You are not just building a company. You are building yourself; you need to be the hero of your own startup living inside a story.

And like every good story, startups are messy, emotional, nonlinear, and deeply human.

Some of the clearest lessons I’ve learned as a founder and while backing founders did not come from business books or success frameworks.

They came from animation movies.

Here is my perspective on a few truths great animation movies quietly teach us about building startups.

1. Just Keep Swimming

Early-stage startup founders rarely have clarity. You do not see the full map. You do not always know which metric will matter in the early days. You are often unsure if you are even moving in the right direction.

Even worse, there will be days you feel like everything’s collapsing.

Money will be limited, key teammates will sometimes be discouraged, your game/product will not grow as fast as you hoped, users will roast your product features, and investors will keep expecting the best.

You’ll sometimes feel like nobody’s seeing you, no real support, total loneliness.

And yet, real progress happens through constant motion in the worst times, not certainty.

The founders who win are not the ones with perfect plans. They are the ones who have the nerves to keep building through confusion and chaos.

Relentless iteration, staying on the road, and staying in motion will eventually bring you the momentum.

Momentum creates information. Information creates direction. Direction brings your people together around successful execution.

Startups don’t mostly fail because of a lack of money, a key teammate leaving, or bad product features.

Startups die only when the founder gives up. Stopping kills more startups than bad ideas ever will.

So in the toughest days, when it becomes hardest to keep moving, try saying to yourself,

When life gets you down, do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do?
Just keep swimming. - Finding Dory

2. There Is No Secret Ingredient

If you watched Kung Fu Panda, you’ll remember that Po is not supposed to be the hero at first. He does not look ready. He does not sound convincing. He does not match the “perfect hero” template.

Neither do most great founders.

Startups are full of comparison traps. Too early. Too late. Too small. Too different. Smart founder, visionary, seems confused, too emotional, too direct, leader, boss, hacker, hustler, not convincing…

Kung Fu Panda reminds us of something essential.

What matters is not where you start. What matters is whether you keep becoming.

You do not become the founder by fitting the role. You become the founder by growing into it.

This is just the key that you need to realize your true powers, what you’re very good at, and what needs improvement. Becoming the hero your startup needs is all in your hands.

Self-belief, hard work, resilience, and not being a jerk will eventually help you become the founder you meant to be.

There is no secret ingredient. - Kung Fu Panda

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3. Anyone Can Cook

Ratatouille is not just about cooking. It is also about legitimacy, self-authorization, and courage.

Remy teaches us to dare to do what we love, the courage to begin without external approval.

He cooks without permission, and he continues despite doubt. Gives himself permission to try before he feels ready, be different from what the world expects. Permission to be underestimated.

Some of the best startups come from people who, others think, were never supposed to build them. Not from the right school. Not from the right geography. Not from the right background.

Founders do not need permission from the ecosystem. They need passion and commitment to the craft.

You need to learn as much as you can about your market, surround yourself with the best people in what you do, and constantly iterate until you find something your users/players will eventually love. To be able to create a hugely successful startup, you don’t have to have cool degrees from top universities or be an ex-FAANG, or get permission from the investors.

Anyone can build fantastic products and businesses. Go find that one thing you’re very passionate about and good at, dare to build, innovate, and keep iterating every day.

Anyone can cook. But only the fearless can be great. - Ratatouille

4. Beware the “Zone”

There is a moment in Soul that feels uncomfortably familiar if you’ve ever built something you deeply care about: Zone.

In the movie, the Zone is a liminal space between life and the afterlife. It is where people go when they are so deeply engaged in what they love that the rest of the world fades away. Time dissolves, the body disappears; only focus remains.

Musicians enter the Zone while playing. Athletes while exercising. Artists, while creating.

And in the startup world, this is the moment founders are taught to chase. The late nights that don’t feel late. The hours that vanish into work. The feeling of being completely absorbed by what you’re building.

And some people get lost there.

In the movie, a mystic soul surfer, Moonwind, who can move freely between life, the afterlife, and the Zone, tells us the difference between visiting the Zone and being trapped in it.

Zone is full of people who once followed their spark, but slowly became consumed by it. What started as a passion turned into an obsession. What once connected them to life began pulling them away from it.

In startups, when you stay in this phase long enough, there is sometimes a point where loving what you build turns into disappearing inside it. You keep working, pushing, producing. From the outside, everything looks fine. From the inside, something starts to feel distant.

Not like a burnout or failure. Just a quiet disconnection.

In Soul, we see this as a rare idea to see explored so gently. Not passion as something to eliminate. Not ambition as something to fear. But passion as something that must not become your entire identity.

There is also a moment where you care so much about one thing that you stop being present for everything else. Founder culture often celebrates this state. Calls it dedication, focus, or commitment. But Soul asks a much harder question.

What if building your life is as important as building your company?

Soul does not argue against caring deeply. It warns against letting one thing replace everything else.

Our main character Joe’s realization is not that music doesn’t matter. It’s that life was never supposed to be postponed until after success.

Founders don’t usually lose themselves all at once. They drift. It starts with one missed moment, one ignored conversation, or one joy delayed until “after this milestone”.

And then sometimes, suddenly, the thing you worked so hard for feels strangely empty. (We see something very similar in Jack London’s Martin Eden as well. But let’s postpone this catch for a different post.)

Soul doesn’t tell you to stop building; it tells you to stay connected while you do. Because building something meaningful should not require losing yourself in the process.

And because there is a bigger tragedy than failing at what you love. It’s succeeding, and realizing you were never fully there to feel it.

Remember:

“The Zone is enjoyable. But when that joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life.” - Soul

What This Means for Founders Applying to Lorien

When we look at founders, we are not searching for “perfection”. We look for builders who keep moving, learn fast, dare to build, and constantly evolve.

People who understand that this is a long journey.

If you have applied before and kept building, that matters.

If you are applying for the first time and feel not ready enough, you probably are closer than you think.

Progress compounds.

Apply to the Next Lorien Batch

Applications for our upcoming Lorien Accelerator batch are closing on January 15, 2026.

If you are building a game or gametech startup and you are serious about turning it into a sustainable, high-growth company, we would love to see what you are building and support you along the way.

Every great story starts with a builder who decides not to stop.

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Are there any other inspirations that help you keep building? Comment below, let’s share our learnings from our beloved heroes who inspire us to stay on the road.

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Because here’s the truth, no one says directly: the best investors aren’t looking for games — they’re looking for huge outcomes.

If you’re a founder building a game and hoping to raise funding, your odds go up dramatically the moment you stop chasing capital and start building something so compelling it becomes impossible to ignore. That’s what investment readiness really means.

This post is a breakdown of how investors think, what they’re actually looking for, and how you can evaluate your own startup to become truly fundable. It’s the distilled essence of our Investment Readiness Masterclass at Lorien, designed specifically for founders in games, gametech, and interactive entertainment.

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Why VCs Say No (Even When They Like You)

VCs manage money on behalf of LPs (limited partners) like family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and endowments. These funds expect a return — ideally 3x to 10x — over 7 to 10 years. And to deliver that, VCs need their investments to follow power law logic: a few hits must carry the entire portfolio.

That means they don’t just invest in "cool teams" or "unique games." They invest in:

• Founders w/ relevant past experience & huge passion

• Category creators or potential market leaders

• Repeatable execution systems (not just one-off games)

• Founders who can tell a vision story and deliver on it

So even if you’re talented, even if your game looks good, if they can’t see how this might become a huge, scalable win, they might pass.

They’re not evaluating whether you can make something. They’re evaluating whether it can return the whole fund alone.

VC vs Publisher: Know Who You’re Pitching

One of the most common mistakes we see is founders approaching VCs the way they’d pitch a publisher.

But here’s the difference:

• VCs invest in your company; publishers invest in your game.

• VCs take equity or ownership from your company, while publishers take a revenue share or IP rights.

• VCs want long-term upside while publishers are looking for milestone delivery.

So, in the overall, VCs bet on you, publishers bet on your roadmap.

VCs think in terms of systems, scalability, and long-term market positions, along with founders’ backgrounds and why they would be the right fit. Publishers think in timelines, risk mitigation, and launch success. If your pitch is "we have a finished build and need launch support," that’s not a VC conversation. If it’s "we know this space, we’ve built a core loop and early traction shows long-term potential," that’s closer.

