Win The Week: Entrepreneurial Lessons From the Great Video Game Founder Jordan Mechner

The best part about running a storytelling publication is that people share with us their top secrets for leading a successful creative career — and we steal them! In this newsletter, we pass on some actionable insights from our interview subjects to ramp up your productivity, make your ideas happen, and tackle the workweek with a focused mindset.?

This week, Jordan Mechner the artist and designer behind of one of the world’s most iconic video games, Prince of Persia, shares three ways he navigated hard moments in his entrepreneurial career. Use these insights to refresh your thinking if you’re coming up hard against rejection, facing doubt and uncertainty, or struggling to finance your endeavors.

1. Look for the Upside in Rejection: In his 20s, Mechner wrote a screenplay and, in the middle of making Prince of Persia, he spent eight months chasing his Hollywood dream. He landed an agent and producer and got “distracted almost to the point of not finishing Prince of Persia because of it,” says Mechner. His screenplay never got picked up, so he applied to film school at NYU. He got rejected there, too. The upside? He could devote all of his time and effort to making the video game, which he did.
2. No Money? No Worries: In 1985, making a video game was typically a one-person operation, and Mechner didn’t really have a production budget. So he did the honorable thing and wrangled family members to participate. "I had him running, jumping, and climbing in the Reader’s Digest parking lot across the street from our high school," says Mechner, who filmed his brother’s movements and used them in the game
3. If You’re Going to Bet Big, Place It On Yourself: After graduation, Mechner weighed an important decision: He could go work for Br?derbund Software as a salaried employee and earn a healthy income in return for Br?derbund owning the rights to whatever games he made, including Prince of Persia. Or, he could go about as an independent contractor and strike a publishing deal with Br?derbund. He chose the latter, which provided some cash to live on and the chance to own the copyright to Prince of Persia and 15 percent of all royalties.

Read our full interview with Jordan Mechner here to learn more about the real game — the game of long odds.