Thanks VentureBeat for featuring Atomic Scaling in his article! 

I had the occasion to share thoughts and ideas about Atomic Scaling core framework: keeping team small, building great relationships and add value. 

Read the trascription here:

Ludovic Bodin is a familiar figure in gaming and investing circles. And he has written a new book, Atomic Scaling: How small teams can achieve huge growth. Much of it draws from lessons in gaming.

He founded Atomic Scaling as a company in 2020. Before that, he was an investor in companies such as Hopium, Asian Innovations Group, Lila Games, Chiliz and more. He was managing director of Kalibrio and was CEO of Cmune, a free-to-play social gaming company, for 11 years.

I wrote frequently about his company’s endeavors more than a decade ago as he was breaking into free-to-play social gaming as the head of Cmune. Now he has written about how gaming has come of age, as gaming has outperformed nearly other industries for the last two decades.

And he says the things he has learned about the 3P3R method and “atomic scaling,” or building products with small teams, can be applied to any organization. The Beijing resident has also invested in companies in entertainment, fintech, hydrogen-powered vehicles, e-commerce, AI service companies, and a longevity company. Some have hit the unicorn level, with a valuation over $1 billion.

“Atomic Scaling is inspired by a European or New Zealander mindset, which is about creating something beautiful, nurturing it, and allowing it to illuminate the world,” Bodin said. “In contrast to the Silicon Valley concept of blitzscaling, with blitzscaling emphasizing rapid and massive growth in terms of size and workforce, Atomic Scaling focuses on exponential growth while keeping the team size as small as possible.”

 Origins

Bodin said in an email to GamesBeat that his journey began in France, but his curiosity and entrepreneurial endeavors took him to Canada, Latin America, California, and China.

About fifteen years ago, after successfully founding and selling two e-commerce ventures in Europe and Asia, he ventured into the gaming sector during a period of rapid transformation, marked by the rise of social and free-to-play games.

For Atomic Scaling, Bodin examined the successes of games and companies such as Supercell, Boom Beach, Rovio, Angry Birds, Valve, Counter-Strike, Activision, Guitar Hero, Century Games, Zepto Lab, Cut The Rope, ESL, Yodo1, Lila Games, and Twitch. He also looked at startup investors like Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, A16z, bestselling authors from books like SmartTribes, Alibaba: the house Jack Ma built, The Almanach of Naval Navichant, Scaling Up, and The Idea Book.

He traces his ideas around Atomic Scaling back to a cold morning breakfast in January 2013 in Helsinki, Finland, with Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell. As a French entrepreneur managing a video game company with teams across Asia and business operations in Silicon Valley, he was on a fundraising trip.

“I started sharing with Ilkka the challenges of scaling and team productivity. Ilkka suggested focusing on enhancing the efficiency of our existing team instead of expanding it,” Bodin said. “This piece of advice, though simple, initiated a profound transformation in my approach to business growth and team management. It set me on a path of deep reflection and investigation, connecting with leaders across the gaming industry and beyond.

Supercell has generated billions of dollars, but it has done so with small teams, and it still has a few hundred people today.

“Over the years, as I invested in startups and watched my friends turn their companies into unicorns, the significance of Ilkka’s advice became increasingly clear,” Bodin said. “These experiences, combined with the broader lessons learned from the gaming industry, gradually shaped the foundation of Atomic Scaling. It embodies the journey from recognizing the potential of small teams in achieving exponential growth to the realization that the strategies employed in the gaming sector have broad applicability across various industries.”

The core principle of “Atomic Scaling” is that small teams, equipped with the appropriate approach and mindset, can achieve significant impact. The book examines strategies for leveraging technology, effective cooperation, and developing a culture that facilitates rapid growth, through a blueprint we created, named the 3P3R framework. It involves maximizing available resources with AI and automation, and expanding the limits of scalability while maintaining the team’s size as small as possible for as long as possible.

The essence of Atomic Scaling is to remain as lean as possible (“Atomic”) while maximizing financial growth (“Scaling”). At the heart of Atomic Scaling lie three foundational pillars: People, Prediction, and Playbook.

“This approach is more than a collection of ideas; it’s a structured system designed to guide entrepreneurs through the intricacies of scaling their businesses efficiently,” he said.

Meanwile, the framework expands into the 3P3R model, which includes Reach, Retention, and Revenue—key components essential for the growth of any venture.

“This framework not only steers my investment choices but also helps in spotting patterns that lead to success. It offers a toolkit for achieving maximum impact with minimal resources, illustrating how small teams can attain significant expansion,” he said.

Bodin compares the strategy to playing a game.

“Your mission is to grow your empire (scale) while maintaining a lean and efficient army (stay atomic). The game rewards clever strategy over brute force. You’ll find secrets and power-ups hidden throughout the game, representing partnerships, community management, live operations, and freemium models that help boost your empire’s growth without increasing your army size,” he said.

Bodin also took a lot of inspiration from Valve, whose cofounder Gabe Newell had a significant influence on him.

Future trends and predictions

As for the future, Bodin said gaming companies have been at the forefront of AI innovation for decades, pioneering some of the most memorable moments in AI history, like IBM’s Deep Blue defeating Garry Kasparov in chess or AlphaGo’s victory in Go.

“Given their expertise in creating automated systems, like designing games, and comfort in large data and AI, individuals deeply rooted in the gaming world are poised to lead this charge. They’re not just the underdogs of the tech world anymore; they’re set to revolutionize industries with AI-driven strategies, potentially creating highly successful companies with minimal staff,” Bodin said.