At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital, Belka Games VP of business development Yuriy Krasilnikov about growing the company from 30 to 300 employees.

Krasilnikov started by identifying three ways the company grew the company, beginning with a new strategy for growth, including a new company culture "built on the foundation of the old one" which involved taking an individual approach to each new employee, and keeping all lines of communication open between all team members.

Operational improvements, such as using a data-driven approach to updating games and regularly preparing for updates, also played a part in the studio's growth.

Quality and quantity

Belka also spends a long time on QA to ensure games aren't released with technical problems, and keeps an eye on current game trends so they're always in the loop.

The studio then turned to its marketing strategy, diversifying its UA channels and using high-quality creatives to acquire users and focusing on ROI-based UA campaigns.

As for business development, Krasilnikov pointed to a data-driven approach and creating long-term relationships with partners as ways to ensure you get featured by the app stores, along with making sure the biz dev team is working closely with the product team and playing the games regularly so they better understand the product they're working on.

Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from September 14th to the 18th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place throughout the week here.