Your fundraising narrative must fit the listener’s needs and worldview.

What Investment-Readiness Actually Means

At Lorien, we define investment readiness through 3 core lenses:

1. Vision Clarity

• Why now? Why this team? Why this market?

• Is there a solid story of long-term potential?

2. Execution Credibility

• Can you build what you say?

• Is there early proof that the product works and users want it?

3. Structural Readiness

• Is your company set up to receive investment?

• Is your cap table, IP, and legal structure clean?

You don’t need to be perfect. But you do need to be clear.

The Lorien Framework: 7 Dimensions of Readiness

We use a 7-point starting framework to help our portfolio evaluate and improve their fundability:

1. Team – Is your core team full-time, experienced, and capable of shipping?

2. Product – Do you have a playable core or real progress beyond just a pitch deck?

3. Traction – Have players tested the game? What does the data say?

4. Go-To-Market – Do you know your audience and how to reach them?

5. Funding Plan – Is there a clear, responsible financial model and ask?

6. Partners & Publishing – Are you building relationships that validate and accelerate?

7. Legal & Structure – Are you investable on paper?

Most teams are strong in 2–3 of these. That’s normal. But weak points can sometimes kill deals. Investors pattern-match risk. Your job is to be aware of your company’s weaknesses and de-risk yourself.

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In 2025, A Vertical Slice Isn't Enough

This is hard to hear, but true: in today’s market, a great vertical slice doesn’t always get you funded. Not alone.

We’re in a post-2022, post-zero interest rate world. VCs are cautious, and they’re looking for:

• Playtest data

• Community momentum

• Retention signals

• Clear market timing

If you haven’t tested your game with real players yet, start there. If you haven’t built a waitlist, Discord, or TikTok audience, start there. Investors want to see that someone wants this besides you.

Choosing the Right Investors (Not Just Any Investors)

The first thing to remember here is that due diligence should go both ways. As potential investors evaluate your team and business, you should also be doing your homework.

Not all VCs are the same. They have:

• Different fund sizes

• Different theses (content vs tools vs tech)

• Different check sizes and timelines

Before you pitch anyone, study:

• What kinds of companies have they backed?

• Do they lead or follow?

• Are they stage-aligned with you?

And do reference checks. Talk to the founders in their portfolio. Ask:

• What are the stories behind the top-performing & failed companies in their portfolio?

• Were they helpful or just reactive?

• Did they show up in hard moments?

• Would you raise from them again?

Raising money is a partnership, not a transaction. Founders often spend more time optimizing their pitch than vetting the people they’ll be tied to for the next 5+ years.

Do your homework.

Final Thoughts: From Game Dev to Game CEO

You don’t need to turn into a spreadsheet founder. But you do need to build like someone who understands what it takes to raise and scale.

Fundability is not a label. It’s a discipline. And, like coding, it’s a learnable skill.

Use the frameworks like Lorien’s. Prepare for the next steps. Identify your weak spots. Iterate. Talk to investors, be brutally honest, and open to feedback. Iterate.

Because investors don’t fund games, they fund founders & businesses. They fund momentum. They fund clarity.

If you’re a founder who’s serious about building not just a great game but a great business, Lorien is for you. We’re looking for founders who understand that creativity and strategy go hand in hand.

We help you build something bigger than just a game; create a game business, momentum, and clarity.

Let that be you.

Most game teams never stop to define what they actually are. Studio or startup? This one question quietly changes everything — how you build, raise, hire, and define success. In this post, we break down what it really means to take the startup path as a game founder and why Lorien is built for those who choose it.

Game founders are often asked the wrong questions:

“When is your game launching?”
“What engine are you using?”
“How many wishlists do you have?”

But rarely: Are you a studio — or are you a startup?

It seems like a small distinction, but it’s not. It changes everything, including how you build.

It changes what you prioritize, who you hire, how you raise capital, and how you define success.

Most game teams never explicitly answer this question. Many are trying to be both — to raise venture funding with a studio mindset or operate like a service while still treating development like a one-shot product.

At Lorien, this question sits at the center of what we do. Because we believe it’s not just about the game you’re building. It’s about the structure behind it — and whether that structure is designed to scale.

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Studios build games. Startups build systems.

Let’s start with the obvious: there’s nothing wrong with being a studio.

Studios are creative teams. They build thoughtful, expressive, focused experiences. They often operate project to project, investing years into a single world or narrative arc. The cash might come from players, publishers, grants, or platforms. Some studios scale sustainably, others stay intentionally small.

In contrast, a startup is not just a team building a game — it’s a company designed to grow.

A startup is structured around a market insight: a belief about what’s changing in player behavior, technology, or distribution. The product exists to validate and scale that insight. Startups raise venture capital not to finish a project but to accelerate a thesis.

Example: Supergiant Games is a studio. Every game they release — Hades, Bastion, Transistor — is its own complete product, a masterclass in craft.

Discord started out with a game too — Fates Forever — but pivoted into a startup once they realized the real opportunity was in voice comms for multiplayer communities. That’s a thesis becoming a system.

A studio gets better with each game. A startup gets better because of its players and growth math.

Games as Products vs. Games as Services

This is where the line starts to blur — and why so many founders misdiagnose what they’re building.

A game-as-a-product is being made to be complete. You build it, you ship it, maybe patch it — and then, you move on. Or, if you have the resources and conviction, you keep adding DLCs, expand the IP, build a sequel, and keep the lights on. In some cases, that’s how you grow your studio — one strong title at a time. But even then, you’re still operating project-to-project. The core loop is: make game, sell game, repeat.

A game-as-a-service can never really be called finished. It’s built for interaction, feedback, and change. Players are part of its lifecycle — not just its audience. They’re not only consuming the experience; they’re shaping it.

Every session generates data. Every update is a new experiment. You’re not just launching once — you’re launching every week, every season, every live event.

Your roadmap isn’t defined by a script, it’s defined by player behavior. You measure success not by units sold, but by retention, engagement, monetization per user, churn. And your development team isn’t shipping a finished product — they’re running a living system.

It’s closer to operating a product company than a creative studio. You need pipelines, analytics, support infrastructure, live ops, community loops, update velocity. You need to build with your players — or you fall behind.

Example: Fortnite didn’t just launch and sell. Epic turned it into a global, persistent platform — blending battle passes, live concerts, UGC tools, seasonal mechanics, branded IP drops, and real-time events. The game isn’t the business — the system is.

This is why many GaaS teams eventually start to look and act like startups — even if they didn’t intend to.

Services are inherently more system-driven.

You’re not just designing an experience — you’re designing incentives, economies, events, seasons, social dynamics. You’re operating live. You’re monetizing over time.

If you stop, the product decays. If you scale well, the product gets stronger with every good move and new player.

Example: League of Legends launched as a game but became a company. Riot built publishing infrastructure, regional ops, global events, player behavior systems, and eventually a cross-media empire. The brand and the service behind it became the core business.

Building a game-as-a-service doesn’t automatically make you a startup — but it pushes you closer. Because now you’re dealing with retention, lifetime value, growth loops, and product-market fit in real-time. That’s startup territory.

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VCs Don’t Fund Projects

This is the part that trips up many first-time founders: VC funds are not designed to fund great games. It’s designed to fund scalable, high-upside businesses.

That doesn’t mean your game can’t get funded. It means the reason it gets funded matters.

VCs don’t look at polish first. They look at:

• What systems are you building?

• What behaviors are you unlocking?

• What gets stronger as you grow?

• How does the second 10,000 players make the product better than the first?

Example: PlayCo raised $100M+ not because of one hit game, but because of their thesis: lightweight, social-first games that spread through messaging platforms, not app stores. Their goal was to reinvent distribution — the games are vessels for that insight.

Example: Rec Room is a game. But investors saw more than that — they saw user-generated content, social spaces, retention mechanics, and a team thinking like a platform. That’s why it attracted significant venture backing from Sand Hill Road firms like Sequoia Capital.

If you’re pitching a single title with a fixed scope and no plan for what comes after — you’re pitching a project. That’s a studio approach. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s usually not venture-backable.

