The Unconventional Bootstrapped Journey of a Solo Founder Who Just Sold His Company for $50M+
This blog tells the story of Jean-Nicolas Mastin, a solo founder who sold his company for $50M+. It was completely bootstrapped and in a totally unconventional niche. Learn about his journey and the massive success of League of Legends.
Codie Sanchez
Investing millions in boring businesses & sharing what I learn. On a mission to create 1M financially free humans | My bio, not my tombstone, I hope it changes
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This solo founder just sold his company for $50M+.
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
The craziest part?
It was completely bootstrapped and in a totally unconventional niche.
Here's the breakdown: -
Let me introduce you to Jean-Nicolas Mastin, the 1-man show behind Wargraphs.
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
• Started coding at age 11
• Built his first website around World of Warcraft in 2009
• Became obsessed with League of Legends and waited for their API to come out so he could build with it -
Do you realize how MASSIVE League of Legends actually is? (I didn't...)
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
• ~180M players global, 28M in the US
• Generated $1.75B in rev for the developer
• They even produced a viral Netflix show last year, Arcane, which made Netflix ~$900M pic.twitter.com/KDSly9CpfZ -
But Jean-Nicolas was building apps in 2013 before the game had hit the mainstream.
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
His first experiment: League of Graphs
• 16.9 million visits
• In-depth character stats
• Infographics on the game's monthly updates pic.twitter.com/c6yWnkpGr1 -
What did Jean-Nicolas's day look like?
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
"I wake up each morning and ask myself: What do my users want or need right now? As soon as I have an answer, I chase it down quickly."
This paid off in 2017, where he continued to build and obsess over his core audience. -
What happened?
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
He launched Porofessor.
A free application that overlays with the game, enabling players to look at:
• Live in-depth scouting on their opponents
• Post-game analytics on their performance
• Guides on how to use certain characters pic.twitter.com/dikHdCZAmC -
The app was an instant hit:
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
• 800k daily active users
• $13.46M revenue in 2022 (mainly via ads)
The company that acquired them, MOBA Network, is also a fascinating business... -
Their focus is on acquiring and growing the world's largest gaming communities:
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
• Valuation: $515M
• Distribution: 170M page views + 20B video views per year
• Assets: 1,000+ content creators and 23 online communities
A fascinating community-first model. -
Some lessons from this story:
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
• Build for avid fans
• Always obsess over your customers
• Build from a place of personal obsession (find what feels like play to you, but feels like work to others) -
I don't know the first thing about League of Legends...
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
But a story of a passionate builder?
Game recognizes game.
Follow @Codie_Sanchez for more, and you can RT here for easy sharing:https://t.co/VoOP7Ph9P9 -
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— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) June 21, 2023
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