Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Hillary podcast, where we revert the state of the chess pieces all the way back to the start and look back on both the well thought out blues and the misplace that founders went through in their journeys. To help you take away the openings, you can apply to your business today to get you to the end games I am Brandon undergo. And on this episode, I'm very excited to be joined by David Kramer Lee, the founder and CEO of Chess a Ball, a platform that utilizes science back learning that teaches users how to become a better chess player. Testable has shown amazing growth in becoming one of the industry leaders in chess advancement and recently was bought and added to the play Magnus Sweet, led by the legendary trust grandmaster Magnus Carlsen Part. All of this, though David was the CEO and founder at Sharkey is a social game studio that created games on and off of Facebook's early platform. These were the early days pre Farmville restaurant city, where text based games where you spent equal amounts of time playing and waiting for energy to refill, where the normal. So it was a huge blast from the past for David tonight to discuss,

along with the anecdotes about his time at these companies. In this episode, David and I discussed the hot topic of chess is in Eastport. The viability of MOOCs, massive open online courses. And who would win in the chess game that David and I will play once I learned what each of the pieces do? Sit tight, get another great Ian. Thank you for listening. This episode of the Failure podcast is brought to you by a four e A four e provides remote accounting solutions for service base and SAS businesses in the U. S. If you hate the boring accounting work such as bookkeeping, taxes and payroll, they got you covered. If you're looking for help with financial strategies to grow your business, a four e can do that,

too. Check them out today at Meet a four e dot com to learn more about how their C P. A qualified team can help you grow. Don't forget to use the code. Fail ary 25 to receive 25% off your first year. Hello and welcome to another percent of failure Podcast. Your one stop shop for failed ventures and the founders behind them. I'm so excited to have my next guest on. He is the current CEO and founder and testable. And he was once also previously the founder at Sharkey's. I have David Cram early. Thank you so much for being on the show,

David. Thank you, Brandon. Thanks for having me on. Very glad to be here.

Absolutely. You know, you have, like, such a great background, and I think we would love to share. We did some research on our end feel freedom, you know, Pepper in any details where I missed. But you have such an impressive text back and, you know, getting into where you're at you graduate, you know, BS in computer science. You did your post grad in psychology. You did a master's of science and psychology and education. And you wrote your dissertation about chess, which led to, you know, the recent news of Magnus Carlsen. You know of his fame acquiring or buying testable.

Yeah, it's been a great joining. My dissertation, as you mentioned, was actually going hand in hand with building testable. I thought that complemented each other quite well feeling motivation both ways. But I know you wanted to me to introduce myself a little bit as well, so I'm gonna say hello, everybody. So my name is David Cinema Za Cromley on 32 years old. Now you're getting old, great young entrepreneurs, which I used to be one day on. I like to say that I'm from Planet Earth. And that's because I've lived in so many different places of that in South America, in North America, on in Europe. So you know, you want to put me down, You gotta ask me where I am now.

Yes, absolutely. This is a great segue way into where I'm going. But you talked about you know yourself once being a young entrepreneur. So I love to just get into that. I love to just dive into you know, the details of I guess how you got to become a founder in the first place, you know, was there any experience or cultural things that led you to, you know, doing startups

So experience and cultural things? Well, I've been making things on the web since since I was 13. Really? And initially initially was Ah Hobie on. You know, it was just fun. Like I was browsing this This websites coming up on until, you know, why don't I try making one myself? I remember the first thing was just MSN communities, which, you know, just involved filling out a few forms and you got your own community and then the feeling of, like the 1st 3 people joining that community and talking to you and complimenting you for getting it started, I think that was that was great. I think that just gave me the motivation to keep on going.

Doing that And actually, one of the first people who joins my very first time s and community is still a very good friend of mine to this day. You know, we actually hung out in person hours, but then it was just this this random person from the Internet, the John, my community and not he's one of my best friends, So yeah, I think that's gonna give me the bug off being a founder and I just really lead to creating more things right after that. I like my Amazon community, but I wanted more, and I made a few different projects after after my teenage years through my university years, especially after I figured out that they help you make cash you know on often like the biggest investment is starting it up. It's a lot of work starting it up, But once you can get it started, it could just be a really nice cast generator.

And that's what happens to me. I mean, it wasn't anything crazy, but it was good income for a teenager in the United States where I was at a time. I mean, for example, I think age 15 actually sold my first business. But when I say that like I take with a big grain of salt because the price was $2000. But you know, age 15 that's that's big money

thinking. Oh, absolutely.

I bought a PlayStation and some other stuff. It was good fun, and it was just like a little Web hosting business. And I'm not sure my clients knew that their weapons was a 15 year old. But, you know, they were happy. And eventually a bigger Web quest was like, you know, send them our way. And we did that. And it was all good fun.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'd love to just take this chronologically from David. Sick of 15. But I just want to talk. You know, your first start up in shark. Yes, I guess I love to just, you know, bridge the gap between you selling your first company, even though, you know, congratulations there, like $2000 at 15 years old,

is a lot of money. Like, I couldn't say. Like, I have had 10 much money when I was 15. But I love to just bridge the gap between, you know, David circa 15. Tushar Kiss. What happened between then? You know, how did you, I guess, get into founding a social game company?

Yeah. So? So, actually, one of the things I made in my teenage years worth this video game review site on I was also kind of like of teenage needs. You know, I like I like video games, and I wanted more of them on. I figured out that all this video game companies were willing to send you free video games as long as you you wrote up a little essay saying what you like and when you didn't like and so I had this cycle. Video game City. We got a tone of video games since eventually this let me. So actually, for my first team, I had too many readings for myself. I have to share some, but really, I think that was what ignited my passion even more for reading games.

