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10 principles to think about when starting a small team

1. Be consistent
2. Know how much time everyone is putting in but understand not everyone can put the same amount in
3. Focus on creating something, not the financing
4. Don’t have a grander vision in place
5. Don’t work with friends
6. Trim the fat, everyone needs to have an area of specialism different than the rest
7. Focus on the strengths of the core ream
8. Expect multiple breaking points
9. Be frugal with spending
10. Worry about the business later

Note: In this instance, small teams is defined by having some but little experience, no existing connections to money and publishing. Maybe more experienced people going out on their first outing could still get a few tips from there

On being Consistent

The most important thing when starting out is to commit to consistency, for a few reasons; It takes many small actions to build into a larger thing. You’ll lose motivation if you try and do too much in sprints and it’s also terrible for your health. Just know what you can do each week and commit to that. 

You need to treat it like a job. You’re on the hook and you need to show up. It should take a terrible illness or a large life event to not show up. 

Don’t treat the work as though you’re available to run errands or help people during thw work day. Work fills to the time available (LAW). You need to be precious about your time. 

When meetings are scheduled, everyone should be punctual and show up on time. 

This will be the most stressful endeavour of your life, especially so in the early years. Have respect for your team in the trenches alongside you and show up when you say you’ll show up. 

There should be zero tolerance for people that are holding the bus up, you need to get rid early and find the right team, and that may require a few changes at least in the first year or so. 

How much time is enough

Not everyone on the team will be able to dedicate the same amount of hours. This is where one of the biggest points of friction can be when you’re starting out. Up front and at the start, everyone should commit to the hours they’re able to spend on the project. Some will have part time jobs, some families, some with other commitments. Some will also need to have a full-time job. Some will be single whilst others in a relationship. Everyone firstly needs to emphathise that it won’t be equal – it can’t be equal – but you also need to treat everyone equally. No dividing importance based on how much you can commit, everything is split equally, but the hours may vary. 

Of course you have to be consistent, but friction can happen if you’re working hard and draining yourself with output and another team member is spending their time socialising. You can’t let that create friction. Up front, you all committed to what you were able to work, if they’re not in breach of that, you need to realise you decided to form a team with them. They have a distinct set of skills, and more importantly, you trust them. Get out of your head and get on with the work.

On chasing finance

Funding, or lack thereof, is of course going to be one of the biggest breaking points for the team. You can’t rely on your business plan and financial forecast (that thing you jotted down on a piece of paper to try and get money to work). You need to plan for what you know, and the rest is a bonus. Bootstrapping is the best way to achieve this. In the real time industries, it’s easier than ever to get access to professional tools and free or low cost. Just make the work and build your community, the rest will follow. 

Of course, you should still spend ~10% of your week applying for funding and grant opportunities, but you can’t expect to get them. Focus on the end goal and scope accordingly. 

Once you release your first piece of work (that you have to be proud of), the rest will follow and the finance conversations will become easier. You’ll also know how much you’ll need for future funding to maintain the team. 

Which is an important note: Keep track of all the costs you would be spending on a spreadsheet, track how much you should be earning, all the other development costs and outgoings and then when you come to the next project, you’ll see how much you should have spent and although you may never quite get budgeting right (remember, work fills to the space accordingly), you’ll have a much closer ideas. 

On having a grand vision

When we founded White Paper Games, there was no idea of a lager company in mind that would be there 10 years later. The only focus was on creating Ether One. We didn’t have systems in place to support us 5 years from now. We just had the game and the team and all focus was on that. 

Don’t stay in planning mode – just ‘do‘. Focus on what’s in front of you, you don’t have the luxury to plan and what ifs. Just create. 

Of course, iterate, and iterate a lot. Scrap things and start over if it’s not right. You have to be brutal about your work, but don’t spend too much time planning. 

Early on when there’s a small amount of light at the end of the tunnel, maybe after shipping your first work, processes and pipelines are important for team health and communication, but now it needs to be scrappy with a focus on frugality and speed (whilst maintaining quality). You’ll be small enough that communication will flow. 

Friends

You should have a good relationship and respect for everyone you work with. And of course spending time outside of work is great for the overall team. Some members on the team will likely be friends since that’s how you find your early members. This point is more about a group of people, not really knowing what they want to do, and thinking they can form a small team. 

This is a business undertaking more than a hobby project and although all the previous principles have focussed on doing the work and not focusing in the business too much, if it starts of in a friends dynamic which comes with a lot of extra baggage, the focus won’t be on the work, it’ll be on the team dynamics and in high-press situations. Those friendship bonds will likely fracture over the course of a development and you’ll likely be losing a close friend through the journey. 

Of course, more than anything, respect and enjoy spending time with everyone on your team, but realise the difference between who you enjoy spending your time with and it blending with people you can trust to show up.

Trim the fat

A lot of small teams start off with too much fat on the team. 

