The secret of success
Supercell is a Finnish game developer based in Helsinki. The company was founded in 2010, and just one year later the first browser game Gunshine was released. Supercell was inspired by entertainment product giants like Blizzard, Nintendo and Pixar, whose games are loved by millions of people around the world. But Supercell can already look back on ten successful years. To mark the occasion, company founder Ilkka Paananen listed ten lessons on the Supercell homepage which he considers to be the most important career tips based on his experience.
1. Always play the infinite game
Ilkka Paananen built his entire company according to the motto “Play the endless game”. What is meant by this is that the developers should create games with a long shelf life. “Our teams are always thinking about what would be the right long-term reputation for players and the community. This shows in how they handle game updates, content creation, and community events. The teams are trying their best not to think about the next quarter or this next year, but the next decade,” explains Paananen.
2. Great teams make great games
According to Paananen, it was very important to him from the moment of founding to build a great team. The best people should have the opportunity to create great games in the best possible environment. Thus was born the company’s second lesson: “The best people make the best games.” But Paananen is primarily concerned with building successful collaborative teams instead of individual individuals.
3. Hire slowly and always raise the bar
Paananen is convinced that in many companies it is not the number of employees that leads to success, but rather the competence of each individual. For example, early in his career, the Supercell founder received advice from his company’s first chairman on the subject of hiring: “When you’re thinking about whether or not you should hire someone, try to imagine the average quality level of the employees in your company. Then ask yourself whether or not hiring would increase that average. Hire only if the average goes up.”
4. Stay as small as possible
Paananen sees a great advantage in small teams and has come to appreciate this over the years. “When a team has fewer people, it needs to focus on what really matters and what has the greatest impact on the entire organization. On the contrary, larger teams often lead to ‘inventing’ work that only looks useful .” Especially when developing new games, where everything is possible in the initial phase, the Supercell founder thinks it makes sense to first set priorities and approach the approach in a small team.
5. Culture is the sum of everyone’s actions, not a slide deck or something written on a wall
Written by Ben Horowitz, “What You Do Is Who You Are” is Paananen’s favorite book and he has incorporated some of the lessons into his company philosophy. The majority of important decisions are made as a team, and Supercell employees generally enjoy a great deal of decision-making autonomy. “Culture and nurturing it must permeate every aspect of the business, from hiring a new person to day-to-day decisions, like how you speak to your employees, how you respond to mistakes, how you micromanage (or not), and how you too allow supposedly bad decisions,” explains Paananen.
6. Replace control with trust
“Decisions should be made by the people best suited to make them.” Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen holds dearly to this lesson and also explains why: “The teams are closest to what they do and should therefore be in the best position to decide what the best course of action is. When teams can make a decision on their own, without seeking approval from others, they will work faster and be happier.”
7. Don’t let fear of failure guide what you do. Be bold and try new things! (Don’t let fear of failure guide you in what you do. Be bold and try new things)
Ilkka Paananen explains this lesson this way: “In short, I think we’ve learned over the years that we really don’t know much! A lot of what we do is make educated guesses and ultimately try things”. He emphasizes that it is important to be brave, to be willing to take risks, because not only the players are constantly changing, but also the company itself. This makes it essential to constantly adapt and dare new things.
8. Resist the temptation to create processes and rules… even when you have made a mistake! (Resist the temptation to create processes and rules… even if you made a mistake!)
People tend to control situations – even as actors in a company. But this is exactly what the Supercell CEO sees as a problem. Therefore, his lesson number eight advises resisting the need for control and trusting the process instead, even when a mistake has been made.
9. Traditional goal setting does not work in our culture of independent cells
Paananen has gained another insight in recent years with regard to goal setting. While the company founder used to work out annual goals with his teams for weeks, he now trusts more in long-term goals: “Today we think that we as a company really have one goal: to develop great games that as many people as possible play and play for years that will be remembered forever. That’s our long-term goal.”
10. Write down your values and define your culture (and revise as you learn and evolve as a company)
As a tenth and final tip, Ilkka Paananen recommends writing down your values and developing a corporate culture. However, he also emphasizes that it is important to create these flexibly and to change and adapt them as a company develops. Paananen now meets with his team every one to two years and discusses the values and corporate culture, responds to changes and makes adjustments if necessary.
Isabell Tonnius / Editor finanzen.net
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