[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone, welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Hunter Fortuin and Tom Carmona of Wolfjaw. Hello gentlemen,

How are we? I'm good.

Great. I'm 

[00:00:41] Tom: well, man.

[00:00:42] Jay: Good. we're all hot. It's summer, 

you know, 

[00:00:46] Tom: It's a little warm.

[00:00:47] Jay: It's a little, well, you have a sweatshirt on.

I don't know what you're doing over there. You must have great central

[00:00:51] Tom: It's 65 degrees in my house right now. So,

[00:00:55] Jay: well, let's start with you, Tom. So anyway, Wolfjaw, by the way, let's kick off there. Wolfjaw Studios is, what do you guys do? what is Wolfjaw?

[00:01:02] Tom: yeah, so, Wolfjaw Studios, we are a video game co development studio based out of Troy, New York, with a primary focus on online game services. And so what that means is we work with, big video game studios and publishers to help develop a lot of their online tech. think about, Things like matchmaking, player account systems, telemetry, sort of all the stuff that's really important to getting in the game, but not the actual core gameplay itself.

[00:01:30] Jay: Love that. And when you guys see something explode on launch, like Helldivers or any of these other games, like, do you just go, like, Should have used us. Like what, how do you guys view those, you know, massive failures? Is that the kind of stuff that you guys safeguard against if they go with somebody uses

[00:01:48] Hunter: We try to, when we see launches fall apart, it's not so much, should have used us. And it's more, wow, I feel for you because this stuff is hard. It's really hard to get right. if you have launched and nothing has gone wrong, something, the stars have aligned because that is not a common occurrence.

[00:02:07] Jay: Or you just don't have enough players to show that something's gone wrong.That's great. I do remember I went to Full Sail and I remember. I remember like the multiplayer gaming like framework being just so bizarre and like such a weird different Experience like having to know where different things were at different times and like it just it's not single player gaming from a development perspective, but we can get into that in a little bit hunter.

So tom you've been there for about five years. You're biz dev guy so, being a biz dev guy myself I know it's all about relationships, right? So where did you guys start with Wolfjaw? Like, how did you get your first customer? Where'd you get, where did, where'd that come from?

[00:02:44] Tom: yeah, so our first customer interaction with Wolfjaw actually starts well before Wolfjaw even started. so, you know, Hunter, And I, and Mitch are our founder and CEO, all used to work together, in the past in the video game industry. And at various points, we all split off and came back together. and so, you know, Mitch one day called me up and was like, Hey, I really want to start my own studio. let's do this. I was like, that's cool. I'm not ready to make a jump yet, but I'm willing to help you out with, you know, sales. And so a big part of how we ended up getting our first customer was, you know, working our old. Contacts and our old relationships and our network. our first customer now, we'll trust studios didn't start until 2019. I started talking to our first customer way back in 2017. That's when the relationship really started. back at that time, we just couldn't find ways to work together. and that was all.

Fine. 2019 Mitch starts the company. I made an introduction for Mitch later in 2019. I joined up in November. and then from there it was all about working that relationship and doing everything we could to, you know, find ways to collaborate. so in total, it took us about three years to close our first customer. but from there, I think the kind of the big thing is that, you know, You know, that has since grown into such a massive customer and client for us and has even, spawned other clients for us in the sense that my close relationship that I had with that client ended up leaving in 2021 and going to a new studio. And as soon as he got over there, he gave me a call and was like, Hey, we'd love to figure out ways to work together. Let's do it. and so, yeah, that's kind of the story of the first one.

[00:04:26] Jay: I mean, it's a, you know, it was called the friends and family plan, right? Like that's what a lot of businesses kind of start with those previous relationships. And, I mean, but I guess my question. Is where does that, when does that, where does that end? Like, where do you realize like, okay, we've tapped our previous contacts.

You know, we've talked to all the people now we have to start this new client acquisition method. Like, did you feel that at some point where you were kind of like, all right, we've tapped this out, we need to do something else, or was it just kind of, you know, organic over time and you kind of figured it out

[00:04:58] Tom: I think we've felt both of those things. I think at times that we felt that, hey, I feel like we've tapped out our network. but then realizing that, you know, Using your network doesn't mean getting a deal with the person who's in your network, right? So a big thing that we tend to focus on is we try to go to a lot of conferences, but we're very focused on what conferences we go to, right?

