StartupCafe

Our interrogation this week targets Dave Sapien, a friendly gaming developer with a unique and intriguing focus. I don’t have any babies on the way (much to my dad’s disappointment), but Me and the Giants is a lovable Glasgow startup and we are excited to see where these guys wind up! Perhaps we should call this one a 120 second interview, couldn’t fit Dave’s enthusiasm into a single minute =).

What’s your startup, and your role? Me and the Giants is a development studio centred round making games for young children, founded by myself, Will Adams and Rory Lowe. Our aim is to make great games that help improve the cognitive abilities of young children while augmenting communication between adult and child. Everyone’s role has been fairly mixed with getting us up and running, but my main role is lead developer, taking care of all the programming, game design also R and D.

Give us your company culture in 3 words: Uhmm, ok I did need to google “company culture”, but that’s an easy one, I think. Augment developmental communication. Or maybe, make life better. Amounts to the same thing really.

What’s the next big challenge or hurdle the company needs to overcome? Our next challenge is to actually get our games finished and on the market effectively. One of the main challenges with marketing, is choosing what sector to go for initially and planning, even in the early stages, where to go next. Bizarrely this is quite fun, but right now we are all focused on making games for the next few months.

What’s the personal dream? My personal dream would probably be to have enough resources to pursue all of the little projects I don’t have the time to do right now.

And the professional dream? That would be for our products to achieve their goals and hopefully help improve the lives of our customers.

What do you do for stress relief? Funnily enough more work, having peace and quite to work on a project and realize it, helps centre me in a profound way. Though I don’t think I get that stressed in my day to day routine, so perhaps it isn’t stress relief at all, maybe I’m just a workaholic.

Your favourite ’skint’ meal? Easy, oat cakes and goats cheese.

How do you celebrate milestones or awards? Usually, we all go out as a group for lunch in a nice restaurant, back to work for some coffee and biscuits, then in the evening go for drinks. All very civilised.

What’s your biggest guilty pleasure? Uhmm, probably something I shouldn’t be admitting in public, but on occasion I do like to work my way though a bottle of vodka during the day. Usually when I have a rather complex programming problem that needs my focus, wouldn’t work for everyone and not recommended to anyone, I suppose that’s why its a guilty pleasure.

And the coolest event you’ve been to? Probably would be last years Golden Joystick Awards. I was fairly excited to be a nominee anyway, but with all the red carpet stuff then treated to champagne and a fancy meal I was well pleased. Met loads of new friends which made the evening a joy. Seeing Frankie Boyle make a room full people in tuxedo’s and ball gowns squirm was my favourite moment of the night.

Name a quirky fact about yourself: I spent many years working as a ceramicist, making dinnerware and sculptures before moving in a more digital direction with my work.

Given the choice, would you prefer:

i) Truth or dare? Dare

ii) Carrot or stick? Carrot

iii) Tea or coffee? Coffee