Kenny Huang - CEO of Tiny Rex Games

Today on Founder Journey, we're going to talk about the gaming industry. We've got Kenny Wang. He's an industry veteran. He's building his second gaming studio called Tiny Rex. We're going to discuss his time at ea, the lessons learned there compared to the lessons he learned when building his first studio, Bluebeck Games, which ultimately got acquired. And then also Tiny Rex that he's building now. We're going to talk about game mechanics and the different genres of games, but we're also going to talk about his journey for his acquisition, what it was like going through the acquisition process and then post acquisition, integrating his team into the parent company and all the dynamics that happen once your company gets acquired.

3, 2, 1.

Welcome to another episode of Founder Journey. Today we've got Kenny Wang on this episode. Kenny and I have known each other for probably about well over 10 years. Kenny started a company called Blueback Games and they were part of the Grow Lab cohort. The launch academy started at Grow Lab and we were working side by side and I got to see the journey from the early dates to the ultimate exit that Kenny had with bluebat. Kenny, welcome to Founder Journeys. Please tell our audience a little bit more about yourself and a little bit more about TinyRex, the new gaming studio.

That you just started.

Oh, wow. Well, thank you for the introduction.

You're right.

It's been 10 years since we know each other.

This was not here 10 years ago.

So, you know. Yeah, I remember those days. Grow Lab, Launch Academy, like, we were just. We were both in the same office and we just literally had a desk. And, you know, at that time was like the. The whole co. Working space was the, you know, a big thing as well. And I do remember, like, all the different, I guess the. Everything that we've been through together and be able to see each other's journeys. And so it was a. Yeah.

If I recall, you had a. You had an office that was in Chinatown, so a few blocks away. More than a few blocks away from Grow Up. So you'd always trek down for the meetings and events having in the space.

Yeah, we were. I mean, I mean, at that time we're like being very frugal. Right. So Chinatown, you know, at that time was like a little bit shady. So I remember, like. Yeah, coming here, you know, we had to like, walk over needles and that kind of stuff. Needles on the ground. Yeah. So, yeah. But I used to go back and forth and. Yeah, it was good.

Yeah. But I also had some of the best food spots for lunch.

Oh, God. Yeah, like gas down the soil, right.

This could turn into a food blog right now or food podcast, but we won't, we'll stick to gaming. Tell us a little about.

Just a.

Little bit more about yourself and then we'll dive into Tiny Rex.

Yeah, I mean I can start from the. I guess not from the very beginning, but from the beginning of my gaming career. We started at EA and you know, I did my whole. Started as an engineer and then switched over to product management and all stuff and then started blue bat around 2011 with my co founder Tim Harris.

And.

Then we did our thing. At that time it was like the Facebook was the in thing, right? Facebook games and it was like a Wawa west pretty much. It was like you can do anything on there because Facebook was relatively new and so we could market all over the place and it was like farmville just blew everything up. So we saw an opportunity there to hit the Facebook social games and we tried. We made probably six or seven games and none of them were really hit games per se. Not enough anyway to sustain studio. But then at some point we realized that the tech that we built for these games was actually more valuable than the games themselves. So that's when we pivoted and that's also when we went into Grow Lab and that's when we met you guys.

That's for the audience. That's kind of like a aha moment or an epiphany. Oh wow. People actually want to use our backend, our technology for their games and that now turns you into a B2B company which for most people listening, know that that's oftentimes a more lucrative path to go because of the stability and type of clients that you get and the dependence that they have on your technology moving forward.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. Because you know, with games it's a very hip based type of business. So you know, it's kind of like the movies, right? Like you might have, you know, hundred games or 100 movies and you might have like one or two kids out of it. And you know, there was a gold rush into this Facebook social gaming which was like a completely new thing. And what we described to our investors at that time was that, you know, there's all these people digging for gold and what we wanted to do was sell the nut shovel rather than like joining the gold rush ourselves because there were just too many and we weren't having any luck. So.

Throwback the old mining days and the mining rush where yes, you can be that prospector going out and Looking for gold and putting in the hard work. Or you can be the one that sets up the general store and sells.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. And the shovel, the bath.