So in the video game world, you have conferences like GDC, DICE, you have X, Dev, and a bunch of others. Gamescom in Europe, all that stuff. but we prioritize focusing on, Hey, where are the people who we actually want to meet, where are they going? And so for us, we know that Dice is our best conference.

And so that's where we go. And that's where we focus our time and we utilize that. Utilize our networks to meet other people. So a great example is in 2020, right before the pandemic hit, we were in dice, at dice in Vegas and it was Mitch, Hunter and I, hanging out at the, the hotel bar, just meeting up with one of our, friends. And all of a sudden someone from Bungie just came in and joined the conversation because they knew someone that we were talking to. And. Lo and behold, couple years later, now we get to support bungee, which is really cool. so, you know, I, I always say that like nurturing your relationships is the most important thing.

Never stop doing it. Yes, there is a point where you're not gonna be able to tap your connections for work directly, but there's always ways to utilize your network. and I think the other big thing just for us really quickly is like, Our big focus has always been on our brand and on our honesty.

So my network, our networks work for us where, you know, we've had people call us and say like, Hey, we've heard that you guys are the best in the business and we need to talk to you. Can we set up some time to chat?

[00:06:42] Jay: well, I mean, that has a good kind of throw over to Hunter. How have you guys. It's done that, I mean, it's not easy to do. Right? I mean, you mentioned how tough it is to do online infrastructure to begin with, like as the head of technology for Wolf Draw. How have you done that? How have you guys like ensured that you are the bar that people wanna, you know,

[00:07:05] Hunter: Yeah. I mean, on the front side of it, it's kind of what Tom just said. it's being honest and it's being candid. We have lost business because we've told them this is how much it's going to cost and this is how long it's going to take. And that's not an answer that they want to hear. They end up going with someone else.

And we'll, Tom and I kind of joke with each other, we'll say, They'll be back in six months to a year, because we told them the truth. We told them, we didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. We told them what it's actually going to take to get something done. beyond that, just holding a high bar for ourselves, we've poured a lot of energy into ensuring that our engineering and production processes are top tier.

Not only for the engineers internally that we work with, but then also trying to have some of that rub off on the customer teams that we work with as well. sometimes customers just want us to be hands on keyboard. Sometimes they want our expertise, whether it's technical expertise or process expertise.

And. We show up and we deliver and we do it consistently and that turns into a good reputation over time.

[00:08:11] Jay: I love that.so this question will be for both of you guys, but. I'll go with Hunter first. how is the technology offering or how is the product that you guys are delivering changed since that first customer? Or is it the same kind of service and same kind of product you've been delivering, you know, for the last

5 or 6 

[00:08:29] Hunter: It definitely has changed over time. the core product itself of like, we're going to give you developers that specialize in backend services for games is relatively the same. but some of the soft edges on that have changed as time has gone by. So when we started off, it was just engineers showed up, sat down and broke code.

After we hit a certain threshold in size, we realized that we needed to start adding production into the mix. So, for folks not in the game space, you can commonly think of them as product owners or product managers. we call them producers here in the games industry. Them helping to ensure that communication is stellar, that we have good milestones set, that we're holding ourselves accountable has really improved the quality of the product over time.

And it's something that studios that we work with really appreciate now because it's not just the technical expertise that we're providing. More recently,our customer profile is, has generally been customers that are well established, have good funding, either through VC, publishers, whatever it might be.

We've been rather inaccessible to smaller studios, whether it's indies or just individual developers out there trying to make a game. they can't afford Wolfjaw services. So something that we've started to do relatively recently over the past year or so, is put together a suite of tools, that you don't need to retain Wolfjaw's Service arm to use to help build the back end.

You can instead lean on some of the tools that we've built using the aggregate of knowledge that we've built over the years. that one's pretty, that one's a little bit more interesting, because we're moving into. Almost, as well as a pure beta B2B business. this is almost in a way a B2C, or it's a lot more of a B2C, even if it's not technically one, then the space that we've traditionally operated in, but it's exciting to be able to service more people.

