Intersecting Interests: How to Stand Out at the Center of Your Own Venn Diagram
With graduation looming, Brian Bies kept hearing he needed to “pick an interest and go after it.” That’s easy to say, but how do you choose when you have multiple interests or passions? Yet Brian quickly discovered that the intersection of our interests is where we can thrive as he introduces the world to the combination of video gaming and entrepreneurship in his new book, Indie Gaming.
“They are booked — first five are locked in and ready to go,” Brian Bies said with a smile. “Now you hold up your end of the bargain.”
“Already?” I replied. “We just made the bet last week.”
“You said if I booked my first two guests in less than three weeks you’d buy the recording equipment for the podcast. Got five indie video game developers scheduled and now I am just waiting on you…”
I paused and shook my head.
Brian continued, “Do you want me to give you the list we need or would you rather just give me your Amazon password?”
There was a reason you don’t make bets with Brian Bies — especially when it came to video gaming.
Brian Bies has a soft spot for Minecraft. The program is simple, with visuals far from the high-resolution graphics or adrenaline pumping gameplay with endless potential for on-screen glory in something like Grand Theft Auto. In sharp contrast, Minecraft requires players to literally start from scratch to build worlds and opportunities for play from the ground up, often equipped with only a shovel and some bricks.
He had applied to game developing companies each of the past few summers looking for his first job in the industry. When he told me the Fall semester of his junior year that he wanted to break into the video game industry and work there after graduation I immediately asked the ‘obvious’ follow-up question:
“Do you code?”
He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “No, never really got into that. I’m a business major. But I play video games — I am pretty good at a couple.”
“Well, you’ll probably need more than that for an ‘in’ ” I offered. “Gaming is one of the hottest sectors on the planet and, well, what’s your way to stand out? Have you thought about learning to code?”
You could tell Brian was a little surprised by my line of questioning. He had a passion and I’d been telling everyone in class to follow their passion — yet here I was telling him it wasn’t enough. He admitted he didn’t know how to code beyond the basics, but recognized he needed to find a different way to make it work for him.
Deep in thought, he headed off to his next meeting.
For those of us aware of our passion, it most often starts broad. Or perhaps we have a couple general areas or interests we feel could be our passion. And early in your career there is a hesitancy to choose one avenue, in some cases because it could limit our options.
Brian was one of those people — he was taking entrepreneurship coursework and also had a love of gaming. When he described his future plans, he used an “either or” or a “this then that” approach: “I am hoping to work in gaming right out of college or maybe start my own thing;” “I would love to start at Xbox and eventually do my own thing.”
As I got to know Brian I realized he was like many of us — he wanted it all. And yet that wasn’t a clear path or picture. The combination of interests feels narrow and blurry.
“When you describe gamers you rarely call them entrepreneurs. Why is that?”
He paused. I had mostly asked the question out of pure curiosity but it had clearly set the wheels turning for Brian.
“Well, you’re right. I have talked to dozens of independent developers and they rarely if ever call themselves entrepreneurs. I wonder why? They clearly are… and I never hear people in the startup world like you talk about these independent game developers as startups or entrepreneurs. Hmmm…”
I saw the wheels spin faster and faster.
“That’s a good place to start. Answer that question: ‘Why indie developers aren’t synonymous with entrepreneurs.’ Combine your love of video games with your passion for entrepreneurship — something is there I’m sure.”
Brian didn’t need to learn to code; he just needed to learn to combine.
Brian likes the strategy of building things.
When I first met Brian in my class, his confidence and enthusiasm immediately drew me in. And while some students had expressed some trepidation about creating a book, Brian knew immediately what he’d write on: independent video game developers.
Choosing his book topic was the easy part.
“When I realized I got the opportunity to write this book, for me it was a no-brainer that it would be on video games.
“I chose video games as my topic to write on because it was a subject area that I was passionate about ever since I was young. Being able to, from a very young age, use video games as a way to interact with my cousin who lives several hundred miles away in Pennsylvania and find communities in small ways that I could, I was able to really find my voice and really find my passion and purpose.”