And the great thing is for the prospector, you're only successful if you find the gold. Whereas for the person selling the picks and shovels, the white label solutions, the platform, it doesn't matter if they ultimately strike gold or not. They're buying your services and buying your products on that journey. And if they do find gold, that much better because they're going to keep buying, finding more gold and they can come back and buy more picks and shovels. They don't find any gold. Well, it doesn't matter. They already bought your picks and shovels. They might not come back again or they might come back when they find a new place to go prospect.

But you still made your money.

That is true. If we did what you just said. What we did was a lot of our customers per se were a lot of these indie developers that kind of came to us through meetups and that kind of stuff. If we sold them to shovel and if we actually charged them something, then yes, we would have made our revenue even if they didn't find gold. But we weren't that smart. So what we did was we said, hey, we're going to take a revenue share of your whatever you make.

Right.

So the problem with that is, you know, a lot of the indie developers made zero. And so, you know, 20% of zero is still zero. So it's like so, you know, we kind of went down that path of, you know, not the greatest business strategy.

Well, it does have its benefit though, Right. Because that's kind of like the whole venture capital type model where yes, you're going to make 100 investments, but 90 of them are probably going to fail. Five of them are probably going to break even. Three might make or two might make you some decent money.

Yeah.

But the two that ultimately become those billion dollar companies are what makes it work for you. And it's the same thing on your end. By doing that rev share, not only are you trying to help your industry, help the indie developers by not giving them overhead up front, but the ones that are successful are going to come back and pay you tenfold.

Right?

Yeah, that is true. And you know, the nice thing about it is you get to make more bets and so you know, that multiplies like your odds.

Okay, so I want to jump back to a little bit more about your journey into games and then we want to talk about TinyRECS and what Tiny Rex is doing. But EA, especially in Vancouver, is really underappreciated what it did for the gaming industry. And you talk to so many people, they just casually say, oh, yeah, I was at ea, but can we just dive into, like, first of all, what motivated you to get into games? Why ea and what the experience was at ea and how did it equip you to go out on your own?

I mean. Yeah, so I've always loved games, you know, ever since growing up. You know, I'm dating myself, but I used to play the Nintendo game. So way back, right, when, you know, the games were like, contrast, Super Mario, that kind of stuff.

Down, left, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So those were like my games growing up, you know, Street Fighter 2, that kind of stuff. But I also love sports games. So going into ea, I know a lot of people are like, oh, you know, eac, EA Canada at that time was just all focused on sports games. But I loved it. I was like, oh, I love NHL 94. Right. I loved Madden and all those games.

I just like, yeah, back then it was, it was Madden and NHL at.

That time, you know, NBA, right? And FIFA. Yeah, FIFA was definitely the big one. Madden was down in Orlando. So it wasn't built here per se, but. But it was like all those sports franchises were there and it was. And, and to be honest, I was like, this is fantastic. It was just like, like a childhood dream come true. Right? Like, and yeah, and, you know, I had the passion and everything like that. So. You're right, EA has done a lot for the Vancouver video game gaming ecosystem. Not just like, not just training people, but also just like being able to build that big community. And then, you know, like, there are cases where like, you know, a team from ea, like, you know, whatever happens, they go out and they just like create a student by themselves. And that was kind of the case with us. So me and Tim, my co founder and a couple more guys, we were like, we were at EA and we were under the same umbrella. We're like the same team. We're just like, okay, let's try it. Right?

And how did the work experience and the knowledge that you gained at EA.

Help you with building?

Or did it not. You were flying blind?

You know, I appreciate it a lot more now that I've seen the, you know, growth of the company. I can understand why, you know, EA did the way they did things. They, you know, like all the structure. Right. And you know, EA was a, you know, I don't think they get credit for it. But they were one of the first ones to bring, like, into, you know, game development as well. So I learned a lot there about agile. Like, I don't think I was doing anything right, but I did learn, you know, what they were doing. And they were doing a lot of, like, UX and usability testing and that kind of stuff as well. So it was like they put a lot more structure and process in place. And then when we came out to build our own startup, we kind of threw all that away and tried to, like. And we're just like, you know, let's just get shit done, right, and just, you know, just kind of hack our way into it. And then all of a sudden, like, the company gets a little bigger. We're like, oh, shit, we do need some of that structure and process in place. Right.

