KickStarter, also known as Crack Cocaine has hit my bank accounts hard recently with all the fantastic projects going on. In particular, WasteLand2, The Banner Saga and Shadowrun Returns.

Mid-Double-Fine-Adventures, I decided I should start tracking the daily data for projects I’m backing. Like most kickstarter backers out there, the kickstarter page has become a part of the morning email/schedule/game-news ritual. Below you can see the graphs (some as they’re being made) from a live google document I’m updating daily, along with links to the spreadsheets with all the formulas and pretty data.

n.b. If graphs don’t show up, try refreshing the page. I think it’s something to do with how WordPress handles the javascript/s which fetch the graphs from google docs

Double-Fine Adventure

Double Fine Adventure is the adventure game we’ve all wanted Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. You can check the ultra-successful (finished) Kickstarter Project page here.

If you can contribute to this data, please do! You can view and edit the spreadsheet through this Google document

Wasteland 2

Wasteland 2 is the sequel to the spiritual processor of the Fallout franchise. Ex-Interplay final boss Brian Fargo is leading the project, which is sounding completely awesome (click for the Kickstarter Project link)
This is the most comprehensive of the charts to date, with facebook, comment, backers, update and project funding information.

If you can contribute to this data, please do! You can view and edit the Google spreadsheet through this Google document

Shadowrun Returns

Shadowrun Returns is a return to the isometric cyberpunk/magic series that received so much acclaim on the SNES and Mega Drive platorms. Since I started tracking this project a few days after its launch, this graph is missing a bit of early data. You can visit the Kickstarter project page here.

If you can contribute to this data, please do! The Google document can be found here.

The Banner Saga

I jumped on the boat a little late with this one, so there is a bunch of work required to fill in the blanks for the earlier portions of the project – which, like the other projects on this list looks AWESOME. This is a mature RPG with a disney-level animation quality to it. The movies; not the Saturday morning cartoons. You can visit the project here.

If you can contribute to this data, please do! The Google spreadsheet can be viewed and edited here.

Thats all for now! I’ll add to this post as I fall in love with new Kickstarter projects. If you think I’ve missed any projects, please let me know and I’ll take a look.

Cheers,
Adam

I have launched a website to help scrum teams identify the bad smells which lead to an unholy mishmash of scrum and waterfall methodologies. It’s called soggyscrum.com

In any industry, it’s common for companies to put their own spin on scrum in order to integrate into their pipeline.  I have experienced this interpretation of scrum at one stage of my career, and I had no clue why companies made the move from good old waterfall dev. “Hey!” I thought. “This scrum stuff is pretty average. I just want to know my task. Why do we stand up every day? What’s the point?”
And then I got training for a Scrum Master certification. And suddenly, everything made sense.

It turns out that unless you are prepared to change your team to fit scrum, scrum will not work for you at all. It’s an all or nothing deal and it requires the removal of those rolling tasks and those 20 man standups. There’s a lot of changes to make – and the first step is to know what’s wrong.
I have been through this, and I can tell you that the results have been *staggering*. Morale, speed, ideas, efficency! All of this is better! And I want them to be better for you too.

That is why I made soggyscrum.com.
And because I loved the name when I read it in gamasutra’s article on game industry lingo.

So what is it?
Soggyscrum is a quick test you can take to see how soggy your scrum is. How much waterfall is left in your scrum team. Styled after the epic awesome XKCD (love you!), it’ll give you a soggy percentage factor. I’ve also written up a list of feedback for people who have specific issues with the team – specifically with Standups, The Team and The Production
And to show I’m not pulling punches, here’s my score:

Closing in on perfection!

4 weeks ago I started a low carb diet from Timothy Ferriss’ aweeesome new book The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman.

If you haven’t heard of Tim Ferriss, he’s basically a rich dude who is all about getting things done in the most effective and efficient way possible. He’s a life hacker; and in life hackery spirit, this book is about doing the least amount of work possible for more strength, muscle tone, sex drive, all that.

So, my goal after picking up the book was to lose the belly I’ve amassed after 2 months of snacking and nomming in Malaysia. Objectively, this meant:
• A tighter stomach – My pecks/man boobs should be further out than my stomach. Incredibly scientific, I know.
…and if that worked…
• Abs – Definition on my stomach. Essentially, you can see the 6pack
…and if that worked…
• More Strength and stamina – More overall definition. The ability to exercise for longer, lift heavier weights. Recover faster.

