We’ve ramped up quickly and now employ 36 full time people, including developers, artists, analysts, support, and more. N00b lunches were frequent and for much of the year we were adding a new employee each week. During the Summer we had some awesome weekly grillouts and played a lot of volleyball and Frisbee. We had a ton of fun (especially Halloween), and for Christmas everyone got a Wii.

In the world of Parallel Kingdom, we completed a number of milestones. We cleared 500,000 players in June, and we celebrated 1,000 days of gameplay in July. Much of the year was spent focusing on making Parallel Kingdom the best location based RPG in the world. We saw a lot of success and are now closing in on 1 million players. We were a finalist for Best Mobile Game in the Mashable Awards, rated as one of the top 10 Best Mobile MMOs, and also rated as a top 10 Best Cross-platform Multiplayer Mobile Game.

Parallel Kingdom held a number of innovative in-game events throughout the year. We introduced virtual Trick or Treating where players could go house to house and collect candy – or potentially spawn a dangerous Monster. We covered the world in virtual snow that could be used to throw snowballs or build snow forts. We even provided over 3,000 real world meals to children and families in need through in-game Thanksgiving and African famine relief charity drives.

Our CEO Justin Beck spoke at TEDxMadtown where he gave a talk on social games and virtual currencies. Justin also gave a presentation at this year’s Forward Technology Conference, and presented his College 101 advice to freshman engineers at the UW. Brand Director Forrest Woolworth was on a panel about entrepreneurship at the Wisconsin Science Festival, and Justin and Forrest anchored another entrepreneurship panel at the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium.

We participated in Accelerate Madison, helped organize and sponsor Build Madison, were part of numerous UW campus events, and even organized a holiday board games drive to benefit area hospitals. We attended conferences all over the world, including the main GDC in San Francisco, GDC Europe, and GDC China. Justin was even selected to present the PerBlue story at the 2012 GDC in San Francisco.

We definitely had an exciting 2011, and we have a lot more exciting things in store for 2012. Follow along on the PerBlue Blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

“The way I see my CEO role of a bootstrapped business is you do anything that the company needs. Whatever bridge is burning at the moment is what you need to put your focus in so the whole company doesn’t fold,” says Beck.

Check out the full article here.

Read the full post here.

What does Silicon Valley have a lot of? Churn. Entrepreneurs found a company then move on to work at another company as a VP or create another company. Then they move on to be an angel investor to other companies. While churn can be particularly annoying for an employer, it is ultimately good for the community as a whole. When people get too settled or stagnant, they become unproductive and there is no cross pollination of ideas or proactive growing.

The best form of success for an entrepreneur is to create churn. We need to inspire passion for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs need to instill their own lessons learned along the way to early stage employees. The ability to look past the P&L statements and the sunk costs of losing an employee in order to inspire other entrepreneurs will allow us to create more churn within the community and drive real value into Madison.

To find out more about churn and why it’s important, read Justin’s full post on the topic here.

We’ll be participating one-on-one with students to discuss the success and challenges we face every day as entrepreneurs. After dinner, students team up to brainstorm new business ideas, and then give 2 minute pitches to Justin and Chris.

The event is Wednesday, October 19th from 5 until 8PM. Dinner is free for UW-Platteville students, and will be held at Ullsvik Hall in the Nohr Gallery. Registration is open for students, but space is limited.

During the campaign, players of PerBlue’s popular MMORPG game, Parallel Kingdom (PK) purchased the Soup Can Hat – a limited edition in-game object – using virtual currency. The hat was available for two weeks in September and sold for 550 ‘Food’, and a portion of the contribuions were then turned into real meal vouchers for SOS Children relief efforts in Kenya.

Check out the full release here and view the InfoGraphic.

Local filmmaker and entrepreneur John Roach will lead a panel discussion featuring Madison-area entrepreneurs, exploring the themes of startup culture, innovation and creativity. Meet UW entrepreneurs from all fields, hear about their successes and failures, and learn what’s next on the horizon for them. After the panel, stay for a free screening of “The Social Network,” the 2010 hit movie charting the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

The event will be held at the Town Center of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

Startup Chile is a program started by the Chilean government to attract entrepreneurs to the country and ultimately increase local entrepreneurial activity. The program provides companies with a $40,000 subsidy, office space, visas, and more. Companies must operate from Chile for 6 months. Startup Chile has attracted a lot of press, and has established Chile as the entrepreneurial hotspot of South America.

Back in the US, President Obama recently announced Startup America, an initiative to “celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation.”

“Entrepreneurs embody the promise of America: the idea that if you have a good idea and are willing to work hard and see it through, you can succeed in this country. And in fulfilling this promise, entrepreneurs also play a critical role in expanding our economy and creating jobs.”
-President Barack Obama

The initiatives of Startup America are a great start, but could also having a program similar to Startup Chile (that provides subsides and support directly to startups) help even more in attracting and creating new startups at the local level (particularly in Madison)? Could we pull off a Startup Madison and establish Madison as even more of a startup hotspot?