So, What Does a Game Startup Look Like?

Not every startup needs to be a platform. But startups almost always think in systems.

A few patterns we look for:

• You’re building something that learns from your players.

• You care about retention more than aesthetics.

• You test early, fail fast, and adapt based on real feedback.

• Your team is structured around speed, not scale.

• You have a long-term vision beyond a single release.

Example: Stumble Guys by Kitka Games wasn’t just a Fall Guys clone — it was a super-lean, mobile-native, live-ops engine. It hit product-market fit before it hit polish. That’s startup energy.

Example: Midnight Society is building a game, yes — but also a dev process, a toolset, a community-powered model for shipping. Whether or not the game hits, they’re building reusable systems.

At Lorien, these are the teams we want to work with — or the ones where we see the potential to grow into this mindset. Not just because they can raise money but because they can keep building. Not just games but high-potential companies.

Why It Matters

Knowing whether you’re a studio or a startup doesn’t just help with investors; it helps with many critical decisions you make.

If you’re a studio:

• Your team should be focused on execution.

• Your success comes from making a great product/game and then making another.

• You don’t need to scale like a tech company — you need to deliver creative value.

If you’re a startup:

• Your success comes from building fast, testing often, and scaling systems.

• You need to think in experiments.

• You need to design your company as intentionally as your game.

You don’t have to pick one path forever from day 1. Some studios grow into startups. Some startups become platforms and eventually support studios.

But early on, clarity matters. Especially when you’re raising money, building culture, or choosing partners, this isn’t just semantics — it’s architecture.

For Founders: 8 Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you define your pitch — define your path.

• Am I building a creative game studio or a scalable gaming startup?

• Is my game a one-time product or a long-term system?

• What player behavior or market shift is my game based on?

• Do I have a plan beyond this title?

• What grows stronger as more players join?

• What systems am I building underneath the game?

• Is my team structured for polish — or for speed and iteration?

• Would I fund this company if I weren’t making games and didn’t like playing them?

There are no right answers — but there are misaligned ones.

Start with the right questions. Build accordingly.

What Game Are You Really Playing?

Building a game is hard. Building a company is harder. You don’t have to do both. But if you’re trying to do both — you need to be honest about it.

What kind of game are you building? What kind of company are you building? What kind of founder do you wanna be?

At Lorien, we exist to help the ones who want to build something that keeps building. Something that survives the first launch. Something that grows with every player.

Something that looks like a game on the surface but is actually a system underneath.

If that’s you, let’s talk.

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In this post, we’ll share stories of amazing women game creators from around the world and right here in Türkiye. Get ready to be inspired!

Why Women in Gaming Are So Special

Games are for everyone, and women play a huge part—almost half of all gamers are women around the globe! However, making games is still considered a job more men do, but that’s not true. There are awesome women changing the gaming landscape who code, design, and dream up new adventures. They’re showing the world that gaming is a place where anyone can shine. Today, we’re cheering for them—not just on March 8, but always.

Superstars from Around the World

Here are some incredible women who make games we can’t stop playing:

Carol Shaw (USA): She was one of the first women to make video games! Back in the 1980s, she created River Raid for Atari, a game where you fly a plane and dodge obstacles. Carol showed girls everywhere that they belong in gaming.

Jade Raymond (Canada): Jade is like a gaming superhero! She helped create Assassin’s Creed at Ubisoft and started her own studios to make big, exciting games like Star Wars Battlefront II. Now she’s leading Haven Studios with Sony, cooking up new adventures. Jade shows us how to dream big and work hard!

Amy Hennig (USA): Amy tells stories through games like nobody else. She made the Uncharted series, where you feel like you’re in a movie! At Skydance, she’s working on a Marvel game now, proving that women can lead the way in making fun, action-packed worlds.

Robin Hunicke (USA): She loves making games that touch your heart. She helped create Journey, a beautiful game about friendship and discovery. At her company, Funomena, she’s all about games that bring people together. How cool is that?

Poornima Seetharaman (India): Zynga’s Associate GM Poornima Seetharaman from India made FarmVille 2: Country Escape, a game where you build cute farms. She’s so talented that she won a big award for being one of the best women in gaming. Poornima’s cheerful ideas make everyone smile!

Keiko Erikawa (Japan): Keiko started a whole new kind of game called otome, like Angelique, where players enjoy sweet stories about love and adventure. She worked with a team of women to make games that girls especially love. She’s a true gaming pioneer!

Brenda Romero (USA): BAFTA award-winning game director, entrepreneur, and Fulbright award recipient Brenda Romero has been making games for years! She worked on classics like Wizardry and now creates games that teach us important things, like her board game Train. Brenda’s creativity and kindness make gaming extra special today at Romero Games.

Kim Swift (USA): She is a genius behind Portal, a super fun puzzle game of Valve. She is now Head of Creative at Xbox Game Studios Publishing. Kim’s clever ideas keep us guessing and giggling!

Debbie Bestwick (UK): Debbie started Team17, the company behind Worms, a silly game about battling worms! She’s grown it into a big success, showing how women can lead in gaming with fun ideas.

Tanya X. Short (Canada): She co-founded Kitfox Games, making cool games like Boyfriend Dungeon, where you date your weapons! Her creative stories make gaming an adventure for everyone.

Türkiye’s Woman Gaming Heroes

Türkiye is a magical place for games, with lots of people playing on their phones and computers. Here, women are doing amazing things, too! Let’s check out some of the shining stars:

Rina Onur Şirinoğlu: She is the co-founder of amazing gaming companies like Peak and Spyke Games, where she makes fun mobile games. She raised a huge amount of money to help her team grow—more than any other woman in gaming ever! Rina wants Istanbul to be a big gaming city, and she’s helping other women start their own companies, too.

Gökçe Nur Oğuz: Gökçe Nur runs Playable Factory, a company that makes fun ads for games you can try before you play. She used to build machines but now builds gaming ideas instead! Gökçe loves helping more girls join the gaming world in Türkiye.

Simay Dinç: Simay created Recontact Games, and the founder of Women in Games Türkiye. Her studio built a game that turns real cities like Istanbul into mysteries you solve. It’s so creative that Apple called it Türkiye’s best mobile game in 2015! Simay’s imagination makes gaming an adventure for everyone.

Derya Özgür: Derya was a developer at Masomo, and her ideas keep making games that get everyone cheering and playing together!

Aslı Ekşi: Aslı helps make mobile games at Homa Games super fun by planning and testing new ideas. She’s part of why those games are so hard to put down!

Büşra Yontaç: Büşra is a talented artist who draws cool pictures for games. She is now at Super Duper Games and makes every adventure look amazing with her colorful designs!

Mavia Esin Yılmaz: Mavia Esin helps create awesome games as a producer, now at capoom, making sure every player has a great time with her fun ideas!

Lorien’s Love for Women in Gaming

At Lorien, we’re super proud to support women in games through our Lorien Accelerator! We look forward to helping amazing women creators turn their big ideas into real games. Whether they’re designing, coding, or building their own companies, we’re here to cheer them on with mentorship, resources, and lots of encouragement. We believe every woman in gaming deserves a chance to shine, and we’re excited to be part of their journey.

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Let’s Cheer Together!

This March 8, let’s play their games, tell our friends about them, and cheer for all the women in gaming. Do you have a favorite woman game creator? Tell us in the comments—we’d love to know!

Feel free to add more awesome women in games to celebrate—we want to keep the inspiration growing for everyone! And if you’ve ever wanted to make a game, why not start today? You could be the next shining star of gaming!

Happy International Women’s Day from Lorien! Here’s to all the women who make gaming awesome—today and every day!

It wasn’t just an accelerator—it was a belief system: move fast, break things, launch now. That scrappy 2005 experiment gave birth to Reddit, Dropbox, and the modern playbook for building tech companies.

But gaming isn’t tech.

Startups build software. Games build worlds. Startups optimize funnels. Games shape and are fed by culture.

And yet, when it comes to structured support, game founders still get left behind. Traditional accelerators don’t understand the industry. Publishers are risk-averse. Most funding goes to proven formulas, not groundbreaking ideas.

