How I Built A $90,000/Month Side Hustle In 48 Hours | ft. Dharmesh Shah

About this video

Dharmesh Shah (their guest, founder and HubSpot founder) discusses building Wordplay, a Wordle-inspired game he created over a weekend in February to teach his 11-year-old son about software development. The project went viral, attracting 9.5 million users and 45 million games played, generating approximately $90,000 monthly in ad revenue, and Shaan explores what the project could be worth and lessons learned about building viral products.

Key takeaways

• Shaan built Wordplay in 24 hours by adding features Wordle lacked: unlimited daily plays and friend challenge links, which created a viral sharing mechanism that compounded user growth
• The project generated significant revenue ($90k/month estimated through Google AdSense) with minimal costs, demonstrating traffic monetization potential; Shaan estimates it could sell for $2–10 million based on 5x multiple of reduced ad revenue
• Shaan’s primary distribution channels were his existing social following (1M LinkedIn, 300k Twitter followers) combined with his blog and email flywheel, showing how cold start problems can be overcome with established platforms
• Building the project taught Shaan about retention metrics (average session time grew from 4 to 14 minutes) and low-friction web-based products; he’s exploring expanding Wordplay with themed editions and community features

Episode details: published July 16, 2022 · 62K views · 10:45 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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