Do you play games? I do. I usually play strategy games that offer educational value, such as business building and investing. One of the most recent business games apps I have played is Capital City: The Finance & Strategy Game (read my review here.)
Capital City is essentially a business strategy game that aim to both entertain and educate gamers on business/property investment assessment and decision making. The end goal? Be financial independent by having your passive income generated from your business, properties and stocks greater than your expenses.
Sounds familiar? You bet! Indeed, Capital City is one of the games in Rich Dad Suite of Apps and Games. Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad company? Yes, you are correct.
In fact, in this article, I would like to share with you a little Q&A session I did with Robert Kiyosaki, a best-selling author, prolific investor and successful entrepreneur. Truly a priceless opportunity, as Mr. Kiyosaki is one of the mentors I follow, who is responsible in guiding my entrepreneurial journey.
In this Q&A, we talked specifically about Capital City and the app business in general. So, if you are interested in starting an app business, this Q&A is for you!
Without further adieu, here is the Q&A:
Ivan Widjaya (Q): I read almost every Rich Dad book you release and play almost all versions of Cashflow games. Capital City is the latest addition to my list. In my opinion, the game app is intriguing as it tries to combine Monopoly and your classic Cashflow concepts – quite successfully, I think. Can you tell us what’s the idea behind Capital City?
Robert Kiyosaki (A): Thank you for your kind words. Capital City was created to bring the Rich Dad message to a new audience. In order to reach more people, I try to simplify the path and keep it fun, entertaining, experiential, and unforgettable. At the heart, that’s what a good teacher does. I think the best way to serve more people is to give them lots of ways to communicate with you and learn from you.
We’ve always had books and board games, videos, and seminars. We’ve also had coaches and mentors. Now we’ve added Capital City as we go into the world of apps and start teaching there.
Q: I have kids, and I want them to start early in learning the Rich Dad concepts. They like playing games on iPad, and I hope that there will be Cashflow for Kids-kind-of-app I can introduce to our kids. Any plans in the future for this?
A: We have discussed recreating our CASHFLOW for Kids board game for smartphones as well as turning our graphic novel, Escape the Rat Race, into an animated book app. For now, we have created Rich Dad Poor Dad powered by Clutch. It’s a fun, animated, and interactive way to learn the principles of Rich Dad through games and videos. Many of the people who have downloaded it have expressed joy at sharing the app with their children and watching them start to understand the very things that the rich teach their children about money.
It’s never too soon to learn about money. Rich Dad started teaching me when I was just nine years old.
Q: Referring to your ESBI quadrant, most app-preneurs I know are on the S quadrant. They are basically app developers who learn the art of marketing. What do you think an app-preneur should do to jump from S quadrant to the B quadrant?
A: That’s a great question. The problem with being in the ‘S,’ or self-employed quadrant
of the CASHFLOW Quadrant, is time. You only get paid on your own work. And you cannot grow bigger than yourself. Now, you may get lucky and get that one app out of 10 million that hits it big, but with odds like that you might just want to play the lottery. An app developer who jumps to the ‘B,’ or big-business quadrant, has learned the power of leverage. He or she has learned to leverage other people’s time and money. Instead of making one app at a time, they’re making hundreds of apps at a time. In addition, they have a team. That team can test the apps, market the apps, sell the apps, monetize the apps, and create more and better apps in the same amount of time.
To move to the ‘B’ quadrant, an app developer must do the same thing every entrepreneur must do: learn to sell. Selling lets the app developer find investors, inspire a team, and create more apps for less. It’s the same with every business.
Q: A bit off topic – I am preparing my family financially for the upcoming global financial collapse. I listened to your podcast with Chris Martenson about entrepreneurship as a protection against the upcoming financial collapse. Can you explain how entrepreneurship is the way to go, when customers’ buying power is diminishing?
A: I’m going to answer your question in two parts… and the first part addresses “buying power.” One of the points Chris makes in his book is that the future will look nothing like the past we’ve known. And I suspect that, in the future—and in a future that may include a financial collapse—we will evaluate and value “buying power” in a new way. Chris talks about small, inter-dependent communities, bartering our talents and skills for the products and services we need, and understanding that ‘resources’ and ‘production’ are the future of wealth.
That said, I believe the future belongs to those entrepreneurial people who will challenge themselves to do more with less—offering better products and services at better prices. The free market system will prevail, I believe, as long as entrepreneurs use the past and the present to shape their vision of the future. A part of this vision is to anticipate the products and services that will be in high demand—food, shelter, security, wellness, community—and address both what families will want and need and how they want those products and services delivered.
Q: Any advice for us who want to start an app business – and be successful?
A: Before you start your business get educated. Learn how to raise money, learn how to sell, and learn what to do with the money once you get it. There is nothing more dangerous than a person with money who doesn’t know what to do with it. It will be gone even faster than it came in. The other thing to remember is that all business is a team sport. If you are trying to make apps on your own, then you are merely an amateur with a hobby. Once you get serious you will seek out people who are better than you are and form a team. Finally, as with all business and investing, find a successful mentor who is—today—where you want to be and learn from them.
Many thanks, Mr. Kiyosaki, for your time!
Takeaway
To recap, your entrepreneurial success is determined by your ability to educate yourself. Whether you are in app development or any other niches, getting the right education is probably the first thing to do before you create a business plan.
There are many resources to access, educational games to play – such as Capital City – and mentors to follow; but that’s not the main concern. Remember, knowing your thing with app development is great, but knowing how to leverage your skills and time so that you can stop working for money and start making your money work for you.
So, here’s the big question for you: Are you willing to take extra effort to well-equip yourself with the right knowledge about entrepreneurship so that your app business can run with or without you?