How a Game About Birds Fighting Pigs Got A $1 Billion Valuation #scottsthoughts

Welcome to success story the most useful podcasts in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network the HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like the martyck podcast hosted by Benjamin Shapiro each week the martyck podcast tells stories of world class marketers who use technology to create lasting success with their business and their careers if you like any of these topics you're gonna like the martyck podcast is changing advertising how to set up a CRM so you actually use it private equities take on digital transformation by big social is focused on newsletters if these are topics that resonate with you go check out the martyck podcast wherever you get your podcasts or you can also go listen at HubSpot.com slash podcast network today I'm going to break down the story of Angry Birds how they started and failed 52 different companies and games before they finally got a lukewarm success which they took they ran with they iterated they got to over a billion dollar valuation they created an entire Angry Birds ecosystem this is a startup case study this is Angry Birds growth story all right so the story of Angry Birds how they received multi billion dollar valuations billions of dollars in revenue hundreds of millions in downloads what do they do so the idea of birds on slingshots trying to save their eggs from green pigs may seem like a rather strange idea and it really kind of is but if you played any mobile games in the past decade this idea is going to ring a bell you recognize it at Angry Birds it was the hugely popular game amongst players of all ages all interests but how did it actually achieve success with such an odd game concept you're asking how on earth did they manage to actually grow at the rate they did well today I'm going to examine how the small Scandinavian company launched its app focused on birds fighting pigs and they grew it into a celebrated global franchise with over 50 million downloads and 200 million minutes of daily gameplay so how did Angry Birds start out so before Angry Birds there was a web based game called Crush the Castle the mechanics of this flash game served to be the inspiration for the finished company rovio entertainment see back in 2009 rovio was in a tough spot financially they were struggling despite challenges they were facing they continue to release new apps new games Angry Birds was one of these games it created when they were really financially destitute and it's hard to imagine that but when they actually launched Angry Birds it was not a hit it was a very very apathetic response from the market towards the game so they had to take this game that was released they had no money it wasn't that popular and they had to push it that the market it had to grow it to the point where it was featured on the app store and when it was featured on the app store that's when it became a quote unquote overnight success the game got into multiple top mobile app spots across different countries for significant period of time but that was only after all the work that they did behind the scenes of course once the game was featured in the app store years later that was a flywheel that was a domino effect in rovio's favor and millions and millions of people globally downloaded this game but how did they get there so it may seem that just appearing in the app store and being featured in a app spot a top download it may seem that that's simply luck and that their overnight success allowed them to take Angry Birds from just this initial concept and release to a global phenomenon but that was far from the actual case first of all Angry Birds was not their first game so rovio was creating tons of games the company had to work continuously for success they were able to enjoy with the Angry Birds franchise and just to put it in perspective by the time rovio released Angry Birds it was the company's 50 second game release the studio persevered in the face of the lukewarm reception that Angry Birds received it was their perseverance that pushed a game to achieve that success so at its core what was Angry Birds will at its core Angry Birds was a simple concept done well the objective is straightforward use a slingshot to fling birds to destroy pigs buildings the story is also an easy one to follow the pigs took the birds eggs so the birds want to get those eggs back the simplicity of the concept the jovial nonchalantness almost rudimentary feel of this games entire storyline just made it light and easy to dive into and because it had a strong baseline it had this really strong MVP so to speak when they released new iterations when they released updates improvements they actually didn't have to deviate too far from that original concept ensuring that Angry Birds could keep the original charm without becoming stale so they would keep the users engaged but of course to grow a game you need money to invest in marketing and talent so part of the issues that game developers have is how do I make a creative monetization strategy so that it can fund the growth because when everybody launches a game even if it's a great game you still have to put it out into the world you still have to market it with any business you still have to put some money behind that marketing strategy that will allow people to discover it so if you don't have money it's really hard to get your game in front of people so they rovio came up with a very creative marketing strategy with such a simple game concept rovio had to think of clever ways to monetize the game Angry Birds had monetization tactics that they had two monetization tactics at upfront payments and they had in game payments so while users only played the game for short bursts of time so think about it you you go into an app when you're bored when you're you know maybe at a break at work or your empty classes at school and you play a couple levels and you shut it off and you go about your day so rovio understood the behaviors of the average Angry Birds player and they were playing it for short bursts of time but they were playing it every single day so rovio monopolized on this pattern and made a business model that allowed players to