Noodling/Startup RPG
Overview
Startup themes as framework for PC-run orgs (probably criminal orgs).
Business Plan
As part of game setup, choose a business plan for the organization. This isn't necessarily the long-term business of the campaign (consider how amazon went from selling books to providing core distributed-system components) but it's likely to inform a lot of at least the initial themes. Business plans are built on market inefficiencies - places where resources aren't being exploited fully, or aren't being used efficiently, or where there's a demand that's not satisfied. Examples: a company formed to plunder ancient tombs in the northern flatlands, a band of rogues who've decided the dragontooth gang have lost their grip on their territory and can be muscled out, a cabal of wizards who get together to sell portable magic for home entertainment. In all these cases the ultimate goal of the business plan is to acquire money; you can imagine variants where the goal is to acquire political power or mana or souls or something, but this writeup is done with the premise that money is the point and the currency that things cost to buy and that the organization takes in when successful.
Lifecycle
Generally speaking, things start out with just a couple of people and a business plan. From there they need an MVP, funding, and initial employees, not necessarily in that order. With funding and employees the MVP grows into a more significant product. At some point here competition starts to notice the organization and needs to be dealt with. Around the same time, there are internal issues to be dealt with as the product and organization scales up: how does the model get refined to manage 10x customers or resources, how to hire enough quality employees, how much attention to devote to long-term planning vs immediate demands. As the organization matures, it tends to widen its focus, producing companion products to its main driver and sometimes moving into very different spaces, either for circumstantial or strategic reasons. Often the original founders will leave as the organization no longer suits their taste or skillset, but in any case the organization tends to both grow and ossify. Eventually it stabilizes and growth becomes minimal, and it continues along until it's taken down by some new, scrappier organization.
MVP
The minimum viable product, in this document, is the first serious attempt to do whatever the business plan is: the first tomb raid, the first showdown with the dragontooth gang, whatever. I t probably gets played through in more detail than later versions.
Funding
Organizations need outside funding when the next objective on their business plan requires more resources than they can currently purchase with their organizational income. In some cases funding might be required right from the start - perhaps it's impossible to seize any significant territory from the dragonstooth gang without hiring at least a dozen bravos, because you can't safely hold less than a city block. In other cases the organization might be self-funding for a while (by, say, robbing one tomb at a time and selling the loot) but needs funding to expand (raiding two tombs at once requires hiring another crew, or maybe some complicated equipment is required to cart the expensive statues out of the tombs for sale, or maybe the better tombs are protected by more powerful curses than can currently be handled by the organization). There are a couple common sources of funding:
Self Funding
Self funding is when the founding characters bring their own money into the organization. This isn't usually interesting story-wise but it's usually plausible for people who are established and successful in their careers already (at least, plausible early on; later in an organization's lifecycle the accumulated wealth of a couple individuals is unlikely to be able to pay for much unless the individuals are unusually wealthy).
Angel Investors and VCs
For purposes of this writeup, angel investors are individual people who give you their personal money, and VCs are individuals who represent a group and give the group's money. They're similar but getting money from an angel investor tends to be more about appealing personality-wise (and secondarily they may have some business concerns) and getting money from a VC tends to be more about presenting a solid business case. In either case, these are active investors - they don't just give you the money, they expect to have some say-so in the direction of the organization and be kept informed (for instance, they might want you to hire somebody as a favor to a friend, or oppose some group). They may also be helpful other than financially, providing connections or advice. Example angel investors: eccentric noble willing to give some money to anyone who flatters him; crochety wizard funding things that might aid her search for eternal life; retired but still canny rogue looking for some safe investments. Example VC groups (remember there's a small number of associated individuals you have to talk to personally to get money): guild of alchemists, mafia analogue, temple of truth.
IPO
There were stock markets as early as the 1600s, so in some cases the IPO target can be an actual IPO (for purposes of this document, that would be selling some shares on the public market for the first time and receiving a bunch of cash as a result). But for other kinds of organizations an IPO doesn't really make sense (eg, the group of rogues taking over the underworld scenario). For game purposes an IPO is an event that can only happen once to the organization, results in a large influx of cash, requires the agreement of existing powerful organizations, and changes to some extent the rules by which the organization is run. You can imagine alternatives that fit this but they're likely to be setting- and organization-specific: admittance to the Hall of Guilds, a royal license to produce something, acquisition of a noble patron.
Employees and Company Culture
In the early stages of an organization, employees tend to be quirky in some respect - usually if they have a standard background, standard skillset, and standard personality then they get a standard job (which pays more than joining an early-stages org, and is less risky). Furthermore, the environment favors generalists and people who are good at producing slapdash solutions that mostly work and then improvising (note that this is exactly typical PCs). As the organization matures, it can afford specialists and can afford to compete salary-wise with established jobs so it tends to pick up more standard employees. Further, most organizations have a hard time managing large groups of quirky people (in small orgs differences are negotiated by 1-on-1 personal communications; in large orgs they're negotiated by rules which treat people in a standard way), and fast-but-slapdash solutions get less effective the larger the structure being built on top of them. Often a few early cultural elements get codified, though, and things which were once done out of necessity continue to be done as a remembrance of the early days (eg, desks in the merchant's guild offices are still made out of repurposed wagon-beds, even though this is actually more hassle and expense than normal desks).
