How this company started, and what it takes to run it 8 months later.
After starting Decaying Games last year, I’ve had more than a few questions thrown my way along the lines of
“How did you do it?”
”Is it hard to do this on your own?”
”How much does running a company cost?”
…and I’ve been wanting to answer them, especially as I felt there was a lack of relevant and not-super-formal-and-boring information about starting companies before getting the ball rolling myself last year. Turns out that most of the people sharing stories about company creation are really often into spreadsheets and documents, not necessarily about how to present that information in a casual way. Go figure!
The initial plan was to make a video, since video is how I consume a lot of information these days, but I’ve realized that I have an incredibly easier time just typing out a lot of words in a blog post. Plus, this hopefully makes it easier for you to skip through to find the parts you deem most relevant and interesting.
I’ve divided this up into a three sections;
“Why” - detailing my reasons for going into this
“How” - the actual process I took to start (the majority of this post), and
“How it’s going” - for, well, how it’s going so far. I’m by no means an expert on this, and still learning!
Let me write that one more time:
I’m not an expert on this. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. I’m just taking you through a rundown of the steps I took, in the interest of knowledge-sharing and giving others one more point of reference - always seek out help before venturing out on what ultimately could be a major part of your life going forward.
It’s also good to point out early that this is from the perspective of a Swedish person, about creating an Aktiebolag (AB) in Sweden. If you’re looking for information on what it’s like starting an LLC or GmbH or whatever else, then this might not be the blog entry for you!
But with that out of the way, let’s begin.
Why start Decaying Games AB?
The idea of starting my own company had been on my mind for more than a few years. Most of my professional career has been in small startups, often as an early hire shortly after the initial founding team, so I had at least some insight into what it took to keep a company going after the initial starting line. Even back in high school we had a class detailing what different company forms entailed, and as an extracurricular activity a friend and I ended up participating in Venture Cup, a national competition where the goal was (partially) to bring forth an idea/product so good that it was worth starting a company to start producing. Think Dragon’s Den, but less stakes, and each company fighting for just one spot to realize their idea.
So when I was faced with the reality of being without a job in early Fall of 2023, the idea of starting a company had already been simmering in the back of my mind for over a decade. At that point, however, I was still telling myself that “now is not the right time. I need to save up more of a buffer to make sure I can survive without income for at least a year+ before starting something”.
But then came my initial talk with Arbetsförmedlingen (Swedish Public Employment Service, the government agency you go through when dealing with unemployment in Sweden), and THEY suggested it to me: “Why not start a company? It seems like you have the skills and knowledge for it, and we have this grant that helps out during the first 6 months. You just need to have been registered as job hunting for 6 months before you become eligible, then bring us a reasonable idea for a company”.
Before that meeting, I was 100% set on joining another new company somewhere.
After that meeting? The 6 more months I had to go through in order to get to the point where I could apply for the grant was brutal. I did have a few good meetings and interviews during that time which I was sad didn’t pan out, but oh boy - start my own company and get paid to do it? This was a chance I couldn’t pass up! And so in December 2023 began the process (alongside still applying for regular jobs) of trying to figure out:
How the hell do I actually start this thing?
How Decaying Games AB was created
This isn’t meant to be a tutorial on how to create a company, but I want to lay some foundation about where my mind was going into this, so let’s cover some of the basics you’d have to (and I had to) consider before starting one.
Do you have a good idea for your company?
Based on years of experience in my field and my particular skillset, I knew from the start that - should I create a company of my own - I wanted to recreate a fairly common structure that several indie game studios tend to follow when starting:
Self-funded, part game maker, and part consultant.
Based on previous bad experiences, I didn’t want to need investors to put in funding. Additionally, while it broadens the immediate playing field for what opportunities a company can pursue, it also puts weight on following their wishes and goals - more often than not above your own. “But what about the shareholders??”, essentially. Beyond that, I also thought it’d be very hard to find someone willing to invest in a company with only one person.
For the second part, I am a game developer! It is what I like to do, and am damn good at if I may be so bold.
Games are a product I can make and sell myself, given the tools and shape of the industry and venues of digital distributions today. Making games alone is by no means an easy path, nor is it something I’d recommend to others, but it is something I’m capable of doing. The problem here is that if I don’t want to take on investments, and a game takes time to build before it’s able to be released and start generating income, how do I support myself and the company until I have products on the market?
I make myself the product, as a Consultant.
