4 min read

EGD News #12 (Jan 17th 2020)

It’s Joakim here. Greetings from Helsinki, where we are waiting for record warm weather for January. Norway already had +19 a week ago, so soon we should also suffer from a Mediterranean heatwave. Too bad there’s no sunlight at this time of year. But it’s been a busy week with lots of meeting with founders and goal-setting going on.

In recent months, I’ve loved reading Mathilde Collin’s posts on Medium.

Mathilde is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Front, who handles email for teams. She is a first-time founder, who was accepted to the Y Combinator accelerator a few years ago and has been building Front, with the help of her investors, which include the likes of Index Ventures, Social Capital and Sequoia Capital.

Mathilde’s posts are so insightful. Here are the top 3 picks that I suggest taking a look at.

  • Why I spend 2 weeks every quarter on an internal presentation https://medium.com/@collinmathilde/why-i-spend-2-weeks-every-quarter-on-an-internal-presentation-d5b3bdebd5f8 Mathilde wants to “First find the story, then illustrate it with metrics and anecdotes.” in her presentations. Her goal is that people know what the company’s mission is and believe in it, people know what they’re responsible for and how they are contributing to the company goals, and that people find happiness and meaning in their work.
  • I’m paying my employees to use their phones less. Here’s why. https://medium.com/@collinmathilde/im-paying-my-employees-to-use-their-phones-less-here-s-why-9e7ed6dfc8c8 Devices are toxic to the human mind, when overused. The always-available culture has become prevalent through tools like Slack, where people hang around on weekends, chatting and contemplating about work-related topics. Mathilde’s goal is to limit her employees to screen time 14 hours a week, by incentivizing them with rewards, based on screen time achievements.
  • One-on-ones are my most valuable meetings; here’s how I run them https://medium.com/swlh/one-on-ones-are-my-most-valuable-meetings-heres-how-i-run-them-d9ae7c64dade

Other posts from Mathilde that are worth checking out


Our Latest Article

Planning An Online Course For Gaming Founders – I recently posted an article on Medium about my goal setting for the first quarter of 2020 and got lots of interest and feedback from people about the course I’m building. I want to craft a new kind of online course, something that helps founders in building a games company, where the company, it’s culture and its purpose comes first, then the games it’s going to make.


Our Latest Podcasts

Game Designer’s Journey with Florian Steinhoff — In this week’s episode, I’m talking with Florian Steinhoff, the former lead of Jelly Splash, the hit game from Wooga. Florian has been experimenting in mobile games for years now and he has lots of details to share.

If you have a meaningful twist in your mind to a well-known core mechanic, prototyping can help to hone in on how it can work and if there are unknown behaviors. “In prototyping, the goal is to solve problems and identify the risks on the game mechanics.”

All past episodes can be found here.


A Book Recommendation

Start Something That Matters (Blake Mycoskie) — This book is one of my favorites, explaining why a company’s purpose really matters. This book talks about a guy, the author Blake Mycoskie, who was in Argentina, saw an idea to sell a pair of shoes and then give away one pair to the poor in South America. He went on to found TOMS, with the idea of setting out to do something to help people, versus just trying to make money.

One of the important components that he talks about in the book is the way that stories can earn money, achieve personal fulfillment, and make a positive impact on the world all at the same time. Blake says in the book: “Conscious capitalism is about more than simply making money – although it’s about that too. It’s about creating a successful business that also connects supporters to something that matters to them and that has great impact in the world.”