And I thought, you know, I've played so many of them. I reviewed them. I know what makes a good video game. I know it makes about a video game on. I would like to try to make my own. So I think being a big game developer has always being this kind of cool aspiration that many young developers have. So mine was just compounded by the fact that I had this video game review site and I thought, You know, at some point I have to do this on and actually they got between selling that first business and starting shark uses not that long. Ready cause the seats for Sharkey's resource that maybe when I was 18 and I think appropriately started in my late 19 while finishing up my bachelors at Queens College and in New York on them. By the time I was 20 it was a registered business Making revenue?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, just talking about how you got free video games makes me reflect back on my Children. And I think I didn't have as much fun of a child. That is you. But I love to this, you know, Let's just dive into Shark is. So what I wrote down was a shark. ES is a social game company that created games on and off of Facebook's early platform with, like games like Farmville, Restaurant City and, you know, at a peak attracted around three million players of the game. And, yeah, is that agreed summary of like what the

company was. Yeah, it's exactly that. It was very early days when we jumped on Facebook's platform. I was like I said, in my senior year, a belief may be the year before University on Facebook was promoting the fact that their APP development platform was growing and they were inviting people to make more APs for your ecosystem on I thought, Well, you know, there is no games on Facebook. Maybe there's a couple. I mean, this was pre Farm Bill on pre restaurant City on the games at that point were like, you know, kind of like text based games. So it was easier to develop them like, say,

fancy graphics kind of games are that you can see now. So, you know, a text based game hot experience developing one of those early years. So why not put one on Facebook and see how it does? So I saw that kind of opportunity or a gap in the market, if you will. With Facebook having this rapidly growing platform and very few text based games, I think one of the few that that there was was Mafia wars or something, something that

you know. Yeah,

completely tech space. I made one called Metropolis, which was a city building game inspired by Sin City, which was one of my favorite games when I was a teenager, I tried toe adapted as best as I coached into something that would work just with text. And yet I can really took off. We had hundreds of thousands of monthly active users over its lifetime. Definitely a few 1,000,000 people played it on just where I also learned something about monetization bringing oldest millions of eyeballs and seeing what they were willing to pay for. And, you know, that was a really get starting point. And after that, we made a few more games, which just kept leading us down the line of being a video game developer. Really?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's very reminiscent that you brought up Mafia wars. You know, the energy based text games. Yeah, I think you know, when I was Oh, God is very reminiscent. I think when I was, like, 13 when I had my parents helped me make my own Facebook account. Like, I think, straight after school, you know,

I would wait for my energy, the top open. Just play lots of the just text based games. I think I might have been super high level in Metropolis has nothing at one point. Absolutely. And, you know, I think it's just I'd love to just dive into this, you know? I guess I'm curious. You know, you go from playing games to reviewing them, to getting them for free, you know, and then building a company out of them. I guess I'm just curious There's a gap there that I love to explore in game design.

How did you get there? You know. Is there anything in college? Like, what was your first game? You know, what did you learn from your face game? And like, what was the things that you were fined? Two. You know, putting your first game on Facebook.

Wow, that's such a long time. I going out s going too much. D so But I think what are the things I believe in is that everything is always built on the shoulders of giants, right? So, sure, like if you look at video game my lemons that are still being used today, like this energy based systems that replenished this things were made, you know, in 2000 and eight. I'm sure they were inspired by something even before that. So I think it was a similar kind of experience for me. I mean, in university, I was doing I was in computer science that it was nothing about game design, and back then I was actually not very well read,

so I hadn't read stop many educational books, if you will. So it was really about figuring it out on my own, Like figuring out like, what kind of game would be fine for me to play. So it was really kind of digging deep into my experience off the things I've played, the things of reviews, the things I've seen, what a people like that things have seen, what people review and trying to adapt to this new platform. And really, I think, even back then it was just about trial and error and listening to your market to frying product market fit, which is, you know, fancy words that I know how to say Now,

back then, I didn't know that that's what I was doing. But essentially, it's what I was doing. I was just releasing a few features that I think I would enjoy on in finding people who would enjoy the same thing and then listening to their feedback, their ideas. I'm trying to take that into a product road map that would make the thing better. That's how I learned. How about came designed on as funny because if you dig things up in the Internet, there's this little piece of history, if you will about me, that this is famous game designer. It was criticizing one of my games like who really badly on Actually the games community jump to defend me in that post. And I think I also jumped into it and give a reply and that my reply was like, you know, you think this is like a team of 10 people,

actually, is just me. So can you cut me some slack on? And she was like, Oh, it's just you. Okay, well, then, you know, I guess it's not so bad, but it wasn't anything, you know. It wasn't rocket science is what I'm trying to say. It was it was a simple game and then just, you know,

it's aeration. We tried to keep improving it and eventually thinks clicks. People like this on a crew on, You know, Among that success there is probably like five or six games that weren't as successful. So I'm telling you about the most successful one, which was Metropolis. You would have something had another one called the hatchery, which you had, like, a little time I got you like that you could bring up which did OK, but not as well. More had no one called same book so kind of Facebook. But sim book So I was inspired on the same Also didn't do as well. You can probably find, like,

did the former games that I tried on. People just didn't like or, you know, maybe only 100 people, like, as opposed to a few thousands. You know what a few 100 people is Just not enough to make revenue, Which means that once you need to get a job, which I was close to needing at that point having graduation so soon in the calendar, I had to find something that works, you know? Or I would have to go and get a job somewhere and stop having so much fun.