I should note that I’m a pretty fit guy. I run a lot, and I tend to keep my upper-body strength in good condition. This isn’t a ‘From Jabba the Hut to Ken-doll’ campaign. This is a semi fit dude removing a 2 month binge belly and seeing what other improvements can be made.

So, I started working on steps for a tighter stomach: The Low Carb Diet. Eat whatever I want for 6 days a week; just make sure it’s as low in carbohydrates as possible. Day 7 of that week is all access. Eat bread, eat chocolate. Eat anything and everything. Awesome.

Week1, day1: 85kg

The first 2 days were met with military obedience. No bread; no rice; no potatoes, no milk. It was hard. Real hard. The bread and rice I can go without, but banning lattes in this diet drove me stir-crazy. I had to make exceptions, and so on day 3, I started low-carb diet v2.0: Latte edition.

Week2, Day1: 83kg

After week 1, I was down to 83kg, and I was feeling pretty good. Because I changed nothing outside of my regularly scheduled week other than removing most carbs, I became convinced that this would work the way it was intended. The next week I began 2 prescribed abdominal exercises which took around 10 minutes each morning.

Week3, Day1: 84kg

After week 2, I popped back up to 84kg. My guess is this is due to my milk intake – around 3 lattes a day. I was feeling fantastic however, and the definition in my tummy was already showing. Little ridges, but still some definition. I was shocked – It had taken me months to get to this level with regular crunches. I had to try more.
After week 3 I had integrated Occom’s Protocal into my gym sessions, taking me from 10 minutes to around 30 minutes on days where I started adding weights. Occom’s protocol is essentially 2 workout routines which are undertaken every 2 days. On Monday I’ll do routine A, and on Wednesday I’ll do routine B, and so on, and so forth. I was at 83 again, but my muscle gain was showing.

Week4, day 7: 81.5kg

As I end Week4 with a gluttonous cheat-day, I’m at 81.5kg. If I’d cut all carbs, I’m pretty sure I’d be much further along, but that’s not the point of this post.
The point is that even with a few exceptions, this diet (and most of what Tim goes through) is bang on perfect. I’m not going to stop doing this because I feel uber-loads better, and look more and more cut each week.

So Tim gets my giant-assed stamp of approval and some sort of drink whenever I meet the dude. Really, there’s no reason to not try this out. Doooooooooooo!

Oh, and hey, if you’re a twitter user, you can follow Tim at http://twitter.com/tferriss

btw, thanks loads to Darren Yeow for suggesting I broaden this blog to lifestyle and games. <3 dude!

I saw a poster in an artist interview with a robot looking into a vial with the word ‘Hope‘ Written in bold postery font yesterday. It’s been on my mind since then, because I think the word kinda embodies the spirit of the industry. You enrol into courses with the hope of working on some of the games which you’ve come to love, irregardless of the turmoil the industry has endured over the last few years. It’s damn cool that we’re still seeing people get out there and kicking, and pushing that dream, and if you are one of them, I’d like to reassure you that it’s totally worth it.

A career in games, whatever your family/colleagues/friends say, is a viable and interesting career. As someone who’s worked hospitality before, I now cherish being treated like an adult, working with fantastic cool (and secret!) ideas, and working with people who are just as passionate about the job as you are. Arguing about how the rain effect looks, or how the Hansoft signoff process works is cool, because these arguments stem from the passion to create the very best product we can. And passion is the reason why you should be going into this industry. If you’re just after the dosh, there’s a bunch to be made in mining, or accounting.

As a uni student, I had a ton of opposition by concerned parents who weren’t familiar with the multi-billion dollar industry. I’d like to say I stuck to my guns and pushed on, but I listened to these people, and took some sensible courses like “MicroElectronic Engineering”. I’d be up at 6 for 8am lectures about circuitry, then dragging work through 6 hour lab sessions which didn’t interest me. Rinse, repeat. Pass class, pass class, fail class, redo class. After a year and a half through this degree it became plain that something really had to change. It wasn’t the course; and I’d like to think it wasn’t anything simple like low intelligence. It was the simple fact that I didn’t want to do what I was told, and that I needed to change from doing what I was told, to doing what I wanted.