And yeah, you have that senior management CEO hat on. You realize, oh, there were reasons for.

There are reasons.

Yeah. And it may not be the most productive way to build the game. But there's other repercussions if I don't do that with protecting personal information employees or managing the HR side of things. Because when you're in the trenches, you don't see that. But from a manager perspective, you realize, okay, if we don't do this, I could potentially get sued. And so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. And not. Yeah. And you know, also it's like, you know, when we're in that big company and we're like, you know, we're doing. In the trenches, doing the work, we're always like, whoa, you know, why is management doing that? It's like they don't know what they're doing. We think at some point we're like, oh, we think we're smarter than them, you know, like. But again, once you see it and you're like, oh, okay, we were smarter than them. This is why they're doing things this way.

Right. But there is that other side of it where companies do grow large. And management, senior management loses context of what's happening on the front lines in the trenches. And that's just a natural issue with every large company is you. You lose that connectivity. And that's why startups spin out. People realize, hey, there's a way better way for us to solve this problem because new technology or new business processes have been put in place and we can spin out and start something new. So it's just a natural life cycle. But as you went from EA to.

Blue Bat, Blue Bat ultimately got acquired.

But you built it up and obviously Went through a lot of ups and downs. What would you while you're doing it? So you're starting a new studio, so what are you doing different this time around than you did with Blue Bat?

You know, I would say. Well, first of all, I think it is. We don't know the outcome of this second one. Right.

You know, the first one was. It was great in that, you know, it was hard.

But we, you know, we did end up with that ending, that fairy tale ending, I guess you could call it that exit. And so doing it the second time.

Around.

Everything is like deja vu. But it seems a little bit easier just, you know, raising money and then putting the team together and that kind of stuff. It just seems everything is a tiny bit easier and it just flows a little bit better. Where, you know, the first time around we were like, essentially like brute forcing this thing, right? Like, it was like, we're gonna will this thing to win. And everything was like really, really tough.

So do you find yourself not stressing out about certain things that you probably overstressed out of on the first time around?

Yes. So, you know, this time around, you know, consciously I'm trying to not be as stressed and trying to, you know, control that, I guess that up and down. So as, you know, entrepreneurs. The thing about entrepreneurs that's so tough, right, is that, you know, one day we're like, oh my God, we, you know, you're elated because, you know, you just close the funding round or some investor coming and all of a sudden you're like at the extreme low.

Right.

That, that extreme, I think, is what drives a lot of the mental stress and the burden on non entrepreneurs. So this around, I'm very consciously trying to, you know, balance that so that I don't get too high or too low kind of thing. So, yeah, it is. And also, you know, the first time around, I think I was in the mindset of, you know, of course you do everything you can to win, right? For yourself, for the investors, for the team, for everyone. But to the point of pushing your body, you know, to that broken stage. Right. So this time around I'm like, okay, I can do all that stuff, but I need to stay healthy. I need to, you know, still see my family and take care of my and all that stuff and still have that little bit of balance to understand when I need to just step away.

Yeah. And that's the other thing is as you get older, there are other variables that come into the mix. That's family, it's health, it's a little more awareness about economic conditions and things that are going on in the world because the world's changing. But usually when you're younger you don't really care about that. You just got your vision of what you want to execute. As an older generation you start to realize, oh well, what is the economic ecological footprint that I'm putting on here with this company? And you start looking at it from a different lens with this new journey. Tell us about Tiny Rex. What is Tiny Rex and how is it different than what you did at blue bat?

So Tiny Rex is quite a bit different from Bluerad Blue Bat was. What happened was we went to B2B and then we went into the focus social casinos as a genre and we work with a lot of the land based casinos as our customers and we brought that we brought the land based old school type of casinos into like the modern 21st century. So we connected them with that mobile gaming side of things so that the players can when they leave the casino they can actually place something. So that was our business then. Our business now is quite a bit different in that we're going back to the that hit base type of business. We're going back to our first love, our passion for games and we are a game. So we're not building technology, we're building the game. To be honest, things have changed a lot in the last 10 years and tools like unity and what Eastside games is doing, who is our publisher, have essentially democratized game development. So nobody, at least not something that we build can really compete as far as like middle competing against Unity. So they've essentially taken over that market. But what we are doing is that we're being very smart about the type of genre that we hit and also leveraging publishers, Eastside games knowledge and their tools. And so we're stacking the odds so that if we, you know, if we know it's a hip based type of business but we're going in it with our eyes open.

