We’re back, and everything is different (or the same)
Hi everyone. You may not have been following us for the past 13 years, but it’s been quite a journey! Like many startups, we overdrove our headlights and focused on the wrong things, ultimately closing shop in 2017. The short version is that I decided we should invest in a new and better product, rather than scaling the business on our first game.
Whoopsie!
Anyway, after a few years of working in enterprise, I decided to restart the MathBreakers franchise. Not least because it was literally keeping me up at night! I knew we had something special back in 2013–2014, as evidenced by our many, many happy players.
Everything is different now! Or the same, depending on how you look at it.
Certainly, the core foundation of the game, and its values, remain the same — sparking joy in students through in-game exploration, thus raising confidence and test scores—but this article will be more about the startup aspects of MathBreakers, rather than the game itself.
Starting over feels a lot like starting a brand new company. We learned so much the first time around, but now things are so different. For example, I was able to personally walk into 100 schools in California to get early traction before. Not so anymore; in fact, schools act downright insulted when you approach them personally, and they’re locked down like prisons. What the heck happened?! (Okay, I kind of know what happened, and it really sucks. But let’s not get off track.) So approaching schools on foot is out.
Which sucks, because one thing that’s the same is that the online ad marketplace for “math learning games/tools” is absolutely saturated. How can we possibly afford to stand out in this noise (without serious venture funding our marketing spend?)
One thing that started out the same, but rapidly changed, was my mindset. I had already begun feeling my emotional mind slip into what we should build. “It needs to look like this! It needs to feel like that! It needs to have this many levels and those features and … and …” Fortunately, I was soon disabused of this silly notion by my excellent coach at Fedrick Consulting, and by Eric Ries “The Lean Startup.” (Yep, that book is still very relevant.)
No matter what you think, your startup is not a “build it and they will come” situation. Even if you think you know what you’re doing, you don’t, you can’t, until you listen to what the market is telling you (and have a methodical way to test and measure this.)
I maintain a strong conviction that the game is intrinsically valuable, and is a solid foundation for a sustainable business. We have validated over and over again that students love playing the game, it has educational value, and parents will pay for it; but this alone isn’t enough. People still have to discover the product, and a sales funnel needs to be employed and tuned for the current market conditions. As any founder knows this may be one of the most challenging parts of the business, and it certainly isn’t fun (for me, anyway—I just want to build games, gosh dangit!)
BUT, no matter how challenging or non-fun it is, it’s probably the single most essential part of any startup. How many tech products do you find yourself using that aren’t all that great? A lot, I’d guess. That’s because they figured out their sales funnel, engine, and traction part of their business, and their product was only just good enough to support this.
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So where does that leave MathBreakers?
MathBreakers, a game in a league of its own in the educational math games space? Yes, I’ll definitely be beating our own drum here. Watch our videos, and tell me there’s a math game that looks—feels—more exciting and engaging. (Seriously. If it exists, it’s doing a great job of hiding.) I’ve played all of them, ProdigyGame for example, and I’ll tell you as a game player that it’s not even close. I’m all-in on the idea that we can capture 1–5% of the market in 5 years, though I’m clearly biased. But what I’m really saying here is that it doesn’t matter all that much.
We don’t need to be as far ahead as we are, product-wise. That box is checked.
What we need is our discovery, sales, conversions, partners, channels, etc. We need a consistent, reliable, and sustainable way for our product to reach the eyes and ears of both our users and our buyers (Yep, that’s another challenge; students play (and love) the game, but they aren’t the buyer.)
I’ve been extremely lucky to have a great team around to help. On the business operations and strategy side, Devin has proven absolutely invaluable. Ever heard “It’s Not the How or the What but the Who” ? Another thing that’s changed is that I’m more eager to delegate responsibility. As Steve Jobs famously said:
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Well anyway, I’ve been rambling so let me wrap up with a main point.
Back then I was in my late 20s and nobody could tell me what was what. I knew! My ego was in the clouds, my processes were dismissive and my actions were blind and uninformed as a result. Looking back, several people warned us about the obvious mistakes we were making that would ultimately tank the company. But I couldn’t see past my own nose.
In my defense, everyone was telling us what (and what not) to do, and it can be downright impossible to parse signal from noise. At the end of the day you have to make executive decisions and do the best you can.
So the biggest change is me—being more humble, more open, more willing to learn about what is the best way to create a successful business around changing math learning forever.
That’s exactly what we’re going to do—and this time, I’m willing, and determined, to discover the right way to do it.
