“The programme helped us translate creative vision into investor language,” explains George Caton-Coult of Pop Paper City
//
“If I’m honest, I was probably slightly naive when I started this journey,” admits Sophie Morgan, the creative founder behind Go Girl Games. “I was naive about how much blood, sweat and tears it takes to get your company to the stage where it can credibly raise investment and also about what investors expect in return. But as well as helping me realise the sweat’s been worth it, it’s allowed me to inhabit this world with a more realistic sense of what’s required,” she adds, “and to shape my business accordingly.”
The journey Sophie’s referring to is her time on Creative Enterprise: Investment Readiness. It’s designed to help screen-based start-ups learn the skills needed to tackle the world of investment but it’s not the first time she’s called upon Creative UK’s help. After hearing a gaming expert talk at a Female Founders alumni event, Sophie was convinced her idea of bringing her cross-genre TV experience to the games sector was a hunch worth pursuing – and a chat with a games industry expert spurred her on even further.
“I’d done my research and knew that the mobile gaming audience segment for females over 45 was enormous. It’s a growing market – both in terms of global mobile takeup and in terms of older women taking up gaming,” she explains. Having spent years both as a commissioning editor and as an award-winning TV and multi-platform content creator, Sophie had spotted a new market that was ripe for reinvention. “Females in this demographic are gaming already but the games available to them tend to fall into the hypercasual ‘cozy’ category,” she says, referencing the puzzles and sims that tend to dominate this sector. “It felt like there was a real gap in the market.”
“Everybody’s having to think entrepreneurially about ways of exploiting their IP”
Sophie’s idea was to bring her TV ideation and development expertise to a new, interactive medium. “I thought, ‘What are the mobile gaming equivalents of really great TV content? If you were to create a mobile game for my demographic that has the gloss and humour of a Gossip Girl or The White Lotus or got women talking like they do about Motherland or Amanda or builds a community people want to be part of like Drag Race or Love Island – what would that game look like? I realised it wasn’t out there, so I created it and Viva La Diva – the first game from the Go Girl Games stable was born.”
In addition to delivering fresh options to a booming market (“everybody has a mobile phone, not everyone has a PC, console or VR headset,” she adds), her idea also illustrates how with the right people around you, it’s possible to take a strong skillset from one sector and bring it to an entirely new one. “Most of my career has been in TV and moving into gaming felt like a very big leap but the creative landscape is always changing and evolving,” says Sophie. “And you need to evolve with it. Everybody’s having to think entrepreneurially about different ways of exploiting their skillset and their intellectual property.”
Armed with a strong idea, Sophie enrolled on our Investment Readiness scheme to help bring it to market as soon as possible. Despite years spent both as a creator and buyer of TV content the first thing that caught her attention was the programme’s dedication to unpicking all the elements an investor looks for – above and beyond the idea itself. “The value of your business, financial forecasts, accurate assumptions, return on investment – this kind of data in this kind of detail was new to me – as was an investor deck versus a TV com-ed pitch deck.”
Having no previous experience raising, the course was exactly what Sophie needed. “There were so many things I took away from being part of this cohort. The first was the practical guidance. From building a data room and finding the right lawyer to creating a cap table, the mentors and guest speakers delivered the kind of granular detail that is absolutely indispensable when you’re building to a raise.” What’s more, as Sophie alluded to, its timing couldn’t be more apt. “The creative landscape is in huge flux at the moment so it was great to have access to hugely experienced people with expertise spanning a variety of sectors.”
“My mentor is helping me do all of this in the shortest time possible”
Working with her industry mentor, Sophie’s been encouraged to question whether bringing on additional talent could fast-track the company’s progress. “As a typical solo-founder with a largely freelance team, I was wearing lots of different hats and not always playing to my strengths. My mentor and I discussed it a lot and as a result I hired a Technical Director which frees up more of my time to focus on the things I’m best at.” It’s something Sophie recognizes will save Go Girl Games a lot of time and money in the long run: “Having someone you trust and that investors trust really scrutinize your business and advise you objectively just short-cuts the process a million-fold.”
Learning directly from those who have achieved similar success and endured the same highs and lows has also been eye-opening. “My mentor is an exited-founder herself. Benefitting from the wisdom of her hard-won experience is a privilege,” says Sophie candidly. “She’s been incredibly generous with her knowledge and contacts, as well as a huge champion and advocate. You’re bound to have some wobbles along the way but having a great mentor who really has your back is something I’ve been extremely grateful for.”
With the scheme nearing its end, Go Girl Games has gained the investment acumen needed to complement its already enviable creative proposition. The end result is a company primed for the pitch boardroom. “Overall, it has helped me reframe and focus on the practical, business elements that are most important to investors,” Sophie says of the journey’s key take-aways. “It’s given me invaluable contacts and led me to consider new ways of approaching investment raising that are going to make sense for Go Girl Games and make it a much stronger, more attractive proposition to an investor.”