Strategy & Money

Funding Need

One of the reasons why this project is moving so slow is because none of us can afford to work on ScienceTales full time. In order to get this project airlifted we need at least a small core team that is. Since everyone has to pay their bills I can’t expect people to work full time for free. Which means we need money for the labor cost of this small team, thus initial funding. We have to be cheapskates about this because we simply won’t get enough in this initial funding stage. Once we’ve finished the alpha and beta version we can apply for more funding and expand the team from a small ‘survival’ scale to a full blown research & development team. In this drawing you can find a first overview of the small core team that I think we need. I will explain their roles + labor cost below the overview and hope to discuss this with you all in our next meeting.

Juliette – €0,- per month

Hiring another full time team member with the money that would otherwise be spend on my paycheck is worth way more so I won’t pay myself anything.

Command, Operations and Sciences Managers & Coördinators- €1.660,- gross per month

Every division needs a full time coördinator that works on strategies, approaches (potential) cooperating partners, works on planning, organises meetups with partners and students and manages the interns that join their division. This is a management position that requires leadership, coordination and communication skills. Although they deserve much more, we can’t afford to pay more than €1.660,- in this initial phase.

Since Sonia is helping me with management already and our collaboration and communication is going smoothly she will take one of these three positions, Command. This means that (once we get the money) there will be 2 open positions people can apply for, Operations and Sciences. For Operations I wish to hire someone with experience in working on game projects – this will probably be a game developer.

Creative Director – €1.660,- gross per month

The Creative Director will be responsible for implementing the knowledge that Sciences acquires in the overall Game design. The creative director sets the overall tone of the project, the design, narrative, types of metaphors etc. Dear Bob, for now I am looking at you to please fulfill this role once we get the money. But we need to discuss whether or not you are in a position to take on this job full time and whether or not you are actually interested. If not, we still need a full time creative director so money-wise this doesn’t change a thing.

Paid Interns – €350 – €500 per month

The paid interns will help the division managers in coördinating everything. They will share their knowledge and collaborate with partners. Example: We will be working with Leiden University and hope to be part of the minor Game Studies as well. This means we will get a pool of students doing ScienceTales research at the university for extra credit. The Sciences manager can’t coördinate all of these pools separately while keeping in touch with collaborating partners and finding new ones at the same time. Thus the Sciences manager will get help from four interns, each of them focussing on a specific research pillar. These paid interns will help with writing the bigger research strategy for their research pillar, do research themselves and will work with the other Sciences interns and manager to combine all of the done research in one big publication. I expect them to work 10-25 hours a week, fluctuating per week depending on their own schedule.

COMMAND Interns:

• Finance
• Business
• Marketing

OPERATIONS Interns:

• Pedagogy
• (3D) Art
• AR Programming

SCIENCES Interns:

• Educational Games/Apps
• Diversity and Representation
• Physics and Metaphors
• Special Education

The green boxed represent collaborating partners like Leiden University, CERN, Pabo, Physics organisations, Business advisors like HUBspot etc.

I want to go for an 18 months timespan. The core team will get an 18 months contract, the intern pool will change every 6 months.

NOTE: Paying the interns €350,- per month is a reasonable fee for an internship. But I rather pay them €500,- per month because of their many responsibilities. This is something I want to discuss with you.

Labor cost based on this strategy: €182.520,-   ~   €209.520,-

Paid core team, 4 members: (€1660 * 4) * 18 months = €119.520,-

Paid Interns, 10, €350: (€350 * 10) * 18 months = €63.000,-

Paid Interns, 10,  €500: (€500 * 10) * 18 months = €90.000,-

Employment contracts: €2.375,- ex. VAT  |  €2.873,75 incl. VAT

Per core team member: €475,- ex VAT

General internship contract: €475,- ex VAT

Insurance & Administration (18 months):  €7.094,16 ex. VAT   |   €8.583,93 incl. VAT

Absenteeism & Sickness Insurance: €324,12 per month, ex. VAT

Personnel Administration: €5,- ex VAT per month per employee, core team (4)  + interns (10)

General Administrative cost (18 months): €6.719,58   ~   €8.130,69

Notary cost (limited company & holding): €1800,- ex. VAT

Financial Administration (Exact Online): €61,- ex. VAT per month

Accountant (Verstraten): €200,- ex. VAT per month

Business Account (Rabobank): €12,31 ex. VAT per month

TOTAL LABOR COST

191. VAT €191.989,16   ~    €218.989,16

incl. VAT €193.977,68   ~    €220.977,68

TOTAL ADMINISTRATIVE COST

6. VAT €6.719,58

incl. VAT €8.130,69

TOTAL COST (18 MONTHS)

Incl. VAT €202.108,37   ~   €229.108,37

Depending on the internship fee.

Excluding software, hardware, other team members we will need, freelancers, expert advice, my own salary, offices, more needed insurances etc. This is what we need for just a small and steady full time core team, to get started.

Potential Sources of Funding

• Gulliver Student Entrepreneur Competition (www.gulliver.nl)
• Philips Innovation Awards (www.phia.nl)
• Enterprise Leiden Fund (https://luris.nl/for-academics/entrepreneurship-start-ups-and-spin-offs/funding-instruments-enterprise-leiden-fund-uniiq)
• Kredietunie Haarlemmermeer (https://www.kredietuniehaarlemmermeer.nl/)
• Leiden Onderwijs Innovatie Subsidie (https://gemeente.leiden.nl/over-de-stad/onderwijs/onderwijsvernieuwing/)
• Stimuleringsfonds, Digitale Cultuur (https://stimuleringsfonds.nl/nl/subsidies/deelregeling_digitale_cultuur/)
• Horizon 2020
  (http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2018-2020/main/h2020-wp1820-swfs_en.pdf   &      http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/funding/reference_docs.html#h2020-work-programmes-2018-20 )
• Interesting: Luris course on Horizon 2020 (https://www.staff.universiteitleiden.nl/events/2017/series/h2020-academy?cf=law&cd=fdr-board-office)

How to get involved

As you can see I have to do a lot or writing in order to get all the money we need. But if I do my job good enough we might be able to gather even more money than hoped, thus hire more people. I expect to do all the writing by myself because this is a lot of (often boring) work. But if you do wish to help you are more than welcome and I will work out a planning and corresponding writing schedule.