Before co-founding G.Games, I never planned on working in the industry. It was an accident – and like so much in my life, I blame it all on my co-founder Paul.
My career started at Unilever as one of the personal care brand managers. I joined through the graduate trainee scheme, which gave me the opportunity to work on several brands and I worked in several different roles to learn more about sales, marketing, product development and factory production.
I remember their internal recruitment was specifically searching for ‘entrepreneurial people’. A decade on, something like 50% of my ‘intake’ have left to start their own businesses…. I often think about that experience when considering how to instruct recruiters on what we think we want versus what we actually want!
It was a fantastic training ground, but I used to find the organisation frustrating. There was as much work done on internal presentations as actually delivering to external customers. I left to pursue a creative and marketing services agency, where I started as a freelancer and before adding other creatives whom I admired. I had a lot of fun and I look back on it as a very relaxed time.
While running an agency was great, I knew there was a limit to how far I could scale it and I was yearning to create something product-related again where I controlled the whole process – rather than handing off a concept to a team who would then do something totally different.
Just at that moment, I was introduced to a new client who wanted me to write a series of books on how to deliver software at scale. That was how I met Paul and Dan, my co-founders at G.
Helen Walton, founder of G.Games
Sourcing funding
None of us dreamed of creating an igaming company before we met. We knew nothing about the industry, we had never worked in this sector before, although Paul is an inveterate gambler on almost everything – especially Eurovision!
We had no idea where or how to raise money in what is a specialist industry where crowdfunding is impossible. So, we had no choice but to bootstrap for the first two years. We had all agreed to take one year unpaid at the start; but that one year turned into six – which was… challenging, shall we say.
It was a steep learning curve. We had to teach ourselves everything – from compliance to product. With no contacts we hung around shows and talked to anyone who would listen. I am still grateful to the people who offered us feedback and answered our idiotic questions. That generosity is something I try to pay forwards by giving my time to new startups or founders.
When I look back, our willingness to rush into it still amazes me. We were naive for sure, but I often think that if you weren’t naive and optimistic no one would ever be brave enough to start a company.
A fairytale story?
Founding a company is rarely the fairytale that some expect. There are moments of joy and a deep satisfaction but it’s also brutally hard work. While some may manage ‘start up to big exit in three years’, many more will go bust, often through no fault of their own but just through bad luck or timing.
The humbling thing was that we thought our hardest times would be long hours, low wages and technical challenges – we didn’t really think much about the emotional rollercoaster which is what can exhaust and demotivate you.
Trials and tribulations
There are so many times when a product you really believed in doesn’t work, or a deal you spent ages on collapses, or an unexpected compliance obstacle kills a strategy. There are days when you are convinced everything is failing, but you still have to go out and smile as if things are great. There are days you feel undervalued and ignored and you wonder why you ever did anything so stupid. You feel as if you are striving and straining but not getting anywhere.
On the flip side, you have days when you pause, sit back and realise that, out of nowhere, you’re a company of 100 people that is already turning a profit. It is those days that make the hardships worth it.
Finding the right support
It’s crucial to feel part of a tight team – your co-founders and the culture you create with the first people who join you. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman outlined four key stages of group development: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Over a 12-year relationship you go through several of those cycles.
Since founding G, we have really learnt what strengths and weaknesses we all have and you need to find ways of working with those together – especially as others join and leave the team. It helps if those skills are complementary so that you can share out work and responsibilities and respect one another’s expertise. Of course, the times when you are “storming” can feel really painful but that’s just the reality of a close relationship under pressure. It’s just bad weather; wait and it will pass.
Personal and professional
It also helps when you have a life partner who is supportive. Something that I feel isn’t addressed much as a female founder is the additional burden associated with domestic work and childcare when you are in a startup world – that is, when you don’t have the money for help.
When I would leave the house for a work trip, I had already spent days organising school pick-ups, drop-offs, dinners and other activities. I would also call in to check homework or do bedtime stories from wherever I was.
Those work trips are much easier if you are a well-paid executive who can afford childcare or for your partner’s career to move into a different lane from yours. But when you are unpaid, and your partner’s job is also full throttle, it is insanely difficult to juggle those demands.
I used to want to scream when I heard people on a panel saying ‘of course being female made no difference’, when I knew how hard it was even to attend an evening event. I want to be clear though, I was still privileged to be in a relationship where I could take on the financial risk of G. There are plenty of men and women for whom it wouldn’t be possible.
Other sexism?
Research suggests female founders find it harder to raise funds than male. As founders we often took deliberate decisions for Paul to front the team on money raises, while I led in other areas such as product, marketing and operations.
I sometimes feel bad that we didn’t take on and challenge such stereotypes. But we’re entrepreneurs, not social justice warriors.
A rewarding journey
In the igaming industry, there are many founders who have managed to complete this journey themselves, or without entering a business partnership. I’ve heard several speak about the benefits as well as the difficulties of going solo.
But for G, I can’t really imagine us ever really taking a different approach to what we have done. I am so fortunate to always have two great partners to talk through an idea or a plan with and then know that we will execute on it together. At the end of the day we share the risk and the pain in a way no one else quite does.
We have always tried to do things differently. I partly think that is because we weren’t already steeped in ideas of how things should be; we could shape what we wanted G to be.
We run a super-lean business that is centred around being innovative. As a result, we’ve often found it easier to recruit because we aren’t on the same merry-go-round of talent as everyone else.
If only…
What would it have been like if someone had told me how hard it would be to found G.Games? Would it have been good to have had a more realistic view of the challenges and exactly what they’d be? Or would it have frightened me into not trying and made me too aware of all the things I didn’t know?
If you really want to found your own company, it’s a bit like having a baby. If you wait until the time is perfect and all your finances are sorted and you’re ready, the time will never come. So just plunge in and figure it out as you go!
They say that having children is often exhausting and miserable in the day to day – but they are the thing you’re proudest of in the long-term. And really… that’s what running your own company is like.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/strategy/helen-walton-rewriting-the-entrepreneurs-narrative/