Is there a specific genre that you can talk about that you're targeting and is there a title or anything that you want to share or is it all stealth mode right now?

You know it's definitely not stealth mode and definitely not, you know, by the time this thing years it'll probably be well no, it won't be launched yet but yeah, definitely I'll be open. So we're hitting the idle genre which is something that Eastside games does really well. We're leveraging their idol kit and the reason why we love that Genre as well is that when you look at all the different market shares of the different genres in the game, this one that started out as a niche, it's almost like a joke. Some guy way back created the cow clicker to make fun of farmville and then became like a hit and then some other guy.

What was the original game?

It's called Cow Clicker.

Cow clicker?

Yeah. You literally just click on the cow and the progress bar goes up. And it was making fun of the appointment mechanism mechanics in farmville. But the thing is, like, it became like a hit. People loved it. And they were like, well, even if you strip away all these things in farmville and make it, like automatic and just click on it, and people still liked it. And then some other person made a cookie cooker on top of that, kind of like, based on that. And it was just like, that took advantage of the exponential numbers. So the whole thing about cookie cooker was you click on the cookie and that made more cookies. And then with the cash that you earn from some of the cookies, you can buy more grandmas. Yeah, yeah. Or like. And you just keep on going. And you wouldn't think that, you know, just listening to that, you're like, well, there's no point in this game, right? But once you start playing it, you're like, whoa, this is actually really fun. And I was. I was clicking on those cookies and grandmas for, like, days. At that time. You have to have it in a browser. So I kept it open as I worked. Until it sucked up too much memory resources. And I think I was like, oh.

My God, no, forget the work. I lost all my cookies.

I lost all my cookies. Yeah, yeah. Literally, I think I had, like, a portal that was making, like a bazillion cookies, you know, every second or something like that. And it was just like, I was like, oh, my God, I lost it all.

So now you're going into this whole realm of building games that for all sense of purposes, it's kind of like wash, rinse, repeat. You're creating a model that you're able to replicate with new idols or new topics or characters. But the game mechanics are somewhat the same.

You know, the game mechanics, the core game mechanic has been the same as far as idle. So it's been the same since the cookie cooker. But what's really innovative about what Eastside Games has done and what we're doing with them is they built this very cool narrative thing around this game mechanics. So it's no longer just you know, clicking cookies. And advancing like, it's. It's like, you know, you're. You're going into this immersion of this narrative story. You know, one of their biggest hits is a Trailer park voice, right? And. And that matches the whole Trailer park series and the season. And you're going in there and you're like. It's almost like you're not only are you watching new content, like new seasons of Trailer Party Boys, but you're also playing this game that kind of goes with it. And they were able to merge that idol and narrative side of things, which is, like, in itself is very innovative, but they were able to, like, you know, use that to create that ascension moment as well. That makes sense for everyone. So I think, yeah, these guys know what they're doing, and, you know, we're lucky in the sense that they. They're sharing all this with us and we're building this together.

Yeah, they've got some pretty titles. Trailer Park Boys, as you mentioned. Archer.

Archer.

Yeah, they just announced. Yeah, yeah, RuPaul. I think that. Yeah, that's the one they just announced as well.

Always sunny. Yeah, we're big fans of Eastside Games. Like, Launch Academy started at Grow Lab, but Grow Lab is housed within Eastside Games.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did us. We were like. I think Eastside Games was like the shell, Right. They were kind of like the mothership as well. Right. Like Launch Academy, Grow Lab, us. I think there was, like, maybe four or five other companies, and we were all just like. Yeah. I think that that is one thing, Ray, that I think you have done for this Vancouver ecosystem that's like. You know that. I think every startup is like, thank you, Ray. In that. Yeah. You build this community. And there's something about when all these companies get together, even if they're not doing the same thing. Right. It's just like being in that environment and being in that community and actually just talking to each other, there's something magical that happens that you can't duplicate by yourself.