I had already been a consultant through other companies in the past, so I knew I could handle the work itself. But my main concern was that I didn’t have established clients lined up and ready to start working with. I was however still optimistic (clearly): I have a lot of local and global connections, my skill set is farily broad, and I’ve been told I’m ok to work with as a person. So I was confident I’d be able to find something to do, anything. Honestly, I got really lucky here, but more on that later.
So I had an idea of a company that could financially work! Time for the next question:
What form of company do you want to create?
In Sweden, there are mainly three types of companies that are made (there are more, but these are the most common ones):
Enskild Firma (Individual Company)
Handelsbolag (Trading Company)
Aktiebolag (Limited Company)
In an Enskild Firma, you’re on your own. You and your finances are essentially the same as the company’s. You’d typically find this sort of companies for things like a solo artist with a studio space to create their work in.
In a Handelsbolag, you’re several people joining together, but your own finances and the finances of the company is still linked.
In an Aktiebolag, your finances are separate from the company’s. This is also has stocks built in (Aktier = “stocks” in Swedish), and is what most people would think of when thinking of a large company with shareholders and such. Another difference here is that the company is controlled by a Board, with regulations on how to set one up, how often they need to convene etc, further disconnecting a person and the company.
Thing is, it turns out that you can also be (nearly) by yourself in an Aktiebolag. You need (at least) one board member, and one deputy board member. You also need a starting fund for the stocks, which at the time of writing is 25000 SEK.
It used to be twice that, at 50000, but they somewhat recently lowered the amount.
I also want to again stress that I’m not trying to provide an all-encompassing summary of swedish company structures here, but people have asked me what the options were for me, so wanted to bring them up for clarity’s sake. Please research and give long and hard thought into what kind of company would suit you best, should you pursue creating one yourself.
So going over my own situation:
I want to create things by myself, but given the collaborative nature of game development, I want to leave the door open for expansion in the future.
While my previous experience with investors has been thorny, I still know that there are good eggs in that space, and should stars align, I want to make it easy to facilitate getting people on board, which having a Board enables.
While my personal funds were low, I did have enough to provide for the initial captial needed, and the grant would help cover any additional costs that would arise.
Plans to start my own Aktiebolag got underway.
Solidifying ideas
Turns out that when you apply for really any type of grant, the people providing the grant wants a bunch of information on what you will do with the money! Arbetsförmedlingen was, of course, no exception.
Thankfully, they had (still have at time of writing) a collaboration with Nyföretagarcentrum, which has an extremely thorough Business Plan template that you need to fill in and send to Arbetsförmedlingen along with your grant application.
Let me tell you, it took me the better part of 2 weeks to fill in the damn thing, and it ended up 23 pages long for my little company! Had to overcome lots of self-doubt, asking around for clarifications on business terminology, and a ton of iterations and edits in order to end up with something I felt okay with sending in. The research for this template is probably the moment where I learned the most about starting a company in the process leading up to Decaying Games’ creation.
At the same time, you definitely don’t have to fill in all of that to start a company - it’s just to apply for the grant!
Given how much it goes over I won’t go into summarizing it here, but I would suggest taking a look at it and filling out the form just for yourself if you’re thinking about starting your own company for the first time, at least to be able to write down answers to quiestions you didn’t know to think about.
Skipping the few months between hearing about the grant and starting to apply for it, in May 2024 I had now become eligible, and sent it in for consideration at the end of the month. Given summer vacations were right around the corner (in which most of corporate Sweden shuts down), I wasn’t too hopeful that I’d hear back in the early part of the estimated 2-5 weeks, but it was finally time. I had taken the first actual step towards being able to start a company!
2 weeks. Nothing yet. Perfectly reasonable.
Then I get a message that shook things up a bit. The message was from an industry friend, who reached out because they were on the lookout for someone with my set of skills. An incredible opportunity! I was still open for alternatives, so started talking more about the gig.
4 weeks waiting for the grant. Nothing from Arbetsförmedlingen.
Alongside, I continued the discussion about my potential new-found opportunity, and it turned out that they were particularly interested in working with someone with a company of their own. Great!
The job was also planned to start in just over 4 weeks. Shit.
I didn’t mention it earlier, but one of the conditions of the grant was that the company could not have had any activity until the grant was approved (or in the case of an formely established company, no activity for at least 2, maybe 3, years).
I very quickly felt like I was about to get stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Do I wait for the grant, potentially missing out on this awesome gig? Or do I ignore the grant and go for the gig?
The gig would be well-paid, but that money wouldn’t be with me for another few months, and I had bascially no savings left at that point. Everything I still had saved up was planned for the initial required company funds - I would be scraping by on nothing for a few months if I didn’t get the grant!
