First of all, I’m one of you. A little backstory: Last year around March, I was laid off from my development job. 30 seconds out the door and my brother gives me a call asking if I can help on a project. I spent the next few months blitzing through the Blender and Unity courses while learning VR and building this project for my brother, for Bullfrog Spas. That project grew and we presented a demo in November at a trade show which resulted in about 20 sales around the world. Now, today, we are getting ready to ship the launch version this very weekend and we have clients knocking down our doors asking for similar applications… okay, that last bit is a slight exaggeration, but that’s what it feels like to me since I am currently the only developer.
I haven’t launched a full-scale hunt yet, mostly because I stay busy enough trying to hit deadlines, but obviously we are growing and are in need of some help. I’m posting this here because I think that you all are the right kind of crowd to be talking to. I wouldn’t call myself shy per se, but I haven’t been very active in any communities because of fear of rejection, being over ridiculed, etc. I’m getting much better though, and now I’m in a “sink or swim” kind of scenario. So if you’re the same way, I know exactly where you’re coming from. (Basically saying that to encourage you to reach out even if you think you might not fit the bill… passion trumps experience in many cases).
What am I looking for?
Basically anyone who is trying to build a gaming portfolio and has taken at least part of one of the relevant courses (Unity, Blender, etc). We are building very “game-like” products for clients, and we figure this is a great way to get your foot in the door if you’d eventually like to work for a AAA company. To be clear, this is a paid gig, not just a plea for help. It may be a little less than standard for the industry, but we’re not going to be super demanding about experience either.
Just to give you an idea, our current and “in negotiations” clients are:
- Bullfrog Spas
- Little Giant ladders
- Larry H Miller (owner of: Utah Jazz NBA team, car dealerships, movie theater chain, and more)
- PC Laptops
- (A few other companies either too small to be renown or too early in conversations to call them a client).
We are also working on our own in-house game projects, code bases, and libraries.
All that said, if it’s totally inappropriate for me to post this here, I’ll quietly back away. I just wanted to reach out here since I’m a fellow course-mate. It was Ben’s (and team’s) courses that got me here, and I want to return the favor by giving back. Right now, our growth rate is limited, but we anticipate needing much more as the year goes on, so at the very least, hopefully I can establish some connections here with some of you.