Today we’re talking with Leah Hoyer of Level Headed Games. Leah’s founding moment was a bit thrust upon her — and is perhaps emblematic of a story I often heard told in the industry. A team that was laid off, coming together and striking out on their own as a startup. As you’ll hear, its not all smooth sailing especially as often the market conditions that created the layoffs also create challenges in the funding environment. That said, there is a path through that Leah and her team have walked, and it was great to hear her reflections on that journey so far. Let’s jump in.

Today we’re talking with Jon Selin of Low Drag Labs. Jon shares his journey of moving away from mobile games back to his first love of mmo-like multiplayer experiences, and taking the leap into a fully bootstrapped dev team. For awhile, Low Drag was a solo effort, now its a duo, and Jon talks about that journey and how it compares to the idyllicized zeitgeist version of solo development.

I found Jon’s reflections on the industry, the journey, and startup life really great to dig into. And behind the scenes, I’m also a huge fan of what they’re working on so it was great to hear how Jon got there. It’s a great conversation, let’s jump in.

Today we're talking with Jason Coleman, founder of Sparkypants Studios. Jason has been making games for a long time and honestly is a bit of a legend for myself, as I have played many of his games through the years from some of his earliest like Civ 2, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations, to his latest Mind Over Magic. I got to know Jason through 1UP Ventures, a community we're both a part of, and was finally able to get time to have him on. This is a bit of a unique one as Sparkypants is one of the longest running journeys we've had on the show at almost 15 years, but also one that is coming to an end. Sitting down and talking with a founder about the end of the journey is something I've long wanted to do, but for obvious reasons can be hard to find someone willing and able to talk through it. Jason shared a lot of great perspective and thoughts, and I'm really grateful he chose to do so. This is a great one, let's jump in.