7 Lessons To Learn From Ilkka Paanane, CEO and Co-Founder of Supercell

3-Minute Read: Are Our Best Days Behind Us Or Ahead Of Us?
Written by Ilkka Paanane (CEO and Co-Founder — Supercell)

In case you’re too lazy to click on the link, I’ve narrowed down seven quotes that you should know:

(1) Team’s Success
At Supercell, we’ve been very fortunate in that in the past 11 years, we’ve released 5 hit games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars. They’ve had more than 5 billion downloads, and to this day, 250 million players play them every month, and each of these five games has grossed more than a billion dollars in their lifetime, and Clash of Clans and Clash Royale have grossed over $10 billion lifetime revenue so far.

(2) Team’s Mission
In examining how we could improve as a company, the obvious place for us to start from was our mission statement, or our dream as we call it: to create games that as many people as possible play for years and that are remembered forever. We started to challenge many assumptions through the lens of this dream of ours. We are here to create experiences into which players invest their valuable leisure time. We should start almost every discussion by putting the player and their experience first.

(3) Supercell’s Realization
Be bold and take risks. We’ve realized that with success, it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on what has worked in the past. To truly be innovative we need to be humble, open-minded and take bold risks with unknown outcomes. Sure if we do that, we will probably fail more often than we succeed, but the learnings will make us stronger and eventually we will find a big success. I truly believe that companies do not fail because they take risks, but because they stop taking risks. We also reminded ourselves that we should reinstate our habit of celebrating failures with champagne.

(4) Supercell’s Mistakes
As the CEO, I should have challenged our existing ways of thinking and culture, because as I had written in our culture document a few years back, “what got us here will not necessarily get us there.” I realized that I was actually the one who had the fixed mindset, stuck in the thinking from our past. Definitely one of the biggest mistakes of the many that I’ve made in my career, and one that I will remember forever. And a great learning which in our culture of celebrating learnings that come from failures meant I deserved a big bottle of champagne :)

(5) Team Building
At Supercell, the role of leadership is to put together the best teams, but then fully trust them and not to tell them what to do. The way to think about our teams is that they are fully independent companies inside the larger company.

(6) Work Culture
Today we believe that growing teams responsibly will not only allow us to do more, but it will ensure that individuals on teams are able to work reasonable hours and take enough time off to fully recharge. We are seeking to reduce the stigma around talking about mental health at work and encouraging discussions within teams to explore healthier ways to work together and deliver the best for the players of our games.

(7) Financial Results
Revenue for 2021 was at €1.89 billion (or $2.24 billion), and our profits before taxes (EBITDA) amounted to €734 million (or $852 million). Our profits allowed us to contribute a total of approximately €150 million (or $177 million) in corporate taxes to Finland this year alone. Many of us who have benefited from our free education and healthcare financed by taxes feel proud that we can contribute to our society in this way, in turn helping others. We also try to maintain a positive impact on society by offsetting 200% of carbon emissions from our operations as well as 100% of those created by mobile devices while players enjoy our games!

A sneak peak of Supercell’s upcoming game: Clash Heroes

We’ve yet to witness a crypto equivalent of Supercell in the play-to-earn / play-and-earn space. The best gaming companies have yet to be built, and the closest we have at the moment are Axie Infinity, Decentraland, The Sandbox, Gala and Illuvium. Imagine that.