Either way, one thing was clear: I needed to start setting up the company. Fast.
How to speedrun starting an Aktiebolag by yourself…
…during the height of summer, when most of corporate Sweden is in vacation mode.
Two things needed to happen immediately.
I got in touch with my bank to start the process of opening up a corporate account. This is where the company’s finances had to be handled, and I needed the account set up to place that inital sum of 25000 SEK before the government would approve the company.
I also started the application process on Verksamt.se. This is basically the Swedish government’s web portal for registering and updating the basic info about your company; who is running it, how much revenue is expected this year, what are the primary industries the company will be active in, and more.
Thanks to having filled out that form from earlier, this was mostly a breeze - it was essentially a lot of the same information, just a lot shorter.
What followed was then one of the most stressful months I’ve ever had, despite it mostly being a waiting game!
Another 2 weeks later, now 6 weeks since I had started the grant process, I should’ve heard back the week before!
I was now essentially confirmed for the gig - I just needed the company to get finished setting up! The bank process had thankfully progressed fairly smoothly, and the Verksamt process had moved on to the next step. I wasn’t yet able to get access to the account and transfer the funds needed, so most of what I could do was wait for the process to go through. Any day now.
Then it came. I FINALLY got a reply about the grant process.
Apparently I now needed to participate in an “evaluation session” for my application. It said that I could do it any time within the next five days. Being stressed and under time pressure, I hopped in as soon as I could.
And was met by an AI interviewer.
An AI interviewer who asked extremely simple questions regarding things that was already explained, in excrutiating detail inside my 26-page business plan I had sent them 6 weeks prior. THIS was what I had been waiting for???
Let me tell you, I’m a generally calm and patient person, but I have never once come as close to punching my screen as I was that day.
At this point, I didn’t know how much longer the grant process will take, but I had the gig lined up to start in almost two weeks. After weighing the options, it became clear that I couldn’t take the risk of losing an offer that would ultimately amount to much more than the grant, so I cancelled the grant application process there and then.
And a week or so later, I got the confirmation - the bank had processed my payment, and the government agency had filed all the necessary paperwork.
I was now the founder of Decaying Games AB.
Let’s break down the actual steps I took, without the drama
Have a solid understanding of what company I wanted to make, optimally with a solid plan for how to actually make some revenue. In my case I was a bit optimistic going into it, but it ultimately turned out better than first planned.
Applied for a company registration at Verksamt.se.
As I was making an Aktiebolag, I couldn’t be fully alone - I did need someone else to join me as a deputy board member. I had a small number of people in mind, but my first choice was my little brother, who has run a small business on the side before, and who I trust to be able to take care of things should anything happen to me (which is what the deputy position is for at the very least).
Also, do not make that same mistake I did and put in the most pessimistic estimate for your estimated revenue - initially I ended up going under the minimum amount required to actually get the company set up for registering taxes (F-skatt), which I 100% needed for the gig. Thankfully an updated and more realistic estimate (which also turned out to be pessimistic, more on that later!) was in and got that sorted a week later.
At the same time, I applied for a company account at a bank that fit my needs. I definitely tried making as informed a decision as I could here, since they’re facilitating the funds that makes the company go around.
When the bank had an account set up, I sent in the required starting funds, and got it signed by my contact at the bank, which let the process at Verksamt continue.
A week or so after that, I got a letter detailing the registrated company, along with my own company registration number. Decaying Games AB had been founded!
Writing it out like this, it sounds almost too simple, but I am skipping a lot of the details since they’ll differ a lot based on the type of company created, and what kind of founder constellation it will have.
I also am getting a bit easier a time, being a founder of what’s called a Fåmansföretag (literally translates to “few men company”, but “small business” is what it means), where if you’re 4 or fewer (incl. employees), there are some relaxed rules to alleviate some of the complexity of keeping a company running. Also it’s much easier to distribute the stocks as a solo founder!
The process overall took around 3 weeks, with some additional admin following that to set up things like accounting software and other services like that once the company was in place. That is also NOT including the vast amount of time it took to get to the point of starting to registering the company in the first place!
But that was it. I’d started a company. Now what?
How it’s been going in the 8 months since the start
I got really lucky, y’all.
The gig, the work on which started pretty much immediately after that whole ordeal, has been steadily progressing. I’m still working away on that!
I can’t and won’t go into more detail about the work here, but when I tell you that it has single-handedly managed to blow past any of my own estimates, I mean that it has done so by several orderes of magnitudes. I can’t even begin to express enough how much of a relief that has been for stabilizing the near-future finances for both the company and myself.
