Clever Media

None. We've avoided things like this because they box you in. We want to be able to adjust quickly to changing situations. We basically do work that we enjoy and is profitable or has the potential to be so. We focus on games, but nothing is off limits.

What you sell / services you offer (brief description of your company):

CleverMedia develops and publishes computer games. Our primary business is to develop our own games and publish them on our Web sites. Revenue comes through advertising on those sites.

We also license these games through a variety of channels in a number of ways.

In addition, we build custom games and content management systems for other companies. Since our expertise is in Macromedia Director and Flash, we have also done some CD-ROM multimedia projects and consulting in that area.

Have you always wanted to run your own business? What were some of your previous jobs / companies?

Yes. Even as a child I was always creating my own little fake companies to do things. In high school I attempted to build and sell software. In college I started my own student newspaper, as private business – not a school organization.

My plan after graduation was to start my own computer multimedia company. But I took a detour and worked for Reuters for two years doing similar work at a company called Ingenius. This gave me the chance to develop my skills as a programmer before I had to work on my own.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically?

I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Drexel University and a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. This turned out to be a good combination of degrees for running my own Internet Company.

I love both programming and writing equally. But I think my real talent is in programming. However, I was able to combine the two skills when I wrote my books. Those books, all on Director and Flash, were what helped establish my credibility. So while they were not profitable enterprises by themselves, they were a necessary building block for my success.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about?

I knew I wanted to have my own company, but I didn't know exactly what I would do. I wanted to make games, but without distribution there was no way I could make a game and hope to get it in front of a lot of people.

Then, in October of 1995, Macromedia announced Shockwave. I was actually at the press conference, during the Macromedia user's conference in San Francisco. This was the first time you could create something like a game and publish it on a level playing field with the rest of the world.

So I started building games in my spare time and putting them on my site. I had built up quite a good arcade of games on my Web page, and it started to generate interest. Companies approached me to build games for them and license ones I already had. I started working for myself full time in June of 1996.

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