In 2005, a popular video game "Guitar Hero" (Guitar Hero) , among the best-selling list in the history of video games. Five years after its launch, Guitar Hero has sold at least 45 million copies. The driving force behind this popular game is the two brothers , Charles Huang and Kai Huang , co-founders of Red Octane . Huang Zhongkai and Huang Zhongyan are both serial entrepreneurs. As early as 1998, when the Internet business was booming in Silicon Valley, the two founded Adux Software, a server appliance software. In 1999, Huang Zhongkai and his brother decided to start a business for the second time, co-founding Red Octane. During the six years of starting the business, they experienced three pivots. Huang Zhongkai said, "No matter how many times you start a business, starting a business is never easy! The questions you want to do at the beginning are often completely different from the ones that will eventually succeed." Riding on the popularity of "Dance Dance Revolution" (DDR) , they established the world's first online game rental service Webgamezone . When consumers rent dance games, they also want to rent dance mats.
Unexpectedly, this demand is Red Octane creates new business models. They started researching the best products on the market, working with Chinese manufacturers to develop the best quality dance mats, and the company took a second turn, selling video game accessories. Homemade dance mats were so popular that Red Octane transformed itself into a video game publisher in 2004, releasing its first game, In The Groove, a dance game. In 2005, the second product "Guitar Hero" wedding photo retouching services was launched, which met the Christmas holiday as soon as it was launched. It sold 150,000 copies in the first holiday, and the game eventually became the best-selling game in the United States. Software and hardware integration, the time required for hardware manufacturing is beyond imagination Red Octane not only sells music games, but also sells it together with homemade guitar accessories. The software and hardware integration experience of "Guitar Hero" can be used by newcomers in Taiwan. Huang Zhongkai pointed out,
"The biggest challenge of hardware and software integration is that the time required for hardware manufacturing is beyond imagination. In my experience, it often takes 2 to 3 times longer than expected!" He explained that the time process for hardware manufacturing is not as simple as that for software, which often takes months to go from hardware design, prototyping, to manufacturing a product. After the hardware is manufactured, there is a way to integrate the software and hardware for the first time to test the feasibility of the software. If the hardware needs to be modified, it has to go through the design and manufacturing process again, making the integration of software and hardware extremely challenging! Therefore, Huang Zhongkai suggested that "design for manufacturing" is very important, and a balance must be found between the design in mind and the best way to manufacture products. If the entrepreneur has no experience in hardware manufacturing, it is difficult to create a simple and cost-effective product. He also suggested that you should seek cooperation with hardware manufacturers that have made similar products in order to reduce the gap in expectations.