Launch after 6 months no matter what, and let real players shape the game

Gus… business idea is to build something, you know, you would want to use. But I want to go back just a little click. You mentioned that you worked at these big tech companies, Meta and Amazon, assuming you were making decent money. And yet, you still decided that you didn't want to maybe continue pursuing that traditional path, and you wanted to build this game. Tell us a little bit of the story around quitting tech to build this little mobile game.

KenYeah, so working at Meta was really stressful, but rewarding. During the first half of my career there, I learned an incredible amount. I had great mentors and the company was also really supportive of its employees. However, things shifted over time. Once the layoffs started happening in 2022, my perception of job stability had changed. I realized that job security is never guaranteed no matter how hard you work. I wanted to take control of my own future. I started experimenting with AI tools and chose to build a game, because gaming was something I felt that I knew very well. After I launched, a small group of players found the game and gave me feedback. I made my first sale a few days into launch, which was incredibly validating. It proved to me that even though my game was in an incredibly early alpha version, someone enjoyed it enough to spend $10 for something that I had built. By the end of my first month, I made about $150 in sales. By the end of my second month, I made about 1,500 in total sales. It was at this point that I started to see that this could potentially be more than just a small hobby project. I decided that if my game could reach 10,000 a month organically, I'd leave my job and go all in. The game continued to grow slowly, and 6 months after launch, I made my first Reddit post about the game. The response was actually overwhelmingly critical, but the post gained significant traction and put …

GusYeah, I like that mindset of like, if I'm not going to do it now, when am I going to do it? You know, I think if you want to do this, like you can sort of set parameters to make it happen, and once you make those parameters work, you can actually go for it. Uh and that kind of sounds like a little bit of what you did. That's cool. Okay, let's get into the growth. I'm really excited to talk a little bit more about this. So you mentioned in your …

GusAll right, let's wrap up here, and just talk about a question we always ask to everyone that comes on the channel. If you were standing on your shoulder 2 years ago, 5 years ago, what advice would you give to yourself?

KenBuild something that you understand well and get real feedback as early as possible. Not from friends and family, but from your potential customers. One of the best decisions I made was forcing myself to launch the game after 6 months, no matter what. At the time, I had a much bigger vision for the game. But looking back, there's no way the game would have improved the way it did without getting it into the hands of real players. If you're not embarrassed by your V1, V2, or maybe even your V5, you're probably not shipping early enough. Your early users or play testers will give you incredible feedback and help shape your game. I also didn't worry much about monetization in the beginning. My focus was retention first and building a game that people wanted to keep playing.

GusAwesome. That's great advice, Ken. Thank you for coming on to the channel. Excited to see where this game goes, and maybe we'll have you back on when you're making 50k a month or 100k a month.