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I have a deep interest in educational games. When I found out about Airy Labs, I applied and interviewed with them in August 2011. I got the impression the eng

I have a deep interest in educational games. When I found out about Airy Labs, I applied and interviewed with them in August 2011. I got the impression the engineers were very smart, and very overworked. When we got to discussing numbers, Hsu was interested in a low five-figure salary. I sent him a few emails asking about things like revenue model. I was concerned that IAP corrupts the incentive structure around education. (Just imagine, your incentive is to keep kids playing games and spending money, nowhere does education enter into it). I ultimately went to Google. Andrew seems like a sharp guy, I hope he's successful.

jessepickard 15y ago
I'm a co-founder of a profitable 11-person educational gaming company called MindSnacks, so I have a pretty solid perspective on what works in this space. The key to making IAP work in an educational gaming company is keeping things really simple. We give away one lesson for free and then offer the remaining 49 for a one-time $5.00 fee. If you get greedy and try to squeeze payments out of your user at every turn, you might make a tiny bit more money, but you're certain to lose a long-term customer that might buy multiple apps. We pay a lot of attention to our cross-use (users with more than one app) and retention numbers. We've found that the more you try to monetize like a traditional social games company, the more these numbers start to drop.
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- fvryan 15y ago
  love mindsnacks! glad to see japanese under dev
DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Unfortunately this is unsurprising. Making things is only 1 out of (at least) 12 skills needed on a startup[1]. Not being aware of these is probably one of the reasons that explains the hard transitions for engineers to become founders, and again for founders to become CEOs (as pointed out by Guy Kawasaki[2]). [1] http://swombat.com/2012/1/23/startup-skill-set http://swombat.com/2012/1/23/startup-skill-set [2] http://video.svb.com/video/12-Lessons-Steve-Jobs-Taught-Gu http://video.svb.com/video/12-Lessons-Steve-Jobs-Taught-Gu

jessepickard 15y ago

I'm a co-founder of a profitable 11-person educational gaming company called MindSnacks, so I have a pretty solid perspective on what works in this space. The key to making IAP work in an educational gaming company is keeping things really simple. We give away one lesson for free and then offer the remaining 49 for a one-time $5.00 fee. If you get greedy and try to squeeze payments out of your user at every turn, you might make a tiny bit more money, but you're certain to lose a long-term customer that might buy multiple apps. We pay a lot of attention to our cross-use (users with more than one app) and retention numbers. We've found that the more you try to monetize like a traditional social games company, the more these numbers start to drop.

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fvryan 15y ago
love mindsnacks! glad to see japanese under dev

DanielRibeiro 15y ago

Unfortunately this is unsurprising. Making things is only 1 out of (at least) 12 skills needed on a startup[1]. Not being aware of these is probably one of the reasons that explains the hard transitions for engineers to become founders, and again for founders to become CEOs (as pointed out by Guy Kawasaki[2]). [1] http://swombat.com/2012/1/23/startup-skill-set http://swombat.com/2012/1/23/startup-skill-set [2] http://video.svb.com/video/12-Lessons-Steve-Jobs-Taught-Gu http://video.svb.com/video/12-Lessons-Steve-Jobs-Taught-Gu