How would I go about building a company?

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Hello Guys!

Basically, I am a person who loves game programming and game development in general. I am young, 18-19 years old and I have more than 4 years of solid experience with Unity and Computer Languages like : C#, Java, C, C++, PHP etc. I am making games for companies right now and going to school at the same time!
But, my dream is to create a company that makes software and games!

I wanted to take advice from more experienced people on how a company is made, what should I do, how should I proceed, or can I even make it or it is a stupid thought?

Thank you!
Please share everything you know!

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It’s not stupid.

The first step would be like (unlike me) consult a lawyer first and get your business properly set up the correct way.
(I am not a lawyer), so I can’t be sure if that is the proper route or not.

Get your business licenses, every country is different and every state/province/county/city/town will all be different.
If you’re in the USA, you need a DBA (Doing Business As) which you can get from the State Treasury Department. At least in South Carolina you can, and it was free last time I did it.

That’s the first official steps to take.
The next and probably the hardest part, MARKETING. This is the ONLY field in Software/game deving I have never mastered, I just find it hard to find the time do it. So hiring a Marketing professional/agency I’m sure can help, but won’t be cheap I’d assume.

Aside from that, just build things and do it good :slight_smile:

#EDIT - Oh and if in the USA, get a Federal Tax ID (Should be Free).

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First step in building a game company as a newcomer would be to start building a game, and when it’s far enough along to think about doing all the official stuff, then you can research how it’s done. No need to worry about anything more than building a game at this early point.

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Thanks for your advice! I basically know what you mean Ony. I think the same, just wanted to see what comes right after that!

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Well then after that you can do pretty much what @N1warhead_1 points out. The legal stuff.

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This. Companies form around businesses. Businesses form around products.

There is plenty of good advice on how to form a company. But most of this is just straight forward paper work and fees. @N1warhead_1 pretty much has it covered.

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Regarding - in general - small business startup information (not only game dev) I was surprised at how much information and helpful free stuff is available locally, and of course on the internet.
I did some research a couple months ago and was pleased to find several meetups and a couple small business entrepreneurial info meetings available. Even some hosted by state and county small business partnership associations.
All (mostly) for free.

Check around to see what is available in your local area - and of course online.

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In the USA, it is generally very inexpensive to set up an LLC. In most states, you can even do it yourself instead of paying a lawyer to do it for you. Beyond that, you will want to get a checking account for your business. You will also want to get a domain name for your business and create a simple website for your business and have an email address in the domain name.

That is all relatively easy to do. Before spending time and money on business setup, I would suggest creating and polishing at least one game that you want to sell. The only time it makes sense to set up a business before creating the game is when you need a business structure in place to hire employees and connect with publishers during development. Depending on the scope of your project, that may or may not be relevant. If you want to crank out some mobile games by yourself, you don’t need to set up a business. If you want to develop console games, you do need to set up a business.

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Well, I thought I should give another view.

I’m 41, have started one company, being self entrepreneur for long time and also was CTO for some country leader companies before starting my current new venture. I have failed several times until I discovered something that has helped me a lot in the recent years.

Think that building a company means not only creating the environment to develop your technical skills and produce something, but to sell and generate cash flow. At 20s, you don’t matter much about real business but to show your technical skills. At that age I recommend to learn from key succesful companies, work for them and observe how they operate the business not just how they build products.

The main requirement for building a company in the end is to have the conviction that you can create and maintain a stable and growing stream of income.

Having the skills to operate the technical aspects of the company is obvious (development, administrative and financial) but you lack from business experience.

Before starting a company evaluate your desired potential market and how to succesful reach it (sell to them).
Knowing that market is critical to understand why they will purchase your products (price, value, competitors).
Knowing how to reach those customers is critical to close the neccesary deals to make the company running everyday (how do they learn about your products in a saturated market, how to stablish conversations with customers and keep learning about how to provide more interesting products and services, are you selling to a publisher or directly to end users, what’s the net income you will be doing…)

Many companies are created from a real previous deal which is the only way to start solid.

Finally if you just want to do it, my advice is to keep your expenses low, don’t purchase anything that you won’t be selling in someway unless you need it absolutely for sure. This your first time and chances are you will fail so don’t get obsessed with it for long time - keep moral high, know that you are learning and ship something soon!

Good luck and enjoy the journey!

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Short and sweet. One brick at a time. Lay the foundation and make sure it is solid. Then build the supporting substructure an then all the fancy architectural trim.

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