I

[00:10:27] Jay: I love that. Tom, same question to you, how is, how has your approach changed over the years? How has the customer changed? How has what you're offering them changed? Like, what's different now than it was when you guys started?

[00:10:40] Tom: Yeah, I think not to. Beat a dead horse, but I think Hunter kind of hit the nail right on the head with the way he explained it. And I'm just going to summarize it very succinctly, which is we've really moved from putting, you know, developers in seats to delivering on our expertise in gaming and how it affects like Holistically the projects that our clients are trying to get done. Yeah, that's been the biggest shift for us. I think, you know, You In terms of customers and how they've changed over time. you know, for us in the beginning, yes, we had our, like I talked about before we had our network and that was great, but, we were also working with a lot of like smaller contracts and things like that.

So a lot of our first deals were six months, 12 month contracts. And over the last year or two, I, The year and a half, I'd say, we've actually made a huge shift over to very long term contracts. So, we've been able to, you know, work with our clients to have plans for three years out. which is really cool and a giant shift for us and how we think about how we staff different projects and the different roles that we can accomplish within those projects, ownership of certain things over, So, that's also been a pretty big shift for us, but all enabled by what Hunter mentioned, just really bringing that process along and having good producers and, just a really good process.

Hunter, what is your I guess, and you can only talk about things that are out in the public, but what has been your proudest, most fun, you know, game that you guys have worked on? What's the biggest, what's your marquee that you're, you know, if you were to tell somebody what you do at Wolfjaw, you would say, this is the one that's at the bar for us.

[00:12:18] Hunter: don't know if it's necessarily setting the bar, but it's the example I go to because a, it's public, and we can talk about it, but B it's probably the most widely accessible, space. And people know about it, even if they're not in the games industry. but we built virtually the entire backend for among us.

So among us blew up in, in 2020. they didn't have a lot of features. They didn't have an account system. They didn't have an inventory system. They didn't have any social features. It was just hop on and play. they brought us on to build all of those and we were able to. Pull together something relatively quickly, and ship it and really improve the quality of life playing that game.

and it's super cool. I mean, I live in Brooklyn, so I'm walking around all the time and you see around like Halloween time, there's kids make their Among Us themed jack o lanterns and put them out on the stoops. it's cool to be a part of something that is such a cultural phenomenon.

[00:13:15] Jay: I love that. My kids have the stuffed animal or, you know, plushies of, Among Us and they were just playing it, this weekend, I think. So, yeah, it's still up and running and still kicking ass, I think. So what about you, Tom? Same game or you got another one?

[00:13:29] Tom: I will just say, well, the among us story is one of my favorites ever. I tell that one all the time too, but I will say just on like a personal level. you know, I think it's really cool that we could do a lot of work with 2k,and all their various projects and stuff like that. just cause, I mean, I grew up playing all those games and everything, so I. I think it's awesome. and really fun. It's hard for me to pinpoint one because I'm a little bit living my 13 year old self's dream right now when I get to talk to all the people that I talk to on a, you know, daily, weekly, monthly basis. so it's really hard to pick just one.

[00:14:02] Jay: Yeah, I think you're living, both of you guys are living like, you know, most gamers dreams, including multiple of my children. what is the biggest, What's been the biggest struggle? you know, this would be another one for both of you guys. Tom, just tell me, you know, as a biz dev guy in the game space, is it the industry that's the hard part?

Is it the of, you know, cutthroat nature of the industry? Is it, you know, reaching out to these networks? Like what is the biggest kind of thing that you've had to get better at, over the years to be as good as a bit biz dev guy as you are today? What have you improved on over the years? What's been your hardest thing to get better at?

[00:14:41] Tom: Yeah, I will say there's probably a couple things so I mean One thing is that like the video game industry while Huge in dollars is actually really small in terms of the number of people and studios around And so, you know breaking into that world, right? That network is tough. figuring out effective ways to do that is, is really tough.

And so I think early on in my career, I leaned pretty heavily on a lot of other folks to help make introductions and all that kind of stuff. and now these days, you know, it's a lot easier for me to walk into a room and have a story to tell and be able to connect with folks, know what they want to hear or what they don't want to hear.

And even if I don't know it beforehand, figured out pretty quickly while we're talking. And so I would say that's been the biggest change is just you know, that part of it. yeah. Did I miss the second part to that question?