The way I put it is misery loves company. It's entrepreneurs miserable. And they want to be around other entrepreneurs.

That's true.

They're misery. No, but entrepreneur is a very lonely and challenging thing. And a lot of entrepreneurs can't talk to their families or can't talk to their friends because they don't understand what they're going through. But the best person for an entrepreneur to learn from is another entrepreneur that just went through what they're going through, or went through it six months ago or going through it at the Same time. Because you can learn together and work together.

Yeah, I definitely agree. You know, as much as I appreciate GrowLab and what they've done for us, the whole mentorship and everything like that, they brought in so many mentors and we learned so much. I think that the biggest benefit for me being in that space was that we get to see our peers, Eastside Games, we get to learn from them, we get to learn from you guys and all the other companies in there. It's almost like we're this peer group where everyone just, like, we're not in competition with each other, but we're kind of like leveling each other up. Right. And I think that was the biggest benefit that I got out of, you know, Grow Lab, Launch Academy and all that community.

Well, I think props to you as well, because as you've grown and have become successful, you haven't shied away from giving back and helping to mentor other game studios and entrepreneurs and.

Really, High.

Tide floats all boats.

Right.

So when you see other entrepreneurs doing well, it helps you and motivated you to jump back into the fray of things and start a new studio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that, you know, that's the nice thing about our community is that just seems to be this. This thing where it's like, I guess it may be starting in Silicon Valley where it's like, you know, how can I help? Right. And it's almost like a phrase that when we're talking networking with entrepreneurs, that's the last phrase that we say right before leaving that coffee date. It's like, how can I help? And I love that because entrepreneurs, we need a lot of help.

Yeah. I want to jump back to this fairy tale ending that you said you and I both know are not what they seem. Are you open to discussing that exit and what you learned from it, what you would do differently if you're presented with another opportunity for an exit?

Yeah, I mean, there's always, like, things that we could have done.

That would.

Have been a better choice. You know, for one thing.

Just for context, the Blue Bat got an offer for a full acquisition and company was acquired.

We were acquired.

Were acquired along with the company. So it wasn't a give us the assets and tell the team to go goodbye, like you guys were part of.

Yeah, we were part of it. Yeah. Yeah.

And.

Yeah, so. So, you know, one thing that, you know, when you look at valuation and stuff like that, Right. Like, had we held a bit longer, I think we would have got a much higher valuation. But, you know, at the same Time it was like, you know, we were. There wasn't a lot of acquisitions happening at that time. It was like. And I, I know nowadays it's like there's like acquisitions left and right, that kind of stuff.

Right.

But we were, we were one of the, you know, one of the first ones at that time to get like fully acquired. And so, you know, it wasn't a lot of presidents to set. And also we're kind of like, well, the iron is hot right now, so let's, you know, exit while we can kind of thing, right? Instead of trying to, like, hold on to get a little. In case we get a little too greedy, right? We're like, let's get this feather under our belt and, you know, get something and everyone's happy and like. And then we can. At that time we're thinking, oh, we'll do something in like for two, two years and we'll start another one. End up being like four or five years. But, you know, but that was the thinking at the time. So, you know, we, I don't think it was a mistake, but definitely we could have, we could have held on to for a better evaluation. I think the one hindsight's in 2020.

Right at the time and especially the gaming industry, there were no comparables. People were not getting acquired in that form of fashion.

Yeah, exactly.

And if they were, it was basically just for ip. And it's like, okay, we just want the game. We don't want the team. We've got our own team. So here's however many million dollars, we'll take the game and you guys go do something else. But that wasn't the case for this. You guys were actually. The whole team was beginning integrated into the parent company.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a good exit. It was like, no, we, we were quite lucky and we're very grateful for it. And you know, we work really hard and you know, we were, we understand like, at least I understand, like a lot of these things is about serendipity and luck as well. Right. And that definitely played a big part. But, you know, one of the things I think for us, and this is something that I do tell my mentees and you know, a lot of entrepreneurs that maybe is just going through the process of getting acquired or thinking about acquisition is that your. What happens after the acquisition matters as well. You know, we had this. We really liked the team that acquired us and we really like those executives. And you know, and for the first, like couple years, we're just like, hey, this is Fantastic. They were like, they were leaving us alone. They were like, we were kind of independent. We're entrepreneurs in our own, with our own team, but we're also like part of the bigger family. So we didn't have to worry about some of the other stuff like financing. They took care of all that. Other things that they can get off our back. So it was fantastic. What we didn't realize was that.

