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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2018

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Neil Young is the Founder & CEO @ N3twork, the next generation mobile games maker and publisher with their services already touching millions of customers. They have raised over $17m in VC funding from some of the very best in the business including Mike Maples @ Floodgate, Bing Gordon @ KPCB and the team at Google Ventures. Prior to N3TWORK, Neil founded ngmoco, a leading social mobile games company, acquired by DeNA for a reported up to $400m. Before ngmoco, Neil spent many years at Electronic Arts where he was responsible for producing some of EA's most successful game franchises including: The Lord of the Rings, The Sims, Medal of Honor and Command and Conquer, among others.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Neil made his way from telling his mother in the UK he was not going to university to producing world-leading games, to selling a company for a reported $400m?

2.) What are the 2 questions Neil believes everyone should ask when evaluating the potential of a new platform? How does Neil think about the platform shifts at present given his publishing to mobile? Where do most people make mistakes when assessing platform shifts?

3.) Peter Fenton stated on the show: "startups are starved of free and open distribution". How does Neil think about incumbency advantages with regards to distribution? Would an open platform yield greater potential distribution? How does Neil view the world of paid and performance marketing today? How has his views changed on the space?

4.) What are the 3 things that Neil believes all founders must do in order to assemble and manage a board successfully? Why is it important to listen to board members on their own and as a group and compare? Where do most founders go wrong in board management?

5.) Neil sold ngmoco for a reported $400m, what does Neil believe are the 2 big questions that all founders must ask themselves when contemplating a potential sale? What are the 2 different types of acquisitions that exist today?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Neil’s Fave Book: The Second World War

Neil’s Fave Blog: Gaming Insiders

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Neil on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and switching up from the usual Snapchat plug,

0:04.5

you can find me on my new favourite channel, Instagram, on at H. Stebbings, 1996. I would love to see you

0:10.6

there. However, to the show today, and one of the things I absolutely love is having true industry

0:15.0

experts with decades of domain expertise, and even better if they also happen to be a Brit,

0:19.8

like today's guest. And I'm

0:21.2

thrilled to welcome Neil Young to the hot seat today. Now, Neil is the founder and CEO of Network,

0:26.2

the next generation mobile games maker and publisher, with their services already touching

0:30.5

millions of customers. They've raised over $17 million in VC funding from some of the very best

0:35.7

in the business, including prior guests Mike Maples at

0:38.3

Floodgate, Bing Gordon at Kleiner Perkins, and the team at Google Ventures, just to name a few.

0:43.0

And prior to network, Neil founded NG Moco, a leading social mobile games company, acquired by DENA,

0:49.3

for a reported up to $400 million.

0:51.8

Before NG Moco, Neil spent many years at Electronic Arts,

0:54.8

where he was responsible for producing some of EA's most successful game franchises,

0:58.9

including, check this out.

1:00.3

The Lord of the Rings, the Sims, Medal of Honor,

1:02.8

and Command and Conquer, among others.

1:04.9

I absolutely have to give all credit to prior guest Bing Gordon

1:07.9

for the intro to Neil's Day,

1:09.3

and without that, this episode would not have been possible, so we really do appreciate that Bing.

1:13.3

However, before we meet today's guest, it's the new year, and everyone is thinking of health

1:17.1

and diet, and so this month's partnerships will be aligned to that, and did you know that

...

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