Amy Jo Kim is founder and CEO of Shufflebrain, a company which aims to create social games that keep you ‘sharp and socially connected’. Amy is a sharp lady herself, proves the experience she has in helping design games and social architecture for such companies as Electronic Arts, Disney, eBay, Digital Chocolate and MTV. She has pointed out on many occasions how elements of game play, such as collecting points or material online, form part of people’s engagement in successful online services such as eBay and Facebook.

Amy Jo shared some of her insights on gaming, launching and running Shufflebrain with TheNextWomen.

How did you get into game design?

 I've always been interested in people, and systems, and people as systems. My academic background is in neuroscience, computer science and psychology. I later worked at Paramount/Viacom as a designer, working with brands like Star Trek, Nickelodeon and MTV. That's where I got my first game design gig; prototyping a multi-player online music game for MTV (an early precursor to Rock Band on which I also had the pleasure of working).

Why did you decide to launch Shufflebrain?

In 1995, I launched a consulting business focused on "social architecture for online environments." Working with Web communities, online gaming environments and virtual worlds, I designed social systems, game mechanics and user interfaces.  I found that game design and community design had a lot in common. So I wrote a book, "Community Building on the Web" to share lessons learned working at the intersection of gaming and social media.

After many years of working with (and learning from) terrific clients, we had a vision for a new kind of gaming service that would bring together the emerging genre of brain games with the regenerative power of social media. So with seed funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, we launched Shufflebrain Inc to develop "Smart Games", e.g. next-generation brain games that leverage social media.

What has been the greatest challenge in getting the company off the ground?

Wearing so many different hats: CEO, product design, software management, and business development has been exhilarating, educational, and exhausting. Happily, things are going well and we're bringing people on board to help with these roles. So hopefully I'll be able to focus more on product design and development, which is where my heart is.

Is there any piece of advice you wish that someone has given you before you launched?

I wish I'd known how lonely it can be as a CEO. In retrospect, I would have engaged some trusted advisors right at the start. Now that I have great advisors with whom I talk regularly, I'm much happier.

What do you find most rewarding about the move from consultant to CEO?

Being a consultant is great but you don't always get to see a project all the way through. I love building great products that make people's lives better. At Shufflebrain, we've been able to design, create, ship and refine an innovative new product. We've got players who love what we're doing and appreciate that it sharpens their brain. They're also telling us what's wrong with the game, and helping us make it better. It's so gratifying to build and iterate and learn what actually works as opposed to what we thought might work when we started.

What is your biggest ambition for Shufflebrain?

We want to build products that enrich the lives of millions of people. And fingers crossed we're on track to deliver on that vision.

Are there any female entrepreneurs or business leaders who you particularly admire and why?

Caterina Fake of Flickr for her awesome entrepreneurial skill and grace under pressure.

Carol Bartz (the new CEO of Yahoo!) for her brutal honesty, especially about the tradeoffs between running a business and raising a family.

Susan Wu, CEO of Ohai, for sheer brilliance and for realizing that her heart is in building companies, not financing them.