The.

Executives that you work with that acquired you, they can get pushed out as well. So our parent company went through like a structural change. All of a sudden the people we were, you know, we were working with, we were used to, were gone. And that became an issue and we're like, oh, okay. So that was a bit of an eye opener because, you know, it is. You're signing up for marriage with the company, not necessarily the people that you, you know, that you're dealing with on a, you know, pre acquisition.

And so in this case that there's new variables that are out of your control that you have to acknowledge if.

You are going to make an exit and of this nature and be part of a parent company, you have to accept the fact that there are things that you are no longer going to be able to control and you have to work with. And in this case.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to be prepared that, you know, there. There's going to be. There could be new management coming in. Right. And they might not do the things that the previous management wanted to do. And you know, with us it became. It started very entrepreneurial and it became a lot more structured to call it.

So if.

If you were presented with this opportunity again, just using hypotheticals, Eastside Games comes along and decides, let's buy Tiny Rex. What would you do different?

Well, you know, I love those guys.

What about for you yourself?

Maybe.

Maybe East I give is a bad example because you know them and they're great people.

There.

They're like, what if EA came along.

And decided to buy you?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think I would tighten up my exit clause from ea. I will look into that a lot more.

Can we break it into two pieces of advice here? One is for the company itself, and then the second one is for you as an individual. Because that's another thing I think a lot of entrepreneurs do. They put their company ahead of themselves. They put their team ahead of themselves.

We definitely did that as well.

Yeah, those entrepreneurs end up getting screwed or getting the short end of the stick and they don't realize at the time, but in the long run, they do so what would you do different from a company's perspective then? What would you do differently for your personal perspective?

Well, I mean, I mean, from a company perspective, I would definitely look at them, what their vision is for your.

Company.

Like, how do you fit into their overall plan? Because when we got acquired, they also acquired other groups as well. And you know, I think the thinking there at that time was that, you know, they would create an umbrella and then like, you know, all these different, essentially peers within umbrella would like help each other out and you know, kind of grow together, that kind of stuff. And that was, to me, that vision was great and I love that vision. And I think that is something that, you know, when you look at the recent Embracer group with Ata Iugo and all those guys, right, that's the model that they're creating and that's a perfectly good model that I think as an entrepreneur you would just go for, you would love. So from a company perspective, that's why I would look at is that you would have a bit of independence to still maintain your company culture. Because especially what we do with games, and it's the type of games you make and whatever success that comes out of it is largely based on the people. So if you're not able to keep that company culture and that that's independent, then you're not going to be able to recreate that magic that's going to be the hit or the games. So I would look at that like, if you're going to get sucked in and just be like a division, then you have to be prepared to say, hey, you know what, we're not going to be able to maintain that company culture and the type of games that may suffer, right? So that's the first thing I would look at from the company's perspective is the structure and what their vision is there. And then from a founder's perspective, the earn out itself, what I would do is make it into two separate pieces. So one is, okay, you're getting acquired, you want us as entrepreneurs, as founders and everything like that. This is the acquisitions for this piece here, right? The earn out itself. Like now you have to do something to kind of like entice me to stay, right? So I would tighten that up so not be like, hey, okay, we're gonna acquire you for maybe like, amount. But don't worry, your earn out is in the back end. Like, you know, it's gonna be like three years from now or four years from now or two years from now. I would almost treat it as Two separate deals.

Yeah.

Because so much can happen between the exit to when the earn out supposed to come to fruition.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get bitten because.

Even.

For things that they, they have no control over, like, like, you know what I were talking about before? Right. It's like, it's like, hey, you know, I know we can do this, earn all this, and it's great. But you know, yeah, what if, what if those people get fired or like, what if they, you know, they decide to tighten up or whatever it is. Right. It's really tough.

