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My First MillionOur buddy sold his app for $200M in just 6 weeks?!
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Dan Porter on Draw Something, Overtime, Branding and Living Curiously
- Dan Porter says OMGPop was running out of money with four to five months left when he built Draw Something in a corner of the company, and it exploded to 25 million daily players.
- He explains the game's success through simplicity, no-loser streaks, a drawing playback feature and organic word of mouth, and says Zynga bought it about six weeks after launch for $200M after he pushed back on a $120-150M offer.
- Porter describes using part of the proceeds to help employees, such as rehiring people so their options vested, paying out cash, and buying iPads, and says giving up power and money is what feels most meaningful to him.
- He contrasts the charismatic, authentic styles of Ari Emmanuel and Richard Branson, and shares lessons on humor, trust and leaving a little on the table in deals.
- On building Overtime, he describes borrowing from soccer clubs, bands and cults to build community through hand signs, shirts and DMs, and keeping stories simple, then closes with advice to young people to explore widely and find the environment that fits them.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasDesign games so nobody loses
Porter noticed that half of players who lost a game never returned, so he built streaks into Draw Something, which turned players into collaborators who wanted to keep playing.
Simplicity and organic sharing drive virality
The game was easy for anyone to understand, had no built-in sharing, and spread by screenshots and celebrity tweets, while features like the drawing playback made players feel connected.
Understand the buyer's strategic need to gain leverage
Porter says he pushed back on a $120-150M offer because buyers like Zynga and EA were losing users to the game, and that strategic urgency let him get a better deal at $200M.
Use windfalls to change other people's lives
Porter rehired laid-off employees so their options vested, paid out cash to those who had taken less stock, and bought iPads for staff, and he calls giving up power and money one of the coolest parts of the exit.
Build community with shared symbols and access
At Overtime, Porter used a hand sign, a shirt he initially refused to sell, and personal DM replies to create belonging, after studying soccer clubs, bands like the Grateful Dead and cults.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesBecause as soon as you find yourself having to oversell, you've lost the cause. As soon as you're talking about the third switch on the vacuum cleaner that has seven HEPA air filters, you've lost the whole thing.
— Dan Porter
You just gotta find the place that celebrates you for who you are. And by the way, you are you, and you gotta do the best to be the best you you can, but you gotta put yourself in the best place, and you gotta think about your inputs.
— Dan Porter
The point is you made something, and it existed in the world, and it touched people who have no idea who you are, and I just can't tell you how fucking existentially cool that is.
— Dan Porter
You just do shit when you're young, 'cause that's the time you do shit, and you just learn about the world and you experience things and you laugh and you cry and you get out there.
— Dan Porter
You think it's this input-output, but there are all of these things that are around it. It's about changing some other structure around you. Uh, it's about figure out- stretch out your quads.
— Dan Porter
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
