Why supporting indies is the key to growing the Brazilian games industry

gamesindustry.biz:

"Juliana, I sold a company that I don't have, can you come and make me a company?"

Juliana Brito became the co-founder and CEO of indie accelerator programme Indie Hero after her business partner Ian Rochlin went to reality TV series Shark Tank Brazil and sold 25% of the not-yet-launched company for $R1. Yes, your read that correctly.

"The video went viral," Brito smiles, remembering Rochlin's Shark Tank appearance and his phone call to her about needing help to set up the company. "At the time, we [already] had Game Jam Plus, the biggest game development marathon competition in the world. We are in 42 countries right now; we had 5,000 participants last year.

"And then he went to Shark Tank and he did a pitch about a company that would be the biggest game producer without producing games."

Rochlin's gambit was to only ask for a $R1 investment because he deemed it more important to have investors on his side rather than money. That paid off and securing their support opened many doors for the duo, leading to the creation of Indie Hero.

The accelerator programme primarily works as a platform which connects Brazilian developers with investors. But from that initial idea of supporting indies, Indie Hero noticed other needs: while there was funding available, most studios "were not ready for it," Brito says.

So the firm took a step back and also included support to learn how to pitch, how to self publish, and more.

"We started to see other kinds of necessities for the indies, so we started organising B2B events, [and] we started organising Brazilian Game Fest, a B2C event so [studios] can actually grow [their] social media, and we just kind of grew around that," Brito continues. "Because our mission is that everyone who wants to [make a living] from [making] games should be able to do it. The industry is big enough, and there's enough money in it that we can actually provide that. So it's an acceleration programme, events, and all this kind of stuff."

Game Jam Plus and Indie