The Creator of Club Penguin - Lane Merrifield @ Wheelhouse Ventures

About this video

Lane Merrifield tells Dan Martell how Club Penguin, co-founded with Lance and Dave, was bootstrapped inside Dave’s marketing agency — Dave let profits be poured into it, and Lane and Lance put in money from lines of credit on their houses. Built in about nine to 10 months, it chose subscriptions over advertising to kids from the start, became profitable after three months, and grew from four to 180 employees in 18 months. Distribution came via Miniclip, run by a developer Lance had earlier donated Flash games to, which Merrifield says had about 50 million uniques a month; he says they later cut Miniclip checks of four or five million dollars a month. They kept success secret for over a year, misleading reporters about ComScore numbers for fear of competitors. Merrifield says Disney was not the highest bidder but offered global infrastructure; the deal was $650 million with earnouts, not all received. He stayed five years, then left after travel kept him from his kids, built a succession plan over 18 months, and later helped create Kelowna’s Innovation Centre and Wheelhouse Ventures, and auditioned for Dragon’s Den.

Key takeaways

• Bootstrapping and values: Dave funded Club Penguin from his agency’s profits, founders used home lines of credit, and they chose subscriptions over ads to kids despite media mockery.
• Distribution through generosity: Lance’s earlier donated Flash games led to a Miniclip deal that Merrifield says reached about 50 million uniques a month and scaled in about five weeks.
• Keep costs razor-thin and stay secret early: profitable after three months, no lifestyle upgrades, turned down press and misled reporters about ComScore while competitors could copy them.
• Sell for infrastructure, not just price: Merrifield says Disney was not the highest bidder in a $650 million-with-earnouts deal, but offered global offices, language and time-zone support.
• Focus test and exit lesson: ‘If it doesn’t matter to an eight year old, it doesn’t matter’ — and he left Disney after realising the site built for his kids was making him absent from them, learning success is not about him.

Episode details: published September 27, 2021 · 50:41 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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