GAME ON AS START-UP DOUBLES CROWDFUNDING GOAL

A BRISBANE startup whose 30-day crowdfunding goal was doubled in just two days is banking on self-education as the way of the future.

Zenva Academy, a resident of River City Labs under Bank of Queensland's (ASX: BOQ) Sponsored Entrepreneur Program, understands firsthand that while education may be the key to empowerment, self-education goes one big step further.

Founder Pablo Farias grew up in Chile where he says there is an active startup scene despite fewer formal educational opportunities.

Farias is a self-taught game developer and educator and has authored more than 38 online courses.

The $30,000 he raised from Zenva Academy's crowdfunding campaign will be put towards building 15 games step-by-step on video, the end result being that customers finish the course with a comprehensive portfolio of their own.

"It's a practical course because most employers in the software development space are now more interested in seeing what you've built than your background," says Farias.

"It's becoming increasingly important to deliver portfolio-orientated courses where the student comes out with at least B-level knowledge.

"I also think education is headed to people teaching themselves because it's more affordable and necessary skills are always changing."

Farias reached his $4000 30-day funding goal for Zenva on Kickstarter in 11 hours, had more than doubled this in two days, and finished the campaign last week having raised $30,448 from 575 backers.

Of the backers, more than 550 are about to start making mobile games, joining more than 70,000 students Farias has in other capacities.

"For $20 to $200 backers can gain access to content which is pretty affordable when you compare with other courses," says Farias.

"It is just me working on Zenva, with a couple of freelancers helping with things like design and video editing, so each game takes about four days to build and at least two weeks for recording.

"Overall it's a few hundred hours of video content which is a lot of work, but it's so rewarding and encouraging that people have already bought the course through Kickstarter and are now waiting for the parts."