Candy Crush: creator Riccardo Zacconi on what it means to be the king of King
Today we speak to Riccardo Zacconi, the guy who’s credited with creating the most addictive game ever: Candy Crush Saga. He says his success is down to hiring awesome people, then giving those people freedom to hire their own awesome people. But we think it might have something to do with the $100m marketing budget. Join us as we discuss:What it took to get King off the ground. The advice he has for the next generation of entrepreneurs. Why his watch is fifteen minutes fast.
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Show Notes
Riccardo Zacconi is an Italian entrepreneur best known as the CEO of King, the company behind the most popular game of our generation: Candy Crush Saga.
Riccardo cut his teeth in the tech startup world during the dotcom boom of the late 90s, when he joined Swedish messaging startup Spray. He left Spray to become vice-president of European sales and marketing at uDate, leaving shortly after it was acquired by Match.com, to set up King in 2003.
The rest they say, is history.
But we aren’t going to gloss over this incredible piece of history, so join us as we talk with Italy’s most successful entrepreneur and take note, he has a lot of advice to share.
Today we chat with Riccardo about:
- Giving King his all in the early days: selling his car and his flat to self-fund his venture and how King got angel investment at the eleventh hour.
- Why the University of Life is more important than actual university, and why King is harder to get into than Harvard.
- What he would take if he was stranded on a desert island.
- Why timing and predicting the market is so important when launching a product - that and creating a unique UX for users.
- How innovation buoyed his company up and kept them afloat.
- Why he credits his success to great hiring (and how to hire successfully).
- The one KPI all game and app developers have to monitor.
- His proudest moment whilst building the brand.
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