Tech entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith has been involved in a number of start-ups and is due to share his experience of the sector at the Dublin Web Summit next week, writes CIARA O'BRIEN

‘DON’T BE AFRAID to fail; just make sure you fail fast and learn from your failings.” That’s the advice that entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith has for budding tech firms.

“I’ve made many mistakes along the way,” he says. “But every mistake I’ve made I’ve learned from it, and it’s helped me grow and do better stuff in the future.”

The Moshi Monsters boss can afford to offer the benefit of his experience to the tech community. Due to speak at next week’s Web Summit, Smith can trace his entrepreneurial roots to his childhood, when he had his own computer games magazine at school, along with the usual paper rounds and car washing jobs.

He started out his foray into the tech world with gadget site Firebox, which he set up with college friend Tom Boardman in 1999.

The site may be popular now but it took some time for it to get to that point, he said. Originally called Hotbox, it was a novelty shot glass set that caught the imagination of the public, and Firebox went from strength to strength.

“It was a very slow, tricky first six months,” he says. “Then we came up with the shot glass chess set, which did really well. We sent out a press release, and everyone seemed to love it. That sparked off the growth of the company.”

By 2004, he had moved on to form Mind Candy, although to this day he still remains a director and shareholder at Firebox.

The new firm has had varying degrees of success. Its first project, Perplex City, was a long-term alternate reality game, a mixture of stories, games and puzzles that people all over the world could play online simultaneously.

“I wanted to create this very ambitious, slightly crazy global treasure hunt,” he says. “It was fascinating. It was very creative but it just didn’t work commercially; it was too complicated, and not enough people played. I learnt some really valuable lessons from that period.”

He decided a change of tack was in order, and moved into the children’s space. “I thought creating entertainment for kids online would be a really interesting area,” he says.

That was the starting point for Moshi Monsters, an online game and social network aimed at younger players that has made the leap from the digital world into the real world.

More than 70 million youngsters have registered with the site, creating their own personalised “monsters” on the site. Offline, the project has also expanded, with a music label, a song coming up, toys, video games, trading cards and other items.

Moshi Monsters has been described as a Facebook for younger users, an assessment that its creator agrees with, at least in part.

“We allow them to send virtual gifts to their friends, share their artwork, talk about stories, and do all the fun things that kids want to do online, but at the same time keeping them safe,” Smith says.

That rules out sharing information like location, or sending photos, or allowing children to broadcast details of their movements.

The site offers two levels of membership: free, which offers access to most areas of the site, and subscription, which opens up premium features to players. It doesn’t reveal exactly how many paying members it has, although Smith says most would fall into the free category. The freemium model is obviously paying off, however; the latest accounts for the firm show turnover of £30 million for last year and profit of about £10 million.

“It’s quite healthy,” he said. “That money will allow us to invest in hiring new people and making more amazing entertainment going forward, not just Moshi Monsters.”

Such a young target audience also presents its own difficulties. “Creating entertainment for kids is really tough,” Smith says. “There’s a lot of different elements you have to get right.”

But Moshi Monsters seems to have hit on the right formula. It relies on a mixture of engaging characters with great artwork and storylines, underpinned by strong technology for its success.

“At the end of the day, kids loved it,” he says. “They get a kick out of it, and they want to share it with their friends. That’s what has enabled it to grow so quickly.”

Winning over parents hasn’t been as difficult as you would expect either, at least not “in the early days when we were setting up – in 2007-2008 – I think there was more resistance from parents, teachers and journalists”, he says. “But I think people have realised now the internet and technology is a very important and healthy part of a modern childhood. This is the world these children are growing up in. We shouldn’t keep them off the web.”

There is another important consideration: the security of Moshi Monsters’ users. Mind Candy has to be careful to proactively protect its young audience. Smith says it’s a challenging aspect of the business to strike a balance between keeping users safe while still affording them some freedom.

At the beginning, the company hired what it considered the most experienced person in the business, its current chief community and safety officer, Rebecca Newton.

Newton is a regular speaker on community, children and online safety, has advised governments and is also a member of the Safe Internet Alliance.

To tackle the issue of safety, Moshi Monsters has a large team of experts and moderators, and also uses software to scan millions of messages sent through the site.

“It’s a very delicate balance that we’re trying to strike,” says Smith. “We don’t want to lock down communication completely for kids, but nor do we want a wild west where they can chat and say anything they want.”

Moshi Monsters and its creators are thinking big. Smith said the next goal for the firm is to take the game to players in the US and globally.

The game has already won over players in the UK and Ireland, with Australia also hooked on the colourful characters.

Also on the list is managing the transition of the game from PC only to mobile and tablets, a growing area, particularly for younger users.

Smith says Mind Candy also plans to branch out from Moshi in the future. “Moshi is a wonderful start but we want to create many other worlds, stories and characters for children.”

Despite the plans for world domination, for the time being, Mind Candy isn’t going to float.

Its number one priority, Smith says, is to build “extraordinary entertainment” for its fans. But he isn’t ruling it out in future. “When the company is a little big bigger, it’s something we would consider if it made sense. But it’s too early to say.”

Next week, Smith will take to the Dublin Web Summit’s stage to pass on what he’s learned over the years – both his successes and failures.

“I think it’s valuable for entrepreneurs to share their errors so others can learn from them,” he says.

He advises budding entrepreneurs to read as much as possible and amass knowledge from books, blogs and the stories of other entrepreneurs. That will help inform decisions in the future, and help improve business, he says.

But above all, think big. “There’s a huge world out there, two billion people are online,” he said. “Don’t limit yourself to small thinking.”

I think people have realised now the internet and technology is a very important and healthy part of a modern childhood