Sure. And yeah, absolutely. You know, I think something that I'm still appalled by, that you are doing Sharky s. You know, the advent of Facebook while you were still in college as well, you know, you were still finishing in education, and I would assume after classes you would build or just iterating on more games. I hate to, you know, ask another question. That's, like, way too reminiscent.

But I love to just ask you, you know, what was your vision? I guess You know, you talked about how graduation was coming so soon. And did you think you were gonna do, you know, a shark kiss forever? Or did you think start gets, you know, was gonna get another metropolis and just from revenues, you just continue to spill

games. Well, so my vision was really believing Facebook. It kind of helped me with my vision because there were marketing how great a platform is and they were posting great growth figures. So in my senior year, I was studying all my classmates, like, you know, just check this Facebook thing out, like it's gonna be really in demand, and you're gonna get paid. Well, if you're an APP developer, like even if you don't make your own APS. So like the beginning of it was kind of like having this failsafe of like, you know, even if this doesn't work out,

I'm getting experience as an app developer for Facebook, which is growing so I would be able to get a better job than something that's no us home, you know. But after making a few games and seeing the revenue potential, I'm talking about like very quickly Wednesday making like, 10,000 month, 20,000 months in dollars elementary to $40,000 a month and I was like, Hold on a second. There is something here I don't want to keep Doing this and in terms of vision for Sharkey is beyond me, wanting to have stable employment and state stable revenue income stream, I guess eventually became about just seeing how big a game you come built. It wasn't even about their revenue anymore. It was just about how many people can I get into this game? What's my next big game going to be like? It was just, I guess,

really addictive in a way of, like, What's the next big thing going to be on? I had some very good ideas of the time, one of them that actually fails miserably. But it was actually a good idea, which was one of my first lessons in execution matters, you know, because somebody has made that idea and it has added out 20 times the user base that we did so so watching. That was painful, but I guess, yeah, you're asking about my vision on the future for shark years. It was just to build the next bigger game and see how big we can get, kind of. I guess like a competition with all the order of social game companies that were rising up. I mean, it was play fish. There was Inga at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I just really wanted to compete with embassy. Like, can we be? Is biggest. Then can we be bigger that we make something cooler? It was

just fun. Yeah, absolutely. And that was what I was gonna get into, You know? I remember, you know, just 13 year old Brandon. There was, like, play fish, Zynga. I think pet societies begin. And, like, I assume when you guys were, like,

growing Farmville Restaurant City, Gostin names escape me. But I bet like there was a bunch of, like, there's an aquarium game. There was a bunch of other games that I probably did in touch, but I guess I'm curious. How did you compete? You talk about being a one man team. You're 20 years old compared to these video game studios. You know, Zynga the size of Zynga. Back in the day. I guess I'm just curious, you know? How did you compete

or what did you think so? Sure. I mean, this is actually one of the mistakes have made back then and you got to think that was, like 2021. So these days, I see sure accuse us like my personal MBA on older, the money that was spent on it, like part of my MP education. So, yeah, once I realized I want to build bigger, better things. I mean, there's only so much one person can do in today. I actually moved to London at that point, and I started hiring people in London.

We very quickly went from a woman buying to 10 people. You know, we had three people working on one game, three people working on, not a game on the rest, maintaining the old games, making sure that the revenues coming in. So it went from being a one man operation to being 10 people in an office very, very quickly. And, you know, back then I think Zynga was on the 20 people and eventually the race venture capital in there were 50 or hundreds. But we're not that much smaller than our competition, if you will.

Yeah, sure. And I hope this isn't too big of a tangent. But if you're able, I love to just get a little bit deeper into what the community of like Facebook developers or Facebook game developers were like. I think I only see a lot of it is like, Oh, they push product or like, there's Oh, Facebook has a new game And, like, I don't even mention the game studio behind it. I'm just curious what the community of game developers was like between, You know, Sharkey is ice immuno Zynga play fish, etcetera. Did you guys,

you know, talk? Did you coordinate? You know, what was the next trend of games are How did that happen?

Non. I mean, all the games for very, very secret. If that those ideas that everybody hot and what they were working on, I think you know, it was extremely competitive. So everybody wanted Teoh do each other. Yeah, but it was also plenty off of sharing going on. So, you know, there be ah conference in London, for example, would be people from play fish. There's sharing best practices and things they learns, and we try to do the same.

So I think there was Ah, nice eco system. If I had to judge it, I would say it was leaning towards more competitive, that none caring for each other. But I think that was just kind of like because of this gold rush kind of mentality of like, everybody's got I grab as much space as they can. So you have a very interesting, very fun days.

But good to know. Yeah, sir. And, you know, they produced a lot of, like the gold Rush produce a lot of big hitters, right? So, like, who would know where, Like, consumerist America would be today without Farmville? But I love to just, you know, take this chronologically. But,

you know, you talk about hiring a team and just moving out to London with Sharkey's. I guess I hate to ask this like so bluntly. But what were the factors that eventually led to, you know, the scale down or like, the failure? Or like, how did you know that Shark Es wasn't going to be something that was, like, able to compete with Zynga's? The play fishes etcetera.

