Who are we and what are we doing here?
Around a year and a half ago, I answered a phone call that would radically alter my career path. The temp agency I’d just joined had called back, offering me a 2 week placement with a company called ‘ustwo’. They were broadly described as a design/media company based in Shoreditch. The job started tomorrow, did I want it or not?
I said yes.
Fast-forward 18 months and I’m still here, helping manage ustwo Adventure, an entity that has been part of the business only a little longer than I have. It’s still a struggle to define what I do, let alone the company as a whole- but it feels high time we started sharing what we’ve been up to and I’m going to give it my best shot.
Where are we now?
ustwo Adventure is, in broad strokes, the ‘Company Builder’ piece of the ustwo Group. For those who don’t know, ustwo is a digital product and service studio, founded back in 2004 by Matt (Mills) Miller and John (Sinx) Sinclair. Mills, my boss, is spiritually (if not always pragmatically) at Adventure’s helm. It was his idea (read: obsession) with getting hands-on in the startup world that would eventually drive Adventure into reality.
I don’t think Mills would mind me confessing there wasn’t much semblance of a plan for what we were going to do next. We didn’t have a strategy. What we did have were ideas and a desire to do good, and it turns out that was a pretty decent place to start.
In our latest manifestation, ustwo Adventure is made up of four different areas:
Playground
A dedicated space in our London Studio for around 100 people, currently made up of 25 companies, to work in and grow. The Floor is our hub and our home. It’s a melting pot of different people from a variety of sectors, collaborating with and learning from one another.
Foundation
Our version of philanthropy, the Foundation exists to support causes we believe in, where returns are about positive impact, not financial gain. So far we’ve engaged with OH and Lecture in Progress, as part of this year’s focus on helping underprivileged talent get into the creative industries.
Fun’d
This is where we invest in creative, ambitious companies at their pre-seed and seed stage. We look for long-term investment opportunities, using returns to make ourselves sustainable and to enable us to continue the ustwo mission for years to come.
Own IP
Ustwo has successfully launched it’s own ventures in the past, namely DICE, ustwo Games (best known for the seminal Monument Valley) and Moodnotes. Adventure is the perfect place for us to absorb learnings and form new ideas for future businesses, so that’s what we’re doing.
What’s next?
Adventure is now a team of four, and while we certainly don’t claim to be perfect, the community we’ve built so far is something I think we have permission to be proud of. I am surrounded by down-to-earth, smart, creative, helpful and all-round lovely people on a daily basis- the impact of that is huge. People here don’t work for ustwo, they work with ustwo. They actually, really, do collaborate and work with each other - that shouldn’t be a novelty during this co-working and so-called gig-economy revolution we’re having, but it is.
I’m not sure how to end this post, so I’m going to do it with a cheesy thank you to everyone who’s already been a part of the ustwo Adventure journey, and by extending an invitation to anyone reading this who feels they’d like to be. We love meeting new people and are always on the lookout for fresh faces and ideas, wherever you’re from, whatever you do and however far along you are.
You can reach out to the team via adventure@ustwo.com, or me directly on sally@ustwo.com.
