Comment Re:Why not earlier - from a small biz perspective (Score 1) 1048
Having run a small video game company with literally a 0-1% profit margin, I can say that the action of countering (the few times it came up) was always an issue of $ we had..and in the times I did counter it was a *real* stretch each time.
At that point in the company I needed the core talent to stay open and running and made my best effort to keep the guys I had. Also at that point in time in the video game industry it was an employee's market..anyone could have gone out and got a job for more money and there was a fair amount of poaching and headhunting going on. Both guys in question wanted more money and once they knew of the greener pastures they made made the move.
So we countered when we could and often at our (the owner's) expense..we didn't take bonuses and often we didn't take paychecks..you can't build a company without talent and we were taking a long bet that we'd get it 'back someday'.
We never had a lot of 'bank' and tried to keep people happy where we could, but yeah, if I paid someone 10 - 15% less than the "market" it's because we didn't have it to pay, not because I was boosting my own takehome and buying Audi's or something. When I could I gave people what they wanted..a good environment, comp'ed days off, xmas bonuses when we could, because we were trying to grow a company and a culture.
Of course we eventually closed, and in hindsight I think we burned ourselves at the expense of trying to hold everyone together. Point being, esp with small biz, more often than not that counter comes out of the company's cushion..so of course it's in the owner's interest to keep that cushion as much as you can, esp given the tendency of publishers to pay the developers so late!
At that point in the company I needed the core talent to stay open and running and made my best effort to keep the guys I had. Also at that point in time in the video game industry it was an employee's market..anyone could have gone out and got a job for more money and there was a fair amount of poaching and headhunting going on. Both guys in question wanted more money and once they knew of the greener pastures they made made the move.
So we countered when we could and often at our (the owner's) expense..we didn't take bonuses and often we didn't take paychecks..you can't build a company without talent and we were taking a long bet that we'd get it 'back someday'.
We never had a lot of 'bank' and tried to keep people happy where we could, but yeah, if I paid someone 10 - 15% less than the "market" it's because we didn't have it to pay, not because I was boosting my own takehome and buying Audi's or something. When I could I gave people what they wanted..a good environment, comp'ed days off, xmas bonuses when we could, because we were trying to grow a company and a culture.
Of course we eventually closed, and in hindsight I think we burned ourselves at the expense of trying to hold everyone together. Point being, esp with small biz, more often than not that counter comes out of the company's cushion..so of course it's in the owner's interest to keep that cushion as much as you can, esp given the tendency of publishers to pay the developers so late!
