Current post: Introducing: Mendel Bouman, CFO
“The perks of my position is that I can completely tweak all the numbers in my favor, making me by far the richest badass of the team, without the rest of them noticing (I just got to figure out how to hide the Ferrari on the porch!).”
“My name is Mendel Bouman, and I have been an entrepreneur in the (digital) game industry for more than 6 years. I’ve been working in the same industry for more than 10 years now, and it is my experience and expertise as a business developer in the game industry that will be my main contribution to Blue Falcon.”
How did you come to work on the Coalition?
I got to know Logan when he was working as an artist for one of the companies in my game development incubator. Logan and I spar from time to time about business, life, the universe, and sometimes even everything (including the number 42). As such, I advised Logan to find a dedicated business developer for Blue Falcon, after which he asked: “Would you like to be our business developer?“ After which I said: “… uhm…. Okay!”
What’s it like working at Blue Falcon?
Blue Falcon is awesome. We have a 200 m2 office drop dead in the middle of old Groningen town, thanks to a slowly collapsing retail economy (yay webshops). The atmosphere is relaxed. We have very strict guidelines though regarding shared office space, but also a wide arsenal of NERF-guns to relax when we are tired from following guidelines. All in all, we are a nice group of very geeky, nerdy and creative people who let each other be the way they are.
From what you can discuss what is the coolest thing you’ve worked on so far?
So far, the coolest thing I’ve worked on is the business case. I’ve worked on many business cases in the last 6 years, ranging from game development incubators to entertainment games, and most have always been struggling to have a prognosed balanced cash flow (not to mention profit!). Funny enough, when I began building the business case based on known numbers for Dungeons and Dragons and the more Indie RPG Eclipse Phase, I gradually noticed, that there is actually a potential with “The Coalition”, to not only create a stable development studio, but also to make sure we can actually pay all our awesome developers for developing “The Coalition”. This has made me very excited (for as much as one can get excited from staring at numbers in an Excel Spreadsheet ;)).
What are you most excited about working on in the future?
I am rather excited on working out the pitch deck for pitching our business for a business credit at the local banks. We actually have a sound business case. Can you imagine such a wonderful geeky product such as “The Coalition” being funded by something as traditional as a business bank loan?
With what kind of unique challenges and rewards does your position provide you?
The challenge (and my responsibility) is to make sure that “The Coalition“ becomes such a loved Sci Fi Pen and Paper Roleplaying game, that enough people buy it, so it becomes a sustainable company that can keep paying the developers so they can keep on creating more content for the future fans.
The perks of my position is that I can completely tweak all the numbers in my favor, making me by far the richest badass of the team, without the rest of them noticing (I just got to figure out how to hide the Ferrari on the porch!). But all kidding aside, my actual perks come from really being able to help out this awesomely passionate and motivated team to make a living from their dream. That is really something 🙂