Dutch Game Garden Incubation Program

Building a startup program from scratch

At Dutch Game Garden I set up the incubation program from the ground up. There was no structure, no participants, no content. I designed a new format where studios no longer had to be on-site, but instead came together once a month. I invited industry speakers and developed workshops on entrepreneurship.

Together with the teams we created the StartUp Skill Tree: a large mindmap covering everything you need to think about when starting a game company. Over two years, more and more studios joined the program. Alongside the incubation work, we recorded many interviews and hosted monthly networking lunches that attracted 150–200 professionals.

After two years I passed the torch to the next manager, as I set off on a long bike trip from Beijing to Utrecht.