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Same thing happened to Draw Something and Words with Friends. The trick is to get the 9 figure valuation, raise as much funding as possible and then put as much
by stirlo 7y ago
Same thing happened to Draw Something and Words with Friends. The trick is to get the 9 figure valuation, raise as much funding as possible and then put as much in your pockets before the hype dies down.
- charlesju 7y agoWords with Friends is not dead I think: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/words-with-friends-2-word-game/id1196764367 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/words-with-friends-2-word-game...
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoLast time I tried it it was so cluttered with ads I had to often force close it to get it to work. Total rubbish.
- kenneth 7y agoSell your company to Zynga at the peak of your popularity is the play
- benzible 7y agoWords with Friends managed an actual exit (8 figures, mostly cash): https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/zynga-paid-53-3m-to-buy-words-with-friends-mobile-game-maker-newtoy/ https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/zynga-paid-53-3m-to-buy-w...
- tootie 7y agoThat's just unbelievable. Digital copy of a decades-old game is worth $50M because of its app store rating.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- giarc 7y agoLet's not fail to mention the millions of people that opened the app 50x per day and were shown 25 ads each time.
- harryh 7y agoDraw Something was a 9 figure exit (183 million). Also to Zynga.
- matsemann 7y agoWordfeud (similar app) made $4M in ads in 2018, not shabby for a single person company. It's now ten years since it launched and had the hype. Crazy.
- waylandsmithers 7y agoI was just thinking the same thing- HQ for me was a throwback to an era where there was a series of iPhone games that came on suddenly to the point where everyone I knew was playing constantly, and then people just kind of got bored of it. I actually won once for something like $22, which was pretty good considering it felt like most of the time the winners got about $0.85 each.
- t0mas88 7y agoThe best way to do that is to take sizable portions of secondary sales while raising capital at high valuations. You'll walk away with tens of millions regardless of whether the app realizes an exit in the end.
- godzillabrennus 7y agoSecondary market is the untold hero of the entrepreneur for a VC backed company. Gotta be careful not to sell too much and be a canary in the coal mine to investors buying into the hype. If done right you win either way.