What would you say if I told you Acorn was built from the foundations of a father & son shaving company?
“My background has always been in marketing, and I got my big break at 19 working in SEO for the local bed company!” laughs George, owner and Social Media Strategist here at Acorn. “Years later, my dad and I set up a men's shaving/grooming company, but you'd probably not think it, to look at me!” He’s a modest chap, with a passion for helping people and solving problems. And he’s taken that mantra (plus an extra decade of gaming industry knowledge) to create and build Acorn into what it is today.
You wouldn’t hire a gardener and then peer over their shoulder all day passing comments on the way they’ve pruned the petunias, so why do some managers feel the need to micromanage their teams?
To help do so, he’s drafted in a strong and diverse team of gamers and media experts from across the globe. Working remotely with regular check-ins, Acorn works asynchronously across multiple timezones, George himself moving from the UK to Australia in 2020.
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“I’m really proud of the team here at Acorn”, states George “I fully believe in hiring people who are better than yourself at their individual crafts, and trusting them to carry out the work effectively. You wouldn’t hire a gardener and then peer over their shoulder all day passing comments on the way they’ve pruned the petunias, so why do some managers feel the need to micromanage their teams?”
Some members of the team have been working together for years, despite the geographical gap. “I met George online, when he brought me in as an English-French translator for Alienware back in 2013. We haven’t stopped working together since” says Pauline, our native community specialist, based in France “I’ve worked with Acorn so long but George and I have never physically met!”.
Working from home can be lonely, and even though everyone is remote, I find it remarkable how well everyone can work together.
This is a theme, working together remotely via our bespoke project software, the core of our communication and an amazing space which pulls in resources from multiple calendars, storage drives and task lists and knits it together nicely for the Acorn team – and our clients too. US-based graphic artist Jordan expands, “Any group notes in the Acorn HQ chat are usually a good time! Working from home can be lonely, and even though everyone is remote, I find it remarkable how well everyone can work together. Seeing George make off-hand comments about his plants, having short discussions about world events, and remembering birthdays really helps Acorn feel like a warm community hub.”
I followed games for a good few years and loved them, and only since joining the team did I realise that Acorn was behind the marketing!
Coming to this hub as Social Media Manager is the newest member Michael, based in Middle England, “My passion is point & click adventure games and I saw Acorn were leading the way in terms of helping indies. I followed games like Lord Winklebottom Investigates, LUNA The Shadow Dust, Mutropolis and more for a good few years, and loved them, and only since joining the team did I realise that Acorn was behind the marketing! I felt at home straight away, I loved the community they helped build”.
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That would be the audience nurtured by Community Manager Priscilla, who has ‘community’ running through her veins “I studied Communications and Media Studies for my post grad and I worked for multiple social enterprises advocating women and non-binary folks of colour.” Priscilla is the person you’ll ‘see’ replying to your tweets and messages, after George, Michael and Saskia have helped shape the messaging themselves. Each member of the team has their own favourite games and genres. It’s this which helps us collaborate to cross-check our ideas for social content with those who live and breathe the varying genre that make up the expansive world of video games.
“I enjoy playing a mix of games. I mostly play on my Switch, which is just amazing” says Content Manager, Saskia “I spent a lot of hours playing Animal Crossing, Farming Simulator and The Escapists! At the moment, I have just gotten into playing The Survivalists but my go-to comfort game will always be The Sims on PlayStation!” Alongside Saskia, George and Priscilla also reside in Australia, with the wider team spread evenly over Australasia, Europe and North America. The games industry is international, so it’s no wonder our team is global. It helps then, that our writer, Alex, speaks several languages, in his spare time! “I’m a huge language and linguistics nerd, so I’m always looking up words and trying to find links between the languages I already speak; Greek, English, Swedish, and some Spanish”
Our small but diverse team here at Acorn may well be spread across continents, but it truly feels like a tight-knit family.
Think you could be the next member of the Acorn team? Take a look at our job listings here.