Work record / Brand / Ink Games
Ink Games: I moved the seed pitch onto the team
The company had no revenue and no launched product, so investors were really betting on people. I moved the pitch off the build and onto the team's judgment.
The seat
In May 2019 I took the Seed Advisor, Go-to-Market seat, which I held through September 2020. I owned the launch plan and the story that would carry the seed round.
| Sector | Mobile gaming |
|---|---|
| Type of work | Seed-stage go-to-market |
| Where | Austin, Texas |
| Years | May 2019 to September 2020 |
| How long | Seventeen months |
| Through | Common Ground, with the raise run through Prince Capital |
| Credits | Common Ground Jesse Fowler, Seed advisor, go-to-market Alex Prince, Co-led the seed capital raise |
What I was brought in to decide
Ink Games is the gaming arm of InfluenceInk, as an Austin technology company was then called. In May 2019 there was no revenue and no product out. The first title, World of Influence, was scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2019. The deck described it as "Pokemon Go meets Monopoly": players own postal codes on a map, earn from what happens in their territory, and are paid for recruiting more players.
Robert Towles, the CEO, ran a team with game-making experience at EA, Zynga and Buffalo Studios. Prize Kingdoms, which the company shipped later, carries the line Play. Win. Earn.
What we did
- Common Ground's capital partner joined on the capital side, and Prince Capital, the licensed placement advisor, ran the raise.
- Investors kept getting a tour of features that the next build would replace. So I moved the pitch from the build to the team. A seed check with no revenue behind it is a bet on the team's judgment, and the build should show that judgment, not need defending.
- We went against standard practice and worked shared contacts jointly rather than splitting the list. Suppose a contact trusts two advisors separately and each gives the same answer for the same reason. That is two independent reads. They count only if each costs its owner something, so both of us held equity in the company and the contact could see it. I had watched this work as a general contractor. A GC who recommends a subcontractor is on the hook for that sub's work, and that is why the recommendation carries weight.
- That weight cost us reach. To protect both our calendars I built a filter: a pitch meeting only if one named person inside the fund will champion the deal with us out of the room, and the fund's decision process suits a seed timeline. Two yeses, or no meeting.
- I read the launch plan by its channel, not by an ad budget. When a game pays its players to recruit, a payout line takes the place of paid acquisition. The questions went in order: whether the game holds a player who never gets paid, how a referred subscriber's worth compares with the payout that brought them in, who holds the first territories, and whether it is one title or several.
- I closed out the advisory in September 2020, after the seed had closed and the launch lay behind the company. I kept my position once the paid work ended.
Results
- The seed closed in 2020 for a company with no revenue. It rested on the people, worked through shared contacts by way of Prince Capital.
- The company's own rounds came later: September 2021 for the Series A, August 2022 for the Series B.
- Prize Kingdoms shipped and leads with play before earning, which matches the first test I applied to the launch plan.
- My two-question meeting filter outlived the raise. I still use it to decide whether to take a raise meeting.
The lesson
Sell the team's judgment, not the build. Work shared contacts together, each advisor holding equity the contact can see, and take a meeting only when someone inside will champion it and the process suits a seed timeline.
Public record
Questions about Ink Games, answered
Firm record
Common Ground keeps its own account of this engagement: Ink Games on the Common Ground wiki.