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After 7+ years, we sold @Dots to Take Two today.
The “roller coaster” cliche isn’t right as it only really describes fear and excitement. It was much more, and I’m incredibly thankful to have had the experience. I’ve captured some highlights and lessons here.
The “roller coaster” cliche isn’t right as it only really describes fear and excitement. It was much more, and I’m incredibly thankful to have had the experience. I’ve captured some highlights and lessons here.
MVP: Patrick Moberg made the first Dots game. He had lots of input, influence, inspiration, but the guy single handedly conceptualised, designed, engineered, tested, and released the game. It was incredible to see someone do so much with such incredible talent and so little ego.
Launch: We built Dots from startup studio @betaworks. @borthwick bets on founders, and gave us a blank check from day 1 which allowed us to take every opportunity without delay. This experience shaped the investor I aspire to be at Northzone. @jordanrcrook https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/dots-the-most-beautiful-mobile-game-ive-ever-seen/
Product Market Fit: One week later https://twitter.com/arrington/status/331905815638310912
V2: A year later, we launched Two Dots. Designed by @hohusen and built by 5 people in about six months, we reached #1 in 71 countries within 24 hours of launch, making it the most downloaded game of the month and one of the most popular games of the year.
Expansion: China. Not once, but three times. We never figured it out, but it was fun trying. Although we failed commercially, our efforts did help us land Tencent which became an incredibly valuable investor. https://www.inc.com/magazine/201611/maria-aspan/cracking-china-two-dots.html
Series A: We didn’t need to raise much capital, but we wanted partners to help us scale globally. So we brought in the three best investors we could find @GreycroftVC, @NorthzoneVC, @TencentGames. https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/544837264271241216
Dilution: We had working capital needs to fund marketing, working with @RobintGill he crafted a debt solution that helped scale funding without further dilution. This exit has impact of a significant larger outcome because we had the equivalent of one seed round of dilution.
Diversion: One morning we woke to the news that the Trump administration was blocking Muslims from entering the US. In less than 24 hours we used Dots to be one of the top donation referrers to the ACLU, became their biggest fundraising weekend ever. https://twitter.com/paulbz/status/825520545852698626
The Exit, Part 1: As the business scaled a buyer approached and we engaged. This distracted us and the buyer pulled out in 11th hour, setting us back. M&A has a real cost that I never fully appreciated. Only engage a buyer when ready to sell.
Founder exit: Unrelated to Dots, my wife and I decided to move back to London. My investors, board, and co-founder Patrick could were super supportive and we recruited gaming veteran @nir_efrat to continue the journey. https://blog.usejournal.com/playing-a-different-game-11e343598c45
Hired CEO: The match of Nir and Patrick was special, as they built on the work of the team over the previous 5 years to turn Dots into an even bigger, more profitable studio. It’s extremely rare to recruit a CEO that operates like a founder.
The Exit, Part 2: We first met TakeTwo five years ago when both companies where 1/8 the size. Although there were several suitors, the respect and appreciation from both sides combined with the work Patrick, Nir & team did over the past 2+ years resulted in a fast, no-shop offer.
The Exit, Part 3: The weeks that followed were critical for both parties to develop conviction to sign the deal. In a world fast-gone remote, NYC was still core to Dots. Partnering with one of the most successful game studios in the same zip code was ideal.
Footnote: We launched Dots 3 months after we launched Giphy, and sold Dots 3 months after we sold Giphy. Funny timing. Both built out of and initially fully funded by Betaworks, with many of us working on both from Day 1 as part of a program we called Hackers in Residence.
