the OTHER jon lam The Entrpreneur, Not to be confused with the Statefarm agent…

Accel is having a good year: Playfish exits to EA, and AdMob gets bought by Google

Accel Partners is having a pretty good year, considering the market for company exits. The firm, which also invested in JBoss, Facebook, and MetroPCS, first invested in AdMob in 2007. They invested in social gaming company Playfish in 2008. Now, AdMob has sold to Google for 750M in stock, and Playfish has been bought by EA for 300M + 100M on performance.

An interesting note: the CEO of AdMob said this in a post about the acquisition:

” Talk to any veteran in mobile and they will tell you just how hard it was to get things done only a few years ago. I remember we used to have a cynical saying that summarized both the promise that mobile possessed and the monumental barriers we could not cross: “Mobile is the future, and always will be.”…

Then came the iPhone. Suddenly, Apple solved so many problems that had plagued mobile for so long. They showed all of us the way forward and their efforts have led to a landslide of rapid improvements in our space. We were so excited by the promise the iPhone represented that we shifted a significant portion of our attention to that device in its very early days. We launched the first iPhone ad units focused on the web and quickly added the capability to run ads in applications. Now with the addition of excellent devices from Palm, Nokia, RIM, and plethora of Android powered smartphones, we have all the preconditions necessary for what will be a tidal wave of mobile browsing and app usage. But let there be no mistake. Our business, and the mobile industry in general, owes Apple a debt of gratitude.“

The iPhone is game changing Get ready…

P90X: Plyometrics

“Anybody can do anything for 30 seconds!”…

iPhonedevcamp

Spending the weekend at YYC iPhonedevcamp organized by MJ Sikorsky. Great presentations from Broken Kings, iKingdom Corp, Happy App Company, and Brendan from TapForms. Having a great time!!

Apple opens up FTP games to in-app purchasing

Information week article.

This is huge news! Get ready for the flood of FTP online games to the iPhone!

Starting P90X

Based on the glowing review from a friend, started doing P90X with my wife. This one will be interesting 60-90 minutes per day of working out. Won’t inflict the Before pictures on you!! We’ll see what happens after the 90 days. So far we’ve done the Chest & Back, Ab Ripper, Plyometrics, Yoga, and Shoulders & Arms DVDs. Pain!!

I once was on a panel giving a talk to some students – if you were there, you’ll remember this bit! There’s always that little voice inside your head that tells you to give up WAYYYY before it’s time. Every entrepreneur has to kill that voice, but every time I do a crazy workout, he reappears….

I figure it’s taken the better part of 10 years to beat that sucker back! Back to the point where it is becoming easier to impose my will on (sic) myself! I’d like to think it’s the result of work and discipline, but maybe I’m just getting old

To the whiners and complainers

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of whining and complaining about the iPhone app store: Apple takes too big a %, their selection process is unfair, the marketing sucks, the ratings suck, they made it a closed platform so that Apple can extract their huge 30%, etc. etc. Well, I say GET OVER IT. You obviously have never shipped a game before. We take on 100% of the financial risk of making casual games, and net 25%. Yes, that’s right – our distributor takes 70-75% of each sale.

So all you people complaining about a measly 30%? Get your collective heads out of your asses. This is the most generous royalty split I’ve ever come across.

We recently met one of the creators of Agon Online – Daniel Polvson. Agon basically allows developers to add social features to their games. In fact, we’re testing it out on one of our iPhone games right now! The reason I bring this up is that Agon gets paid by promoting games through it’s service. For each game Agon sells, it gets something like 5%. <Daniel – correct me, if I’m wrong > Now the part that should (but probably won’t ) blow your mind is that the 5% comes from APPLE’S SHARE. It doesn’t get split out before we get our 70%, and there isn’t a page long formula with audit rights to figure out what your royalties are. Apple gets 25%, the affiliate gets 5%, and I get my same-old 70%.

Contrast this again with the casual space, where I get nickled and dimed every which way. Contract says 30%? Only after that paragraph long list of deductions from gross revenues. Somehow, between processing fees, credit card charges, affiliate marketing fees, and god knows what else, I end up getting 23.654%

So the next time you feel like complaining about Apple’s royalty scheme, go re-mortgage your house and put some REAL money where your mouth is.

Gladiator

Just watched Gladiator again. This has to be in my top 10 movies of all time. “What you do in life echoes in eternity.” One of the best movie lines ever.