Best Startup
A quick introduction about what your company does/your values/mission.
FarVision is a start-up company, formed to create original stories and art as the basis to produce high quality mobile games with tie-in licensed products including action figures, toys, apparel, comics and books. Our mission is to help others improve and achieve success in their lives by providing a percentage of profits to worthy causes.
Tell us about yourself?
I am an artist, designer, program and project manager who has worked in different industries (defense, transportation, insurance, pharmaceuticals, publishing) with business and IT teams.
I also owned and managed a design and printing company, and during the course of my career have received awards for art and design, innovation, lean practice, and technical and management excellence.
Further details can be found on my LinkedIn site at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francine-duncan-csm-pmp-sieee-763493/ .
Partnering with my late mother, Sylvia Rosen, who was a fashion designer, merchandiser, teacher and author, we created the science fiction action-adventure G.A.M.M.A. Force story, script and concept art.
My son, Nathan Burba, who is a co-founder of Survios Games and Refactors Games suggested we create a mobile game based on the concept which led to the founding of FarVision Studios. I had been interested in gaming through him, and he had taught me that gaming is an art form. When he suggested we produce a mobile game, we decided to do so since I had the IT background.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
To have more confidence in myself and my decisions in running the business.
What problem does your business solve?
Our product is an action-centered game for “gameplay on the go” to give people something they can play for a few minutes to take a break and enjoy themselves. We hope to tie-in opportunities for rewards that can lead to product purchases and will have a link to our website where we will have a shop for product purchases.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
We were inspired by many great science fiction stories, books, and movies, and wanted to capture the adventure and excitement in a game and provide a fun entertainment vehicle that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.
What is your magic sauce?
We differ in the following ways – (1) We have created original, retro-style art based on old comic books that is unique in the gaming industry. The art is not AI-based and is completely original. (2) Our story is very unique, and we have tremendous potential to build out the game with many levels and many characters and to eventually involve our players in our epic story. (3) We are hoping to develop the game concept as a brand and hope to have licensees produce products such as apparel and toys based on our story and characters. (4) We have unique toy concepts to be developed.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our plan is to launch and market our beta release, and we are developing our business plan and pitch deck to gain investors. Our vision is to build a community of players who enjoy our game, build out our game into multiple levels with multiple characters, enable our players to provide input around the game and get involved in its expansion (e.g., create their own characters, enhance the storylines), make our game available on different platforms and enable multiple players to play together, and create a robust brand with appealing and fun products related to the game.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
The biggest challenge was working my day job and developing the game at the same time. I was fortunate to be able to retire at the end of last year and am now working full time for myself. The issues I have run into are: (1) Funding the development – I am bootstrapping and have been able to finish the beta release. (2) Finding development resources – I am working with Altruistic Gaming now to finish this release and am hoping to gain investment capital to hire a developer to work with us.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We would like to hear from: (1) Anyone who would be interested in becoming a partner in the company with a strong technical background who would manage game development. Note that we have other concepts we would like to develop into games. (2) Anyone who would be interested in becoming our creative director and manage the creation of the game artwork. This would be on a freelance basis for now. (3) Companies who may be interested in becoming a licensee of our brand (e.g., clothing manufacturers, toy companies). (4) Investors who have interest in gaming companies. (5) We also need a Marketing Manager on a freelance basis. (6) People who would like to participate in our playtesting and give us feedback on the game.
