Nanobit is a story that grew from a local, Croatian environment into a global attraction, carefully following international trends and current affairs in the competitive world of games and technology. Their conquest of the American market stunned the entire business community, and the company’s special business breakthrough—related to a collaboration with Netflix—is further proof that the development of the gaming industry in Croatia, and beyond its borders, is booming.
“If you are not growing, if you are stagnating, it is quite difficult to achieve the price you want, and it’s also a challenge to keep people and retain talent,” pointed out Alan Sumina, co-founder and CEO of Nanobit in a 1-on-1 conversation entitled “the worst is when others praise you”, with Nikola Sučec, business editor of tportal.hr, commenting on the moment when the company was sold to the Swedish group Stillfront for almost one billion kuna. “You can make the best product in the world, but for good sales, the stars have to align,” added the ambitious tech entrepreneur.
Nanobit does not follow the typical IT segment that requires a huge number of developers. “It is necessary to bring together several different professions in the same room. Here I mean developers, artists, game designers, story writers, marketing experts, and analysts,” said Sumina, adding that the initiators of gaming strategies are not exclusively gamers, but rather a wide spectrum of professionals, which is not typical for the rest of the IT sector in Croatia.
Nanobit managed to break into the global market thanks to a high level of awareness that the same product would not achieve the same results in all countries. “It’s a question of culture. It does not mean that everything that works in the USA will work in Germany. In addition, it is very complex to reach the end consumer because we are surrounded by the monopoly of several IT giants that dominate the entire world, but there are channels through which it is possible to market content and place ads,” said Sumina.
Precisely because of the demands of the market and economic turbulence, state and corporate systems should not teach people that at any moment, especially after graduation, they must be ready to conquer the world and advance in their chosen professions, explained the Croatian gaming leader. It’s not enough just to talk about potential, you must know how to realize it: “In Croatia, we have a lot of individuals who do not know how to make a concrete business breakthrough and they get stuck. This happens despite having a good idea and initial success. Distribution is the biggest trap here. That is why it is necessary to have people with experience who know how to take the next step,” concluded Sumina.