So, I had ‘that talk’ with my parents. If you’re about to do this, I highly suggest you do the following:

1) Do your research about the market and the profits
Seriously, Black ops has made more than $1 billion in sales, and it’s not even a very good game*
2) Forget to tell your parents about the lack of jobs in the industry right now
Stay positive
3) If all else fails, be an asshole to them and dig your heels in
It’s your life dude

Yes, be an asshole. Sometimes, you need to fight for your passion, and if you’re not allowed to even learn about what you want, then you need to crack the sads a little bit. Sure, you’ll feel a little rotten, but I can honestly say that I’d be feeling a whole lot more rotten if I didn’t lose it a little when my caring old parents got protective.

Push to get into games if you love them. Just remember, it’s hard, but satisfying work. And never stop learning or working towards that one job you want, even if it changes.

High fives,
Adam Rudd

*RCXD spam, stupid story arcs where a guy you’ve made chew glass then punched in the face becomes your friend about 1 minute afterwards (oh, and can talk), No knife seeking (knife slashes instead of stabs), minimal environmental dust effects to distract snipers and make it harder to hit you.

Think back to a situation where you’re a complete absolute newbie. It’s your First day at work, and you have expectations for yourself on how you should perform, and how everything will be awesome as soon as you figure out this system and hop to it.

So, you get to business, adopting knowledge from everywhere you possibly can. You of course filter these methods and plans down, but, since you have such a high expectation for your blindingly sexy performance, you’re generally directly applying methods as they arrive.

I’m sure on some far away continent, this plan works out just fine. However, if you’re like me, my expectations for myself are not only unrealistic, but stick to me like chewing gum in hair. Personal deadlines pass, and the shoulders start going up with this weird ass mix of guilt and puzzlement that things didn’t work out according to la Grande plan. You’re lost.

The reason why this plan doesn’t work out so well for you, is it wasn’t written for you. These ideas written on this rather expensive bit of paper might be 100% correct. Hell, they may be the coolest, most awesomesauce ideas every made ever, BUT they’re alien concepts which need to be processed and implemented in YOUR way before they start tasting right. Right now, it’s a carob flavoured idea, with flecks of awesome dotted around like tin foil.

Oh and that right there is the best case scenario. Ideas presented to you may not even suit your role or your industry. Or, they may just suck all together. That happens you know. Trotting after concepts like a map will not only NOT take you where the author intends to you go; It’ll send you even further away from where you want to be. And then you’ll have to turn around, and start trudging back.

Ideas must be scrutinised by you because YOU are the most important part in the plan. If you’re confident in a plan because it’s yours, you can put down that book and start making calls to improve processes, or create feature concessions when vampires attack half of your coding team 3 days from Alpha. Confidence and complete understanding in your concepts and strategies makes it all work.

Be someone to be followed by consulting books and business for guidance; don’t be an over-sized Dictaphone. Yes, that may take more time, and yes, It’ll probably be worth it ;)

This is a write up on how I went about making a website for my iPhone application, MorningReport.
Creating a web site is number one priority for any indie developer. It is where your customers will come, where your clients will refer others to, and where press will visit when everyone realises that your product is so awesometastic that everyone should know about it :)

Make a list

Lists are the most powerful, awesome tools ever, because they’ll clearly tell you what to get done. That’s it – no fluff, no tangents… just item one, item two, item three.
Sometimes I get cocky and wing it for a little while, but I’m never as effective as when there are clear tasks in front of me to get done, especially when it’s on paper.

So, the first thing I did to get this vague website idea bashed out: Make a list!

1. Find sites for existing apps I liked
2. Break down features
3. Emulate

Bam! Three succinct points, ready to be started.
It’s not rocket science, but it sure saved a hell of a lot of time by starting with sites I know work. Referencing works because it’s how we learn anything. Just look at how you learned how to swim, or ride a bike. You start off by watching and getting information from examples and people who know what they’re doing, then you suck all that information up and build from it.

N.B. My ego wasn’t too happy about using another site for a mockup; the best advice I can give you if you’re thinking along those lines right now is: Go get some awesome chocolate, and start looking for reference the second you finish this article.
Like one of those ‘always right’ friends who tend to go silent whenever proven wrong, your ego will shut it’s trap as the website progresses. Yeah, that’s right ego, ya jerk.