Specialists
There are a few basic reasons for hiring a specialist: because it's more efficient to have two groups focusing on two separate things than to have one group focusing on both; because they can enable things that otherwise couldn't be done at all; or because they make other people in the organization more effective. Example: when a thieves' guild first forms, all the members can work any of the jobs. But as the guild gets larger and picks more complex targets, it might be more effective to have some of the people specialize in acrobatic training and some in sleight of hand, because the highly-skilled acrobats can get into windows by themselves that would otherwise have required three generalists to form a tower to reach. Or perhaps the guild decides to keep a wizard on staff to do magical detection of acquired items, allowing new types of jobs to be taken. Or perhaps the guild hires a famous but retired lock-picker to train the new members. Note that in most cases, to make it worth hiring a specialist the organization has to be a certain size - it's not worth the trainer's salary to have them just train two people, and if the guild has only one opportunity to acquire a magical item per year, it's not worth having a wizard around full-time.
Contractors
Contractors - paid by the individual job and without a long-term arrangement with the organization - can be an important substitute for hiring specialists, especially in the early stages. Compared to employees, contractors tend to be quicker to adapt to new situations and better able to hit the ground running, but also they tend to stick more rigorously to their assigned area and have fewer care for longer-term consequences. Example: a contract locksmith might open a lock none of the employees are able to, but might not notice or care that it's a goblin-forged lock on a chest nominally recovered from a dwarven tomb.
Growth
As mentioned above, organizations can grow in a few ways: by doing more of what they're currently doing; by moving up or down the production chain; or by moving into related areas. Doing more of what they're currently doing - eg, opening more factories, improving the efficiency of existing factories, or selling crossbows with a 60-foot close range instead of a 50-foot one - is the easiest but also usually runs out the quickest. Moving up or down the production chain is expanding into the areas of organizations you currently buy from or sell to - the smith's guild decides to buy an iron mine or a weapon shop. Finally, moving into related areas is taking the organization's existing skillset and using it to make a new product, like a bow manufacturer starts producing stringed instruments. In some cases the skillset being ported is one that wasn't directly public-facing before: a group of messengers realizes they have acquired good skills at horse purchasing and training, and decides to start selling the horses to the public. When the company grows into a new area and leaves the old area completely behind, this is often called "pivoting" - usually it's only doable in early stage companies that can completely abandon a product.
Reasons for Growth
On the face of it the reasons for growth seem obvious ("to make more money"), but the reasons for what growth actually occurs are often quite complicated. One reason for wanting to increase efficiency can be strategic - the organization might determine there's an opportunity to sell to a larger audience but that requires a lower price-point, and that in turn requires an increase in efficiency to keep the product profitable (or perhaps it's not that the price needs to be lower but simply that there's only a limited supply of resources available at any price, and so they have to be used more efficiently to produce more product). Competition can similarly force price drops and drive for efficiency, and it can also force growth as a defensive move - if the merchant's guild is taking over all of the weapon shops and setting new rates, the smith's guild might have to open up its own shops to protect future profit margins and break the monopsony. Finally, mergers and acquisitions may cause the organization to expand into unexpected areas - the thieves' guild takes over a casino to control the gambling business, and then unexpectedly finds themselves with a catering business as well. They might decide to sell it off, but it can be hard to find a buyer; or shutter it, but that is wasting money; or they might decide it synergizes with their existing interests (say, casing noble houses) enough to make it worth keeping and event expanding.
Mergers & Acquisitions
As mentioned above, mergers can lead to the company expanding into unexpected areas. They can also lead to internal friction - after a merger there are two company cultures that have to be merged, there may be redundant personnel (perhaps there's only a need for one of the two trainers) or resources (two guild-houses?), and yet the leadership tends to want things to continue as before without any stumbles. Politics here can be sharp and swift - it's not at all unheard of to have a plan of succession on one day and two days later the previously-annointed successor is gone and someone from the other company is in charge.
Cooperation and Competition
However it grows, the organization will never be completely self-sufficient: there will always be things it chooses to do in-house and things it chooses to outsource (some people say "build vs buy" is the core question that needs to be answered by the business plan). Organizations that do the same thing as you or compete for the same resources are competitors; organizations that do things you outsource are cooperators. The first implication here is the same organization can both compete and cooperate; the next is that the state of things may change as you and they grow.
How you deal with a competitor depends on a number of things. There's a maxim that you need to be 10x better to displace an established competitor, so if this is a new market area and your organization was the first to start exploiting it, then there may not be any point to wasting time fighting competitors - it's better to outrun them in the race to get large enough to be the main organization in the space. On the other hand, if there's a large existing player and you're trying to displace them, you have to spend a lot of time laser-focused on them - identify their weaknesses and the specific areas in which you intend to compete, and don't let up - any territory that you gain will have to be taken from someone else by force. Finally, if there are many competitors, you generally can't afford to fight each of them, but you still need to fight to gain territory. The smart thing to do may be to move to a different market, but if that can't be done, then consider finding some competitors to ally with and gain scale to conquer the rest.
With cooperators, you need to take the long-term view of the relationship. Do you expect to eventually move into the space yourself once you can afford the growth? Do you need them to be a strong partner for the future? Do you expect that they'll be fought by their own competition, and you're happy to ally with whoever's the victor or can offer you the best deal? Thinking about these questions can help determine if you want to try to deepen the relationship to make long-term alliances or learn more about their business, or keep things a little more aloof and stay nimble.
