Startup Spotlight #211: Regression Gaming
Regression Games, backed by NEA and a16z, is building the platform for useful and practical AI agents in games.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Aaron Vontell, founder and CEO of Regression Gaming, backed by NEA and a16z.
Introduction: My name is Aaron Vontell, Founder and CEO of Regression Games. Regression Games is building the platform for useful and practical AI agents in games, for use cases such as QA testing, play testing, game balancing, and multiplayer. Previously, I was an early engineer at Instabase working on ML/AI, and I have always been an avid gamer (any League of Legends fans?).
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Startup Spotlight: Regression Gaming
Problem: Game developers want to realize their vision and build the best game possible. Along that journey, many tasks get in the way - testing mundane game systems over and over, tackling the complexity of balancing a game, and building bots to do everything from simple NPC interactions to competitive multiplayer gameplay.
Market: The video game market is now larger than the movie and music industry combined, with an estimated TAM of $188bn in 2023. Our product is made for all game developers - from solo indie developers to AAA studios.
Solution: We help automate the parts of the developer journey that get in the way of their vision. We make it easy to build, deploy, and understand bots/agents that can validate game states, explore and exploit a level, collect stats related to game balance, and interact with players as NPCs.
Team: We are a team of 6 engineers with a crossover of experience in game development, machine learning, AI, and product. We are remote across North America, are avid gamers, and are fascinated by recent advancements in AI.
Recent Success:
Vontell: We've been very successful at building a team that fosters innovative thinking and experimentation. We are always evaluating our product and direction, making slight pivots at every moment to get our product towards our North Star - a platform that game developers love and get high value from. Whether it be through Innovation Friday (every Friday we get time to experiment on any idea) or team brainstorms, I've been impressed with our team's ability to always try new things and not be afraid to throw out old work for something new.
Recent Struggle:
Vontell: One thing we've struggled with is optimizing the funnel for game developers to try our platform. Given that creating and adding a bot to your game takes some upfront integration effort, the time to value can be longer than other AI tools where you can just try out a product right after you sign up. We've begun tackling this through ready-to-go samples, bots, and other tooling that makes the time for integration much faster, but it's something we are always iterating on.
Founder Advice:
Vontell: My one piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to continuously evaluate the highest risks and most important areas of focus, and then spend real, dedicated time on those areas. It may seem obvious, but as a founder, you are always tackling a million things at a time - hiring and HR, team planning, sales, customer success, marketing, fundraising, etc…I've found it incredibly useful to take a step back, track the time I am spending on each area, and then adjust course to ensure the most important things are getting most of my time.
Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Vontell: Here are three founders you should check out next!
Ted Benson, Founder of Steamship
Kunal Gosar , Founder of Arcus
Jesika Haria, Founder of LogicLoop
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