Yeah, so I guess it was actually quite sudden, and we reached maybe £80,000 in revenue per month. So that's there now $120,000 or something had a team of 10 maybe 12 people and there was enough money at end of them on left to kind of like to have some profit, and I was all good. But actually Facebook changed the rules of the game very quickly, like very quickly. So Facebook realized we've grown so fast. But now we need to figure out how to make money on, basically started squeezing their partners for money very, very, very quickly. I imagine that they talk things through with the bigger players like Zynga. Maybe they might have had a meeting or two to discuss what they would do. But for the rest of us who were smaller, it was just like here is developer updates on This is what's happening. Maybe they would give you a little bit ahead notice,

like a month or two? I don't know. I don't exactly remember. But for us, what happened was eventually if you posted something new speech, it wouldn't be assed permanent as it used to be. Eventually, Facebook removed developer access from the notification system, which were relied heavily on, so if our user base wanted to know about on your game, updates new release. We were sent him a notification on my Facebook, said, Actually, notifications is only for us. No developers get notification permissions anymore.

So things like that started changing on Facebook out of the 30% commission fee which ate into, I guess, almost our profit margin. Things started changing, and then when I looked at it, you know, Facebook was just saying, Well, you should have built on email list if you wanted to get in touch with your people Now I was young and said, probably didn't even know what an email list boss at that point like that naively had never relied on one. I had always relied on search optimization, czar, organic Google traffic and, if you will, organic Facebook traffic, which it was when we joined.

And I really like that. But then, as the rules of the game changed, our revenue dropped drastically. So I sing. Is that feature in live? I think we have to in revenue and then we have again the month after that because it was just so much harder to re engage people who do you know who lead busy lives and they need sometimes a gentle nice saying you know your seating needs taking care off. Will you come back and look at it? And I think actually, if you talk about City's Metropolis was probably the one that took the least impact. It was maybe some of the least successful games that wearing a strong are getting you to come back naturally or your motivation, intrinsic motivation. That took the biggest hit. So after those rules of the game changed, revenue went down a lot on having had such a large teams having scaled so fast since, you know,

being an inexperienced manager off a large group of people, that was just really, really bad for us. And I didn't want to fire anybody at that point, either. They have never fired anybody so way all get along together really well. Eso so basically, we went from making ah, moderate profits of making a big loss every month for a while and trying to figure out how we're gonna turn things around before the morning runs out. So more like a normal start up against the racist funding and and it's staring at the abyss that's coming. If they don't figure their business model out and that was the next steps that we tried to do after this rule changes and we went down that path. So I don't know the army to just get straight into that or you have any questions

about what I know? Absolutely. You know, just

keep going. Yes. So, you know, we're a different company then when he was going to run out at some point, obviously, my personal situation. I mean, I never had that much money eater, but I just kept risking it. I mean, I wanted to make it work on, and we decided that we need to build something off Facebook. That was a social game that plug into Facebook. What wasn't, you know, entirely reliant on Facebook?

So I think I don't exactly recall me. And we made, like, one small project that did that. Or maybe we didn't. But basically soon after that, we find a partner like this huge British company with a £1,000,000,000 revenue per year, and they were interested in the space. And, you know, we said, Look, we can make fun games, good games, engaging games. But obviously the marketing is a problem for us now that Facebook's not giving us love here.

We don't really know how to market ourselves. We don't have anybody experience in that. We need somebody who will provide, like the brand on the marketing. Do you guys want to partner up with this? I don't exactly member who introduced us to them, or I think that might have been seeking for somebody. And, you know, one of my contacts just put us in touch on and they were very interested. And they wanted to do this together on you know, we signed some contracts. The management team of that company invested some money into shark use games to give us a little bit more of a runway. You know, they have seen the financial metrics we had just a year before, so they knew that we could turn this around to believe in the team ons.

We embarked into this joint venture, basically where we had their brands and their marketing resource is on our experience developing games. Yeah, we built this really, really cool game for them. It was kind of like to say, a farm bill type of game with, like, a pet elements. So you didn't just builds a farm the farming was kind of for you pets that you could encounter and rescue. I was just like this cute little teddy burgling around, risking little lost plush toys and the wilderness. So you know what? We think it was a really good game, and it started taking office, started making more revenue,

but maybe not fast enough for what they were expecting on, you know, if you were in the space of the time and you looked a farm bill on you, Look, look at those kind of applications. They were taking off their own fire. You know, there are making millions and millions of revenue per month, so I think this company might have had the wrong expectations about you know, how fast our game can grow. I mean, it might have wanted it to be a complete home run, and it was just It was It was decent revenue, but they were a $1,000,000,000 company, right? So there was a mismatch of expectations there. Perhaps unfortunately, I don't know if it was just that or there was a bunch of other factors, but the next thing we know, the whole management team was replaced at that company by the largest shareholder.

