Tickle's Quiz Evolution

A story about how a quiz company called Tickle evolved and became more successful by switching to lighter content.

"When I first moved to Silicon Valley, I worked for this guy Michael Birch. He had built a social network called Bebo that he sold for $850 million, but before that he built Ringo which sold for just 2-3 million. He worked for a company called Tickle that started out more on the Myers-Briggs intellectual tests.

Then it became 'what breed of dog are you' and turns out 'what breed of dog are you' was way more viral than 'what is your life passion supposed to be.' This harder, more introspective test - people wanted the 'what dog are you.'

'What dog are you' went really viral and they sold Tickle for $100 million to Monster. He realized quizzes are this amazing viral thing because people's favorite subject is themselves. They're curious to know the answer, where they land, and when they're done they post or share where they landed. Then other people say 'oh that's what you are, I wonder what I am' and they go take it as well."