Moving Out And Up

Their website boasts that they are “ridiculously independent” and “on a mission to turn bytes and pixels into gaming gold.” But until recently, David, Jonathan and Michael Kieffer had never worked a day in their lives – in an office, that is.

Instead, the founders of Kieffer Bros., a mobile app startup company, have lived and worked from their three bedroom home in the Town of Grand Chute. But when the lines between work and play began to blur, the brothers found themselves tending to business around the clock. That’s when they knew it was time for a change.

“Even if your home office has its very own room, the temptation is still there, begging you to come back to work. It can be a nasty creature to have in your home,” says Michael Kieffer, 22, the youngest of the three.

So last month, the Kieffers gathered their gadgets and iPads and went on a quest to find the perfect creative space for a design studio where they could focus on the business of game making – and close the door at the end of the day.

On the fourth floor of the Zuelke Building in downtown Appleton, the brothers are immersing themselves in the rich universe of games. As Michael squints at the snowy roof of City Center, he notes that the office is bright and roomy enough for future staffers.

“Eclectic and fun – these are the two most important aspects we’d like to infuse into this space,” says Michael. “Kieffer Bros. won’t succeed without producing innovative, well-designed games, so the new studio space needs to nurture that.”

The three are used to working elbow-to-elbow to craft the concepts behind the games. Individually, their roles and skill sets strike an impressive balance: Oldest brother David, 26, designs the apps; Jonathan, 24, is the programmer, and Michael does everything in between.

The three can’t remember a time when they weren’t creating things together. As youngsters growing up in Appleton, the boys filmed movies, crafted short computer-animated stories and built small games together. For Jonathan, the passion for computer gaming stemmed from their late grandfather, whose legacy continues to impact their work.

“Without a doubt our grandfather, Jim O’Connor, played a huge role by giving our family its first computer, teaching us how to use the more advanced programs and demonstrating the possibility of making money selling games,” Jonathan remembers. “He brought us into his game making process – asking us what we’d like to see in the final product and using our voices for characters in the game. We were all very young at the time – 5, 7 and 9 – but it was extremely formative for us all.”
In 2008, when Kieffer Bros. began this journey, the iPhone had been on the market only a few months and Apple’s App Store offered just over 500 downloadable applications.

For a $90 startup fee, the brothers began developing their own iPhone games, designing graphics and buttons, rather than using Apple’s templates.

A gaming company like Kieffer Bros. would have been much harder to pull off a decade ago.
“The entrance barrier would have been too great for three bootstrapping brothers wanting to make games,” says Michael. “But now with the Internet and the social networks that fuel its growth, we can build a platform and a following. We can talk directly with those who play our games, listen to their feedback and share our experiences with them. It’s fun for everyone involved.”

So far, they’ve produced six games, including Orba, Hyperpuck and Enzodot. Aquaduct is their newest and also their best seller. There are an estimated 100,000 third-party application developers worldwide making a living doing what the Kieffer Bros. is doing – developing products that entertain, connect and dazzle us, making our lives more productive – or less. And in 2011, analysts anticipate an even bigger growth explosion in applications and startups.

According to Piper Jaffray, Apple’s App Store has generated a $1 billion-a-year industry for app developers, who get to keep 70 percent of any revenue they make from app sales. Competitors like Android and others offer similar revenue-sharing models.

According to a study by Lithuanian-based GetJar, mobile apps will jump from last year’s 7 billion downloads to almost 50 billion in 2012, putting the overall worth of the app download industry at nearly $17.5 billion.

Because none of the brothers had any formal training in creating a virtual gaming experience, they point to the one core value that makes their company stand out above the rest.

“Experimentation is a way of life for us,” explains David Kieffer. “We experiment, we learn. And this solemn precept applies across the board to everything we do. Writing game instructions, animating an explosion, programming hierarchal belt chains, advertising – everything.”

David points to the time Kieffer Bros. started advertising by diving in and making ads they thought looked cool. The campaign wasn’t a complete failure, but it wasn’t a success either. The team took that lesson learned into their more recent, highly successful ad campaign for Orba, a colorful matching game that quickly became a hit.

“Orba had the highest number of hits on a design-centric ad network for an entire week,” David laughs.

“We had a lot of fun making Orba,” Michael agrees. “We built the game really quickly and gave it away for free for the first two weeks. It was received extremely well and we met a lot of great people in the industry because of it. The whole experience was a reminder of how important enjoying your work is.”

On the web: www.kiefferbros.com