Yeah, Gus

on the new management team didn't believe in what we were doing together. They were saying, Well, if you guys want to build this game, you gotta pay us our license fee and we're not interested in You got to do it on your own on that really just stretches too far. We tried for a while, and then eventually I just saw that it is just not gonna work out. And I said, We need to close us down by then. My colleague who had become essentially that co founder level shareholder And he was, you know, doing a lot of work. He didn't want to let go. He thought there was still a chance that he kept going from there couple of years after I left. He didn't want to close it down. But in the end, having this mismatch of expectations and this management change into in the partner company,

it just led to a slow slow, the minds of shark use where we just, you know, burn through the rest of the money. That wasn't enough revenue coming in and we had to close

up shop. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. and I hope this in, like, two big of attention, and I hope you have some insights on this. But as someone you know who work, I guess in the video game industry or the game design industry, you know, with the advent of companies like I don't know if it remembered, like hello games who did no man's sky like they were, you know, in the backlash. They've had, like,

a lot of bad reviews because, like their game didn't come up the date. But then now you know, they're really, really bringing it back with, like, lots of expansions and stuff. And I guess I'm just curious as someone you know who worked in the game design industry. What do you say about the industry today that when compares into like the industry in Turn seven like, you know, sends Thebes technological advancements? Sands. You know how much money there is like, would you say it's really changed

much? Yeah, I think it's definitely changed. I mean, that's one of the reasons I never went back to it. I found that, like a good video game had to be like a good movie that you really enjoyed it on the revenue. Broad was kind of like a side effects off that enjoyments of that fund that people are having. And I think back in 2000 8005 minutes doesn't send us how it was. People were making games for the fun and engagement factor first on the revenue. Just follow chin, and that's certainly the way I approached it. But us The years went by it really quickly became a thing of like, how do we maximize revenue from this games? What kind of features that would builds to maximize revenue on? I didn't really like that. I found that that just gonna,

like, took away something that I at least personally enjoyed in video games, and I just didn't really want to be part of that. And I feel that even today, the industry is still following that model like they're taking any game they can on making into this. Like, how do we maximize revenue for me like that? We have my introductions, even though they don't really make sense in this game, you know? No, everything should have a micro transaction. Yeah,

I do have loot boxes do ever and asked whatever

exactly I mean, obviously those things work, but I think they should be a balance. You have to look catch. That's this video game reading needed. That's what really makes sense. And this speed, the game where we getting greedy, you know? Or maybe, you know, sometimes maybe just because of the competitive landscape may be a game would not get funded without that. I don't know. I'm not in the thick of it now, so I don't know what the situation is. But there's definitely a feeling of like there's way too much monetization attempts going on in this day and age. And yeah, that's the reason I'm no in the in the industry more.

Yeah, I think the reason are the ramp I'm trying to get at is like I'm asking you at the industry if you know if Sharkey's had space to you just today, or like if you know what would you change about the industry? Did you have any you know anything about, like shark? Yes. Existing

in the space today? No. I mean, we had our opportunity to built for today maybe in 2000 and 12 when we chose to work with this partner who had another choice. So our second choice was to build a mobile game on mobile games. So for the Absar, we're just taking off then. And that's actually the mistakes in hindsight that we should have not partner out with his big company. We should have just made a mobile game, because how we done that, this company could still be alive today. Instead, we chose to keep kind of like a web based first approach. Never went into the APP store, and I just finished us off, but yeah, definitely.

I mean, if we were building mobile games, we could have still being alive today. That could have still being room for us today. I think we would have been building more advanced games. So, you know, better graphics, just more to it. But I mean, it is what it isn't, you know? No regrets.

Sure. Yeah. Is there anything else from you know, shark uses failure or any takeaways that you took that you'd like to share about? You know, anything that you had been touched before?

I think one of the another things that's I took into testable for my shark years experience was that I really didn't have a co founder at the outset. I mean, I had a great team of people, and many of them moved up to kind of management level roles. But there was no co founder at the very beginning on especially finding a complimentary co founder, which I did for testable. So I think that was one of the things that could have been in place. I would have made a more successful I mean, for example. I mean, I'm stronger marketing now, but back then I wasn't right. I mean, I didn't have anemia list, which is probably like more marketing one a one on order than that, I guess. You know,

I had to learn by fire like, Yeah, yeah, my management's off my team and maybe I micromanage too much. Maybe I didn't trust people enough. Maybe I had too strong views on some things. I mean, this is all kinds of maturity, and I think reading other important works important books that you can develop. It can also come from like no good envy A university, I guess. But yeah, my management and my delegation wasn't so huge, and I had to work on that and I ditch after shark use, and I guess the last thing that comes to minus outsourcing. So we outsource one of my best ideas for shark use.

And it was supposed to be the zoo game on. As like, I mentioned earlier that it was a good idea, but execution was so bad that it just failed very quickly. So I was gonna like one of those we call it jumping the shark kind of graphs. I went up very quickly, and it fell down very quickly because there were too many bugs. And when he talked of his outsourced Polish company, they couldn't fix the bugs. You know, it's the easiest develop it to say, Oh, sorry, we kind of replicated so we can fix it especially it's easy to say if it's not you product when it's when it's my products on, people complain about bugs. Yeah,

I make sure I replicated somehow one way or another, but when you outsource, it may be their motivation is missing line. Maybe they have too many projects, and then we just close the case like we can't find it. So there is no but yeah, and I was also my mistake. I should have, You know, Captain Top off the outsourcing seemed better. I should have maybe found a better team. Or maybe I shouldn't have outsource our top top I idea. Yeah, so, sure. I think among all of those things we just discussed it can definitely see quite a few failures. But I guess the key thing is to take this failures and try to do better next time.

No, no. Yeah, absolutely. You know, thank you so much for being vulnerable, David, I think you don't give yourself enough credit for being like a 2021 year old. You know, CEO. It like a game company when you know the advent of Facebook and like, Facebook is really not giving you too much love. And you know, you don't have that, like, partner to fill the gap where your you know, the strong technical side.

