What every startup can learn from gaming company, Supercell
Supercell is a gaming company that makes £32M/employee.
How is that possible?
Well, for starters the team scraps 90% of its games.
Wait, what? Yep. Ruthless.
If a game doesn’t hit strict 30-day retention benchmarks, it’s toast.
This approach is something zero-to-one founders would do well to take note of. ↓↓
Experiment widely. Supercell doesn’t invest all its resources into a single idea. It launches a lot of new games, not knowing which ones will stick.
Kill your darlings early. Supercell axes 9 out of 10 games during development. No “but we’ve come so far” excuses.
Empower the team. The people who create the game must decide if it lives or dies. Not the CEO. Not the board.Small teams of 10-15. The creators.When teams have the freedom to kill their own work, they become more invested in the quality of what they keep.
Ownership and accountability are fundamental to building better products.
Play the long game. Supercell does not chase quick wins. It’s after ‘forever games’.The company’s North Star is retention. Retaining users means delivering value.
Succeed or fail learn Every binned idea at Supercell feeds into the next one. Failure is seen as an opportunity to learn.Until recently I’d never heard of Supercell, so I was amazed by how much the company was outperforming its peers.It becomes a bit less surprising when you discover their approach. I wonder, would people say the same about my business… or yours?
P.S. If you think you’ve never heard of Supercell, it’s the Finnish company behind games like Clash of the Clans and Boom Beach.