[00:15:36] Jay: I don't think so.

I don't even know if there was. I mean, I asked it. I don't know if there's a second part. Hunter, same question to you, maybe from a tech perspective or just any perspective, like what's been the biggest struggle for you kind of building these big infrastructures for these, you know, AAA massive titles or even the smaller ones?

[00:15:51] Hunter: What's been your Yeah, I don't think it's so much the technical problems that are the hard ones. I mean, not to say that they're not hard, and I'm, I don't want to undersell that at all because they are, and that's why Wolfjaw exists. but the software problems are the tougher ones. It's figuring out how to interface with every studio that we work with.

Every customer has their own quirks and has their own unique ways of working. There is, A pretty hard challenge in trying to make sure that everyone on staff at Wolfjaw understands that yes, there is a best way to do thing, do things. There's a, there's an industry best practice, and then there's, what can you accomplish with the customer that you're working with?

It's very rarely going to be the industry best practice thing. we have to adapt quite a bit. So being chameleons and being adaptable is, Probably one of the most difficult things that we've come up across. but in the same breath, we've done a good job at that. And I think one of the things that Wolfshaw excels at trying this back to the biz dev process and everything being based on a reputation is it's not always sunshine and rainbows.

I've had some pretty uncomfortable calls with customers where they're unhappy with the level of service that we've provided, but I think the difference. At Wolfjaw is when we get that feedback, we act on it and we shape things up virtually immediately and going from, in an angry studio head, in a call, in April, maybe we follow back up in June and they're like, how did you do that?

Everything is amazing now. And that's really done wonders to bolster our reputation, because people know that even if things aren't perfect all the time,this is a studio that's gonna make sure to make things right and work with us to deliver an excellent product.

[00:17:37] Jay: Love that.well, what's next? I mean, Tom, what are your, what's on your radar for, Improving biz dev at Wolfjaw, like, what are you trying new methods? You have tools you're using to reach out to people. Is it just pounding that network? Like, what is next for you when it comes to improving it at Wolfjaw?

[00:17:58] Tom: Video game world domination right

now, but,I would say on the biz dev side for us right now, the biggest thing is, you know, we've made a lot of really great, you know, updates to our process on the engineering side and how we work with clients and all that stuff. And, now the focus is going to be on the biz dev and operation side as well.

And what I mean by that, it's thinking about, biz dev. Outside of just biz dev and thinking more about the growth of the company as a whole, right? How do we partner better with our community management team? How do we partner better with our recruiting team? You know, we're all going to conferences, but for different reasons, how can we collaborate and try to do things better together?

you know, hosting hackathons for developers so that we can potentially find some new talent, but also maybe find a new client. If a game gets built, that's really cool. So trying to figure out how to really work. All of those departments together in one cohesive way, I think is the next big thing for Wolfjaw and what we're trying to figure out.

[00:18:58] Jay: Just to follow up on that one. how do you guys treat. Partnerships at Wolfjaw, like how do you handle them? Is it like a specific, I think you mentioned having somebody specifically, that's what they do, but like how important are they to you guys versus like, you know, individual kind of targeting exercises from biz dev and sales, have you guys fully embraced kind of partnerships and really going after them for their leverage on their network?

Like how do you guys approach partnerships in general?

[00:19:25] Tom: Yeah. You're talking partnerships with like other companies in the 

[00:19:29] Jay: Yeah. Or with whoever, right. I mean, with

any, Yeah.

with any other, any, the game company or anybody else.

[00:19:33] Tom: I think one of the, you know, one of the biggest things for us on that front is, we have always considered ourselves to be Switzerland where we are always the neutral party. Right. you know, there. Hunter touched on this earlier, but there are like a thousand different options for all the different, you know, things that you could possibly want to build, right?

You look at something like, fleet management or game servers or anything like that, and there's so many different options. So we want to be friends with everybody because we don't know what our clients are going to end up using. but. But so to that point, building relationships and partnerships with those companies and other folks in the industry is wildly important to us.

And yeah, there are lots of times where we'll go after business together with, you know, a potential partner or something like that. There have been times where we're working with a client and they might say, Hey, we really want to use this specific service from this specific company. And we can step in and try to help get them a discount because we're really good friends with them.