At Lorien Accelerator, we’re inspired by YC’s perspective but not by copying YC’s model. We’re forging something uncopyable—a launchpad designed from the ground up for game studios and gametech founders who are rewriting the rules.

Why Gaming Needs Its Own YC

Tech startups thrive because they have a system that works—a clearer pathway from idea to MVP to funding to scale. YC showed that with the right support, founders could go from garage to IPO.

Gaming, on the other hand, lacks this clarity. Studios still struggle with:

• Funding gaps—Early-stage capital is scarce, and publishers only bet on what they already understand.

• A long, risky dev cycle—Unlike SaaS startups, you can’t launch half a game to test the market.

• A broken founder pipeline—Many of the great designers and engineers never get funded, not because they lack talent but because they lack access to the networks and business expertise needed to build a scalable company.

YC made it easier to start a company. Lorien is making it easier to build a game startup that lasts. Here’s how.

1. A Brotherhood of Game Makers

YC’s early magic was about proximity—throwing hungry founders into a room and letting serendipity take over. Lorien’s version? A tribe of game creators who’d rather crunch code than sleep.

Our upcoming batch in Istanbul isn’t just a program—it’s a LAN party with real stakes. We are bringing some of the most passionate and creative people in gaming together and empowering each other as a whole community. Imagine a dozen dreamers trading design docs over coffee at 2 a.m., playtesting each other’s games, helping debug prototypes, and pushing each other to launch something ambitious.

This isn’t theory. This is exactly how some of the best games of the past decade were built:

• Supercell had a "cell" structure—small, tight-knit teams iterating rapidly to find what sticks.

• The Hollow Knight team was just two developers, working in near-isolation, testing mechanics with a tight community before exploding onto the global scene.

• Among Us was a quiet indie project for two years before a small, engaged player base helped it go viral.

These weren’t just teams making games. They were creators pushing each other forward—and that’s exactly the environment Lorien is creating.

You can copy a schedule, but you can’t replicate this energy.

2. Mentors Who’ve Shipped Games

Most startup accelerators bring in mentors who have built companies, not games. This is because the program's founders are mostly not from gaming and have never been in the trenches themselves.

Lorien’s mentors aren’t just industry professionals; they are:

• Studio founders who’ve shipped games, scaled teams, and raised millions.

• Game designers who know why one mechanic works and another doesn’t.

• Publishers, investors, and platform experts who understand market realities and how to navigate them.

These are people who’ve debugged crashes at 4 a.m., negotiated publisher deals, and made the tough calls with investors that sometimes define a startup’s future.

Lorien’s mentors aren’t just here to talk about success—they’ve lived it.

That’s not a credential you can poach—it’s scars earned.

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3. Small Bets, Epic Payoffs

YC’s model worked because it made small bets on big ideas—$6K per founder in 2005 was enough to prove that a scrappy team could build something real.

Lorien follows the same philosophy: 5% equity for 12 weeks of rocket fuel—mentorship, resources, and investor connections.

We’re not here to bankroll polish. We’re here to back experimental prototypes—games that could be the next:

• Vampire Survivors, built on a shoestring budget but mastering player engagement.

• Slay the Spire, a roguelike deck-builder that no major publisher would have backed—until it became a genre-defining success.

• PUBG, which started as an experimental mod before it revolutionized the battle royale genre.

The common theme? Small teams, daring ideas, big risks, huge impact.

You can copy the math, but you can’t steal the conviction to bet on the unproven.

4. Istanbul to the World

YC started in Cambridge and scaled globally. Lorien is born global from day one.

Based in Istanbul, Türkiye, which is well-known for the huge success stories in gaming in the last decade—a city at the crossroads of cultures and ideas—Lorien is positioned as a gateway between East and West.

Gaming isn’t regional; it’s universal. That’s why our founders, mentors, and investors span continents:

• From indie devs to AAA leaders.

• From self-funded successes to major publishers.

• From hypercasual giants in Istanbul to RPG visionaries in the USA.

It’s not easy duplicating a borderless network like that.

5. Chaos That Breeds Hits

We don’t care about your 50-page business plan. We don’t want your pitch deck.

Lorien is about one thing: getting to the fun faster.

• Ship fast—Release and validate ideas in weeks, not years.

• Fail faster—Iterate aggressively, scrap what doesn’t work.

• Pivot if you must, iterate if you don’t—Some of the biggest games of all time started as something else or become what they are today by iterating every day.

Like when Fortnite pivoted from a PvE survival game to the biggest battle royale in the world.

Like when League of Legends launched with a barebones beta, focusing on gameplay first.

Like when Minecraft started as a one-man experiment, growing through community-driven development.

Gaming’s next breakout hit won’t come from spreadsheets. It’ll come from a team bold enough to experiment.

We’re building the accelerator gaming needs now:

• A haven for ambitious game founders.

• A launchpad for dreamers ready to shake the industry.

• A nexus for the next breakout games and studios.

• A bridge to fill the gap between creativity and business.

We’re not here to churn out startups. We’re here to launch the games that define a generation.

Want to prove us right?
Apply by March 9, 2025—let’s build something unstoppable together.

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Startups fail for many reasons—market misfit, poor execution, or funding shortages. However, one of the leading causes of startup failure is co-founder conflict. Studies indicate that 65% of startups fail due to disputes between founders (Noam Wasserman, The Founder’s Dilemma). The gaming industry is no exception.

According to a16z, around 20% of co-founder teams split up within the first year, and the likelihood of failure rises sharply when these breakups happen. In game development, where production cycles can be long and emotionally draining, these splits can be catastrophic.

A lot of first-time founders assume that finding a co-founder is just about partnering with someone they get along with. They’ll pick a friend, an old colleague, or someone they met at a game jam and decide, “Hey, let’s build a studio together.” It’s not just about finding someone who shares your passion for games—it’s about alignment on vision, complementary skills, and, most importantly, resilience in tough times because things will get tough.

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The Role of a Co-Founder in Startup Success

The gaming industry is multidisciplinary—great games require expertise in design, engineering, storytelling, monetization, and business development. Solo founders are at a disadvantage because they lack the bandwidth to handle all these moving parts.

Investors recognize this risk, which is why they overwhelmingly prefer multiple-founder teams over solo founders. Y Combinator reports that startups with at least two founders are 3 times more likely to succeed compared to solo-run ventures.

The right co-founder helps balance your weaknesses. If you’re a great game designer but don’t understand fundraising, publishing, or user acquisition, you need someone who does. If you’re a technical founder but have no sense of market positioning or player psychology, you need someone who does.

More importantly, the right co-founder increases your startup’s survival rate. Solo founders burn out faster, have a harder time raising capital, and are more likely to make bad decisions because they lack a second perspective. Startups are emotionally hard, and it’s always better to have a trusted partner to walk alongside you in the best and worst times of your company.

How to Find and Assess the Right Partner

One of the mistakes founders make when picking a co-founder is to choose someone just because you get along. A lot of co-founder breakups happen because the founders never had an honest conversation about expectations, work styles, and long-term commitment before jumping in. Here’s what to look for in a strong co-founder relationship:

1. Complementary Skills

A great co-founder should fill the gaps in your expertise. If you’re the technical founder, look for someone with business or product sense. If you’re the creative, find someone who understands production and execution. The worst partnerships are when both founders want to focus on the same things while ignoring critical gaps.

Common Game Studio Co-Founder Pairings:

• Creative Lead + Technical Co-Founder: Good for studios prioritizing innovation in game design.

• Engineer + Business Founder: Good choice for startups that need strong development and publishing strategies.

• Artist + Producer: Works well when visual appeal and production efficiency are key success factors.

Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck, the co-founders of Riot Games, built one of the most successful gaming companies by leveraging their complementary skills. While both were passionate about gaming, Merrill focused on operations and business development, while Beck led creative and strategic initiatives. Their ability to navigate challenges together played a crucial role in League of Legends becoming a billion-dollar success.

2. Trust and Working History

While complementary skills are important, they shouldn't be the only deciding factor—many skills can be learned on the job. A designer can learn to pitch investors, and an engineer can learn game monetization.

• What you can’t easily change is whether you and your co-founder can navigate challenges together.

• Many co-founder breakups happen because the relationship was never pressure-tested before launching the company.

