Web Before Mobile

Dharmesh Shah shares his experience building Wordplay.com, a web-based word game that grew to millions of users. Through this project, he emphasizes the advantages of web-first development and shares insights about building side projects.

Key Points:

• Project Origins and Motivation:

  • Built as a learning experience for both himself and his 11-year-old son
  • Wanted to demonstrate practical application of programming to his son
  • Created in 24 hours using Python to show rapid development possibility

• Growth and Distribution:

  • Initial launch through social media (1M LinkedIn, 300K Twitter followers)
  • First week: 50-100K users
  • Currently:
    • 45M games played
    • 9.5M total users
    • 2-3K concurrent users at any time

• Monetization Insights:

  • Google AdSense potential: $90,000/month
  • Estimated value: $2-3M (based on 5x multiple of yearly ad revenue)
  • Minimal costs (just hosting)

• User Engagement Evolution:

  • Initial average session time: 4 minutes
  • Current average session time: 14 minutes
  • Key feature additions:
    • Unlimited play (vs. once per day)
    • Friend challenge system

• Web-First Philosophy:

  • Prefers low-friction web applications over mobile apps
  • Benefits:
    • Immediate deployment
    • No app store approval needed
    • Easier to iterate and update
    • More accessible to users

• Future Considerations:

  • Exploring marketing/sales edition of Wordplay
  • Investigating community building opportunities
  • Using project as testing ground for new technologies and concepts