Interview Reflection: Mark Firor, Accidental Achiever Extraordinare

This past week, Mark Firor, founder and president of ZeniMax Online Studios, graciously took time out of his day to meet with me. I originally intended to meet with Mark Firor in person, however, it turned out that interviewing over Skype was the best option for both of us. I was really nervous but Mark was an extremely gracious and patient interviewee. I had a list of potential people that I wanted to interview, but finally decided on using Mark for my final interview. I choose Mark because, although, he is an entrepreneur and has successfully started two businesses, he never really intended to be one. In fact, all Mark ever wanted to do was design good video games. I thought, that his story of success would offer a greater insight into the “pitching” process. I mean here we have a guy, who didn’t go to a business school, didn’t study entrepreneurship, and yet was successfully able to start a business, on multiple occasions. For these reasons, I thought Mark would make for the perfect interviewee.

Mark started out making basic video games with his friends in the 80’s. These games never lead to any financial success, but it did help Mark get noticed by those in the video game industry. In 1995, Mark was one of the founders of Mythic Entertainment, a game company that is responsible for one of the bestselling MMORPGS of all time, Dark Age of Camelot. Mark remained with Mythic for 11 years, where he acted as the president and lead producer on many games. In 2006, he decided to leave Mythic. When asked about his decision to leave, Mark responded “it just wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore, I had all these ideas in my head and I knew that perusing them would make me happier”.It was these moments in the interview that lead me to believe, that Mark's own personal determination and will to succeed, attribute to his success.

The year was 2006, and Mark had just left Mythic, he had no job, but he had ideas, a lot of ideas. “A lot, wait, most of the people I knew at that time thought I was absolutely nuts, I mean I had a great job, I was doing what I wanted, they just couldn’t understand why I would drop it all for something that might not work; these guys, they just didn’t understand, I knew I could do this, and I did it before when I started Mythic, I had some experience”, Mark on life after Mythic. Mark, had all these ideas but he needed somewhere to funnel them. “I asked around and nobody seemed interested, and finally the guys at Bethesda, well they hooked me up”, Mark on the beginnings of ZeniMax Online Studios. And, they did just that. In 2006, ZeniMax Media provided Mark with money and a brand new studio for Mark to bring his new ideas to “life”. And thus, ZeniMax Online Studios was born.

When asked about how he was able to persuade ZeniMax into investing into his ideas, Mark simply replied “honesty”. “I just told them what I wanted and exactly what they could expect from me if they did decided to help me out”Mark, on his successful pitch. Mark told me that this was probably the most important thing in a business pitch. “If they can see your passion, for whatever you are trying to sell them, they know that it’s probably your baby and you’re going to give it your all to succeed”. “It’s all about making them (potential investors), feel more comfortable”, Mark on the pitching process.

So, I walked away from this interview feeling like I had a better understanding of how to have a successful business “pitch”. At the end of the day though, I think that you’ve really just got to want it and hopefully it shows to potential investors.