How To Copy Chess.com’s $100M/Year Business Model

About this video

Sam and Shaan explore the archetype of “New Zealand businesses”—profitable, independent platforms with cult followings and minimal competition—by investigating what comes after Chess.com. They discover EasyBrain, a Cyprus-based mobile game developer acquired for $640M+ in February, and identify undermonetized opportunities in domain-based game platforms like poker.com and crossword puzzle sites.

Key takeaways

• Sam claims Chess.com gets ~200M monthly uniques, 60M registered users, and at least $100M in recurring subscription revenue; he notes the Stanford co-founders outperformed their peers by building a simple, highly-desired business
• Sam discovered EasyBrain’s sudoku.com and related number game apps (750M+ lifetime downloads, 12M daily active users) were acquired for $640M in stock plus up to $120M additional consideration—significantly less than his $850M guess but showing massive value in simple, cross-promoted games
• Sam identifies major untapped opportunities in premium domain names for classic games (poker.com is just an affiliate site, crossword puzzle sites are neglected) and proposes that owning these domains with polished, monetized platforms could generate substantial returns

Episode details: published February 19, 2022 · 11K views · 9:18 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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