Scott Reismanis is the founder and CEO at mod.io, an API for developers to add mod support to their games.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?
For the majority of my career I’ve been an entrepreneur, creating community sites for things I’m passionate about. Mostly that’s focused on video games, but I’ve also worked as IT consultant at Accenture, built messaging and service platforms, and spent time immersed in VR and Second Life during my time at Linden Lab.
I love enabling creativity, and this took off for me in 2002 when I launched ModDB.com, a site for mod creators to share their ideas with players who wanted more content for their favorite games.
I’ve always been drawn to gaming and in particular mods’ role in gaming, because it’s the ultimate platform for creators to use as their canvas. My current role as co-founder of mod.io is deeply centered around this, with our goal being to bring “mods everywhere”.
To us this means helping studios integrate mods officially and build a deeper connection with their community, by providing APIs, SDKs and tools to make mods accessible, and help capture the magic and goodwill that modders are so great at generating.
2) What does a day in your life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
I’m a product oriented CEO who enjoys understanding what studios want to achieve with UGC, and sharing the knowledge we’ve gained as a team supporting creator communities for going on 2 decades now.
I spend a lot of my time connecting the dots, which typically means I spend time on 3 key areas. The first being talking to studios as mentioned, observing UGC trends and having that feed into our best practices and knowledge base.
The second is working closely with our product team, to help set the long term vision and objectives for the product.
And finally as a rapidly growing company, building team culture and ensuring we’re all aligned around our goal to make UGC more impactful. We want to be recognized as the thought-leader in the space that studios can trust, and actively turn to help build the best possible creator community for their games.
3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?
We have an office for anyone that prefers to work from it, but otherwise we are a fully remote workforce, with team members located in 6 different cities across 3 continents.
This fits in great with my routine, I’m known for dialing into our daily standups while walking the dog, and meetups with the entire team are always really hearty, enjoyable moments – since we don’t always get to see everyone every day.
4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?
Work/life balance means making time for the people around you, and things you enjoy. I enjoy any social event, so I always ensure they take precedence, stretching the legs and participating in a run club with some friends, and relaxing at the end of each day with my wife and greyhound.
5) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?
Almost all change was forced by COVID, so not by choice. Probably the biggest and most recent change was pushing myself to get out and join my friends run club, as I used to cycle into the office each day and really missed the routine of that.
6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?
Three amazing newsletters industry focused gaming everyone should be subscribed to are Master the Meta, SuperJoost and GameDiscoverCo. As for books, Matthew O’Reilly is an Australian fiction author who writes amazing action packed stories that’ll keep you on your toes throughout.
7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?
AirPods. Now that video calls are here to stay, it’s great to be able to take a call and keep walking – not sure what I’d do without them.
8) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?
I recently received a copy of The Dumbest Guy at the Table by David Shein, who is one of the most grounded and humble entrepreneurs I’ve had the pleasure to meet. I’m looking forward to reading his story – and how he built such a large business without letting go of his core values.
9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?
Classic advice but always true, if you pursue and do the things you love, balance will never be difficult to obtain.
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