Work with someone you respect and have problem-solved with before, whether it’s through a previous startup, game jam, or a long-term project. Have real disagreements before you start your company to test how you handle conflict together.

3. Shared Vision but Different Strengths

You don’t need to agree on everything, but you need to align on why you’re building this company. You should align with your vision, your values and culture you want to build inside your company.

Founders with clashing long-term visions (one wants a lifestyle indie studio, the other wants to build the next Fortnite) or having different attitudes on company culture & values will inevitably implode.

4. High Trust and Low Ego

If you can’t fully trust your co-founder, you’re in trouble. Successful partnerships are built on trust and the ability to challenge each other without taking it personally. You’ll spend most of your waking hours with this person, especially in the early years, wrestling with a barrage of tough problems. But fragile egos or lingering grudges can sink a company faster than bad code or a dry bank account.

You don’t need to share the same instincts or solutions—diversity of thought is a strength—but you must align on the big decisions and move forward without pointing fingers. Fragile egos and unresolved conflicts can destroy a startup faster than any other issue. Blaming each other after the call is made is a startup death sentence.

5. A Willingness to Do the Unsexy Work

Gaming startups aren’t glamorous behind the scenes. There will be months (or years) where your job is less about making games and more about finding the money needed, communicating with external stakeholders, keeping the team motivated, fixing broken builds, emailing influencers and publishers, or handling accounting. The right co-founder doesn’t vanish when things get tedious and is aware that the less sexy parts need to be done as well.

6. The Ability to Survive Chaos Together

Imagine this: your funding falls through, your game flops on launch, or a key team member quits. Will your co-founder stick around and fight, or do they look for an exit? The best test of a co-founder relationship is whether you can survive hard times and setbacks together.

The Equity Talk: How to Split Fairly and Avoid Future Conflicts

Once you’ve found the right co-founder, the next big discussion is equity. This is where a lot of teams make mistakes that will haunt them later.

Why Equal Splits Are Sometimes a Bad Idea

Many founders default to a 50/50 split because it “feels fair.” But fair isn’t the same as equal. If one founder is full-time and the other is part-time, is 50/50 fair? If one founder has put in years of experience and industry connections while the other is fresh out of school, is 50/50 fair?

Splitting equally often ignores the real differences in risk, contribution, and long-term commitment.

How to Structure a Fair Equity Split

A better approach is to base equity on key factors:

• Time invested – Who is committing full-time vs. part-time?

• Risk taken – Did one person quit a high-paying job while the other is treating this as a side project?

• Value added – Who is bringing critical industry relationships, funding opportunities, or business strategy?

Vesting and Cliffs: Protecting Both Founders

No matter how much you trust your co-founder, equity should vest over time.

• A 4-year vesting schedule with a 1-year cliff is standard and is also being demanded by most VCs. This means no one gets equity outright; it’s earned over time.

• The 1-year cliff means you don't receive any vested equity until you've completed your first year at the startup. This prevents someone from leaving early and still owning part of the company.

• Vesting means that you’ll have all the equity you can possibly have when you spend 4 years working for your startup, excluding the exceptional cases of liquidity events like exits.

• These terms protect both founders. If one person leaves within the first six months, they won’t retain equity, ensuring fairness in long-term commitment.

Founder Agreements: The Co-Founder Prenup

Every startup should have a founder agreement. This is a simple document that outlines:

• How much equity each founder gets

• Vesting terms

• Who makes final decisions if there’s a disagreement

• What happens if a founder leaves

This might seem unnecessary in the honeymoon phase of a startup, but most founder breakups I’ve seen would have been easier if these things were clarified upfront. Having clear agreements prevents messy conflicts later that you could never possibly imagine will happen.

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What to Do When Co-Founder Relationships Go Wrong

Even with the best planning, co-founder relationships sometimes break down. The key is recognizing problems early and handling them proactively.

1. Identify the Root Issue

• Is it a misalignment in vision?

• Is it a work ethic problem (one founder is pulling more weight)?

• Is it a personal conflict that’s bleeding into the business?

2. Communicate Before It’s Too Late

• Most co-founder breakups happen because small frustrations fester. Address issues early. Staying away from the hard talks early on brings the harder talks and decisions later.

• If the relationship is deteriorating, an honest, direct conversation is always better than passive aggression.

3. Have a Clear Off-Ramp

• If a co-founder needs to leave, refer back to the founder agreement.

• Ideally, equity should stop vesting when someone exits in the first 3-4 years of your company, ensuring a non-contributing founder doesn’t keep a large ownership stake.

• If a co-founder's departure is imminent, communicate early with your investors, key stakeholders, and legal counsel. Transparency and proactive management can prevent unnecessary complications.

The Bottom Line: A Co-Founder is Your Biggest Asset (or Liability)

Your co-founder is the most important person in your startup besides you. They can either multiply your impact or drag the company down. A great co-founder won’t just help you build a great game—they’ll help you build a great company. The best teams aren’t just partners in success; they are battle-tested allies in the toughest moments of your startup journey. 

At Lorien, we know that choosing the right co-founder is just the first step. Properly structuring that partnership—through clear agreements, fair equity splits, and strong legal foundations—protects your company in the long run. That’s why legal structuring and co-founder agreements are key parts of our program. We help gaming founders navigate these critical early decisions so they can focus on what matters most: building a lasting studio.

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One thing you need to internalize before spending a penny on your game: most VCs are wired to say "no" tens—if not hundreds—of times before a single "yes." They manage other people's money and are under pressure to deliver outsized returns in a limited time. Their survival depends on making high-stakes bets that promise exponential growth, not just funding promising startups and games. Even the best founders you know likely faced countless "no"s before securing their first "yes"—if they ever raised at all.

If your company dies when investors say no, you don’t have a startup—you just have a pitch deck. If you truly believe in what you're building and are fully committed, you'll always find a way forward.

VC Money Doesn’t Fix Bad Execution—It Worsens It

Most gaming startups don’t fail because they lack funding. They fail because they don’t know how to build something players actually want. Funding amplifies whatever is already happening in your startup. If you're on the right track, money can help you scale. If you're lost, it only accelerates failure.

Examples are everywhere:

• 38 Studios raised $75 million but collapsed under its own weight. No clear roadmap, no sustainable development pipeline—too much spending and unrealistic expectations.

• Ouya raised millions on Kickstarter but failed to build a strong game ecosystem.

• Haven Studios got acquired by PlayStation before launching a single game, yet their debut title is still a question mark. Big funding doesn’t always mean big success.

Money didn’t save them because money doesn’t create good execution. It makes bad execution more expensive.

Great founders use capital to accelerate—not to compensate. If you can’t build momentum with zero funding, millions won’t save you. In fact, too much money too soon can be dangerous—it leads to over-hiring, over-building, and a false sense of progress. Founders start chasing investor expectations instead of actual player demand. Constraints force clarity.

If money doesn’t fix execution, the real question isn’t how to raise money—it’s how to build something so good that funding becomes optional. Execution and bootstrapping create momentum.

Bootstrapping Is a Superpower

Before you go looking for VC money, ask yourself: Do you actually need it? Too many founders assume that raising money is a necessary step when, in reality, it’s a trade-off—one that comes with expectations, dilution, and loss of control.

The best founders don’t rush to raise capital. They bootstrap as long as they can because they know the bias of fundraising. Bootstrapping also forces discipline. It makes you focus on what actually matters: building something players love. It forces you to be scrappy, to generate revenue early, and to grow on your own terms.

Games like Minecraft, Vampire Survivors, and Stardew Valley weren’t built with VC money. They were built by founders who focused on their game first, proving demand before ever taking outside investment (if they ever did). They didn’t wait for funding to validate their vision—they let their players do that. Ask yourself:

• Can you build an MVP with what you have right now?

• Can you start generating revenue early through early access or self-publishing?

• Would having money now actually solve your core problems, or would it just let you postpone finding real solutions?

VC money isn’t a golden ticket. It’s fuel—but only if you already have a working engine. Build first. Prove first. Raise later if you need to.

