Draw Something Success

Some of you may have played it, or heard it or perhaps you even paid to Draw Something, a social game which user draw a term that is given to them and the other user have to guess what it is. Do you know that this application by OMGPOP hit virtual and was brought by Zynga for $183 million dollars after one year?

“But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.” 

– Niklaus Wirth

Do you also know that a year before it was sold to Zynga they have earn a six figure revenue per year? Or is it per month? NO! It's per day. Isn't it great to build an application once and earn passive income out of it? If you are wondering it must be hard to do it or it may cost a huge some of money...

You could get a developer to do an application exactly as Draw Something for 200k.

"With a project of this magnitude, you’ll want to work with a power house development shop that can handle all aspects of the process – planning, design, development, testing, publishing, marketing. You’ll need to come up with an idea that is equally titanic as “Pictionary for iPhone” and will need at least 10 months to block off. Impossible? Heck no, but it’s a huge project. This is not something I would ever outsource – I would want to partner with the best of the best."

Quoted from bluecloudsolutions


Do you know how many downloads they must get to be able to generate that amount of revenue? Well, it's not a few thousand, nor million but more than 20 millions downloads which have surpass the amount of download of Four Square and Instagram.

Something really shock was when Draw Something was brought over, it loses 5 million daily active users (DAUs) a month. This bring them to 10 million from 15 million of revenue. This have severe has assuredly set off some alarm bells.

According to Forbes, Zynga has already put into place an advertising plan for the game which has companies paying to have their words appear to be drawn by players. Think “Doritos” or “Pepsi” or “The Avengers.” This move is to combat the fact that unlike games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc, there really aren’t a lot of fake items that can be sold within the game for real world cash, other than a few new color options.

In conclusion, OMGPOP really is the winner in this situation. They had manage to get a good offer at the right time and at the right place. Just think about it,  since the daily active users (DAUs) will drop the next month, and if OMGPOP didn't sell Draw Something they wouldn't lose much. In this case, it was sold at the perfect timing before the daily active users (DAUs) dropped! 

Of course, selling your application isn't just get the deal and leave the company. You'll have to stick at the company who brought over as the consultant for the new team as well as the CEO to make sure everything runs smoothly. As good as it could be, you'll be able to draw a salary too.