1. One good way is to create some demos that showcase your talents, then find a way for those to be noticed.
That makes sense. I think the part I'm struggling with is the latter: find a way to be noticed.
I don't picture myself casually showcasing a demo to someone at E3 for example.
There are local gatherings, but they're mostly indies, and most of them are focused onto their own thing (and so should they). I can't quite picture someone from Disney crashing the party.
At some point, I heard of switchpitch, but as it turns out, I don't thing anyone got business from these, so I'm still on the lookout for more events along these lines.
Also, it is a bit harder to demo my individual skills in order to front a potential team. What I do is very hard to "demo", so I feel it is easier to go through connections. I've already had some luck being referred by former clients to new prospects, but the word-of-mouth discusses my personal skillset, not the fact I'm willing to turn this into a business.
2. So you need to make new contacts. One good way is to come to Los Angeles for E3 next week.
That makes sense. My plan was to tag along the indie booths at Pax to get better acquainted with tradeshows (I have ties with some fairly successful studios, and I felt it would be an easy "in" for me to get a hold of how things work out on the field, and come with something more to say than "I'm looking for work").
Of course, 1 and 2 both cost money. That's biz. It costs money to make money.
Understandable. I think I'm halfway done piling up money for this effort so that I get some self-promotion and production budget on the line and not live from milestone to milestone in fear of not being able to pay my employees.
BTW, I support the concept of adhering to the non-compete you signed with your former employer. But where is that line exactly? If you run into one of those folks by chance at E3, and they offer you work, you didn't go to them.
Most contracts I've signed prohibited me to do business with any of the same clients, not to sollicit per se. Also, it would probably fall under clauses that specify these would deal "harm" to their organization from an economic standpoint. The reasoning here is that they invest in relationships in an effort to feed off the work that come from this. I'm not sure how "exposed" I'd truly be, but (...)
Also, what is the status of non-competes where you live? Here in California, non-competes are not enforceable.
Legally speaking, they are enforceable, but there are a few caveats. A non-compete cannot prevent you from working (as an employee) for another company. It merely restricts you from building a new business too close, or use your ties (acquired through employment) to establish business relations for another organization or your own. The latter applies directly to this situation, so I'm being extra careful, plus, it's just business ethics in my mind (though some businessmen probably might argue that "ethics" has no place in "business", but that's another story entirely).
While enforceable from a legal standpoint, very few cases ever lead to lawsuits, let aside court of law, so it's safe so say that I'm complying with these contracts mostly for my own good. The only cases I'm familiar with involves a creative director from Ubisoft and his vendetta which ultimately led to a lawsuit after he pooled his previous team to join his new employer (the quantity and quality of the individuals involved allowed them to make a case that there was measurable damage done to the organization, hence the successful lawsuit).
Having a good looking and nicely navigable website for much of your contact and display issues would help.
As a freelancer, most likely. That being said, I never had time to make myself one because I already had enough more opportunities than I could undertake. That being said, it makes sense that, in order to front a team, I'll need to have a go-to page that shows what we can do. Most likely, as a team, we may need to showcase a self-financed project to display our experience as a team.
Some development companies spend a lot of money on marketing and human resourcing. If you want to advance, then you probably need to put more effort into such areas.
I'm fine spending money, I just don't want to be throwing money at things without knowing what I should be doing about them. Marketing is fairly broad, and I don't believe that google adsense is going to get the viewers I need, so I'm assuming I need to "front myself and my team" more at events as per the above suggestions. The cost for this is mostly transportation and tickets (or I could hire someone that is already local and attends regularly to do PR on my behalf).
What did you mean about spending towards human resources? Fielding a team is something I can already do (I have several industry veterans that keep on bugging me for a job actually, but I'm not there yet). What particular talent do you think I would require? A PR expert?
Once I realized these things, then work came much easier and more frequently. I am 100% freelance since 2010, by the way, so I know that it can be a good way to go.
I could be 100% freelance, but that's not my goal. I maintain a contractual job from studio-to-studio to keep a steady income, and fuel my soon-to-be business through extra hours freelancing. I realize that the first form of my LLC will likely be me fulltime plus contracting freelancers (as I already do from time to time when required and to have more experience dealing first-hand with freelancers) and that it will be a while before I can get a full team of 10 full-time employees on the payroll, but this is what I'm trying to plan for as I believe I'm relatively acquainted with the solo + freelancers model so far.
Thanks a bunch for the feedback!