And there the strong managerial side. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for being with vulnerable. And I'm glad that you've been doing a really, really good job of, like, Segway ing me either. Like purpose leader, like, you know, unconsciously of like into my next question. But I love that you talk about. You know, taking the lessons are taking the failures that you experienced the heart because,

you know, you seem to do that very, very well. And you, you know, from 10. 12 and you set the use slowdown, shutdown Sharkey's in 2012 and then you pick up and start testable in 2015. I guess it's not too far of a grass from, like a social game company to like a chest company. But I love to just, you know, dive into that, you know? How did you get into chest like, What was it about? Just that made you want to start a company in the

vertical. So after Sharkey is, I traveled quite a bit, so I took some time off. I didn't have that much in savings, but I had enough to, like, you know, live in less expensive cities that say so. I left London. I spent some time in Berlin in South America, and I toyed around with a few ideas of what could I do next? I mean, I wasn't planning to start anything immediately. My family needed my help in South America for a bit. So I was just reading a lot of books trying to make sense off. You know why shark use went so wrong reading a lot of books on in my spirit time,

you know, just taking care of my hobbies and chest became one of my hobbies. Like towards kind of like the end of the Sharkey's days. I had a colleague. He played, We got competitive, who played against each other quite often. We both sucks, but it was really, really fun. So when I had all this spirit time and I was reading, I was studying. I was also playing games, but actually, mainly initially I was playing poker. A really like poker,

huh? Slated for a few years, I had one a few minor tournaments online. It was great fun. It's a superb game, but I spoke. Her got more competitive. I kind of start getting tired of it. And in particular, I guess I was starting to get tired of my own shortcomings in poker. One of them, which would be getting knocked out right before the final table, right before you arrive before the bubble. The money because I particularly play like tournaments, right? So sit and go tournaments.

So I got tired of, like, not being able to control my own emotions, I suppose. No. Having a disciplined. So at least making into the money and eventually got tired. Also off. Kind of like people locking out at other is too much for like, elements. You know, you get in with pure kings and a little son, and you lose 278 way went in before the flop. You know what I mean? Like the control you hold in and then they call with seven that you're like, Oh,

and then you lose. So between those things, I thought, Well, I need a game that has less of a like element into it on. I like just Why don't let's start taking chest more seriously, you know? So I started trying to get better a chess to see if eventually playing a game like that could give me the discipline to play better poker. But as it happens, just just completes recover. And I never played poker again.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think this is, like, more personal. What? Chess is very you know, it holds a very sentimental value to me. because I think my dad has always been trying to get me in the chest. He's like a casual player. I think he's like close to 60 62 now. But, you know, I think he's sitting out like 1900 or like, 2000 yellow.

And like I think he wants. Ever since I was like 13 he wanted me to get into chest, but I never, ever saw it. But so I love you know, like I think maybe I'd be, you know, your prime audience here to market for testable with testable. I love to just get into it. Testable is a platform that proposes, you know, chess mastery back by the science of learning, and it integrates science and video game based principles for chest learning. Is that a great summary of what Cecil

does? That's exactly what we do. You know, we try to make training, learning on improving your chest, just easier and more fun on That comes from a problem I wanted to sell from my sovereignty, quite selfishly so the first version of testable was actually built in 2000 and 13 and I was the only one using it, and I just I decided to take chest seriously, and I wanted to get better at it, you know? And when you say that you might be our market, actually, you know, because just Apple's market is people who decide, Actually, when I get better a chest No, just I want to play chess,

right? I want to play and I want to get better. There's there's a difference there because if you decide when I get better at chess, what you would do back in 2013 is used by this really dense books about chess and should have to him on. I tried that, and I was really, really difficult to remember anything that you would read on it, and it just didn't work. And you could also go on several sides, watch a few videos, but nothing ever seemed to just stick. I mean, maybe a few things did. But in the end, improvements would be, you know,

minor. And I just found out it was very hard to improve the trust rating. Now, with hindsight, I see that like actually at the level of 1211 100 is no. It's hard to prevent chest as a level of two thousands. So But, you know, it was hard for me. And I thought, You know, I'm reading all these books and other things and I seem to like, recalled things better. I'm learning languages. I was learning German and there is the school tools that you science to help you learn languages better. Like Joe Lingo was.

Yeah, and early stages memorized was at its early stages. But then the why isn't there something that's for Chest? And that's how Jessica was born. And yeah, initially it existed just for me for a couple of years since yeah,

yeah, sure. You know, I don't know why I wouldn't be your market because, like, growing up because, you know, there would be a lot of, like books on, like endgames book. Unlike openings around the house, I just never digested. There were like, I never cut good enough. It just, like, actually want to get better.

But no, no worries. No, no harm taking her like No, no, I'll get over. It is

because if you are around us, but it's off to learn from those books, I mean, eventually you will be part of our market. I mean, the thing is just like targeting like the more serious and perverse first. And now we're broadening the market by making life more accessible content. So, you know, maybe 80. Try out the side. Maybe it's already there. Like maybe you trust some of the beginner courses, you might enjoy it and you might get better. I'm not my fuel. The motivation to play it will be a two way street of entries when I'm trying

to say, but none absolutely.

Our roots were more for the serious serious chest students. Yeah, And as we're going along, like even if you go on the site today, there is probably, like 30 courses for complete beginners. Complete beginners, meaning people who can move the pieces that if you try, you might find finding my find enjoyable. You might get better, and you might surprise your friends next time you play against them on. Definitely, as the months go along, maybe for 2021 we hope to be a one Stop solutions, or we can take anybody from absolute beginner. Maybe even without motivation. To a regular chess player on a serious students is just a takes time.