Long before my class, Brian was already diving into the process of making connections with people in the industry he loved. A high school “Oral History Project” requiring each student to interview someone present at a historical event led most of his classmates to meet with War Veterans. Brian, however, ventured up to New Hampshire to speak with Ralph Baer.
Brian chose to interview a man who made history in a way that was important to him because it was relevant to his passion for video games, but also because Ralph Baer was innovative in a way that even the most visually striking advances of gaming technology of today dim in comparison to. And to Brian, that was not only admirable and exciting, but vital.
Brian’s ideation process looked a little different from that of the rest of the class. His book topic was clear in, but how he could connect video games to a business, a job, and an overall purpose for his readers, let alone himself? Not so much.
“At first I had no idea what writing a book, how it applied to entrepreneurship in the slightest. I thought so okay we’re going to do — originally when I signed up for the class, I thought I was going to be creating a start-up company in a group and that that will be our project, sort of like what you would expect any entrepreneurship class.”
As it would turn out, Brian himself would become poised at a key juncture in the history of not only the expansion of video games, but entrepreneurship itself.
“And then, as we went through the process each week, I sort of saw customer identification through our interviews and the conversations and insights we were getting through our research. And then, as I was developing my ideas and my theories for what this book will actually look like in the final manuscript that’s getting published, I got a real clear understanding of how entrepreneurship is through writing a book, the process of developing ideas, seeing if they test well, experimenting with them, iterating on them and then actually creating some final full pledged product.”
One of Brian’s favorite, not to mention most impactful interviews in this process of positioning himself at the connection between entrepreneurship with video games was with Mark Cooke, the CEO of independent game studio Shiny Shoe in San Francisco.
“I point blank asked him, “Do you see yourself as an entrepreneur?” And he said, “No.” He didn’t really give me a full answer to that.
Over the course of 10 to 15 minutes we walked through step-by-step what he does, how he perceives himself and all those interactions that go into that. By the end of the conversation he willingly confidently said, “I am an entrepreneur. I just don’t actively think about it.”
It took only a few minutes for Brian to point out to a CEO that he was, in fact, an entrepreneur.
While that recognition is irrelevant if “entrepreneur” is only a title, Brian does not believe that. He is convinced of the extremely high value in not just seeking out opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures in his own career, or recognizing and supporting startups, but revealing to existing entrepreneurs that they are entrepreneurs.
“The fact that independent developers don’t necessarily see themselves as entrepreneurs, as active agents within the video game industry, I saw this as a particular point of opportunity because when they realize that they are entrepreneurs that gives them a whole set of skills and ownership that they can take on in the industry, they can really begin to change the way video game development exists in the industry.”
Showing people (even fancy video game developers) they ARE entrepreneurs is extraordinarily powerful. Entrepreneurship unites “skills” that may have been viewed as niche or not particularly significant in the grand scheme of things with “ownership” — Ownership that will foster pride that, especially when encouraged in talented young gamers, will lead to increased innovation and progress in the gaming industry.
Brian had found a purpose to his book about video games and its intersection with his other passion of entrepreneurship. Indie Gaming would encourage aspiring game developers to enter the industry by disrupting and then improving it as entrepreneurs.
If Brian can show even someone like Mark Cooke the importance of recognizing entrepreneurship in gaming, that critical overlap in the Venn Diagram, why not encourage individuals looking to innovate in any industry the same thing?
This set up Brian’s next move: getting deeper inside the world of a startup while simultaneously starting his own venture as a podcast entrepreneur about independent gaming.
This overlap helped convince Brian to channel his passion to help others grow as author-entrepreneurs like him. As an alum of the very first Creator Institute Brian channeled his own experiences to support 23 new authors and thrived that second semester — with 20 of them being accepted for publication. Creating a new venture helps Brian talk to gaming entrepreneurs because he can relate to their challenges of creating something new outside of coding.
He continues to work with the help of a few other talented people to develop the Creator Institute concept, course, this community and this opportunity into a real product to be shared far beyond Georgetown’s main gates.
Like Brian would build a fortress in Minecraft, he is building a functioning publishing company; hiring cover and layout designers and developmental editors without the aid of a guide, past-experience, or helpful in-game narrator.
