Starting a Gaming Company?
I have a bunch of ideas that I would like to put into practice regarding designing a video game. I may be attending a college for game design and am already getting familiar with C++ and the other aspects of game design. Realizing that it would be almost impossible (Or would take an extreme long amount of time) to design a game myself, I would need a team of developers to help me out. This would probably mean I would have to start my own company. The only problem is, how would I be able to pay the people who work for me a decent salary until the game actually launches (having no money prior and probably not getting THAT much to pay them with a start up loan). I would estimate it would take 3 years most likely to have the game fully designed, and I have no idea where I could get the money for that. If anyone knows of how I would be able to have the money to pay for a team of developers salary, among every other thing needed (building space, equipment), I would appreciate your help.
Who would I contact at Netflix to pitch a TV series idea?
I have a finished feature film and the direct contact info of the Netflix buyers. I even have a previous film (Confessions of a Prodigal Son) that did well on Netflix. But since my celebrity star power and track record isn’t high enough to get Netflix to answer my emails, I must rely on my product doing well enough to have Netflix come hunting me. That’s what worked last time, after we did very well in DVD sales.So my advice is the same as if your idea was any product or service: Execute with excellence first, and “you will stand before kings”. That is NOT the same as the stupid advice to “build it and they will come”. Execution is the key to success.If your idea is just an idea, the best you can hope for is to write about on Quora and hope somebody at Netflix reads it. Just know there are no new ideas in film, at least none that are immediately exciting to Hollywood.
How do I solicit new idea to McDonalds?
I went to the website and it said: 1. How do I share an idea with McDonald's about a new product, service, promotional concept or other innovation that I believe would benefit McDonald's? It is our company’s policy not to consider unsolicited ideas from outside the McDonald’s system. Because we are always working on new ideas and strategies within the company, we do not review ideas from outside McDonald’s to avoid confusion over the origin of an idea. We realize that we may be missing out on a few good ideas, but we had to adopt this policy for legal and business reasons. So, it says not to accept UNSOLICITED from OUTSIDE the McDonalds system. How can I make my idea solicited from within? I did work there as a kid in high school for a few years. My Idea will knock their socks off and increase sales.
How do I pitch an idea to a big company (e.g. Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, etc.) without getting taken advantage of?
No.In the real world you cannot pitch an idea to anyone and get it funded by them. At the risk of boring those long-time Quorizens who have seen this before, it is worth taking to heart Derek Sivers' seminal blog post:
Is it true that Yahoo! turned down an offer to buy Google for around $1 million in 1998?
Yes, Yahoo did turn down an offer to buy out Google.The following excerpt from The Google Story (David A. Vise) highlights Google's earlier buy out offer to AltaVista and seems to suggest that Yahoo too would have been asked to pay in the region of $1 million:Seated in Palo Alto's Mandarin Gourmet restaurant in March 1998, Page and Brin prepared to pitch Paul Flaherty, a Stanford Ph.D. and an architect of AltaVista, on the merits of their superior search engine technology. AltaVista, they hoped, would pay as much as $1 million to get access to the soon-to-be-patented PageRank system. Brin and Page would then be able to resume their studies at Stanford.With the help of Stanford professors and the Office of Technology Licensing, Brin and Page tried unsuccessfully to sell their PageRank system to Excite and other search engines.Yahoo, seemingly a logical buyer because it relied on directories edited by people and didn't have a fast way to scour the entire Internet, also turned down the chance to buy or license the Google technology.In part, Yahoo rejected it because the firm wanted computer users to spend more time on Yahoo. The Google search engine was designed to give people fast answers to their questions by swiftly sending them to the most relevant Web site. The Yahoo directories were designed both to answer questions and to keep people on the Yahoo site, where they could shop, view ads, check their email, play games, and spend more money and time, rather than less.Source: The Google Story (David A. Vise)
What is the hiring process like at Yahoo?
Apparently, Yahoo’s CEO reads every single resume. I linked to a story on NPR about the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, who claims to sift through upwards of 50 resumes a week to ensure that she has her eyes on the potential new hires.The introduction to the story states that Yahoo is being acquired by Verizon, so Mayer will be the last CEO in Yahoo history, so this may all change relatively soon. However, there are still some important things to be said about how Mayer speaks about the Yahoo recruitment process during her ongoing four years as CEO. Here are some I think are particularly inspiring:Like the title implies, don’t treat a “sinking ship” of a company like it’s hopeless. Rather, to enhance employer brand, rally employees together to better the environment. Even with Mayer’s 14,000 employees, she made this think-tank atmosphere possible.When employees talk, listen. They are your company’s best ambassadors. Foster their beliefs and create a culture that enhances employer brand.Sort through every resume. While the CEO in this situation reads through all of them, it’s important to get the whole team involved. Have a system where you sift through the resumes ASAP after you receive them - it’ll save a whole lot of wasted time on unqualified candidates later on.Focus on what you do well, and showcase that. Keep a consistent picture for potential candidates to see what your core values as a company are.Learn from Mayer’s micro-managing mistakes. While many thinks the CEO of Yahoo did were beneficial, she focused on small parts rather than the big picture. Getting the team together is one thing, but you have to have common goals, as well. The same goes for hiring.Hiring together is something that Yahoo seemed to lack. They could have used an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to sift through those resumes more quickly, with set guidelines that Mayer made herself. All in all, the recruitment process was flawed, but was headed in the right direction. If you are an employer, you can model your recruitment process off of Yahoo - there was plenty of untapped talent! Just make sure that you tap into that talent during the recruitment process, as well. And by all means, use an ATS!
Who is the owner of WhatsApp?
The founding father of WhatsApp is Jan Koum. He is a Ukrainian-American internet inventor and computer programmer. He is the CEO and co-founder of Whatsapp, a mobile messaging application which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for US$19.3 billion.Jan koumJan worked at Yahoo which he left in 2007 so that he could develop his own app store. He visited his friend Alex Fishman and the two talked for hours about Koum's idea for an app over tea at Fishman's kitchen counter. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like "what's up", and a week later on his birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. WhatsApp became popular in just a short amount of time, and this caught Facebook's attention. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg first contacted Koum in the spring 2012. The two began meeting at a coffee shop in Los Altos, California, then began a series of dinners and walks in the hills above Silicon Valley.On February 9, 2014 Zuckerberg asked Koum to have dinner at his home, and formally proposed Koum a deal to join the Facebook board - 10 days later facebook announced it was acquiring whatsApp for US$19 Billion USD.Note-Image used here has been taken from GoogleFew facts taken from Wikipedia-Thanking you(Prajjwal pathak)