I love founding stories.
I have been lucky enough to follow dozens of Turkish success stories from the very beginning. Yemeksepeti was at the top of that list.
In September 2005, long before its founders had their exit, I put that journey and other stories into a book: Kümesteki Kartal Neden Uçamaz? (Why Can’t the Eagle in the Coop Fly?)
That was 21 years ago. So let this email be a small 21st anniversary celebration :)
Anyway, I won’t make it long. I am always curious about the early days of a startup.
Minecraft is one of my son’s and my favorite games. My daughter used to play it a lot too, but now she is a teenager and won’t even look at it :)
Last time I wrote about POP MART. This time I turned Minecraft’s story into a video.
POP MART Part 2 is out too. If you missed Part 1, here are both:
After Upto36, I also wrote a new game, but I am saving that one for later.
I share all of this first with a small, closed WhatsApp group of friends who are also on this list. Their first impressions mean a lot to me. They see my MVPs, or as I call them, Initial Untested Products, before anyone else.
Now, the Minecraft story.
One small note before you read. I do not recommend that founders go part time or treat their startup as a side project. Markus is worth studying for a different reason: how carefully he made the jump.
September 2010. Valve, the studio behind Half-Life, offers Markus Persson a job.
He turns it down.
That same month, PayPal freezes his account. His inbox is overflowing. He is the only programmer on a game that isn’t finished.
Four years later, Microsoft buys the company behind that game for two and a half billion dollars. The game is Minecraft.
The most interesting part isn’t the ending. It is how carefully Markus got there. He didn’t quit his job to chase an idea. He kept his salary, shipped early, charged early, and cut his hours step by step as the sales came in.
Evidence didn’t remove the fear. It made the jump smaller.
Five steps, in short:
1. Keep the paycheck. He took a job that funded the idea instead of fighting it.
2. Ship before it’s ready. He put a rough version online in May 2009. Players shaped it. Creative mode exists because they missed the early, simple version.
3. Charge early. About ten euros, after a few weeks. A compliment costs nothing. A purchase tells you something praise can’t.
4. Buy time with evidence. He dropped to 40 percent at his job, then waited six more months before he dared to go full time.
5. Hire when you become the bottleneck. Hundreds of emails a day, a frozen PayPal account, less and less time to code. So he called his friend Jakob, and his old boss Carl became the CEO.
From the outside it looked like an overnight success. From the inside it took about twenty months.
I made a short animated video of the whole story: youtu.be/V-tazk7t2pc
A question for you. What evidence would you need before leaving your job?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every answer.
P.S. A quick update on my game Upto36.
I am not in the top 5 anymore. I did not expect the game to move this fast.
So I talked to the top players to understand why they keep playing.
Oğuzhan told me something I keep thinking about:
“The rules are the same, but everyone is playing a different game.”
That is his hack. He found his own game inside mine.
Ozlemik is the puzzle monster. She told me that while playing she didn’t see anything around her. Full focus, for an hour and a half. She also sent me a long list of valuable feedback, and I am working through it.
So here is a challenge. Get into the top 5. I could not stay there, let’s see if you can.
When you make it, hit reply and tell me which game you were playing.