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The Best Founders Are Fanatically Resourceful

The best founders use their resources well and start getting results very early, even if there are obstacles. They make things happen with what they have. Paul Graham calls it "Relentlessly Resourceful." The best founders don’t wait for perfect conditions. They make things happen despite constraints.

At Lorien, we uphold fanatical resourcefulness—the ability to push forward with whatever is available while remaining solution-oriented instead of problem-focused. Many legendary gaming companies started this way. Examples include:

• Supergiant Games (Bastion, Hades) worked out of a house, building with a tiny team before gaining traction.

• Mojang built Minecraft without outside funding, focusing on community and early sales.

• The Vampire Survivors dev made the game using free assets and simple tools, prioritizing fun over polish.

They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They found a way:

• They build fast. They prototype, test, and launch in weeks—not years.

• They leverage free tools. Unity, Unreal Engine, itch.io, Discord, Reddit—development, distribution, and community are free if you know when and where to look.

• They generate early revenue. Game Pass, Patreon, early-access sales—many options exist before VC.

• They make people care. They build an audience before the game is even finished. They build for and together with thei
  r real players.

How Game VCs Look at Funding

Most investors don’t fund ideas. They fund execution. So, before you even think about fundraising, you need to execute and prove you're de-risking your startup’s success. VCs don’t invest in potential alone—they invest in proof. They need to see that you'll push forward no matter what, that you’ll figure things out even when resources are tight. 

The era when investors threw money at startups with little more than a pitch deck is over. Resources are constrained, and execution is king again. You either build or you die. There is no in-between.

VCs don’t fund startups that need money to survive. They fund startups that prove they can thrive without it. The best way to raise money is to show you don’t need it. When investors see that you’re growing without them, they want in. Investors bet on momentum—your job is to create and show it. They invest in teams that know how to build, ship, and attract players with minimal resources. The strongest indicator of a high-potential startup isn’t a flashy pitch deck—it’s early traction.

Investors look for:

• A lean, high-output team. Is your team capable of publishing the game and shipping meaningful updates frequently? Not the random updates to include fancy design or “holiday season” visuals, but the features your players demand the most.

• Founders who can prove player demand. Have you tested mechanics with real users? Do you have playtesters who keep coming back?

• Smart distribution strategies. Can you get the game in front of the right audience without a huge marketing budget? Justin Kan, the brain behind Justin.tv and Twitch, once said, “First-time founders are obsessed with product. Second-time founders are obsessed with distribution.” This insight is especially relevant in gaming, where even the best games fail without effective distribution.

If you want to raise, prove that execution and players—not investors—are your top priority.

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Default Alive vs. Default Dead

At YC, Paul Graham talks about startups being either "default alive" or "default dead." The same applies to gaming:

• Default Alive: You know there’s real demand for your game, it is progressing, your community is growing, and you have ways to generate revenue—even if small. You feel momentum.

• Default Dead: Your game is stuck in development hell, you have no connection with your players, your plan hinges on funding, and if investors say no, you have no way forward.

The best founders don’t sit in "default dead" mode. They make things happen, with or without funding.

1. Stop waiting. Make progress today, even if it’s tiny. Code something, share a devlog, and engage your community.

2. Build in the open. Before launch, share your game, share updates, get feedback, and grow your audience.

3. Create early traction. Whether through Steam wishlists, Patreon, or early access, get real users and/or real money.

4. Stay lean. Don’t hire a huge team or burn money before you have traction.

5. Think distribution first. Great games fail when no one plays them. Learn how to get your game in front of players in the smartest, most efficient way possible.

How Lorien Helps 

At Lorien, we don’t just tell founders to be resourceful—we help them do it. We work with early-stage gaming founders to refine their vision, sharpen their execution, and build real momentum before they seek funding. And if the funding creates a bigger momentum, we help you raise it. Lorien Accelerator provides:

• Mentorship from gaming veterans – Founders get direct, no-BS advice from people who’ve built, scaled, and exited gaming companies before.

• Tactical guidance on execution – We help you focus on what actually moves the needle: rapid iteration, smart distribution, and early traction.

• Founder-first approach – We don’t believe in raising for the sake of raising. We help you figure out whether VC funding makes sense—or if you’re better off without it.

• Access to a network that matters – When the time is right, we connect you with the right investors—ones who understand gaming and care about execution, not just hype.

Great gaming startups aren’t built on pitch decks. They’re built on execution & momentum. If you’re ready to build, iterate, and prove your game has what it takes, Lorien is here to help.

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Most founders start by asking how. How do I build a game? How do I monetize it? How do I market it? But the best founders we know start with why. Why does this game need to exist? Why will people care? Why now? A founder who starts with why builds something lasting. A founder who starts with how mostly just builds something. 

It’s easy to fall into the how trap. The internet is full of answers to how questions. There are tutorials for everything—how to make a game in Unity, how to get featured on Steam, and how to optimize CPI on Facebook ads. If you want, you can spend months learning nothing but how.

And yet, most games fail. Not because the founders didn’t know how to make a game but because they didn’t understand why they were making it. A game without a clear why is just another product in an already crowded market. A game with a strong why has a reason to exist. More importantly, it is the reason for players to care. 

When your why is clear, everything else follows. Game mechanics become more intentional. Your monetization strategy feels natural instead of forced. Your marketing isn’t just shouting into the void—it speaks directly to the people who need to hear it.

Compare an indie studio with a strong vision to a massive AAA publisher chasing trends. The indie game doesn’t have the biggest budget, which is exactly why it should know the why behind its game idea. And meaning beats budget more often than you’d think. This is why some of the most beloved games come from small teams. Because they weren’t just built well. They were built with purpose.

A useful framework here is Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle: Start with why, then move to how, and only then worry about what. The best game developers we’ve seen do this instinctively. They first obsess over the core reasons and experience first, and everything else comes later. 

Let’s dive deep into some “Why over How” questions that game developers should consider before starting to code.

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Start with Finding Your Own Why

This applies to you as a founder, first. A great game isn’t just about how or what you build. It’s about why you’re the right person/team to build it. There are specific questions you need to ask yourself before starting the first line of coding.

Every great game balances two things: what the market wants and what only the founding team—who deeply understands the genre and players—can create the best. Great founders find that overlap. That’s what founder-market fit looks like in games.

How Founders Fail

• They assume any good idea will work, regardless of who’s making it.

• They choose markets they don’t deeply understand.

• They try to appeal to everyone instead of focusing on a specific player community they know inside out.

What Great Founders Do

The best game founders don’t just create—they create with conviction. They build something they uniquely understand, and they, themselves, want to play. 

Reframe your approach as a founder. When the best founders build a game, they pause for a second. Before getting lost in how questions they ask:

• Why are you building this game?

• Why is your team the best team in the world to do this?

They find the intersection of why they care and why players will care. They build in genres they deeply understand. They know their player community’s needs and behaviors well and build thoroughly.

Play your team’s strengths. Just because something is popular, sounds sexy, or is easily doable doesn’t mean it fits your strengths.

Focus on the things you are good at and understand why you are good at them. This could be good storytelling, unique game design, special technical know-how, interesting art choice, or, best, the combination of many. Great founders take what they love and are good at and find the intersection. They build games that align with their skills and deeply understand every aspect of what they’re creating. Work on games only you and your team can create the best.

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Why over How in Game Design

The best games aren’t built on mechanics or beautiful art alone. They tap into something deeper: a feeling, a desire, an unmet need.

Let’s take Minecraft, for example. It’s not the most complex game and doesn’t have the best graphics, but it answers a deep why—the desire for boundless creativity in an open world.

How Founders Fail

Most founders start with how. How do I design my gameplay mechanics? How do I make my art seem sexy? How do I make players pay? But building money-making mechanics and shiny art alone don’t make a game great. The best games aren’t just collections of payment systems, lovely environments, and features.

Founders who fail focus too much on execution and too little on purpose. They focus first on monetization and add today’s trendy mechanics or interesting art before they know why players would care in the first place. 

• They optimize for short-term engagement rather than lasting appeal.

• They chase mechanics because they’re popular, not because they’re meaningful.

• They forget that only good visuals don't keep players when gameplay doesn't attract and last.