This ability to not only see the potential in, but thrive in uncharted roles is precisely what allows Brian to take his own experience of writing about his passions to inspire others to do just the same.
“I have definitely developed a greater appreciation for the entirety of the process. Having seen the other side of the curtain, I now see how much goes on behind the scenes that the authors don’t see.”
Although he is putting in effort to continue impacting students’ futures through this work, Brian is able to see the impact of his book as an avenue that will help him continue to influence other gamers.
More and more opportunities keep coming up on the horizon for Brian. The overlap between gaming and entrepreneurship became the topic of Brian’s new book Indie Gaming. Sharing this insight with others set him on the pathway to launching the first season of his podcast of the same name featuring discussions and interviews with the people Brian most hoped to work with, and be, in the coming years. With a simple combination of two interests, Brian was showing others something unique, and standing out himself.
“I am launching this podcast this summer, which will build off of my book. I already have people interested in coming on my show, but building that out over the summer and getting those 10–15+ episodes made will be fun. I have never done a podcast before either, which means that I will get to learn what that is like as well as meet important people in the industry, both AAA devs and indie devs alike.”
Brian is thrilled about avenues permitting him to share experiential knowledge about video games and entreprenuership for not his only future job prospects but the encouragement of others.
I for one wish I had known when I first became an entrepreneur, that combining two things and finding an answer, much like a Venn Diagram, is a sweet spot.
Brian is thriving as he helps builds credibility brick by brick into something truly marvelous. Brian is putting fine-tuned, marketing major abilities to use as he develops messaging for the course and even helps refine the curriculum with the invaluable perspective of someone who has taken the course, and is now guiding another batch of students through the publishing phase.
“In my cohort, roughly 50% of the authors got to the publishing phase, and this past semester we were able to get 80% of the authors there. Although it is not 100%, that is leaps and bounds better given that we have a better structure and improved process for helping people identify, develop, and demonstrate their passions through writing a book.”
Brian says his own long term dream job would be as a “CEO or major executive” with a double bonus if it’s in the gaming world. He is quick to add “I recognize how self-important that sounds,” but “I dream big like that because I know that my internal drive and motivation to succeed and pursue my passions that I developed when I grew up are the things that energize me every day to try something new and find the creative joys in the little things.”
Brian is already on the path to big things as he provides consulting services to other video game enthusiasts and developers. Although “prior to starting Georgetown, I knew I was not going to go major in finance or accounting. Ending up as a marketing and management double major did not really surprise me,” I think Brian may have been surprised if before his first day of class with me anyone had told him a big component of working toward his dream job would be helping others figure out theirs through books, podcasts and gaming.
Brian does remember the fantastical childhood dream job he once had. When he was not absorbed with trying to beat his cousin at Forza Motorsport 2,
“I wanted to do something “cool” and “unique” and have an impact on the world in a way similarly to Batman: he’s a multibillionaire, philanthropist who runs Wayne Enterprises by day and is Batman by night. When I was 5, I most certainly wanted to literally become Batman, but now that I am older I see that I want to be more like the idea of Batman. I see easy comparisons that you can make to Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, among other names. Although I don’t know what I necessarily wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I wanted to do amazing things.”
Amazing things? With controllers, consideration, and commitment (even without the cape), he certainly is.
At the conclusion of the 2016–2017 school year at Georgetown, I was recognized as the first-ever two-time entrepreneurship professor of the year. It was quite the honor and I was so surprised that I actually missed the ceremony (whoops!)
My stand-in that night was Brian Bies.
Seems fitting that one day Brian will be on the stage at something similar accepting his own awards… but that day I couldn’t have picked a better person to celebrate the success of Creator Institute and it’s proud future ahead.
To connect with Brian for presentations or consulting work, contact him at bb800@georgetown.edu. Purchase Indie Gaming on Amazon. Watch his interview on Youtube at Creator Institute.
To learn more about Creator Institute visit www.Creator.Institute or to apply for an upcoming experience, visit www.Creator.Institute/apply .