Research

Researching a few great iPhone sites allowed me to narrow down the search to a couple of final layouts. Give it a quick google – there are a ton of great examples out there! Here’s what stuck me:

Tweetdeck

The Voxel Agents

birdfeed

As you can see, there’s a pretty consistent theme going here. Lots of iPhone images with feature text. Unique, bright themes which instantly set the tone. Social media tags and easy links to buy the app.

The homepage for Train Conductor( by the Voxel Agents) struck me as a great looking site for MorningReport. Here’s why:

1. It flows well – You get the idea of the project the second you reach the page. That header looks swish, and gets right to the point. It’s a rockin app about conducting trains, and it’s available now.
2. It’s executed with WordPress – Because I use wordpress, and I’m essentially a one-man army for this project. This means I need something which is easy to maintain, at least, for the time being. The layout screams wordpress, which tells me it’s simple to set up from a technical stance. Hooray!
3. It worked for them – Train Conductor did pretty damn well for an indie-startup’s first big-hitter project. Proof that a design is effective to your customers trounces all fancy-pants design ideas you may have, at least for the time being.
4. I like it. I’ll be staring at this for a LONG time (using it for blogging, networking and posting news releases), so it has to be something that appeals to my tastes. If I don’t, there’s a pretty strong chance that tens of hours will be spent in Photoshop trying to fix it – and that is time that could be spent on activities that build the brand.

Break the site down

So, now the layout was settled, it was time to break the site down to work out which features needed to be implemented for MorningReport’s site.

This step is important because it allows me to identify why the site works. Once this recipe is worked out, you’ll have a foundation for all of the original content you want to add.
Here are my findings:

• A Sexy header/banner
• Easily visible purchase link
• A YouTube video without scrolling down, with everything you need to know about the app
• The application’s selling points/features, laid out in a dot format style
• Press feedback.
• Screenshots
• Twitter & social media integration

Create a mockup

With these features in mind, I took to messing about with the design in Photoshop to suit MorningReport.

Don’t be afraid to move items around to play with flow. This is the best time to get contrary, or impulsive, since an entire design change can take less than an hour. Go nuts, but keep the features in :)

Here’s the paintover:

Find a WordPress theme that suits your mockup

Once happy with the design, I started looking at steps to take the mockup from an image to a functional website.
To do this, I needed a WordPress theme which looked roughly like the layout I had, for as cheap as possible (ideally free) that could be moulded without much web-coding.
Off to google searching for “free WordPress themes”.

In the top 3, I found exactly what I needed: http://www.freewpthemes.net/
Take your time to trawl through as many pages as it takes for you to find something that sort of fits. Keeping ‘contenders’ in tabs by middle clicking layouts which interest you makes the process nice and simple to review. Just close the tabs that don’t make the cut and in a few passes you’ll have the top 3 to choose from.

Narrowing down the pages which looked similar to the Voxel Agents’ layout took a good 2-3 hours of browsing and testing. Finally, I settled on earthlingtwo, since the author has permitted personal and commercial use under Creative Commons 3.0.
The Earthlingtwo theme was downloaded and installed on my Dreamhost server so I could have a look around to make sure it functioned the way I expected. Make sure you do this, particularly if you’re looking at using a theme which isn’t so popular. Each theme will have a slightly different flow to it, and It’s SUPER important that it does most of what you want your final site to do.
Having the theme on my server let me explore how it all worked on the FTP side too. Although most of the editing for your theme can be done in WordPress’ inbuilt editor, I suggest getting familiar with how the theme deals with images, how the divs are laid out and all that

For this process, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox. It allows you to outline how the divs are structured, where the anchors are, and (best of all!) what they’re named.
That’s about as far as I’m going to go on about the nuances of web development and WordPress integration. The main goal here is that you know the theme you’re about to modify before you modify it. If you’re looking for more information, check out YouTube.

Port your mockup

Once you know the ins-and outs of the theme, you can get back into Photoshop to make alterations to the mockup so it suits the theme you’ve chosen. Being a visual thinker, I found these mockups extremely helpful to keep myself on target. Don’t be afraid of re-arranging sections of the original mockup to suit the theme. That’s okay!

As you can see, mine changed a bit at this stage too.

Implement

As I started implementing & modifying the earthlingtwo theme to suit the mockup, I began making small design changes where things just didn’t work as well as planned. Features that sounded rad initially weren’t as pretty or easy to use as they might be, and I was in Photoshop every so often to work out a solution. BUT Because of the foundations, working on this sort of stuff is also low risk because it works (yay!).

