Live from XMediaLab: Doug Whatley, CEO, BreakAway Games

From the program: Doug Whatley is CEO and Founder of BreakAway, one of the world’s leading developers of entertainment games and game-based technology products. Doug has over 20 years of successful game development and management experience in the interactive entertainment industry. He began his career at America Online where he was instrumental in helping to create the AOL client/server infrastructure. After that, he held senior-level management positions at MicroProse, ABC Sports, and Disney where he worked on critically acclaimed software titles such as Darklands, Gunship 2000, Sid Meier's Civilization, and ABC's Monday Night Football.

Designing ideas. There’s more good ideas in this room than we could ever execute in our lifetime, and what it comes down to is execution. That’s a skill way more valuable than coming up with the ideas.

He wanted to get very pragmatic -- he’s been through so many cycles of technology. When he was in college he was an intern at a company building mini-computers at a time wen mini-computers were going to change the world. They were a little company out in the suburbs of Dallas looking to take on the big boys… and whatever happened to mini-computers?

He’s got four kids between five and eight (wha--?). The other day he was playing a Nintendo game and one of his kids asked ‘Did you play that game when you were a kid?’ ‘No, we didn’t have DS when I was a kid.’ ‘Oh. Did you have to play on your computer?’

What is a good idea?
The obvious
Solves a need
Makes people more productive
Does something not possible before

The not so obvious
Works within current processes
Solves what people are already trying to solve
Looks like the solution people are expecting

One thing he says to startups is that when you’ve got a new product, go and find a company that’s already spending money to try to solve the problem your product solves. He says Dale owes him a drink because Minority Report is the bane of his existence. People come in and say, “We’d like to change everything we do and speed things up, and we’d like to do it like that Minority Report thing.”

Develop the idea

• How will people use it?
• How will customers pay for it?
• How will you tell customers about it?
• How will you distribute it to customers?
• How will you price your product?
• How will you support your product?
• Will you brand the idea or your company?

Shouldn’t a good idea make money?

• The purchasers, decision makers and users are often different people (and different departments) and have different agendas
• No channel to market developed yet
• Is there a segment of the market that is ‘anti’ your idea?
• What are the additional costs and risks needed to adopt your idea?

Secrets to success

• Find a partner that needs your solution and work with them to refine the product
• Be patient going to market
• Refine the product before taking it to a second customer
• Know the life cycle of your product