Maybe you have a scenario where friends have come together (already a red flag) and there are 2 designers but only 1 artist and a producer. You can instantly see potential issues here. 

2 designers to 1 artist is going to create more design work than an artist can handle – this may be fine for a more technical design project, but be sure you know that’s what you’re creating.

What is a producer doing when the 3 developers are working?

 For us, for the first title, this skillset to person roughly translated to 6 people: Art, Design, Code, Tech, Audio & Narrative. We covered our bases with core roles we knew we needed for the work we wanted to create. Of course everyone should be able to help out where needed and multi-faceted people with Range (LINK) on a team is a must (i.e an artist who can design, a coder that knows some tech art), but don’t have extra bloat in those roles. 

You need to be lean and keep work as focused for 3 key reasons: 

1. You can’t afford to have the team bigger than it is. Even if you’re all working for free in the early days, they’re still extra heads to feed and when the project ships and you hopefully earn money, those people will all need to be financially rewarding for the time investment. 
2. With every extra person on the team, the number of communication channels is compounded across the team. Adding 1 person isn’t 1 extra conversation you have, if that 1 person is joining a team of 4, that can be up to twice the amount of additional conversations that requires time and investment into. 
3. You always need one responsible person (RP) for each task, if two people share the same role in the early days and you haven’t figured out how your processes work yet, who gets final say? It introduces additional politics you don’t want to worry about at this stage. 

On strengths

Focus on what your team can create, don’t start with an idea then try to find the team. 

Firstly, everyone is equal (Principle 1), so if you have a large vision and try to get the team together to fulfil it, there will be friction. 

Second, you’ll spend a long time trying to find the right people to join the team that meet the project requirements AND  that you can trust to show up along with all the interpersonal dynamics I mentioned above. When you have a strong team in place, they can create anything. Look at common interests and what can be a unique take on something, then create that. Everyone will be more passionate and enthusiastic about the project and it will create a richer dynamic for development.

On multiple points of failure

Read The Dip by Seth Godin. Read The Messy Middle by Scott Belsky. What you’re undertaking is incredibly tough and stressful and I have a huge admiration for people that have gone it alone. 

There are days you can’t sleep with stress, or when you do sleep wake up in the night with stress, there will be plans that fall through, promises for something on the project that aren’t fulfilled, things will go wrong. You need to expect and embrace that they will happen and it will be tough. It’s important to have good team health as the team can help share these burdens. 

Don’t let things boil up within the team as the pressure valve will be released without you realising at crucial points that could damage the project.

 You need to make sure you are spending enough time off the project with your relationships whether it be a partner, family or friends. Be there for each other and share the burden, this is tough, but know to expect it. 

On frugality

You don’t have any money. 

If you do get money (such as a £25,000 grant), it will feel like a lot. 

And it is, but don’t think it will go very far. 

Try to avoid grants that force you to pay yourselves a minimum wage. If you implement that structure, it means that everyone is getting paid a fair amount for work they’re doing, but labour can be some of the most expensive costs. The money will soon run out and it definitely won’t be enough to ship a project. When the money inevitably runs out you’re left with a void of now not receiving money for what you were receiving money for last week. It can be a physiologically hard thing to get your head around. 

Instead, approach it with a piecework mentality. If someone needs a train ticket to get to a team meeting, everyone could chip in and help provide. Share resources frugally and again, everyone is equal. 

No keeping score. You’re all in it together. 

Any money you do receive probably should help plug the gaps of the ship instead of being shared out equally among the team as everyone will have different financial circumstances and requirements. 

The business side of business

There will be a few things you do need to do: Register the business, complete company accounts. 

But there isn’t an overwhelming amount to do and you’ll be forced to learn how to do things. 

There’re plenty of resources on how to do it alone. If you have a family friend who can help, definitely take those offers. But don’t pay expensive amount of fees for things you can learn to do yourself. When you’re small, things will be less complex. You can learn how to process payroll on your own, or complete your company accounts. As a small team you’ll be adaptive to helping out others and learning new skills, you need someone on your team that is willing to learn about the business. It won’t be massively complex, but it takes time, and those skills are beneficial later down the line. 

Just don’t avoid them or put them off. 

Again, don’t avoid them or put them off. 

When you know they need doing, do them straight away, There’s an upfront cost associated when you want to be focusing on the project, but the sooner you get the paperwork done, the sooner you can get back to development. You may even get the paperwork wrong or require more time you thought, so moving early gives you that time and can prevent larger stresses down the line.

I receive a lot of emails asking for advice on how to get small teams going so I hope the points above can provide some context and clarity. We’re entering our 10th year of business as a team and although it always feels like day 1, hopefully these principles help provide a framework or context as to what to expect as you’re putting your work out into the world. 

If you’re already a small team developer, did I miss any key points from your experience that should be highlighted?

If you’re struggling with small teams development, please do feel free to reach out at pete.bottomley@Whitepapergames.com