166: How to Build a Billion Dollar Mobile Gaming Company From Scratch, with Holly Liu of Kabam
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Release Date: 09/21/2017
433: Momentum Creates Momentum with Magnus Grimeland of Antler
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
After graduating from Harvard Business School alongside future tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg, Magnus Grimeland traveled the world as a consultant for McKinsey. After exploring Southeast Asia, he decided to lay down roots and leverage the region's enormous business potential. From 2013-2017, Grimeland built ZALORA into Southeast Asia's largest fashion ecommerce business. Now, he's supporting fellow founders through his latest business, Antler, a global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. In the last 2 years, Antler made 190...
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431: Breaking Down Barriers Led to Billions with Alex Bouaziz of Deel
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Some might say Alex Bouaziz, cofounder and CEO of Deel, was simply in the right place at the right time. Deel, an international payroll, compliance, and HR solution, launched in 2019 and, by May 2020, raised $14M in funding. Currently, they have 8000 customers worldwide, including Dropbox, Airtable, and Shopify. But good timing will only get you so far. To launch and grow a company as successful as Deel takes leadership with a clear mission and a solid infrastructure. The idea was simple: Create a company that matched employers and talented workers from anywhere in the world and give them the...
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432: How “Recovering Accountant” Guy Pearson Built the Shopify for Services
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
At 24, Guy Pearson turned down a partnership to start an accounting firm. His early clients were digital companies, and Pearson was jealous that there wasn’t an online commerce system for his industry. So in 2013, he launched a new company called Ignition to simplify and speed up the transaction process for professionals like him. To date, Ignition helped facilitate more than 1M client engagements and over $2B in client payments. Ignition has offices in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, US, and the UK, with over 170 employees globally. Listen to Nathan and Guy...
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430: Not All Leads Are Created Equal with B2B Sales Maverick AJ Cassata
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Does the word “sales” make you squeamish or intimidated? If so, then this episode is for you. AJ Cassata is a maverick B2B sales consultant who helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses fast with his straightforward, systematic, and scalable approach to sales growth. His company, Revenue Boost, helps clients create a system for lead generation instead of just winging it. Listen to Nathan and AJ discuss: Starting in door-to-door sales as a teenager Persevering through failure in his first business Starting Revenue Boost to focus on lead generation Why...
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429: Why the Impossible Is Fun with Brian Scudamore of O2E Brands
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
33 years ago, Brian Scudamore was sitting in a McDonald’s drive-thru when he saw his future–a beat-up pickup truck filled with junk. Scudamore started a junk-hauling business to pay for college, but what was supposed to fund his education ended up inspiring him to drop out. Today, Scudamore’s transformed his junk hauling side hustle, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, into a North American franchise business worth $600M. People told Scudamore that it was impossible to franchise his business, but he’s proven them wrong by expanding his model into other brands like WOW 1 DAY PAINTING and Shack Shine....
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428: Why Your Business Assumptions Are Wrong with Tim Fung of Airtasker
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Airtasker is Australia's #1 marketplace for local services. Over the past decade, they've acquired more than 4.3M registered users, built a worth of $255M, created a $1.7B value of job opportunities, and went public. But founder Tim Fung still feels the pains from the first 3 years, when everything he assumed about the business was wrong. He's learned that through the victories and failures of scaling a startup, remaining focused on providing value over profit is what lasts. Listen to Nathan and Tim discuss: The importance of going all-in on a startup Starting a business...
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427: How to Pick a Winning Product with The Oodie Founder Davie Fogarty
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Davie Fogarty created Australia's fastest-growing ecommerce brand, The Oodie, which sells wearable blankets and accessories. But success didn't happen overnight. After multiple failed businesses, at 24 years old, Davie had a chip on his shoulder to prove he could succeed. So in 2017, he started 2 ecommerce businesses, and they both took off immediately. In the past 4 years, Davie has grown his company of 5 major brands called the Davie Group to $400M in sales. In this episode, you'll learn exactly what it takes to build an incredible ecommerce brand in 2022 and some of the pitfalls to...
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426: How to Open Talent Doors with Jen Proctor of Cultivated Entertainment
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Jen Proctor loved being a performer. But when her dream to be a professional singer ended, she pledged to be a good person in the entertainment industry, something she knew wasn't a given. So in 2015, she launched her agency Cultivated Entertainment and works with clients like Meta, Pharrell, Drew Barrymore, the Obama Foundation, Stand Up for Cancer, and the Primetime Emmy Awards. She's built her agency based on the vision of seeing a need and filling it. So if you're interested in working with talent from actors to TikTok stars, this episode is for you. Listen to Nathan and Jen...
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425: Why Kendra Scott Risked Everything on the Customer Experience
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Kendra Scott started her self-titled billion-dollar jewelry business out of failure. Her first business failed after 5 years, and she started selling handmade jewelry door-to-door as a side hustle. Now, Kendra Scott Jewelry is a billion-dollar business with 100 retail locations across the US. But success didn't come quickly. Through personal struggles, recessions, and rejections, Scott built a fashion business driven by an unforgettable customer experience. Listen to Nathan and Kendra discuss: What she learned from her failed business Fundraising and dealing with rejection...
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424: How Dragons' Den Star Michele Romanow is Removing Funding Barriers
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Michele Romanow joined the cast of CBC's Dragons' Den in 2014 after successfully selling her digital coupon business SnapSaves to Groupon. At 28 years old, she was the youngest "dragon" on the show, but that didn't stop her from innovating. During her second episode, Michele decided to flip the traditional Dragons' Den pitch from equity to revenue. The decision led to the creation of the investment company Clearco and the invention of the revenue-based financing category. The model helps fund ecommerce companies fast and affordable, where founders pay a set percentage only when...
info_outlineAsk yourself, just how many hours have you sunk into that palm-sized rectangle of plastic, metal, and glass known as the smartphone?
As the co-founder of Kabam, one of the world's leading companies in mobile games, Holly Liu might be able to provide an answer to that, and it would likely be a huge number. But luckily for us, and our listeners, she's far more interested in talking about how she managed to build a billion-dollar company from scratch by giving away her products for free.
If you don't know Kabam already, you've probably heard of the company's hugely popular games, such as Kingdoms of Camelot, The Godfather, and Marvel's Contest of Champions, just to name a few. Each one operates on a "freemium" model, where users can download and play games for free.
This might sound crazy, but it's actually a ludicrously lucrative business model, with Kabam making the bulk of their revenue through in-game currency and advertising revenue. Kingdoms of Camelot alone has, to date, grossed over $250 million.
The secret behind Liu's success is simple, she just asks herself:
"Where are the people?"
That question led to Kabam's successful pivot into building a Facebook game and tapping into the power of viral marketing, to even partnering with the major studios in Hollywood to build games for upcoming movies and franchises.
For Liu, there's so much more to surviving in the mobile gaming industry than building a successful product, especially when great products exist on almost every corner. It takes an equal amount of dedication to marketing, finding the right partnerships, and, as always, understanding where your customers are.
In this episode you'll learn:
- What opportunities lie within the mobile gaming industry
- How to take your business where the customers are
- How to pivot when your first, second, and even third ideas fail
- What goes into making a product as viral as possible
- Why you should look to grow your company through the power of partnerships
- How to make being social your competitive advantage
- & so much more!