Values/Principles to guide business

[GBGames]

Apparently this hasn't been touched on before (at least not that I was able to find).

Anyway, I regularly read Steve Pavlina's blog, and one of the topics was being proactive. In it, he describes how proactive people are conscious of their core values. It is easier to make decisions when you know what your values are.

I can identify a few values, such as intelligence and discipline. Still, as I never ran my own business before, I'd like to be able to identify the values that I not only already hold in high importance, but also ones that should hold in high importance.

For example, until I read No B.S. Time Management for Entrepeneurs, I did not know how important time was. Now that I know how important my time is, I value it highly. When the phone rings while I am busy, I now consciously ignore it because I know I could check the voice message later when I am not busy. I never thought about how important my time was before, and now that I could understand it, I could decide to make it important to me. Now decisions regarding my time are easier to make, whereas before I didn't have anything to guide me.

Are there any core values most successful people keep? Are there any tools that allow you to analyze your current thinking to make you more aware of and focused on your current values?

[moonpxi]

Altough I have no core values to add, I would like to add a new question. Since time may be the most important resource for indies (specially those who have day jobs), how do you balance your development (and code improvement) time with other business-like tasks?

I am yet to embark on the more serious path of indie development, but I've always heard about the importance of marketing and such..

[Emmanuel]

how do you balance your development (and code improvement) time with other business-like tasks?

Reduce your indie project to its essence. Do you really need to write your own (whatever) while you can find two or three free, proven libs online that do what you need? Will it get you more customers to write your own, or are you really just rationalizing having fun?

Use a lever that works for you, to get you to be very productive. I can tell you what works for me: as a programmer, I take pride in what I produce. (like we all do). If I don't want to spend more than X hours, days or weeks on a project, I send an unfinished version to a friend, and tell him or her to put it online, send it to publishers, whatever, if I don't send him or her a final version by the deadline. You can bet that I don't want the world to evaluate a crappy, unfinished version of my work, and to never be able to market that particular product again (customers only look at it once, even if you make dramatic improvements later !) and that I find the time and energy to complete all my tasks by the deadline.

I don't know if pride is a lever for you; if not, I'm sure something is ! You will find that it solves the biggest problems of time management.


I am yet to embark on the more serious path of indie development, but I've always heard about the importance of marketing and such..

It depends on your goal. If your goal is to get customers to find your game, download it, and buy it, then marketing is the first step, not the last.

Programmers make fearsome marketers once they get interested in it. See it as another challenge to be solved, rather than a necessary evil to self-finance what you love to do. Break the problem down like you would do for a programming project. "How do I get people to be aware of my game?" "How do I get them to try it out?" "How do I get them to buy it?". It's a heavily competitive area, and being really good at it is rare, so it's a great challenge !
If you can be a great marketer and great programmer, you have a very big edge. People that are just one out of the two can't catch up with you.