People Who Became Millionaires After Everything Went Wrong 😳

@historyfacts_110

19.1K followers · usually 36.3K views a post

Views

163.6K

Likes

3.9K

Comments

13

Shares

132

SoundTikTok sound · original sound - _inter.world_

Promoted product

Discord

Why it worked

The video uses a compelling narrative of failure leading to success, highlighting the relatable frustrations with existing communication tools and the innovative pivot to Discord. The story is framed as a "rags to riches" tale, making it engaging and inspiring for viewers interested in entrepreneurship and tech history.

Summary

This video tells the story of Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevsky, who pivoted from a failed iPad game called Fate's Forever to create Discord. Despite initial struggles and a near-bankruptcy situation, a desperate Reddit post asking people to try their new app led to a viral wave and the eventual success of Discord, turning it into a billion-dollar empire.

Structure

1Jason Citron sells his first startup for $100 million.
2He teams up with Stan Vishnevsky to build Fate's Forever, a massive multiplayer iPad game.
3The game is a commercial failure, burning through venture capital.
4The team becomes frustrated with existing communication tools like Skype and TeamSpeak.
5They realize their internal tool for fixing these issues is more valuable than the game itself.
6They pivot the company to focus on voice chat, launching Discord.

Original caption

People Who Became Millionaires After Everything Went Wrong 😳 #Interesting #History #millionaire #incredible #fyp

More from @historyfacts_110

Product placement

Jason Citron (person) - founder of Discord; Stan Vishnevsky (person) - co-founder of Discord; Fate's Forever (game) - a massive multiplayer game for the iPad that was a commercial failure; Skype (app) - a communication tool that caused lag and security issues; TeamSpeak (app) - a communication tool that forced users to rent servers and expose IP addresses; Discord (app) - a voice chat application that was pivoted to from a failed game studio; Reddit (platform) - a platform where a desperate post changed everything for Discord; Final Fantasy 14 (game) - a game whose subreddit was used to promote Discord.

On-screen text

People Who Became Millionaires After Everything Went Wrong 😳 2012 back in 2012 Jason Citron 😳 Jason Citron sold his first startup for over $100 million and immediately teamed up with a brilliant engineer named Stan Vishnevsky to build Fate's Forever a massive multiplayer game for the iPad they raised millions in venture capital and spent years developing the title fully convinced they were building the future of mobile gaming but instead of a revolution they were heading for a total disaster you see the game was a commercial failure that burned through their cash but while the game itself was flopping the team grew incredibly frustrated with the tools they used to talk to each other they hated that Skype was a resource hog that caused their game to lag and they despised how teamspeak forced them to rent servers and expose their IP addresses to potential security threats but this frustration eventually led to a billion dollar realization they realized that the internal tool they built to fix these headaches was actually more valuable than the game itself so they made the gut wrenching decision to fire their game designers and pivot the entire company to voice chat they launched discord in May 2015 expecting a flood of users but despite the superior technology the launch was dead on arrival with almost zero sign ups but a single desperate Reddit post changed everything with the company on the brink of bankruptcy they executed a Hail Mary by posting in a Final Fantasy 14 subreddit simply asking people to try their new app when those skeptical gamers clicked the link and found the actual developers waiting in the voice channels to take their feedback live it created a massive viral wave that paved the way for a failed game studio to pivot and turn into a 15 billion dollar empire

Transcript

People Who Became Millionaires After Everything Went Wrong 😳 back in 2012 Jason Citron sold his first startup for over $100 million and immediately teamed up with a brilliant engineer named Stan Vishnevsky to build Fate's Forever a massive multiplayer game for the iPad they raised millions in venture capital and spent years developing the title fully convinced they were building the future of mobile gaming but instead of a revolution they were heading for a total disaster you see the game was a commercial failure that burned through their cash but while the game itself was flopping the team grew incredibly frustrated with the tools they used to talk to each other they hated that Skype was a resource hog that caused their game to lag and they despised how teamspeak forced them to rent servers and expose their IP addresses to potential security threats but this frustration eventually led to a billion dollar realization they realized that the internal tool they built to fix these headaches was actually more valuable than the game itself so they made the gut wrenching decision to fire their game designers and pivot the entire company to voice chat they launched discord in May 2015 expecting a flood of users but despite the superior technology the launch was dead on arrival with almost zero sign ups but a single desperate Reddit post changed everything with the company on the brink of bankruptcy they executed a Hail Mary by posting in a Final Fantasy 14 subreddit simply asking people to try their new app when those skeptical gamers clicked the link and found the actual developers waiting in the voice channels to take their feedback live it created a massive viral wave that paved the way for a failed game studio to pivot and turn into a 15 billion dollar empire