Here you can see the introduction of the speech bubble for feeds. This came about mostly because the twitter area I’d created just sucked. As I said, don’t be afraid to ditch stuff which doesn’t work!

That’s it! Keep iterating as you see fit (or don’t if you’ve achieved what you needed!). Since the initial implementation, the site has changed very little, and has served quite well as a page to introduce people to what MorningReport does.
Here’s what the site looks like as I finish this article:

If you are looking at making the jump to website notoriety, I hope this has helped reduce the burden of getting things started. Creating a space for yourself in this big, wide interweb is a fantastic way to make connections and get yourself known. You won’t regret it, I promise you!

So don’t be afraid. Jump in!

Cheers,
Adam Rudd

If QA didn’t exist, we’d be dealing with some pretty shit games and software right now. Yet, for some reason, the QA portion of development in general seems like an afterthought. I have two theories about this:

1. The role of QA isn’t communicated properly OR
2. The QA process is put down as “not as important as” code/art/production/sound/design

Setting your mind up in either one of these camps is dangerous. Dangerous for the team, dangerous for the company, and dangerous for you. Here’s why:

Projects and tasks operate in cycles nowadays. You have design and production sorting out features, coders working on implementation, artists working on assets for these features, and QA verifying the correct implementation of all of this. All flow on to the other, and have communication back and forth to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The worst case scenario with this method is – after the task is completed and verified, the designers can look at it, decide it’s doesn’t work, and fix the feature so it does work (sending the cycle through again).

This system, on the whole, is pretty efficient. All tasks stay within each professional’s field, and bugs/reworks can be absorbed by the QA portion of the cycle – A well oiled team with communication and a great work ethic kicks major ass.

Now, removing Art or Code in a task cycle will very quickly set things on fire. Generally, this’ll get fixed super-quick because you just can’t get anything done without code or art. You are instantly justified by throwing a programmer at a project without a programmer because you’re screwed without one.

Removing QA on the other hand, will not give you the same knee-jerk reaction, because things won’t instantly explode on the project. This is probably more dangerous, because it’s slower and harder to spot. Kinda like the Dante’s Peak analogy by Pierce Brosnan:

You tell em Pierce!

Without this last section of the loop, resources need to be stretched to complete the loop, which can (and generally will) lead to slower implementation and late tasks.
And what’s more, RE-Implementing QA from this point will take time to kick in again, as the team is now conditioned to find bugs, and spend more time on tasks because of it (thus, turnover will be slower anyway).

QA is saving time for your more expensive guys in the project, and that means a hell of a lot if you’re employing a few seniors who are taking home an 80k+ pay packet. That additional 25% absorbing QA will fund a fulltime QA staffer with just two 80k programmers.

They are also the final line between the public and your studio. A great QA team will ensure you have no certification problems, minimal submission problems, and (best of all) no day 1 nightmares.

So, how much time will that save?



This is a breakdown of a recent bullet we’ve dodged when launching the MorningReport iPhone application onto the store.

MorningReport is an iPhone alarm clock application.. with a twist. It will wake you up with spoken info about the time, and the weather in your location. Ever over-snoozed because you were too bleary-eyed to see the time properly? With MorningReport, this will never happen again.

We submitted to Apple with our Master version on July 15, and received a rejection email on July 22nd. The issue was something we’d not tested – If the user said ‘don’t allow’ to the “MorningReport wants to use your location” query when they first ran the app, it would sit there until the end of time, just loading nothing. It was a quick fix, but here’s where it got interesting:

Because it was a quick fix and deemed relatively low risk, we didn’t test on all platforms. It was fixed within a day and re-submitted. I got an approval message on August 4, and shifted into PR mode, jumping on Facebook, Linkedin, and finalizing press releases. About an hour later, I got an SMS from a friend

“It doesn’t open… It crashes on startup 100% of the time :( “

Oh shit. This is the worst thing to happen on launch. Full of adrenaline, I called friends who bought the app that morning – all users of iOS4 had the app working smoothly. Anyone with 3, had a crash on startup. No time to verify with code testing. Action had to be taken IMMEDIATELY.

We had two options

1. Keep the app going with a note about iOS3, and patch it ASAP. It’d probably get sales, but anyone with OS3 wouldn’t be able to run it. Those iOS3 users would 1star it, which would potentially kill the popularity of the app.
2. Pull the app, suck it up marine, and relaunch with the fixed version. I’d done the social networking push, but, fortunately had not contacted press yet. MorningReport would lose reputation for every hour it was on the store, so I’d have to be QUICK.

