Alisa Chumachenko started as a secretary and created a company that produces the most games in Russia

A director by training, Alisa Chumachenko began her career on the Internet as a secretary. In 2009, she created her own online gaming company, Game Insight. Game Insight is a co-owner of 13 social game development studios, which employ more than 200 people; over the year of its existence, the company has released 27 projects, including for the social network Facebook.

— I got into the Internet business almost by accident: it just happened. I played a lot of online games and one day I decided that I was interested in connecting my work with this. In 2004, I joined a small company that was literally making a startup in its kitchen - the game “Territory”. The company was then called IT-Territory, and later it became the largest producer of online games in Eastern Europe - Astrum Online Entertainment. When Astrum became part of Mail.ru the year before last, I decided to leave: I didn’t want to work for a large corporation and preferred to start my own business. The position of even a top manager of a very large company did not correspond to my ambitions. My own is more complex, fresh, more interesting, and I decided to start a startup.

I chose social games not only because I like to play. Now there is a real explosion in the market. The market for the sale of virtual goods in social games worldwide exceeded $1 billion in mid-2010. The Russian market is just getting on its feet. In 2009, according to experts, it was approximately $20–30 million, at the end of 2010 it is approximately $130 million. In addition, social games are a good option for a startup, such games are much less risky and their costs are lower. In our business, everything is decided by trends; you need to be able to sense them and even predict them. Many things on the Internet became popular because they appeared at the right time. If Facebook had appeared 10 years ago, perhaps no one would have noticed it.

I can talk about the trends that occupy all my thoughts at the moment. First, there is the recent launch of the AppStore for Macbooks, which marks a new era in the history of digital distribution. This will have a significant impact on games. Secondly, we launched two gaming apps on the iPad a few weeks ago in the AppStore with a microtransaction business model. The launch was extremely successful and pleasantly surprised us. There is a lot of speculation in the market about whether microtransaction business models work on this platform. Now I know for sure what works!

I created a company and now I just watch it

I don’t have an office in the office - it’s more convenient for me: depending on the plan for the day, I can sit down with the producers and spend the day with them, coming up with “features” for games, or go to the financial department and solve issues together. At some point I realized that I was not running the company. Yes, I built it, but now I’m just observing. My task now is to observe and control rather than intervene in processes and manage. I'm lucky, I wouldn't be here without my team. I trust them and can easily delegate responsibility.

What I like about my job is that I get to play because it's part of my responsibilities. I play a lot, I play every day. An online game must be made by the owner, a person interested in the game making money. The manager is not as motivated as the owner. True, of course, there is no time to play at work. Sometimes you have to do this at night. Today, for example, I went to bed at 7 am. Moreover, you need to devote 3-4 hours to games. Sometimes you play because you’re “stuck”—it’s impossible to tear yourself away. But most often, to figure out why this game is good, why it makes money, or what needs to be fixed.

All my employees play, even the secretaries

I am the real target audience for the games my company makes. And all the employees play, even the secretaries. How can you sell a product, attract users, increase the cost of a product if you don’t know it? If a person is not interested in games, we will not hire him. “What is your level in The Happy Farmer?” - I ask people when I hire them.

Our market is closed, and it’s easy for everyone to say that they have first place. There are approximately 2,000 teams developing social games, which is a lot. Approximately 15 gaming companies have social game development divisions. From a user point of view, we are not the largest. But no Russian company released more games last year than we did. And we have most of our own developments. Our most successful game earns over a million dollars a month.

What's eating me is time. It is especially fast in our business. Even during interviews, I worry that I might miss something: suddenly, while we are talking, something important happened, maybe a new technology was invented. Therefore, in business it is important not to be inert and to make decisions quickly.

“Our game earns more than $1 million a month”