purchase items or advantages to difficult situations that allowed them to make that short period of game time of play time much more lucrative and rewarding so if you only were able to play for a few minutes a day there would be time bound restrictions that you could actually purchase to overcome as well as other things that would inject some added benefit into the game to help you overcome obstacles a little bit quicker than if you just had to play through them without spending any money. So the game encouraged players to continue playing while being tempted to purchase advantages that would propel them through the game with a greater ease rovio also implement the content that could be accessed by paid users only so if a player wanted to get more angry birds content they had to pay up this created an entire virtual economy to support the game and the virtual economy was smart because it obviously monetized so now rovio is making money but also because people invest into the game and it's a strategy that not only makes the company money but once the players have invested money now it's increasing the play time the retention because there's now a financial incentive for the players to log into the app so although it really benefited their north star metric or their key KPI which would be revenue goals it also improved all their other metrics and KPIs like play time active usage minutes spent in the app so on and so forth. Rovio also realized that the community that they had first brought into the game was giving them feedback that there was something special about the world they created remember it's a very simple world but you fell in love with these little characters and rovio didn't just say okay we have a great storyline we hit gold with this storyline that's so simple it's a great video game let's see what else we can do with these characters so when the game got really popular they capitalize on the appeal for their characters and what they did was they built an ecosystem they built in silvery products they were angry bird products that had nothing to do with the video game just to allow people to get angry birds outside of that game so they built an entire franchise around angry birds the franchise branched out from the simple mobile game into multi million dollar brand deals a TV series and even a blockbuster movie they realize that of course these are great revenue opportunities but when they created that ecosystem when they created that brand they blew it out into all these different assets well now you are creating this ecosystem that reinforces your core product and it gives those most loyal fans of that core product more outlets to consume so yes it is a little risky to go outside your core competency but if you start to see that what you've created is resonating with the market to the point where they're becoming super fans sometimes it's not the worst idea to see what else you can create for that community and listen to your community that you have created because they're going to point you in a direction of where they want you to go as a company and other things they want you to create lastly they didn't just market angry birds by building out this incredible brand and going into mainstream media they also focused heavily on app store optimization something that many developers do not think about when they're first putting out a game into the world or a product into the world and this is a lesson that can be carried over into for example optimization across your social media when you're putting a content on social media for a startup or a business it can be thought of as well if I'm going to be taking a product to market have I optimized the content on my website wherever the consumer or the audience interacts with their content have you optimized that so that when they hit that landing page they hit that app store download page are is there a higher chance of them converting are they getting the information they need are you basically removing any friction in them using your product service or in angry birds case the game so to ensure the angry bird success rovio optimizer content for the app store giving their game the best possible chance of going viral so a catchy image instantly capturing the consumers attention with a heavily keyword optimize description allow the users to get a sense of what the app was what the game was before they downloaded it which means that when they did download it they knew exactly what they were getting they were leaving good reviews they're leaving positive reviews you weren't tricking them into trying your app and they were getting something different than what they thought they were getting it was all very transparent and optimized with the end user or the gamer in mind so if we just recap on some of those points they had a creative monetization strategy it was a very simple concept done well they focused on building out a franchise and an ecosystem and they also optimized and focused were hyper focused on the customer experience or the user experience those four things allowed them to be a quote unquote overnight success along with the fact that they just wouldn't give up remember 52 games before they found one they really hit home now rovio has produced some of the most impressive growth statistics in the industry angry birds has netted in 2012 12 billion dollars in revenue in 2017 and netted 50 billion dollars in revenue and that was like years ago so you can only imagine what they've achieved to date they have over 3.7 billion total downloads the success of anger birds was a culmination of marketing optimizations simplicity and perseverance for items that if copy and paste it to many different industries could yield success across countless verticals and industries this is not just something that works for mobile apps some of these lessons can be applied but all these lessons can be applied to other industries to other business ideas so the next time you're thinking your startup idea is stupid just remember after 52 tries a video game that pitted birds against pigs netted rovia billions of dollars and made them a household name in the mobile app and gaming industry and always remember that an overnight success is never an overnight success