It takes time? No. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, you know, one of these days, you know, time given, or like in a couple of months, I'll play my dad and hopefully be them. And then soon after, I'll play you and hopefully be We'll see. We'll see. We'll see what I

take it from there. Well, you that is really 2000. So that's a tough challenge. I mean, I know 1000 players on. If you haven't been playing, that's pretty tough. I mean, I might take you at least, ah, year of studying before you start beating him regularly. Sorry. Sorry for you

know, we'll see. I mean, like, I hope he takes it. He's on me and just, like, make some bad moves because I'm his son. But we'll see. Yeah, I love to just get back into it, but, you know, you say that chess a bill was something that was only for you, and I'd love to just touch on this and, like, maybe expand a little bit more.

You know, I look into the YouTube videos that you had, and I think like ever since, Like, maybe like, one year, like two years ago, you had, like, videos of you playing Blitz Are you playing? You know, some form of chess and just hosting the videos toe. Have yourself be accountable, you know, and like, learn from your mistakes and,

like, just like constantly iterating over yourself. And I'm just curious, you know, I hope this isn't like, too big of attention, But I'm just curious, you know, you being on the Hillary podcast, and you just like thinking you being very, very public about your failures either in Chester, like either in business and start ups. I'm just curious, you know, like with the state of entrepreneurship today. And like with the state of founders today,

where it be more quote unquote wise to be very private about your failures and just make everything in entrepreneurship seem like it's like, you know, what's the phrase like? Very like flowers and, like, rain both. Why are you very public on yourself? You know, why are you doing things like this?

No, no. I mean, I believe that learning comes from failing, and this is actually part of my master's dissertation as well. So it's something that we call growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. So you know, if you have a growth mindset. You believe on ability, A skill or a traits can be developed. One of the classic ones is intelligence. Do you believe you can get more intelligent that you believe you're born with a certain quantity and it stays that way and you just waiting to discover its limits on that would be a fixed mindset. So depending on a kind of mindset you have and I obviously advocate a growth mindset, you react to failure differently. So somebody would have brought my instead of failure is another challenge to overcome. It's something to look at and say, How can I do better next time on How can I discover my new limits,

right? How can I do better? Whereas if you had a fixed my such and you failed, you wouldn't want to be public about it, because all of a sudden, basically, you've discovered your limits that you perhaps will never, ever surpass. And if you think about it in that way, you can see why it's very, very scary very quickly. But you know, there's a lot of research and educational psychology that shows that a growth mindset is beneficial because as you keep picking us up from your failures, you could be public about them. You can talk to people about them. You can just learn and get better,

you know? And that's why you know, personally, I'm not scared to talk about my failures in business on in chess. You know, in chest thumbing, I'm stuck at our rating of 18 50. And as I've become a Dodge and then my uncheck stable, I don't have enough time to dedicate to chests to go through this. It's orations or failure and success. You know, it takes effort in anything in any discipline that human beings partake in. It takes a lot of energy to fail, pick yourself back up and do better next time. But that's just how learning works. I mean,

you can look at little Children, right? I mean, you don't just start walking and expects to walk the very first time that you try it. No, you fall, you fall into the floor. And it's a very public failure, like, you know, as a child you start getting used to days on. I think Children are very good at this. There no scared of trying failing on in trying again is just natural, right? And then something happens to us humans that eventually we separate into this quote, mindsets and fixed mind sets on Carol Dweck,

who brought many books in this explains Yeah, yeah, yeah, What may be happening that leads down the spot on. Then we become different, right? As we grow up, some people are scared of talking about the failures. They're scared of failing this kid of trying because of that on them, you know, my never fulfill their potential, but comes natural to all of us as Children. Just everybody can think back to a time where they couldn't walk, right? So, yeah, I think that's what it is.

Yeah. Wow, that's really good. And, you know, on that tangent are on that notion of learning from failures. I love to just ask. I hate the color descent. Really? From your time as a CEO at Shark Es to, you know, today, or and like 2015 ingestible, I'd love to just, you know, ask any insights are like, I just like to bridge the gap between start ups and testable and like, I just love to get any insights or like anything that your doing different in testable now but you learn from Sharkey

is cool. So yeah, and I got coming. As I said, I was helping my family out of bids, but I had plenty of time for myself. I have plenty of time to relax as well. And I was just reading a lot. I was reading many books, like Famous and Silicon Body, I guess, to see how I could have thinks differently next time to understand what I did wrong on one of my favorite ones is actually Dellin starts up by Eric Reason. I actually just found a picture of myself on a boat in the Caribbean. I know it sounds fancy, but, you know, Panama can actually be quite a cheap place to visit off season.

But it was so awesome. I was just, you know, on this boat reading every Greece, the link starts up. I'm trying to learn how to do things better next time. So you know, when you inquire about the gap, I just spent a lot of it just learning different things. I read a lot, you know, for the like, 50 books per year during that time, so in two years, you know, had 100 books,

and I really like that because it helps you learn from other people's experiences rather than you having to go out there and like following your face again. You can see how order people have falling on their faces, and there is something from it and not repeat the same mistakes. So I really advocates reading a lot in that time. I also explore psychos. You more like I find I have strong interest for for understanding ourselves. First of all on, then orders like Why do we do the things we do? Why do we operate the way we do and how can we be better at it? I'm one of the motivations, for that is quite funny. Like if you buy a car or if you buy any tech system, a computer or sound system or something, you get a huge manual that you can read and understand how to operate it. But, you know,

as human beings, we're not born with a manual on like not many people, at least in my life, have explained to me how we should try and improve ourselves or operate ourselves if you will, you know. So I read a lot of psychology in all kinds of areas, you know, like from well being to mental health, to education and operational psychology. And, yeah, just all kinds of things. I took a couple of degrees a distance, which then led to my masters in Bristol. I just spent a little time learning, and I think you know how I could do better on then when we get to 2015.