Best part is that it’s also a lot of fun!
“But wait!” I hear you say. “Didn’t you need the grant to pay the bills for the first few months of the company??”
Yes, I did.
Until out of nowhere, right before the gig was about to start, a family member reached out after hearing about how the grant process went, and offered to helped by supporting me for the equivalent amount - on the (very reasonable) condition of it being paid back in full when I could repay them.
Today, I only have a small amount of that loan left to pay back, but that fully saved me from reverting back into starving-student-mode for the first few months, if not worse had I not been in a living situation where I’m renting from long-time friends. I likely wouldn’t have been at risk of being thrown out on the street for missing rent, but it still wouldn’t have been a fun time for anyone involved.
Back to the company;
For the first month or two, I had a lot of worry regarding the accounting part of running a company. In my research, I had understood that accounting software takes care of most of the complex thinking and provides helpful suggestions of which fields you need in order to enter any specific kind of purchase or income. Thankfully, being a small business with just one active client and one person handling all things admin (me!), I was able to wrap my head around what to do. At least I think I do - the timing of when I registered the company allowed me to postpone the end of my first fiscal year to the end of 2025, so I still haven’t been through all the usual end-of-year admin work. I have that to look forward to next year!
A few months in, after a few invoices had begun to get paid, I was also able to register myself as an actual employee of the company, allowing me to get a salary again for the first time in almost a year!
There are rules for how I as a founder can extract funds from the company, in order to make sure the correct taxes get paid. I can not just take out payments whenever or however I want, but instead need to approve it through processes like board sessions.
Or, I get a salary as an employee, which was what I decided to do. This way, I also keep getting my social fees paid, making sure I continue supporting and adding to my future retirement fund, amongst other things.
Regarding paying taxes, this is one area where the ‘small business’ part of alleviating the process comes in. Under certain thresholds of revenue, the cadence of when you need to register tax changes. For me, I was easily in the lowest tier, meaning I only needed to worry about declaring tax at the end of my fiscal year. As I registered myself as an employee however, those taxes do need to be registered and paid for each month, so I’ve been doing that.
Additionally, there is a “preliminary tax” that I still need to pay monthly, based on the estimate I sent in to the government during registration. I’m not 100% sure since I haven’t gone through the full fiscal year yet, but I believe that amount is then subtracted from my actual taxes when it’s time to declare them later.
To be clear, declaring/registering taxes and keeping up with the company accounting are two separate things here! I’m as often as possible going over details in the accounting software to make sure I have things properly registered and paid for where things should be, and do things like sending invoices or registering my salary each month — the parts I’ve yet to need to handle is getting all the income- and expenses-related accounting sent to and registered with the tax office, to make sure I’m paying what I should to them!
At least declaring them later was supposed to be the case, until I looked over the finances a few weeks back, and noticed:
“Shit, I’m actually going to hit the next tier of tax cadence soon.”
WHICH IS A GREAT PROBLEM TO HAVE, DON’T GET ME WRONG!
I still haven’t hit it yet, but I contacted the tax office about it then and notified them of wanting to update my cadence in advance, and I actually noticed today that it got through! So, starting in May I’m actually going to be updating the tax office on that every quarter as well!
Which comes back to what I wrote earlier: I’ve been really lucky.
I managed to get a hold of a client project to line up with my company starting, instead of barely scraping by on a minor grant while stressing to push out a commercial game, which was my inital plan.
I was able to avoid personal financial despair for the first few months, thanks to a relative stepping in to save the day.
And all along these first 8 months, I’ve been essentially drip-fed more and more complexity being added to the admin side of things, allowing me to wrap my head around most of the steps at a steady and non-complex pace.
I still have a lot to more to do before I can say that I’ve completed my first “cycle” of company admin, and I’m bound to make or have made some mistakes here and there. But I’m reaching out to relevant parties whenever I do have questions, and I’ve been lucky to have a bunch of connections both inside and outside of my own industry who have gone through similar thing in the past.
I’m able to ask them a lot of my own questions, and I’m hoping this blog post has been able to answer at least some of the questions I’ve gotten sent my way in these past 8 months!
In time, I’ll have more answers to things about this process that are still unkown to me, and I’ll update with more blog posts as that happens.
All the best,
Daniel
P.S. While I’m keeping myself busy with client projects, progress on what is intended to be Decaying Games’ first in-house commercial game release is underway, and more information on that will come here in due time! Please look forward to it!
