2018 business goals

1) Getting money faster from the big customers.
- We have TONS of huge customers interested with big promises of money, but the sales cycles are just so long at big companies. And when I talk to experienced business people, they tell me this is totally normal. The Development License (not able to ship in production, but internal R&D is fine) was a revelation in this sense-- the approvals it requires are much less significant and time consuming. I have to keep thinking on other ways to speed up that process.

2) More small company customers.
- Small companies pay fast. Small companies don't take lots of time on legal work, and they move quickly. Small companies don't expect tons of customization and personal attention in the product. I should've focused on this starting in the beginning of the year, but the big deals were so tempting.

3) Making the evaluations a smoother process tech-wise.
- Some customers love it and the evaluation is a breeze, but some customers struggle with set-up or seem fine but end up testing the product incorrectly and it's not as smooth of a process. We have to think of how to keep making free evaluations smoother, while also considering that we aren't getting paid (and perhaps pushing for a Development License when we know it'll be a big effort).

4) Reaching outside of the game industry.
- I'm learning, and I've been told many times, that the game industry is a tough space to sell in. Games companies just aren't used to buying middleware in the way other verticals are, so it's almost a two-step sell: 1) "You should buy middleware" then 2) "You should buy our product." We're doing well despite that, but it's time to look beyond games. It's hard to balance new sales with all the other work in the business, but I am going to try to keep this in mind moving forward.

5) Better marketing.
- I know the website needs work. I know I could do more outreach, write more blog posts. But a part of me feels our process is a bit bumpy and we should make sure that's polished before taking on tons of new customers-- our evaluations could be smoother, we haven't found a set of prices and license structures that we can just fit on different customers (still lots of customized deals). It's a tricky balance.