And let's, you know, let's all work it out together. my True belief is that at the end of the day, a rising tide raises all ships. but that only works if everybody's on board and everybody wants to help everybody kind of get raised up. and we're always on board for that. So I personally, I think partnerships wildly important.

[00:20:45] Jay: Love that.Hunter, back to the question about what's next, what's improving, kind of what's on the horizon for the tech side, like what is burning on your side to, to make sure you bring to Wolfjaw or that you get better at a technology, like what's next for you on your

[00:21:00] Hunter: Yeah, so I alluded to this a little bit earlier, but we're working on a backend toolkit. That doesn't require Wolfjaws services arm to help you build a back end, and that's either using this toolkit in isolation or using individual pieces of it to stitch together some of those options that Tom was just talking about, because there's a lot of tooling on the market today.

We've kind of made a living by stitching it all together with our services arm, but being able to expand business outside of our services arm, is definitely something that's on my mind. beyond that, we've forever been in a niche of back end services development. We've said no to a lot of work when people come to us and they ask us to do things like gameplay related stuff.

We've been shoehorned into doing it a couple times and have found that our engineers really like doing that. I mean, that's the stereotypical fun side of game development. You're doing stuff that's on the screen. so we're starting to explore what it looks like to kind of expand our disciplines.

We, we want to do it in a smart way. We want to make sure that we're not everything to everyone, because then you become nothing to everyone. And we want to make sure that we perform in anything that we do with excellence. So picking our battles really smartly, around the types of work that we're going to start saying yes to that we've traditionally said no to, which in turn helps folks like Tom sell more because there's more opportunities on the table then.

[00:22:33] Jay: Got it. What's,and, Hunter, what's the landscape look like now compared to when you guys started technology wise? Is there just, Yeah. Is it completely different? Are you guys using different, you know, either coding methodologies or tools internally, or like, just, is it shifted tremendously over the past?

However many, you know, microservices came and had their day at some point. And, you know, there's always just like different things that popped up along the way, like technologically speaking, how different is it now, what you guys doing versus when you started,

[00:23:03] Hunter: hard to say how big of a shift there's been. Because we've always worked with such a wide variety of customers and every single one of their tech stacks is its own unique thing. so as time goes by, we see,we've seen it all name a programming language, name a paradigm. we've probably worked in it.

I think the thing that you're seeing a lot more of now is off the shelf platforms and tools, and each of them have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the biggest issue that we see with many of them is their one size fits all and games are all unique. I was literally just talking about how every game backend is its own unique thing.

and that's because every game that, that back at every game, backend coupling is servicing a unique. Game experience. so I think that there's going to be more development over the next couple of years. And as we see some of these platforms mature a bit, I think they'll become wildly more useful than they are today.

Not to say that they're not already, but they're, they'll continue to find their footing and it'll continue to be easier and easier for anybody to build a multiplayer game,

[00:24:20] Jay: how have you, and I'm not going to, Assume your level of tech savvy, but how have you kind of been able to sell and do business development with something that is very technical and is very, you know, you're not even like to your to Hunter's point earlier. You're not selling. Gameplay services are traditionally, you're not like, you know, stuff you can see on the screen. how do you stay. Locked in to like a technical conversation that you have to have. It's maybe above your depth or something you haven't seen before. Or, I mean, I mean, again, not assuming what you know or don't know, but how do you, how's the business development guy sell a super technical product like that?

Is it staying in, you know, kind of in the high end of things, or do you kind of, are you able to get in there and really talk, you know, shop with these folks

[00:25:02] Tom: Yeah. So this is a really great question. my philosophy on this has always been that. I, our biz dev department, especially me need to have a really solid relationship with our engineering department. So hunter is basically my partner in crime when it comes to, you know, biz dev and working through, our deal pipeline and all of that stuff. typically like. In any kind of like initial conversation, I'm able to talk very surface level, right? I can talk about the services we provide, you know, the different technologies that we've used and all that stuff. I won't get into the nitty gritty and I'm very upfront and honest about that. As soon as the conversation starts, you know, I typically say, Hey, my name's Tom, not an engineer, but I'll be able to keep up. then from there, our processes. So we'll do that first intro meeting. then, Our next step is always to have a deep dive technical call. And that's when I pull in my experts. So Hunter, Joey on our team or Matt or Scott, or I can't list every single person, but, you know, I'll pull in those folks and that's when they can actually deep dive and, talk about the tech.

