Watch as we talk to Archer about the challenges and advantages of starting a social good company, and how one can make a difference in the world and still turn a profit.
Hi everybody, I'm Josh Cons tine with TechCrunch TV and today I'm here with Adam Archer, the co-founder of games dot give, a social gaming company that helps. And then recently sold to Facebook page management company Vitro. Adam's gonna tell us a little bit about how he came up with the idea for give during a inspirational journey through Africa.
And then tell us how he came to sell the company to Virtue, and what advice he has for entrepreneurism. So, Adam, how did you get started, how did the idea first come to you? So, I studied computer engineering and took off after college and backpacked for about 2 years overseas. Went through good parts of South America, good parts of Asia, good parts of the Middle East.
I finished up [xx] two years by travelling about eight months overland through Africa just hitch hiking and walking and that's really where the inspiration came in for the idea. I [xx] help people. Great. And so what kind of company did you form?
So we created a for-profit company called Games That Give that donates to charity while people play video games. So we went out, we signed up big brands and as people play the games, more money goes to charity, and we can do that in a variety of different ways. So we've launched games where, you know, get to level three and well vaccinate a child for polio, or earn 1000 points and you can create a meal for a hungry child.
So there are lots of different ways we integrate charitable giving into gaming. How was that recruiting for a business that i was always trying to help people and also building that business up into something that could become into acquisition target?
Yeah, so I think the story behind Games That Give and how we founded it. You know, we wanted to help people. The story of, you know, backpacking around the world and the traveling really resonated with people. And they shared our interests in wanting to help others, and so I think here in the valley it's always difficult to recruit talented engineers and designers, but that certainly gave us a leg up especially when, you know, we were able to raise the kind of funding that we were able to raise.
So, all in all, I think recruiting for us was maybe a little bit easier than possibly some other companies. We also started the company at a time in 2008 where the economy was really down, so that also helped us in recruiting initially.
Great. And so how much money did you guys raise? So we raised a little over a million dollars.
Great. And so, then, tell me a little bit about how you guys came to sell the company to Vitrio.
Yeah. So, you know, we were able, we really struggled for a long time, for a couple of years. We were trying to make ends meet, trying to figure out the business model. We had wonderful data around our games that we launched, and how long people were playing and how viral they were, how much they were sharing with others.
But we had a destination website. It was difficult to drive traffic to it. We had signed up some big clients, you know, like Pepsi and Mastercard and Dial Soap, but it was really hard to kind of make ends meet. There was even a couple times where we, you know, almost had to shut the lights down, but, you know, we kept thinking and pivoting, and our board was really supportive of what we were doing our advisers and so a little over a year ago we pivoted hard toward Facebook and we launched a gaming platform on Facebook that was very compart analysed and so we are able to very inexpensively roll out really custom games for our clients and that it's when things started to take off for us.
So we had really a custom gaining platform with large margins on Facebook and so that's when, you know, a lot of the folks and kind of the social media management industry like virtue became interested in us. So, created a great relationship with Reggie Bradford a little of a year ago, about a year ago and we build that relationship and culminated us in being acquired about a five months ago by virtue and so games acquired has become virtue games.
Great and so when youre building a company around social good, how do you sell that to brands? That seems like something that it make sense for but want to help out.
Yeah.
But how do you make that seem like a business, something that's actually a great investment for brands?
Yeah. It's all about the data. I mean, you can jump up and down and have great pitch text that say, Hey, you know, people love donating to charity, but you gotta show the data. You gotta show the virals from the games, you gotta show ad sales being increased. You've got to show increased brand engagement through the games, and once we were really able to put together those kind of case studies and that data that showed A-B tests between a game without charity and one with charity, that's when things really started to take off for us.
What do you think of the critique of social games that say that they are sort of a waste of time for people, and what you guys doing to try to combat that?
So, I mean, I think it's valid in some cases. I think games are kind of a waste of time, right? Very often they don't educate people. However, our games are a little bit different. And it's one of the things that I'm most proud of. I mean, we've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through gaming.
And it's money that never would have gone to charity in the past It's not like we're taking money from a brand's foundation budget and giving it to charity. We're taking it from their marketing budget and giving it to charity, so I think our games help people and I think that's one of the reasons.
reasons we see such high viral's , and such high engagement in our games is because, you know, if you send a stream post to all your friends that says, "Hey, I lost my cow." - it's not really that interesting. If you send a stream post that says, "I just vaccinated a child for polio thanks to Dial soap or Dockers," that's pretty powerful, and that's one of the reasons we see high click-through rates.
So what advice would you have for companies that are looking to get into the social good technology
entrepreneurship space?
One thing is, make sure you're about what you are doing. The second is it is a marathon and not a sprint. So take your time, I mean if you're you know. All great things take time the second the first thing is surround yourself with incredible co-founders, cause at the end of the day, it really just comes down to the founding team the idea is going to change, the technologies are going to change, the landscape is going to change.
Surround yourself with great co-founders and lastly, make sure you build a great advisory board and get some wonderful investors that you really believe in and trust and respect. Cause it's gonna be working together with these folks that you build a great socially responsible company. Great. Well, thanks so much, Adam.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thanks everyone for watching.
Thank you.
Here’s Archer’s top 8 tips for entrepreneurs. Some are common sense or often cited, but it’s always good to remind yourself:
