So there are some ads that features contractors who can completely make a game for me. Even on gamedev.net there's one:
http://www.gamedev.net/classifieds/category/2-contractors/
My question is, is it a good idea to hire someone to make a game that I've always wanted to make but don't know a thing about programming? Basically, I'm the "ideas" guy and want to hire a group of professionals to put my ideas into a working title. Now it need not be a full blown studio like this; I am just looking for a programmer at the very least to do the coding for me. Coding is not for me and I will never be able to understand it and will never be my interest. I've tried many times but have to come to terms that it's just not my cup of tea.
I am however very interested in game design or program design itself. I find it to be the most useful tool on the planet, but I just don't like to read code. I want to make a game I had in mind but I need a programmer to help me. Of course art assets is also necessary. I do have the money to invest as well.
I wanted to ask what your opinion is on this. I know I'm posting on a dev site so I'll be getting a ton of dev-sided bias, but I'm hoping to get some objective and constructive answers.
Currently, here's what my opinion is on all this and correct me if I'm wrong. To be a bit honest to myself, I think that the really good and passionate game programmers out there will just make their own game their own way. The reason why they went into programming in the first place was to make their own games anyways, so they have no interest in working for someone else's vision. Now there could be exceptions to this; some programmers just want to focus on coding. They just love to code and find joy in completing more micro tasks like coding for certain aspects of the game and satisfying their client that way. So there may be some hope for me that I can get a really good coder who's really passionate.
Now, I wanted to also discuss about programmers who work for a normal established game studio. Now wouldn't those same programmers want to also work for an indie studio as well? Granted, indie studios may get more of the newer programmers, but my question is on the motive/mentality of the programmer - whether he is looking forward to working with a new indie game developer whose manager / lead game designer (me) know nothing about coding. Will he respect me still? Or does the lead game designer need to know all aspects of game development for him to be even interested in joining.
Basically, what it comes down to is this: some freelance programmers just want to get a job done and get paid. He's not interested in cutting development costs since it will reduce his own pay. Example of this is being able to find open source codes and implement it without having to recode everything (an article says 95% of codes already exist and are being repeated). So the solution to this would be to have him as a "partner" but a lot of freelancers don't like to work like this. They want to just get paid on a fixed amount and not take any risks/rewards along the way. And maybe this makes sense to them. Maybe they previously tried to make a game financially successful and it failed so they want to just salvage any skills they have left by working on single smaller freelancing jobs. OR they may just think that they didn't get a good concept for a game but they still like programming so they'd rather just stick to the programming and get paid.
So I just basically am in need of a programmer who's just happy with coding for what his clients need and have his client's best interest. Client will be appreciative of his care in this and will reward him some way. I'm trying to figure out how it can work for both me and the programmer - how we both can benefit so that everyone is incitivized the correct way. If programmer is just going to get a fixed paycheck, he may not be motivated enough and will just do the bare minimum to get a decent rating on his elance account or whatever. THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO AVOID - a programmer who just does it barely enough to satisfy the job description enough to not get a bad rating. I've dealt with many developers in the past (for web) and it just seems that the developers themselves need more than just a paycheck to do a great job.
Anyways, the reason why I'm writing all this is because I've read many threads on here and other forums going against the fact that a non-programmer can ever create a game studio so I wanted an in-depth analysis of why it can't be done. Yes, the technical aspect of a game is important but also the gameplay and the ideas behind the game is also very important which I think I may have. I believe I'm creative enough to come up with ideas that are an improvement to the games out there in terms of how the game is played and balancing and all that. I've played many games and I just tell myself, "man only if they made the rules this way or that way, then it would be a hit," so I think I have a lot to offer as an "ideas" guy only. Above all, I just want to have fun creating something new, it's just that coding is a huge barrier for me. I created a successful business (online retail) from scratch and hope to develop another business that's more on the creative / development side of life. So I have some experience in trying to put together a good team that will make a business work. Whether I can do that with a business on the creative side is the question.
Your thoughts on me hiring a game developer/studio
If you want something that is reasonably bug free, high quality, commercial level, and with mass-market type of appeal, you are looking at eight digits, tens of millions of dollars. Even so many of the shovelware PC games have budgets of many million dollars.
Making a game that mostly works okay, has minimal assets, and is absolutely in no shape ready for broad release, will cost tens of thousands of dollars when developed in the US. Figure 10K per month per person. If you want a programmer and an artist and an animator an d a tester, and they all are already familiar with the engine and the tools, then you're only looking around $60k for a tiny little game. Many appstore style professional games are developed in the $100K - $500K range.
If you want to start a game studio or run a game studio business, you either need to be able to do the work yourself (which means being the things yo said you aren't, being the worker instead of the idea guy, or it means having an enormous wad of cash to pay others with those skills.
There are in fact a relatively large number of development studios that focus on building the ideas of strangers. Mainly they reskin existing games for marketing and other purposes. They can be much cheaper since they are starting from an existing game. Reskins can be relatively inexpensive, tens of thousands of dollars, since they mostly just need new art and a few audio clips. When game features and extra testing are involved they get increasingly expensive, but are still cheaper than from-scratch development.
1. Have you thought of using an existing game engine to create your game? I'm thinking of Unreal Engine 4 in particular. You don't need to be a programmer to build a game. You can build a complete game without writing a single line of code. The licensing cost is $20/month + 5% of your gross revenues.
2. What you're really looking for is "stakeholder buy-in" from freelancers. That's kind of a contradiction. Free lancers are pretty much like mercenary coders, working for whoever pays the highest. The work and project doesn't really matter to them, so long as they get paid well and on time. In order to get a programmer to work with you and get the stakeholder buy-in you're looking for, you're going to have to build a long term, long lasting relationship with them and make sure that you know what their long term interests are and show that by working together with you, they can satisfy those interests. The best way to do this is to hire a programmer on as an employee and treat them with respect. This is the opposite of hiring a contractor / freelancer, but necessary for working on a large, long term project.
2a: If you're not working on a large project (but rather a small mobile app or something), it's entirely feasible to contract out the work you can't or don't want to do.
2b: If you do hire out contractors, the #1 challenge for you is going to be effectively communicating what you want them to do for you.
2c: If your project is large and you want to contract out work in portions, you also run a risk of the programmer doing a job which is just barely good enough to satisfy your requirements. The solutions may not be robust or flexible, so if you make any changes or additions to the requirements, there's a good chance that the original work needs to be redone to account for the new changes. for example, if your requirement says that you want a button to be placed on the bottom right corner of the screen, a programmer will most likely just hard code in the button X/Y values using screen coordinate. Now, you make a change which changes the size of the window. Changing the window size now causes the button to no longer be aligned to the lower right corner, so the hard coded X/Y coordinates will no longer work -- the button alignment code now needs to be written to be relative to the window size. This is just a small and trivial example to illustrate the problem. If you have a programmer writing out your architectural back end, it's going to need to be robust and bug free.
2d: Speaking of bugs, which will crop up, who fixes them after the contractor has been paid and gone away?
In my experience (working as a programmer employing an artist), the best way to work is together, face to face, every day in the same place with consistency. I come up with the design tasks and give guidance to my artist on what needs to be done. Any time he has a question, he just asks me and I answer it right there, face to face. There is no email communication, instant messages, or skype sessions. I can swing my chair around and look at his screen and give immediate feedback. Since he's been working with me from the beginning, we're both committed to this project and its success. I take care of him and he takes care of me. It costs money though to pay his wages and the facilities, so be prepared to open up your wallet and take huge hits.
I believe I'm creative enough to come up with ideas that are an improvement to the games out there in terms of how the game is played and balancing and all that. I've played many games and I just tell myself, "man only if they made the rules this way or that way, then it would be a hit," so I think I have a lot to offer as an "ideas" guy only.
In my experience, almost everyone who thinks this way, but cannot do anything with art or code, is practically useless, overvalues his own ideas, and devalues other people's effort. For example, you're bad-mouthing the effort put in by engineers hired for previous projects you've worked on, when you admit you're not capable of even comprehending whatever they did. So, chances are whatever artists or engineers you hire would be better at designing a game themselves, and they will likely have to design many of the details themselves, because your ideas will be incomplete and ill-conceived. But who knows, maybe you're the exception, and you are that one-in-a-million ideas-only guy who actually has good, original ideas.
There are probably quite a few not-horrible or maybe even decent developers out there willing to a take a pay check to make whatever you want, and there might even be some OK engineers out there with such low self esteem that they will require barely any compensation or creative input. In the end, it's not motivating to work for an "ideas-only" guy.
However, if you truly cannot even understand programming, you cannot create a good game design. There is no way to design a game without being able to put something logical into words. That's pretty much the core of programming. If you do not get the idea, you cannot understand how game systems work, you cannot plan because you will not understand the scope of any problem, you cannot communicate with engineers, you will be unhelpful at filtering or documenting how to reproduce bugs, and you will be very unreliable at evaluating the talent of anyone in a technical role. Engineers will not respect you, because you do not respect them enough to try to understand their work. You will likely favor the engineers selling you snake oil and hold grudges against the ones trying to get you to take your medicine.
The good news is, you sound like you'd be perfect as a producer at a major game studio.
My question is, is it a good idea to hire someone to make a game that I've always wanted to make but don't know a thing about [game development]?
No.
Hiring a company to make the entire game, if you have a lot of money, is a possibility.
However, you'd get further on the same amount of cash by being a kind of patron to an indie team, where they're working mostly for love of the project.
To be a bit honest to myself, I think that the really good and passionate game programmers out there will just make their own game their own way. The reason why they went into programming in the first place was to make their own games anyways, so they have no interest in working for someone else's vision. Now there could be exceptions to this; some programmers just want to focus on coding. They just love to code and find joy in completing more micro tasks like coding for certain aspects of the game and satisfying their client that way. So there may be some hope for me that I can get a really good coder who's really passionate.
Sort of.
Most of us, myself included, work with money, but not for money. We'd consider your ideas, and if they're good we'd use them, but we're disinclined to sell out if the whole team really disagrees with something you say.
So, you'd have to decide if you can work with people, and bend a little bit, in order to be part of something that has a lot of passion behind it... or, if you can't, you'll have to hire everybody at higher than full industry rates, which could cost hundreds of thousands if not millions for a pretty basic game.
That's the thing about programmers who area looking to implement somebody else's ideas entirely- they won't work below industry rates, and if they're good we're talking potentially six digits a year.
Now, I wanted to also discuss about programmers who work for a normal established game studio. Now wouldn't those same programmers want to also work for an indie studio as well? Granted, indie studios may get more of the newer programmers, but my question is on the motive/mentality of the programmer - whether he is looking forward to working with a new indie game developer whose manager / lead game designer (me) know nothing about coding. Will he respect me still? Or does the lead game designer need to know all aspects of game development for him to be even interested in joining.
If that's the case, they'll still work for you. But, it will both:
A. Take twice as long, if not more.
and
B. Involve a higher salary. Due to lower job security and benefits, and more frustration, you will have to pay them much more than a large studio would.
Basically, what it comes down to is this: some freelance programmers just want to get a job done and get paid. He's not interested in cutting development costs since it will reduce his own pay. Example of this is being able to find open source codes and implement it without having to recode everything (an article says 95% of codes already exist and are being repeated).
Don't worry about that. If the code obviously already exists in an easy to use library, he or she isn't going to waste time reinventing the wheel. We're already talking about several years of work.
The thing you have to worry about is the programmer realizing you don't know anything about it, and doing other things he or she wants to do and blowing off your project while getting paid for it, then deliver the milestone having put much less work into it than claiming.
So the solution to this would be to have him as a "partner" but a lot of freelancers don't like to work like this. They want to just get paid on a fixed amount and not take any risks/rewards along the way. And maybe this makes sense to them. Maybe they previously tried to make a game financially successful and it failed so they want to just salvage any skills they have left by working on single smaller freelancing jobs. OR they may just think that they didn't get a good concept for a game but they still like programming so they'd rather just stick to the programming and get paid.
The solution is milestone based payments. However, in order to know how much to pay for a milestone, you need to know a little bit about programming and development... so, you'd be a bit in the dark. You'd need to hire a third party to give you milestone estimates, in order to implement this, and just trust that they are reasonable. But it's always going to be wrong, because in order to communicate the features you want you need to be speaking the same language. Most things will have to be redone two or three times.
As you said, nobody is going to work as a partner or in a profit sharing situation when they have no say on the design. Everybody thinks their own ideas are great, and usually that other people's ideas suck. Most games don't make a profit, it's reasonable for the programmers to assume this, and they can't take a risk on your idea (although they might on their own ideas).
If programmer is just going to get a fixed paycheck, he may not be motivated enough and will just do the bare minimum to get a decent rating on his elance account or whatever. THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO AVOID - a programmer who just does it barely enough to satisfy the job description enough to not get a bad rating. I've dealt with many developers in the past (for web) and it just seems that the developers themselves need more than just a paycheck to do a great job.
Then you need to either learn how to program so you can evaluate the work that has been done (and understand it), or you need to join a team. If the former isn't an option, then the latter is the only way to go.
Trust me, they'll give you a LOT of creative input in exchange for your funding. But there is a line, and you'll have to learn where that is, and how to compromise with the team.
Yes, the technical aspect of a game is important but also the gameplay and the ideas behind the game is also very important which I think I may have. I believe I'm creative enough to come up with ideas that are an improvement to the games out there in terms of how the game is played and balancing and all that. I've played many games and I just tell myself, "man only if they made the rules this way or that way, then it would be a hit," so I think I have a lot to offer as an "ideas" guy only. Above all, I just want to have fun creating something new, it's just that coding is a huge barrier for me. I created a successful business (online retail) from scratch and hope to develop another business that's more on the creative / development side of life. So I have some experience in trying to put together a good team that will make a business work. Whether I can do that with a business on the creative side is the question.
Well, all I can say is to try it with an indie team.
Find a game development project that's already going that's close to the kind of thing you want to make, and infuse them with a hundred thousand bucks or so over a few months and see how it goes.
But remember, you're just a member of the team; their creative visions are just as important as yours.
I believe I'm creative enough to come up with ideas that are an improvement to the games out there in terms of how the game is played and balancing and all that. I've played many games and I just tell myself, "man only if they made the rules this way or that way, then it would be a hit," so I think I have a lot to offer as an "ideas" guy only.
In my experience, almost everyone who thinks this way, but cannot do anything with art or code, is practically useless, overvalues his own ideas, and devalues other people's effort. For example, you're bad-mouthing the effort put in by engineers hired for previous projects you've worked on, when you admit you're not capable of even comprehending whatever they did. So, chances are whatever artists or engineers you hire would be better at designing a game themselves, and they will likely have to design many of the details themselves, because your ideas will be incomplete and ill-conceived. But who knows, maybe you're the exception, and you are that one-in-a-million ideas-only guy who actually has good, original ideas.
There are probably quite a few not-horrible or maybe even decent developers out there willing to a take a pay check to make whatever you want, and there might even be some OK engineers out there with such low self esteem that they will require barely any compensation or creative input. In the end, it's not motivating to work for an "ideas-only" guy.
However, if you truly cannot even understand programming, you cannot create a good game design. There is no way to design a game without being able to put something logical into words. That's pretty much the core of programming. If you do not get the idea, you cannot understand how game systems work, you cannot plan because you will not understand the scope of any problem, you cannot communicate with engineers, you will be unhelpful at filtering or documenting how to reproduce bugs, and you will be very unreliable at evaluating the talent of anyone in a technical role. Engineers will not respect you, because you do not respect them enough to try to understand their work. You will likely favor the engineers selling you snake oil and hold grudges against the ones trying to get you to take your medicine.
The good news is, you sound like you'd be perfect as a producer at a major game studio.
Thanks for the honest input. As I'm reading all these criticisms, I am adjusting what I need to do to make things successful. I may need to bring in a lead programmer then as a partner whom I can really trust. Almost like we have been close friends since childhood. I avoided the word "hire" because he'll need to feel like this is as much his project he's interested in doing. My ideas are just ideas for him to see whether he wants to be interested in doing it and pretty much making it his own, with the input of my ideas as well. I don't mind at all working with a lead programmer and allowing him freedom to do whatever it takes to make the game. I think if I can find a programmer who is very interested in my ideas and likes how I think and sees potential from my side, then it may work out. You are right about what you said. I had a feeling about all of this actually but just wanted to get further input from the dev's side. And about your comment on devaluing other people's efforts, I only judge them based on industry standards. I tell them to make a site like this site here, and if they cannot, then I regard them as failing to meet client's expectations. I think that would be a fair assessment. So in the same way, if I am working with others and paying them industry rates, I do expect them to be able to meet industry standards at least. I don't think this is asking for too much and I think it's fair for me as a client to get what I paid for. Valuing or devaluing what others have done doesn't really mean anything to me. That's more of a personal thing. If I pay someone to do the work and then they can't complete it and I regard the whole project they've done as a failure, then that's up to them to take it personally. Business-wise, I'm sorry but you just don't cut it as someone I will repeat ever again. Yes you are more talented than me in many aspects, but in terms of meeting peer's standards, I am better off finding a better programmer elsewhere and regard your work as inferior. You can take it personally but that's business. So I don't think I'm being unfair when it comes to having to seek developers who has to have skills that are competitive to industry standards. Even knowing nothing about development, me as a client should still be able to compare whether the dev team I hired is good enough to be competitive compared to what's out there.
Now of course this is speaking from a client - freelancer relationship perspective. If I'm going to try to find a partner, obviously I will need to work more closely together with him and appreciate him much more as he will be the pointman for all dev aspects of programming. I do agree with you that I will need to gain more experience and knowhow of development in general so I can at least be able to understand how to communicate my ideas better and be more detailed in what is needed done more specifically. I'm working on that as we speak. As one businessman puts it, "I make it my business to know a little bit about everything." So I'll be adopting that philosophy. My biz partner at the restaurant also tells me what he goes through as well as he sees that knowing every aspect of the restaurant is important for him to cut costs and get things done the right way as the contractors will just do as they please and just get the job done just to get paid so I am learning from how he deals with contractors from various aspects as well.
So yes, I am interested in learning more about game development and to know as much as I'm comfortable with coding and how it all works. But I know for sure, I cannot code myself. That is something that has to be done by someone else and I'm hoping to find a partner whom I can work closely together and our chemistry works well, kinda like two close friends working together, who compliments each other and not be too similar or else heads will butt. I have three other businesses going on right now and learning to work with my partners is key to getting a successful business going so I hope to continue trend this with a startup indie dev company.
For me, this game is just one dream I have I want come to fruition, but long-term, I just want to work with talented developers and have more of them on my rolodex. A great way of earning someone's trust is to make money with them. One of my partners is in China and we exchange hands up to $200,000 sometimes on deals where I owe him and he owes me, just to make things more fluid for inventory purchases. My other partner is in India and he estimates ROI back by year's end and from there profit beginning of 2015. I'll wait to see if that happens. I'm sure it will, just a matter of time, but now I have India and China as countries I can visit where I have friends I trust. We can shot the shits together, etc. etc. all because we are in business and making money together. Again, money making isn't even important to me. It's the trust that naturally forms when together dealing with large sums. It also filters out the weak (not loyal) when shit hits the fan. You know whole lot more about a person's character when things go bad and how he responds.
So yea, I've always wanted good talented people in my network so I can further have more opportunities to play around with things I'm interested in along with them in terms of development. As mentioned, I think programming in general will be ever more and more important. It's the most important in my view, just that I'm cursed to not be able to understand a line of code.
The last point you made as me being a good producer instead. Yea, maybe that could be more my role, as I'm already an investor for two other companies. I feel maybe being an investor for this one also could be a possibility. But for this one, I have that itch of wanting to have that perfect game I've always wanted to play be realized. Alot of games out there may have 90% of what I'm looking for, and they are all very great games, just that I have that itch to make it 100% so if I can't find it out there already, then only other option is to try to make it. Investing, I'm always going to be doing even after I die.
The good news is, you sound like you'd be perfect as a producer at a major game studio.
The last point you made as me being a good producer instead. Yea, maybe that could be more my role, as I'm already an investor for two other companies. I feel maybe being an investor for this one also could be a possibility. But for this one, I have that itch of wanting to have that perfect game I've always wanted to play be realized. Alot of games out there may have 90% of what I'm looking for, and they are all very great games, just that I have that itch to make it 100% so if I can't find it out there already, then only other option is to try to make it. Investing, I'm always going to be doing even after I die.
...Is my sarcasm detector broken, or is his?
I was under the impression that most people thought producers were meddlers who ruin otherwise good games due to ignorance of development and the realities of game design, and basically just drive all the developers crazy (or out windows).
Although I'm sure there must be some good producers, so maybe this is about that.
I avoided the word "hire" because he'll need to feel like this is as much his project he's interested in doing.
So you're not going to pay someone to work for you?!
No, no no. I get what you're trying to say, but this is a really bad move. If you go through the effort and trouble to find that perfect fit for your project and team, you want to lock that person down so that they stay on the project/team! The best way to do this is to take care of them by satisfying their interests, which include getting paid well, regularly, and on time. This is business 101. You need this programmer to be a stakeholder in your project, and if you aren't a stakeholder invested in them, they aren't going to be a stakeholder invested in you. They'll jump ship as soon as something else comes along which satisfies their interests / desires more than you do. This would be a catastrophe and spell doom for your project since its such a large setback. It's hard to bounce back from. So, don't make the foolish mistake of letting it happen in the first place. Hire people.
My ideas are just ideas for him to see whether he wants to be interested in doing it and pretty much making it his own, with the input of my ideas as well
I'm a programmer and design my own games. This is a huge red flag. I underestimated the difficulty of good game design, and understand it takes a lot of effort to do it right. If *you* are going to be the game designer, then you need to be beyond stellar and work harder than anyone else on the team, and spell out in precise, exact detail how every minute aspect of the game is going to work together. The fact that you want to do some vague hand waving and essentially tell the programmer to fill in the gaps with their own ideas, screams the fact that you don't know exactly what you want. There's nothing more frustrating than to spend a ton of effort writing code to implement something which ends up changing completely or getting scrapped on the whims of an uncertain and constantly shifting design. If you're expecting the programmer to take control on the direction of this project, you reduce yourself to a niggling background voice which needs to be appeased while the programmer works on his own ideas of what should be built. Warning: Programmers aren't necessarily good designers!!!
I tell them to make a site like this site here, and if they cannot, then I regard them as failing to meet client's expectations.
This is not necessarily the right conclusion to make. Just because a developer fails to "build a site" doesn't mean that the developer can't do the job and is thus incompetent. No project exists in a vacuum. The project can be doomed before it even begins due to a failure in any number of things which lead up to the project and its management. I strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the software development life cycle. Whether you're building websites, video games, or applications, it's all the same process.
Just to refresh your memory on the lead up to constructing software, you have the following phases:
-1. Visioning step - What would be awesome to do?
0. Feasibility assessment - Can the vision actually be done within the limitations?
1. Requirements gathering - What *must* the software do? Does it meet the vision? Is it feasible?
2. Design - How will the software work to satisfy the requirements? Is it feasible? does it satisfy the vision?
3. Construction - build the damned thing! write the code! create the assets! make it come to life! Does it meet the design? Does it meet the requirements? Can it even work with the technical limitations / constraints?
Notice how each phase of the process depends on the phases preceding it? If any of the steps leading up to the construction phase are shit, it doesn't matter how good the programmer may be, the project is going to fail. The only way a shit project can be saved is if the programmer realizes he got set up for failure and goes through and redoes the work proceeding the work he's supposed to be doing. The right move to do when this happens is to just abandon the project/client and move onto working for/with someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing (some more unscrupulous devs will just string the client along and suck their money dry to get a steady paycheck). Sure, the shit client will bad mouth the programmer for being incompetent/incapable, but what does the programmer care? They've got better people to work for than to concern themselves with what bad clients have to say about them.
Yea, maybe that could be more my role, as I'm already an investor for two other companies. I feel maybe being an investor for this one also could be a possibility. But for this one, I have that itch of wanting to have that perfect game I've always wanted to play be realized. Alot of games out there may have 90% of what I'm looking for, and they are all very great games, just that I have that itch to make it 100% so if I can't find it out there already, then only other option is to try to make it. Investing, I'm always going to be doing even after I die.
I'm also an investor (95% stocks). I have also invested in my own indie game studio and put my money where my mouth is. My investment is more than just throwing money at a project/company and hoping for success, it's also a very deeply personal investment of my own time, commitment, and 100% energies. I'm totally invested in myself, and it's a do-or-die situation. With every investment, someone somewhere down the money stream needs to stand up and make use of the financial resources they have been granted to further the goal of the project/organization. The worst way to 'invest' in this sense is to throw money at a new studio/project with a half-assed game design and non-commitaly hiring some shammy programmer to make it happen -- you need to be the leader in the trenches, bringing your troops to victory by being the point man leading the charge. If you aren't/can't, your ROI will be -100%. Even if you have $0 financially invested, you can still be heavily invested in the success of a project. If you aren't 100% invested in a project/company in every way, you can't be the leader who asks others to invest 100%.
