people will purchase such unique stuff. Guess what there is in the market for such customized stuff.

There are few large website providing such services to the whole world. One of such is Cafe Press. Please see the quote from the website to show the power of customization of stuff.

"Based in Foster City, CA, Cafepress.com allows its users to independently create and sell a wide variety of products on the web. By allowing individual sellers to set up free “shops” within their domain, Cafepress makes it easy for artists and designers to sell their goods online. Over 2.5 million independent shops have been opened on Cafepress since its opening in 1999. Cafepress is a privately owned, profitable company.

CafePress offers 150 customizable merchandise items, ranging from T-shirts and other apparel items to home decor, kid & baby merchandise and political items such as buttons & yard signs.

CafePress is the leader in User-generated content, with 6 million users and 150 million+ products (10 will get made while you read this). The CafePress Marketplace is an instantaneous and often colorful reflection of the public discourse"

This will create a new market where designs are driven by the owners/ players rather than the stuff makers. Definitely this model will be better than the typical trend today.