Notice I didn’t have “do nothing” there. That’s what I think a lot of people do when faced with a “we’re screwed” issue like this. There was no way to go which didn’t lose face, so it became “how to we mitigate this launch disaster as much as possible?”

Thankfully, the development team were quick to react when told of the issue. The app was pulled within 2 hours, and we broke the news on Facebook and linkedin.

Lessons

1. Do not get overconfident about small fixes. If ANYTHING changes, especially around launch, you MUST test it. Better to release a good app late, than release a crippled app on time.
2. Ratings are god. If a portion of your audience can’t use what you make, restrict them, or have a damn good reason why, because you’ll get 1-starred before you know it.
3. Any issue which impairs the user’s ability to use the app should be classed as Priority 1, and the app should not be released before these issues have been fixed and tested.
4. Apple’s approval process is not a catch-all. Don’t trust them to find your crashbugs.

Next time

1. Create a test plan for your app, regardless of the size
2. Do a comprehensive test with every feature that is added
3. Do daily tests with the test plan when approaching release
4. Ensure everyone can do work within 4 days of release. It’s here that the biggest issues can be mitigated, and apologized for. Do not underestimate the power of apology.

As a way to apologize for this issue, we’ll be releasing one of the first voice packs for free, or at a heavily discounted price. This may take a few months, but I think it’s important to show that you take issues like these seriously.
After all, app dev is about relationships :)

It’s not going away, but you know what else isn’t going away? “Keep talent local” otherwise known as “I’m scared of challenge”.

Okay, you’ve got a point. Work takes up a long time, as does training to achieve more, raise in the ranks, or simply retain average skills at your job. It’s far easier to go down to the pub and drink the weekend away. Particularly when everyone else is doing it. Just bare in mind:

Life isn’t meant to be easy

Or maybe I didn’t get the life manual. Anyway, these ‘outsourced’ places like India are belittled and frowned upon. Shoddy work, some say. Terrible to speak to, say others. These people who fight tooth and nail to get a respected call centre job, and aim to handle your xbox complaints – they’re mistrusted, and disliked, as though we all like having our xbox break if we can talk to another Aussie.

Lets look at the alternative, shall we? Here’s a comparison I unceremoniously nicked from Swivel.com Source The Times (22 Dec 2007)

Hell, I know I’d choose if I paid the bills. Our solution, as people in higher wage countries is to add value through higher level thinking, planning and communication. People who aren’t willing to do this are going to be out of work real soon.

no. but I want local

Sort of. Lemme ‘splain.

As a junior/midlevel employee, I reported to my team lead. He in tern reported to the art lead, who spoken with the directors who spoke with the CEO. SO, I figured, if I impress the team lead, it’s bound to trickle up, as water totally always does.
The interesting part about this is that it started me thinking objectively about tasks as management would do. Because I was conscious of the possibility of the trickle going to management, I began assuming the next position up, as though to prepare for that day when I’m given a lovely new desk with that lead role. The trickle didn’t start anything, but my assuming it would, did.

The next step, was to use this fostered baby-manager ego in a new position. This only started working in a new place with no resistance. The reason is simple: people don’t like change, because change is scary. Moving to a new place let me walk in with this fostered manager ego, and let me start from there. Instantly, I jumped up a notch. Don’t underestimate this simple step. It’s HUGELY rewarding.

Some months later (and loads of books) I picked up Timothy Ferriss’ fantastic book “the 4-hour work week”. The seed of entrepreneurship took root, and I took time off to pursue some projects I’d had rattling about in my head. This is where my ego jumped in a bath of Guarana. Dealing with international providers took me from “I think I can” to “It will cost you this much”. Like flicking a switch, I had done all of the things the managers at my old company did (albeit on a smaller scale). I’d managed pay, dealt with milestones, said no a few times to bad work, and lead, like a leader should.
Could I have done this without the smaller steps taken earlier? I’m not sure. But I am sure that every move made towards where you want to be, however round-about (hey, life is scary at times – I admit) the method, it’ll help.

I happily declare myself an Entrepreneur now, a great manager, and DJ. It’s all the same ego model; I’ve just tweaked it now I have it :)