For 13 years, EndGame has partnered with globally minded founders to build SaaS products and companies.  We've done this because we're passionate about software and business, we love the impact that software can have to change the world for good and SaaS is an awesome business model for achieving that.

It's a lot of fun working with founders in so many industries - finTech, health, IoT, compliance, film, professional services.  We've often invested in our customers and we've learned a heck of a lot about the journey of building SaaS companies and products.  It's not easy.

This year, we have been refining our core focus.  We're huge fans of Traction which defines your core focus as... "The core focus combines UVP, primary market and core strengths into a single statement that is clear, and we keep our people, systems, and processes aligned and focused on it.”

As a business, our purpose and values are our North Star, but they don't say anything about what we do or who we do it for.  Our purpose is to empower innovative people and their ideas to change the world for good.  Our values guide our behaviours as a team.  A core focus talks about what we do, not why or how.

So what is our core focus?

We do SaaS! We partner with globally minded SaaS founders and provide their Virtual Product Team. The team is often led by a product manager, who is able to engage with the founder on the product strategy and then lead a team to develop the SaaS product and take care of the entire lifecycle of the product.

As we were exploring this idea (with the help of NZs best brand agency), we love the understated simplicity of the statement "We do SaaS".  It's what we've done for 13 years, across 40+ startups and tens of millions of dollars of investment. It also explains why we love being an agency as opposed to just building our own SaaS company. We get to work across so many SaaS founders/businesses, commercialising a variety of technology, turning good ideas into solutions and doing the really hard bit... finding that illusive product/market fit.

We also love Wellington, so we were looking for a way to visualise what we do in an illustration. Our illustration portrays the three core services that EndGame offers our customers:

Product Strategy

All companies and products start with a vision. Someone sees the big picture long before it exists and is able to lead a team of people in turning the vision into reality. We love working with visionary founders who will always own the vision. Our Virtual Product Teams are led by a variety of people who have the capability to see the big picture and be able to define the steps that will get us there.

Vision is the view you get from the top of a hill - in this case, Mt Kaukau.  The view out over Wellington is awesome (on a good day) and helps remind me of what really matters.  Strategy is how we turn this into reality ... add curiosity, determination, humility and discipline - and anything is possible!

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Product Lifecycle

A product serves the community best when it is healthy. Our lifecycle team ensures the health and wellbeing of all our SaaS products.

Lifecycle is the harbour and the Cook Straight, which wrap around Wellington.  Just like the harbour, lifecycle wraps around SaaS development - starting long before a line of code is written, through to deploying it into a production environment and monitoring the performance and metrics. Good lifecycle sets the team up to rapidly build-measure-learn.

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Product Development

Building software is at the heart of what we do and our core principle is to build customer driven, long lived solutions that are both sturdy and maintainable.  Working software is not enough, it has to be written to be changed easily and safely, and that requires architecture, structure and verification disciplines to be adhered to.

Development is represented in our illustration by the Majestic Centre - Wellington's tallest building.  The majestic is special to me.  While I studied at Vic Uni, I gazed down on it daily.  While I was in the Creative HQ incubator, I gazed up at it daily.  From the start of EndGame, I've had three photos on my desk (sorry family ... not you), a photo from the majestic looking to Mt Kaukau, one looking to the harbour and one looking to the community.

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The Majestic represents the "human made" part of our illustration.

From our office (and from my home) in Wellington, Mt Kaukau is due north and in any business, we have to know what our North Star is.

With the help of Ocean Design, we've captured our North Star in this brand story which combines our purpose, values, strategy and our core focus.

At EndGame, we believe that innovative people and their ideas have the power to change the world for good. That’s why we exist — to empower those people with the technology they need to grow and succeed.

Our core focus is simple: We Do SaaS exceptionally well. We’re passionate about product strategy, product lifecycle, and product development, and we’re committed to helping the founders of globally minded New Zealand and Australian businesses build successful SaaS products through our virtual product teams.

Our team is made up of highly skilled professionals who are dedicated to push boundaries and continuously improve. We work collaboratively with our clients, getting to know their businesses and goals so we can provide flexible solutions that meet their unique needs.

We believe in partnerships, not just transactions. Our goal is to be a true partner to our clients, investing in their success and helping them achieve their goals. We know that building a successful SaaS business is not easy, but we’re here to help every step of the way.

At EndGame, we’re not just a software company — we’re a team of SaaS innovators, technologists and problem-solvers, who are passionate about making a difference. We’re here to help businesses grow, succeed, and ultimately change the world for good.

So, what's your core focus?  If you'd like help refining it then I can recommend the book Traction and the good people at Ocean Design.  

If your core focus involves building a SaaS product, then we can help!  Let's chat over a coffee or zoom call... hello@end-game.com