SINGAPORE (Dec 4): When three students — Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert — won a game-making competition hosted by HP and Nokia, they approached Peter Vesterbacka for ideas on what to do next. Vesterbacka was working in business development at HP at the time, and he advised them to carry on making games.

“It’s very clear that you guys love making games, so why don’t you start a company making games,” Vesterbacka told them. So the trio started Rovio Entertainment in 2003, and went on to publish the hit mobile game Angry Birds. The first game involved slingshotting colourful birds to break down the fortresses of green pigs.

Vesterbacka ended up joining the team at Rovio as chief marketing officer (CMO) and helping to build the brand into a successful mobile gaming franchise, even spinning off a movie. “I said we were going to have 100 million downloads, but nobody believed me. Then, we got it to 100 million in 50 months, and now it is approaching four billion and we [also] got the movie out last year,” he says.

The Mighty Eagle, as he was nicknamed during his time at Rovio, has since moved on to start a company called Lightneer with other Rovio alums. Lightneer has produced a mobile game to teach physics. And Vesterbacka is putting to practice some of what he learnt at Rovio about building a business.

How to stand out “If I look at the games market, there are 700 new games every day,” Vesterbacka says. “Many of them are fantastic games, but you never hear of them because there are 700 other games.” In fact, he says, there are hundreds of thousands of games out there. So game makers — and all entrepreneurs really — have to do things differently. “You have to not be afraid of going into new ­areas. That is what technology is all about. You have to have the courage to be daring, you have to be a bit crazy,” he adds.

Vesterbacka recalls that when the company ventured into making Angry Birds-themed toys, many people were sceptical about its efforts. The company, they suggested, was losing its focus.

But Vesterbacka saw things differently. “We were focused; but we were focused on the brand, and not the game,” he says. “[We were not] building a game for 100 days but building a brand for 100 years.” That was why the company produced consumer goods and began work on an animated series.

Entrepreneurs should also learn to accept diversity and failure. “Entrepreneurship and doing start-ups are not for people who like to grow potted plants in their home. It is for people who want to have a jungle or something they can’t control,” says Vesterbacka. “If you want to have success, you have to loosen up. You can’t control the world, so let’s not even try. You have to create an environment that is like that.”

Rather than avoiding failure, Vesterbacka says it is more important to fail well. That involves figuring out when to stop or kill an idea. Rovio, he says, went through 51 games. It was only on the 52nd game that it produced its hit Angry Birds game. “That is part of the craziness — that you have to believe that it will eventually be successful,” says Vesterbacka. “Typically, you never end up going from here to there in a straight line. You have to come up with new ways fast. If you hit a wall, maybe it doesn’t make sense to bang your head against the wall. Maybe you [might] find a door.”

Creating a culture in which failure is acceptable is also important, he says. “Most of the time, when you do new things, you fail. Make mistakes, and learn from your mistakes. Then, you’ll be successful. If you have a culture where you are not allowed to fail or make mistakes, people will start not doing anything. And if you don’t do anything, nothing happens. This is why the culture is so important. Create a culture where you encourage people to do things, make mistakes, learn, do more — that’s much more important than any plan.”

Create goals, not plans In fact, Vesterbacka is not in favour of much planning. “All plans are doomed to, if not fail, change. You have to be very agile and cope with a world that is changing. We all know that the world is changing faster all the time. Being fast in your reaction with that change is super important,” he says.

Vesterbacka prefers to think of goals, and suggests that entrepreneurs should set clear but ambitious long-term goals and break those goals down into steps that can be achieved by the organisation.

“It has to be something like, ‘Let’s go for 100 million downloads.’ Then everybody knows it is very tangible and easy to measure, and starts executing it. It can be — five million if we do this, 10 million there. If you break it down into smaller pieces, you have a plan. Then, you navigate as you go,” he explains.

When Rovio set and hit its goal of 100 million downloads, Vesterbacka says, that number became the new standard. “Once we got there, it became easy. Whenever we did a new game, 100 million downloads would happen. It just became a given,” he says. “Like many things in life, first you think it is impossible. But then, there is a very easy way of achieving it.”

Entrepreneurs also need to plan for success when it happens. Vesterbacka recounts the challenges of scaling Rovio as it grew. Building those processes and structures to become a different company, he says, can be “more difficult than failing”.

While some entrepreneurs might warn others of the difficulties of launching a business of one’s own, Vesterbacka is in favour of jumping right in. “Don’t think about it too much. Today is as good a day to start a new business or job as yesterday. You shouldn’t overanalyse. People are very good at thinking about potential problems and what might happen, but — don’t think; do.”

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