Share via

Zynga: So you want to make millions building the next Zynga

  • Article

Mrs. RichYou have secretly played Farmville, getting your online friends to join you in the game (making sure that your real physical friends don’t know you are addicted to Farmville).  Or you play Mafia Wars.  More likely though, you play the poker game, if my guess isn’t far off, most of the real money is made through Poker on Zygna, so the creative component of building games is still overwhelming using 52 cards to play a well defined game.

What do you do if you want to build an online business similar to Zygna? 

Set goals

For example:

  • Mission: Expanding gameplayer’s interaction and fun!  While making the world a smarter place.
  • Happy customers handing over money
  • Business running smoothly without me around
  • Solid HR
  • Good employee advancement
  • Workers get 3 weeks of paid vacation/7 holidays off/Thanksgiving Thursday and Thanksgiving Friday off
  • Matched 401K fund
  • Excellent medical for employees
  • Office party once a quarter
  • Pizza lunches at least every two weeks.
  • Free beverages (and the coffee machine filters have to be cleaned weekly)

Take a small business class

  • What is the very first thing you should do, but is rarely done?  Attend a small business class at your local community college and plan, plan, plan.

Hire a consultant

  • Well first you would hire someone like me as a consultant (but not me, however, if you want to comment on my blog, we could definitely chat that way). As a consultant they will tell you that for the amount of money you have to invest, there is no way that you can succeed.
  • Then you fire them, and move forward.
  • However, you do have to pay them so there went the 8 hour minimum, or around $2400. See you already saved money by reading this blog!

Lawyer up:

  • The next step is important, but no one does:
    • Attend a seminar on business law, and get familiar with lawyers (at least in the US). 
    • Bottom line: As you become more successful you will need an attorney and if you go bankrupt then you will need an attorney.  So one way or the other you will need an attorney.  Start networking.

Borrowing money:

  • Don’t Borrow Money, unless you plan and plan to pay it back quickly
  • Venture Capital:
    • Not a good thing unless you are the owner and they are paying you $6,000,000 to get you out of the way. 
    • In that case take the bucks and leave.  Or that is what I would do.  Ok, right now I would take $4,000,000, but then again I don’t have a business so $4,000,000 would be a good deal!

Building the web site/games/driving traffic

  • You are the driver, and you better be good at this.
  • Once you are good at this, and you hire people, you don’t get to do it anymore, you have to make payroll.