What Great Founders Do

Great founders start with why. Instead of asking how to build a game mechanic, they ask why it should exist. They understand that games aren’t just about shiny mechanics & art style. They’re about making it timeless and making players keep coming back. They ask why players love these game dynamics, not just how to make them. Some of the best games in history—Chess, Tetris, Minecraft—aren’t about being shiny and complex. They ask the bigger questions:

• Why will players love this game?

• Why does this story/gameplay attract players and keep them attached in the long run?

• Why did we choose these core mechanics to satisfy our players?

• Why is this game design approach good?

• Why will people play this every day?

Instead of forcing their game to have shiny, complex mechanics being demanded today and focusing on monetization techniques early on, they understand why people will keep playing their game in the next 10-20 years, not just the next 6 months.

Why Over How in Timing

Gaming isn’t just about games or an isolated industry—it’s part of a bigger entertainment ecosystem. Movies, TV shows, books, music, and even memes can shape what players want. Social dynamics and world events—politics, pandemics, climate change—can create demand for new stories and experiences. A big movie franchise can drive interest in a game genre. A hit anime can make an art style more desirable. New technologies from XR to AI can shift where games go next. Cultural shifts create gaps most people don’t even know exist yet. 

Understanding the existing market landscape is crucial. But, it's one-dimensional to think about creating a long-lasting title only based on today's market trends. Every year, there’s a new “hot” thing in gaming—battle royales, blockchain games, metaverse experiences. Some last, most don’t. The worst thing a founder can do is blindly chase what’s popular without understanding why it’s working and whether it temporarily changed player behaviors and expectations.

A game that exists just because something is trendy won’t last. Take NFT games, for example. Many founders jumped in, asking how to make an NFT game, not why players would care. Most of these games collapsed because they were designed around a financial mechanic, not a lasting emotional or gameplay experience. Axie Infinity, which was once worth $3B, lost 80% of its active users in a year. 

How Founders Fail

They focus on execution before understanding the context of today’s market. They ask how to fit into today's market rather than why players gravitate toward certain experiences.

• They assume what’s trending today is also what’s wanted in the long run.

• They copy existing games without asking why they worked.

• They design for short-term hype rather than lasting cultural impact.

• They focus on how to launch instead of why now is the right time.

• They don’t recognize when a market is oversaturated or too early. 

What Great Founders Do

They ask why these trends happen before deciding how to act on them. They use trends as a signal, not a strategy. They ask:

• Why is this trend happening now?

• Why are players engaging with this trend?

• Why is this the right moment for my game to exist?

• Why hasn’t someone done this successfully before?

• Why will this matter five years from now?

A trend might mean players want something—but the best games find their own way to deliver it in the long run, whether through captivating gameplay or strong storytelling.

Recognize how global events impact gaming trends. For example, during the pandemic, some games exploded because they answered deep needs of that time:

• Among Us thrived because people needed low-pressure social interaction. A small 2018 title surged to over 500 million players in 2020.

• World of Warcraft, which had seen a decrease in MAU before the pandemic, rebounded to 7.25 million subscribers as players sought virtual communities to socialize digitally.

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons became a cultural moment because it gave players a sense of control and routine. Released in March 2020, it sold 11.77 million copies in 12 days and 31 million by year’s end—while its predecessor took eight years to sell 12.45 million.

• The Last of Us Part II resonated because dystopian narratives hit differently in 2020. The game sold 4 million copies on its first weekend, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive ever.

Spot cultural catalysts. Instead of chasing today’s trends only, ask what’s causing them and why. What bigger movements are shaping entertainment, what’s happening in our world, and why does your upcoming game fit in?

Understand what’s here to stay. Highly social interactions, community-driven play, deep storytelling, and immersive mechanics consistently drive retention across genres. Founders must comprehend the indispensable aspects of their genre and target players. Instead of focusing on what’s trending now, focus on what’s trending amongst your players for a long time and why.

Think ahead. The best founders don’t just chase what’s hot today—they figure out what’s next. You need to understand first why your game will last. Don’t just look at what’s happening now—a great game needs room and time to grow—look at what’s inevitable next. Some games were too early to create sustainable businesses, making surviving tricky for their founders. This includes most AR games before Pokémon GO and many VR games before Quest. Also, some games were just too late—battle royale clones chasing Fortnite, Web3 games built after the hype died.

Great founders don’t just think about why this game matters—they think about why now is the right time to build it.

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Conclusion: Start with Why, Always

A founder who starts with how, builds something. A founder who starts with why, builds something that lasts.

Before you write a single line of code, before you prototype a single mechanic, ask:

• Why does this game need to exist?

• Why will players love it?

• Why now?

• Why us?

If you have a strong enough why, the how figures itself out. If you can’t answer those “why” questions, don’t start building. Because how will never save you if your why stays weak.

What Great Founders Do Overall

• Start with why. Always. They ask why from the very first moment of choosing their teammates to their game design, development, and player growth.

• Play to their strengths. They build the games they are uniquely qualified to make.

• Understand what lasts. They focus on long-lasting mechanics, player engagement, good storytelling, and immersive worlds that stand the test of time.

• Use trends as signals, not playbooks. They recognize what players want but execute in their own way.

• Shape culture, not just react to it. They create games that define trends, not games that merely fit trends.

• Think long-term. They don’t build games for quick wins—they build for lasting impact.

Build for meaning, not just execution. Want to know if your game has a strong why? At least try explaining it to a friend who plays similar games in one sentence. If they get excited, you might be onto something. If they don’t, go back to the drawing board. It’s better to figure that out now than after you’ve spent years building the wrong thing.

At Lorien, we don’t just help founders build games—we help them build long-lasting game companies. We’re here to help founders ask the right questions at the right time and focus on what matters. Through world-class mentors, deep industry insights, and the right resources, we focus on giving them an edge—not just to make a game but to create a company that shapes the future of gaming. 

Trends come and go, but great games, great teams, and great companies endure. If you're a founder with a vision for the future of gaming, we'd love to help you bring it to life. We are here to support, challenge, and guide you in building the future of gaming.

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"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." — Michael Jordan

Games as Holistic Entertainment Experiences

Game developers need to see themselves as more than just creators of games—they’re builders of entertainment companies. Your competition isn’t just other games; it’s every compelling story, engaging show, or addictive app out there. Netflix, TikTok, and YouTube are all vying for the same attention. The founders who succeed understand this. They recognize that a game is part of a larger ecosystem of entertainment, and they approach it with a strategic vision to capture and keep the audience’s attention.

By thinking like an entertainment company, game developers position themselves to compete at the highest levels. This means delivering not just gameplay but experiences that are rich, immersive, and emotionally resonant—transmedia content that stands alongside the best of what people love in books, movies, and beyond.

The Power of Storytelling

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic." — Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

At the heart of every successful game—and every successful game business—is storytelling. Game development itself is an act of storytelling, creating worlds, characters, and experiences that captivate players. But storytelling doesn’t stop there. The best founders are also great storytellers when it comes to their business. They have a way of articulating their vision so clearly that it becomes contagious, rallying talented teammates who believe in the mission and inspiring investors with their authenticity and strategic clarity.

This isn’t about spinning stories or exaggerating. It’s about clearly and authentically communicating your vision and strategy. Founders who can connect the dots between their creative ideas and the business opportunities they represent are far more likely to succeed.

Sales and marketing are extensions of this storytelling ability. Convincing a new teammate to join, pitching your game to investors, or even building excitement among players—all of this requires the ability to tell a good story. That’s why we emphasize these skills at Lorien. We understand how tough this can be, and we’re here to help you strengthen these muscles.

Why Strategic Business Leadership Matters

Game founders need to understand the perspective of investors, market dynamics, and financial planning. A tech-savvy founder is a tremendous asset in game development, but the most successful companies are those where the technical, creative, and business skills complement each other. Being a strategic leader means understanding how to align these elements to create a thriving, sustainable business.

When you look at the most successful gaming studios and the rising ones attracting major funding, you can see a pattern emerge. Many of these studios are not only home to exceptional talent but are also led by founders with significant business experience—ex-consultants, entrepreneurs, and operators who know how to scale, market, and position their products effectively. Ilkka Paananen of Supercell built a company culture and strategy that enabled global scalability. Nicolo Laurent at Riot Games transitioned smoothly from business roles to leadership, guiding the company toward sustainable growth and cultural impact.