Again, a lot of variables that are no longer in your control.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're able to, I know, definitely, like, you know, you do an earl period.

Right.

So being able to treat it as two separate deals is probably not doable per se. But I would come in with a mindset of this is two separate deals. This deal is for now up until you're purchasing this, and then starting from now on and in the future, that's something else. And yeah, you do have to entice us as well.

Yeah.

It's all negotiation.

And I always advise entrepreneurs, if you're not comfortable doing that or you don't know how to do it, talk to other entrepreneurs that have gone through it because they will tell you what they would have wished to do and done things differently. And they might even be able to step in and help you negotiate as well, because don't do it on your own if you're not comfortable doing it. Kenny, a great conversation. We could probably go on for another hour, but real valuable insight from you and want to kind of wrap it up with our standard three questions. The first one is what is an app or a tool or a philosophy or way of life that has helped you in the journey that you have as an entrepreneur?

So, you know, we talked about before, as we get older, right, we kind of have, do have to kind of balance things a little bit better and then not necessarily work less, but, but just like slow it down a little bit. So, so I, you know, it has changed a bit. Like when I was younger, I, I was the whole, you know, gung ho, like that's, that's, you know, do everything you can and you're, you're hustling like, you know, like 24 hours a day kind of thing. You don't sleep, you just do everything you can do it kind of more the Gary Vee approach. And I think maybe it's the fact that I'm older one, I don't have the energy to be able to do that anymore. But also, I think it's mentally, it's a much healthier approach when you can kind of like slow down a little bit and actually balance your health and put that as a priority. So whatever it is that you need to do, exercise, slow down, yoga, meditation, that matters, and it matters a lot.

So mental health is mental health partner physical health.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And our next question is a bit of advice or like, this is actually very poignant because you're doing it yourself. Normally we ask, what would you advise somebody that's starting a new company or a new entrepreneurial journey first time, or seasoned entrepreneur, somebody starting something new today, what would you advise them? And you're doing it yourself, what is it?

Well, you know, it's hard to follow my own advice here, but I would say, you know, everything seems like it's the end of the world, right, when you're doing entrepreneurship, but it really isn't. Everything's kind of like the. There's that quote, everything is the small stuff, something like that. It's like. But it is true. It's like nothing is important or as urgent as you make it out to be. And then, you know, it's like, so just try to enjoy the journey because it flows by so fast, right? It's like all of a sudden it's like you're, you're, you're exiting and you're in different company and all of a sudden it's like you didn't get to enjoy it as much. And, and this time, consciously, I'm trying to not just like, balance a bit more, but also be a bit more in the moment and just really enjoy this journey a bit more. And to see. Because it's a lot of fun. This is why a lot of us are doing this.

Yeah. It's ironic that you hear these things when you're younger, but you don't really take it to heart, like, stop and smell the roses or it's not the destination, it's the journey to the destination that really matters. When you're young, you don't realize it, but as you get older, you realize, oh, like, shit, I missed out on those. I wish I spent another hour there or enjoyed this time with my team or.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. There's something really. When you create something out of nothing, right? Especially when you create a team out of nothing, it's like, it is special, right? And I can look back and say, like, oh, my God, like I should have. I should have spent more time with the team instead of like, you know, like doing. Talking about this thing behind closed doors. Right? And just. Yeah, just enjoy it more.

That's. That's awesome. Life is all about enjoyment. Last thing is for you to give us your ask. What is it that our audience can do for you and Tiny Rex?

Tiny Rex? Well, I mean we're always recruiting. This is pretty new, right? So we do have positions open. I'm not sure if those position will still be open when it's filled, but definitely go to tinyrexgames.com and see if there's any career postings. And yeah, we would love to have you and we're great group of people and we'll build something special together.

I can definitely vouch for that. Kenny and his team are awesome. They are great entrepreneurs, great human beings and definitely leaders in the gaming industry. So that's tinyrexgames.com check it out. Hiring like crazy. Kenny, been awesome talking to you and we wish you nothing but the best.

You too, buddy. All right, Cheers, Ray.

Thanks.

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