So. For me, the short answer is I have, we have our engineering teams very embedded and involved in the biz dev process from that perspective. they're helping to build out proposals, helping to, you know, negotiate on, different parts and all that stuff. I don't make them worry about all the legal contract stuff, cause that's boring. And that's the thing that I get to deal with. But, yeah, when it comes to actually like working with clients and negotiating and figuring that out. Engineering is very heavily involved. It also helps that I used to be a technical recruiter.

[00:26:41] Jay: That probably helps a little bit. It makes a lot of sense though. It makes a lot of sense. And I love the way you laid that out. All right. Last question to go with you guys. I'll ask you individually, Hunter, if you could do anything on earth, and it's not really fair because Tom gets to hear this question first, but Hunter, if you could do anything on earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:27:01] Hunter: anything on earth. And I knew I would.

I'm gonna have to say, which is very fitting given how hot it is outside today, Solve the climate crisis. Make Earth a great place to live for generations to come.

[00:27:20] Jay: Beautiful. Now the yours better be very altruistic, Tom, or people are going to raise the pitchforks. You better say something about world

[00:27:27] Tom: All right. All right. Here we go.

[00:27:30] Jay: same question you Tom, anything on earth and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:27:34] Tom: Yeah. I mean, I think that these days, you know, there is a lot of, there's a lot of hate and anger in the world. And if I could just get Everyone in the world to approach every situation with empathy and compassion for the other person I would do that. Some might say that's a little bit of like a villainous Superpower that I'm asking for, cause I'm asking to be able to basically control how people talk.

I don't want to do that. I just want to, you know, have people, understand that, Hey, the person across the room or the table or the webcam, they're going through some stuff and you probably don't know everything that's going on, so.

[00:28:12] Jay: Beautiful and well, we all know there's no hate and video games and everybody's super nice online when they play together. So

[00:28:18] Hunter: That's what the industry is known 

[00:28:19] Tom: yeah, just go,

[00:28:20] Jay: It's just known for being the nicest group of people that are, especially like Call of Duty and those just great community of

[00:28:27] Tom: I was gonna say just hop into chat in any PvP game and you'll see the kindness of humanity.

[00:28:32] Jay: you'll be renewed in your faith in humanity. well, you guys are fantastic and I'm glad we're friends now and we're going to stay friends whether you like it or not. Tom, how do people reach out to you directly if you want to hear anything or reach out anything they heard today?

[00:28:45] Tom: you can reach out to me via email, I don't know if you want me to 

[00:28:49] Jay: Go for it Yeah, I'll put in the notes too, but whatever you want to, whatever you

[00:28:52] Tom: cool, reach out to me via email tom at wolfjawstudios. com or follow me on literally any, social media at judokeggs.

[00:29:00] Jay: Beautiful. Hunter, where can

we find you, buddy? 

[00:29:02] Hunter: same as Tom via email hunter at Wolfjawstudios. com. I am unfortunately not as active as Tom is on social media, but you can find me on LinkedIn,

[00:29:12] Jay: All right, and how do we, is it just Wolfjawstudios. com, 

[00:29:16] Hunter: com.

[00:29:18] Jay: Beautiful. Well, this was great. like I said, I get to live vicariously through you two gentlemen, and I think you're doing a great job, and I'm very impressed, and I think everybody else should be too. So, thank you for being on. I'm sure people heard something that they can relate to today, or hopefully kind of go back to, and and especially Tom, if the relationships are key,keep doing, keep the good fight going, and if you guys, can get outside, I guess you shouldn't go outside.

You're gonna melt.

So let's just say I was gonna say you have a swear. I don't even know what you're doing out there. You better like it must be free. I need to come visit your house because it's hot as hell in my house. All right. Well, you guys have a good rest of your day. Have a good rest of your week.

Thank you for being on. We'll talk again soon. All

[00:29:56] Hunter: Jay, thanks for having us. Take care.

[00:29:57] Jay: Thanks, guys. See ya. 

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