In Türkiye, we see similar trends. The business founders turned Peak Games into a unicorn by blending creative insight with sharp business instincts. Hakan Bas of Ace Games and Rina Onur of Spyke Games exemplify founders who combined business acumen with a passion for gaming, attracting significant funding from top global VCs and building strong, effective teams. This trend is also reflected in emerging studios like Fuse Games, which continue to demonstrate the value of strategic leadership in gaming.

"To be a good player, you have to understand the game. To be a great player, you have to understand the players." — Julius Erving, former NBA player

Why Marketing, Publishing, and Trends Matter

Games aren’t just products; they’re experiences that need to connect with players. But in a world where over 10,000 games are released only on Steam each year, standing out isn’t just about making noise; it’s about creating resonance. Success depends on understanding your audience deeply, crafting the right message, and delivering it at the perfect moment. That’s how marketing and publishing make all the difference. The studios that succeed understand how to find their audience and how and when to grow it.

Epic Games didn’t just build Fortnite; they marketed it in a way that captured the battle royale wave at exactly the right time. Or take Among Us, for example. Released in 2018 to little notice, it skyrocketed to fame two years later through strategic influencer marketing and community-driven buzz. The developers didn’t just push their game—they listened, adapted, and aligned their efforts with the players’ needs and the moment’s demands.

Analytics and data also play a pivotal role. Companies like Activision Blizzard use data to refine campaigns, predict player behavior, and adjust strategies in real-time. Data-driven marketing isn’t just smart—it’s essential. It helps studios optimize engagement and uncover untapped opportunities in the market. This is how today’s successful studios stay ahead of market shifts and player expectations—not by guessing but by looking at the numbers.

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PC and Console: The Bigger Picture

Mobile isn’t the only game in town. While mobile games dominate in accessibility, PC and console games step forth in-depth, storytelling, and immersive player experiences. Studios like CD Projekt (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077) and Larian Studios (Baldur’s Gate 3) demonstrate how innovation, bold narratives, and a strong understanding of player expectations can drive massive success. These games resonate not just because they entertain but because they create lasting emotional connections with players with their unique stories and character designs.

Bungie’s journey from Halo to Destiny is a masterclass in evolving a studio’s vision while maintaining independence. Through strategic market positioning, Bungie has built a global community, transforming Destiny into more than a game—a shared universe that players actively inhabit. Naughty Dog’s emotionally charged narratives, deep character development with cinematic action in The Last of Us and Uncharted or Insomniac's mastery of blending franchises like Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank with innovative gameplay and strategic cross-media marketing are just a few other examples. 

PC and console studios also thrive by understanding and serving niche communities. Games like Stardew Valley and Hades have proven that smaller teams with a deep understanding of their players and market can compete alongside industry giants. These successes show that fearless creativity and a clear vision, paired with strategic execution and hard work, can resonate with players worldwide.

At Lorien, we recognize that PC and console games require a unique approach. It’s not just about delivering a game; it’s about delivering an experience that stays with players long after they’ve put down the controller.

Moving Beyond Copycat Games

The gaming industry is filled with imitation. Chasing trends or replicating what works for others might bring short-term gains but rarely leads to enduring success. Some of the most iconic games in history succeeded not by following others but by focusing on the small design and storytelling details that set them apart. It’s not always about reinventing the wheel; sometimes, it’s about refining it. The most successful games don’t just follow trends; they create them, proving that innovative game design and bold ideas can make all the difference.

The Lorien Team: Who We Are

"It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this." — Old Man, The Legend of Zelda

Lorien isn’t just an accelerator; it’s the product of years of experience from people who’ve been in the trenches. Our team includes:

Dilara Keçeci: I’ve been a founder in the tech and gaming industry for almost a decade, building teams, designing games, raising global funding, managing investor relations, and optimizing operations and finances. As a long-time hardcore gamer myself, I deeply understand the industry from every angle and strive to bring that perspective to every founder we support.

Can Akpınar: A lawyer-turned-game studio founder with a sharp eye for strategy. Can’s deep understanding of legal frameworks and operational dynamics, combined with his long-time passion for games and game development, makes him invaluable to studios navigating growth and funding.

Cüneyt Devrim: A marketing, blockchain, and data expert who’s not only helped major brands and gaming companies unlock their potential but is also a trusted mentor in the industry, known for guiding and supporting countless founders.

Serhat Akkılıç: A visionary leader as our advising partner who has been running a major communication company for decades with global teams and projects. Serhat’s expertise in blending marketing, technology, and business results ensures that the games we support will not only succeed but also resonate deeply with all stakeholders.

We’re not just business professionals—we’re gamers. Each of us has spent years playing, loving, and analyzing games. We believe that understanding and enjoying games as players is fundamental to building games that succeed. We look for this passion in the teams we select for the program. Being a business person can be learned over time, but having gaming in your bones—a deep, instinctive passion for playing and understanding games—is something else entirely. The best insights about games and the market come from those who truly love playing and creating them.

We’re humbled by the opportunity to work alongside such passionate and talented founders. Our mentors include industry veterans from AAA studios, publishing giants, and top marketing firms. Together, from all over the world, we bring a truly global network and an unmatched knowledge base spanning four continents and five time zones.

Why We Built Lorien

At Lorien, we’re not just running an accelerator; we’re solving a problem we’ve seen too many founders struggle with. Game development is hard. But building a successful game studio? That’s an entirely different challenge. It’s not just about creating a hit game; it’s about building a business that can keep making great games.

For a long time, the gaming industry has treated creativity and business as separate worlds. Founders are often left to figure out funding, strategy, and scaling on their own—or worse, they try to ignore these challenges altogether. That’s why we built Lorien: to bridge the gap between creativity and business and to help founders focus on what matters most—building something extraordinary.

Our 12-week program isn’t just about resources; it’s about transformation. We work with small, focused cohorts, giving founders the kind of hands-on support they’d never get from a typical accelerator. By the end of the program, you won’t just have a better game—you’ll have a business that’s ready to thrive. Here’s how we do it:

Mentorship That Matters
Advice is something, but what founders actually need is perspective. That’s why our partners & mentors are gaming veterans—people who’ve built studios, raised capital, and shipped games themselves. They’ve made the mistakes you want to avoid, and they are here to help you see around corners you didn’t even know existed.

Funding Without Guesswork
Raising money can sometimes feel like a black box. At Lorien, we help you open it. From preparing your pitch and financials to connecting you with the right investors, we make sure you’re not just ready to raise—you’re ready to succeed. Whether you’re closing a seed round or preparing for growth, we’re there to help you navigate the process.

A Network You Can Use
The gaming industry is smaller than you think. The right connections can change everything, starting from the game development process to marketing, publishing, and growth. That’s why we don’t just introduce you to industry leaders—we help you build relationships. These are the people who will give you advice, support your vision, and open doors to back you along the way.

Why It Works

Game studios don’t fail because they run out of ideas. They fail when the founders give up because of running out of money, losing momentum, or clarity. Lorien is designed to help you avoid all three. We focus on the hard parts: building a sustainable business, scaling effectively, and making sure your game resonates with players—and investors.

This isn’t just about quick wins. It’s about building something that lasts. We’ve seen what happens when founders get the right support at the right time: studios thrive, games succeed, and communities grow. That’s why we’re here—not just to help you survive but to help you lead. At Lorien, we help you stay clear on momentum and:

• Create games that stand out in the market.

• Build scalable, sustainable business models.

• Understand and act on market trends.

• Secure funding from VCs.

Is This For You?

If you’re a founder who’s serious about building not just a great game but a great business, Lorien is for you. We’re looking for people who understand that creativity and strategy go hand in hand—who want to build something bigger than just the next trend. If that’s you, we’re ready to help.

The future of gaming doesn’t belong to those who settle for the status quo. It belongs to those who dare to dream, who are willing to learn, adapt, and create something meaningful. At Lorien, we’re here to walk this journey with you—not as distant advisors, but as partners who believe in your vision and are committed to helping you bring it to life—from seedling to saga. Together, we can build game companies that stand the test of time. Let’s get started.

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"There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for." — Samwise Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers