What it’s really like to make it big in the Valley

We set out to make a game to teach creativity and designed Funder, a hilarious spoof of Silicon Valley (read the story). While designing Funder, we decided to make the levels in the game match the mythical career ladder of Silicon Valley.

As players advance, they unlock levels like Intern, Growth Hacker, Angel and so on. Lots of people have enjoyed our level descriptions and requested that we share them publicly.

Tell us which ones are your favorite by tweeting to @FunderGame. Or download Funder for iOS for free.

Intern

You gotta start somewhere. Between getting coffee and making copies, you must exploit your friends to build a following for your startup’s spammy Instagram account.

Bootstrapper

When you feel the itch — scratch it. Even if no one thinks the world needs a Yelp for public restrooms, you know better.

Hustler

10% luck, 20% skill, 15% adderall, 5% pleasure, 50% hustle. That’s how you turn dreams into unicorns, baby.

Seed-Funded

Congrats! It’s time to move out of your mom’s garage. Pro-tip: poach some A-players with a ping-pong table and cheap stock options.

Growth Hacker

Your days now consist of A-B testing everything from chipotle salsas to your entire business model. Don’t forget to list “reading psychology books” as one of your hobbies on Facebook.

Acquihire

Stop by the office once in awhile for a massage or a cold-pressed juice while you wait for that equity to vest. Golden handcuffs aren’t so bad.

Keynote Speaker

Hey, headliner! Grab your startup t-shirt and sip Fiji Water while you explain how your SaaS cloud paywall widget is actually changing the world. Deflect hard questions with jokes about the dot-com bubble.

EIR

Congrats, Entrepreneur in Residence! You now have an excuse to avoid showering or ever leaving your home. Read up on Snapchat and Millennials to find your next big thing.

Serial Founder

Unicorns eat failure for breakfast. If at first you don’t succeed, just read another Elon Musk biography and tweet your favorite quotes.

Angel

You descend from the heavens into coffee shops to perform entrepreneurial miracles. With your golden checkbook and rolled up sleeves, you turn antisocial nerds into social network moguls.

VC

You and your assistants are pretty busy lately. Let’s face it, riding your self-driving Tesla between the golf course, mentorship lunches and sushi happy hour at the exposed-brick office is hard work.

IPO

You started on the ground floor, and now you’re on the trading floor. Ring the bell on Wall Street, hit quarterly projections and try not to get fired by your own board.

Thought Leader

Spend your days writing tweetstorms about big hairy problems like healthcare (crosspost on Medium and Quora to grow your brand). Someday you’ll need them for that commencement speech.

Steve

You resurrected from the dead in a black turtleneck to bless your followers with white earphones. Your tablets didn’t need any commandments to start a religion. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Philanthropist

You divide time between building drones to beam wifi to Africa and teaching 4 year olds to code. With your wealth and technical wizardry, you can now actually change the world. Whatup Bill Gates!

Sage

You started with a midlife crisis at Burning Man, and now you’re basically a Buddhist monk. Your piles of cash couldn’t buy you happiness, but they paid for the gratitude coach at your Himalayan tranquility palace. Enjoy the view!

Tell us which ones are your favorite by tweeting to @FunderGame. Or download Funder for iOS for free.