In this sit-down with Cumron Ashtiani of Atomhawk, we talk about his entrepreneurial journey delving into his background as he tells about leaving school at 16 and his 10 years stint as an art director.
Ron, I’m absolutely thrilled to finally have you on YHP, how are you doing?
I am good thanks, busy with lots of plans for 2014
So how did it all begin, what were you earliest moments of being creative?
I left school at 16, went into an apprenticeship in a larger engineering company, it was only after a year that I decided to take a childhood hobby on to being my career. I started as a professional artist and animator in the games industry in 1997, having gone back to college and studied computer graphics and design in Sheffield. I always drew a lot of pictures as a kid but my computer graphics hobby began back in the early 80's. I used to program my own games from the back of magazines and made my own custom animated sprites on the BBC micro and C64, I then graduated onto Deluxe Paint and 3D packages like Imagine in the early 90s.
Where did the inspiration for Atomhawk come from?
Having worked as an Art director for 10 years, I know how hard it can be to find world class design talent. A challenge often made worse by not having the budget to warrant keeping that design talent on staff on a permanent basis. In my last in house role, I worked for Midway Games and I was lucky enough to have a very talented team of concept artists and UI designer on staff. Midway went bankrupt in 2009 and so decided to take that team and found a specialist design company.
What was the hardest part of setting up the business?
There were many challenges and they have all seemed like the hardest part at the time. The key things when starting up are finding financing, gaining a reputation and clients, plus delivering AAA work with a small team. As the company gets established those issues shift to being more focused on sustainability and growth, often in a start up people work a lot of hours but they can't keep that up for an indefinite amount of time. Also businesses have to keep moving forward and so planning what the next big step will be is always tough.
How were you able to fund it?
I was lucky enough to have put some money away over the years, so I partly self funded and then had that amount match funded by a start-up investment company as a convertible loan. Basically I had 3 years to re-pay the loan and if I couldn't then they took a stake in my company. It was a very reasonable deal overall and I managed to pay them back on time. We were also lucky to have been able to raise grants through the governments "Grant for business investment" scheme which is based on job creation targets.
You have an amazing list of clients, how were you been able to get them on board especially in your early days?
Personal relationships were the key. Having worked as a director for 10 years in the very volatile market of video games, meant that I had the pleasure of working with a lot of different people. Once we had started up and shown that the quality of our work was high, I was able to pitch to people I knew and they put their trust in us to deliver. Once they were on board, it was easier to approach companies that we didn't have any connection with.
Can you remember those early days, thinking of the company name, opening the company’s bank account to the first six months or so of running the business, how excited were you?
Yes, they were some of the best days of my life, although I maybe didn't appreciate that at the time due to the 70+ hour weeks and a new born baby at home!
Every day brought a new challenge and every penny we made was a huge achievement. I was and I am still on a constant learning curve. At the start I didn't know if I had what it takes to run a company and so hitting key points like 3 months, 6 months, 1 yr etc was an uplifting affirmation that I was indeed running my own company. We're almost at 5 years now and I'm still learning every day.
They are so many challenges that entrepreneurs go through trying to build a company, or making it successful, can you share a challenge you faced and how you overcame it?
Hiring the right people is always a massive challenge and in a design company, people are everything. The types of people you hire (attitude, skill set) and the balance of those types of people is actually different between a large company and a small company. Having worked at mostly larger companies in the past, I didn't get that balance right and so it took some pretty hard decisions to turn the company into the high performance team it is today.
What would you say were some of the key fundamentals that were implemented to accelerate the growth of the company?
One of the best decisions I ever made was to stop working in my business and to work on my business. By that I mean that for the first 2 years, I was on the tools with everyone else and this meant that I couldn't see the wood for the trees. As soon as I stepped back and let the guys get on with doing the artwork, while I focused on the high level issues relating to direction, clients and strategy, we doubled in size in year 3.
Can you tell us some of the little things that you miss from the early days?
I think when you are the plucky underdog, everything is a win and people forgive mistakes. However now we are a leader in our field, we have to be perfect and deliver everything we promise and then some, that can be stressful.
When we founded the company, we were all friends who had worked together before and so we used to work very hard but also play very hard too and that was good fun. As we have matured, we've focused more on quality of life and sustainability of the workload, but I do miss the fun of achieving a seemingly impossible deadline and then going on a massive night out to celebrate :) I don't miss doing the cleaning in the office myself, which I did for the first 3 months without the others knowing it was me :)
{Laughs} That pretty much leads to my next question which is what you do outside work to unwind?
I have 2 kids (4 years and 17 months) and so I love doing family things with them. I also try to keep fit as that is the best way to manage stress. I've also always been into cars, not the flashy stuff but "practical classics" that I can tinker with and restore. I've almost finished restoring a 20yr old VW Corrado VR6.
How do you define success?
Being happy, for me that means being the best that I can be while also bringing out the best in others. Doing great things!
What are your plans for Atomhawk and yourself in the next 5 years?
Wow, I think the issue is that I have too many plans and only a few will probably happen. I plan to expand the company into some new services. We have just put together a new team providing high quality animation (both 2D and 3D) and so that will be a big focus for us this year. We're also doing more and more conceptual design for the movie sector following our work on Marvel's recent hit, Thor II and we have two more similar scale movies coming out 2014-15. Finally our UI/UX team designed the interface for the groundbreaking new COSTA coffee self serve machine that will be appearing in offices, train stations and airports in the near future, so we're planning on doing more work in the touch screen UI/UX space.
Before I let you go, what advices could you give to anyone reading this interview hoping to start a business or struggling for attention, investment or a proof of concept?
I think a lot of entrepreneurs say "just keep at it, commitment is everything" but I think that is a bit of a cop out. Starting a business is tough and the most important thing is to make sure you know the market you are planning to go into. Research is the key as once you push the GO! button, you can burn through money pretty fast. By being sure that your business plan is viable, you have the right experience (either you or hired in) and that you have a quality product that is in demand, with a route to market, you can determine if that venture is worth your commitment or if you should walk away.
Better to be committed to something that has a good chance of success rather than blindly following a dream that has a very small chance of working out. Although you should never go into a business you are not interested in as when the going gets tough, that personal interest is what keeps you going.
Lastly, in the early stages keep your costs as low as possible until you have proven that the business can work. That will minimise your risks and allow you to make some mistakes without it being fatal to your business.