Entrepreneur has an interview with Sean Spector, who, in 2002, co-founded Gamefly, an online company that is to gamers what Netflix is to movie lovers.
What inspired you to start Gamefly?
I had a voracious appetite for video games, and I couldn’t afford to buy all the games I wanted to play. I think that’s the conundrum for most gamers: They want way more than they can afford. I looked at the traditional rental model–which is the brick-and-mortar model–and realized that it was pretty good for movies, but it was broken for games.
What were some of the hurdles you faced during startup?
When we started this company, it was post-bubble burst. Nobody was really looking at funding dot-coms. They had sort of gone out of fashion–especially dot-coms that held inventory. So it was definitely a contrarian play, for us as well as for the investors. It was a really good time to start a company, not that dissimilar from the way things are today. Really good companies are going to emerge from this shakeout, and I think the same thing happened back in 2002. Real business models need to be created to sustain growth and become profitable. I knew from Day One that we would have a real business model that generates real revenue, and not the reliance upon “If we build it, the profitable model will come.”
Continue Reading: “Playing To Win”
Photo by Gamefly.