An accessible, I think, in 2015 how did not time off to recover from, like the all encompassing, all absorbing experience that it is to create a new company. And I had some fresh air and some fresh energy me to try again on At that point, I looked that old ideas, a dappled wits. And I said So which one is the best? Which one don't want to do? Which one has the highest short of success since you know this testable thing which wasn't called testable at that point, it was particle, like chess openings, training, that something silly, I So it's and I was I actually know this testing is a pretty good idea. I should try and validate it step by step and see if it takes off.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know how you're doing it, David. You're just like, you know, subconsciously, just like feeding me just like any close the hip to get to you in the next question by the love to just leave and talk about the early days of testable, you know, or, you know, chess, open training or whatever it was called. But I'd love to, you know, have you If you still remember. You know,

the dive, the details of you know, what it was like. How was it starting testable, you know, how did you validate and yeah, you know, how did you get to present?

Yeah, it's definitely fresher in my mind and my Shorty's Day. So yeah, I think it was, like immediately I wanted a co founder, a complimentary co founder. I didn't want to do this this journey by myself, you know, I had an interesting chess. I have been watching YouTube channels of chess masters, presenting their ideas, playing games and recording themselves on identified a few people that I thought could be suitable co founders. But before even asking him to be a co founder. I wanted them to validate idea. So I wrote to one of them on it was 100% hit rate is the very first master of roads, you know, he liked my background.

He liked that a hodge struck use games on my city, and he took his time to response to me and offer up a video chat where I could show him my idea on he saw the potential in it. So then I thought, Well, you know, this international chess master thinks there is something to it then you know, it's not just me that like this. And now my friends, you know, I had a few friends who are chess players were like, Wow, this is amazing. David, you should really do something with it. But they're your friends, right?

It's like you mom saying yes. Yeah, that's already count. So this was the first time that 1/3 party that didn't know, I cold emailed says, You know, there's something in this. Let's talk more on it. He just happened to be traveling to London, where I was for a tournament in the next few weeks, so we schedule a time to meet up in person on Yeah, we agreed that we would go in a school Founders he would provide content on marketing on I would provide tech monetization experience, business running experience. You know, we divided the duties, and that was the very first validation were announced,

its on red. It's on his YouTube channel. And we had, like, our 1st 5000 people giving us their emails, saying, actually, this is super cool, like we can't wait for it. Please does When its life. So that was extra validation. And I was stepped to Yeah, yeah, he validated. And 5000 people said we can't wait for it. They gave us your email so that landing page is very,

very important. And after having that, we register the company. We knew that we gotta keep validating it on the next step was like, you know, an open beat up on, you know, the site, since it was just for me, needed some more love before we could launch that. It took a few months, maybe three months, like 1/4 off, like developing, like every day. But eventually we got an M V P version out there,

which was the second round of validation. I think when I talk about his experience, what I like to tell people is that it was very important for us to know only have this open beater validating the interests, but also to have ah, monetization ready from day one. And I'm very, very happy that we did this. Like even though the product wasn't great, it was a little bit shit. You signed up on the very first day with lunch. You had an opportunity to spend money and the products on what they showed us was that there's people willing to pay for it, and there is a market for it. It might not be big because the product sucks, but, you know, make the product better.

I would get better product market fit. More people might be convinced to support our mission by spending their hard earned cash with us. So I don't know. I mean, I think actually it was a very good lunch. They were made like $5000 was amazing. It was amazing for us, but a very next day, you know, traffic died down by like a factor of 10 x and we made $100. I don't know, but that 1st $5000 was like our seed money, you know, like, is okay. Okay,

cool. We have a little bit of money to play around here. You know, I'm obviously not taking a salary. My co founders not taking a salary. So $5000 if you manage it very carefully, can go a long way, you know? And after the validation, I mean, the very first thing I thought. Okay, we need to raise money, right? We need to raise money. It's 2015.

I mean, and I'm in England again. We're gonna use that $5000 to help us raise money. So we decided crowdfunding might be a way to do it on as its result. Actually, crowdfunding was probably a waste of money. I don't know. It didn't really work for us. There was this wider view that there is no money in chess. I found for many investors so coupled with the fact that back then crowd finding was new on our crowd funding site could not accept investment from American citizens from anybody in the U. S. That really had a struggling to reach our target off. I think it was like 100 K that we wanted to raise £100,000.150,000 dollars or something to be able to reach our next steps of followed ation. So the crowd finding didn't work out. But the fact that I have so many of our American users saying I really want to put money to resist. But I can't made me see that.

You know, there is potential here and we got to keep going. So through those months I kept developing things part time. As I was doing my master's. I kept trying to find funding. I mean, I tapped into my old network of contacts and I asked them if they would fund this. But unfortunately, everybody in games was like, We don't really get chest. So we know we don't really want to invest into this jesting, And it took quite a while, and eventually maybe some steam was running out. But eventually we find our first investor on. He saw the potential. He saw our growth,

which, you know, it was slow. But, you know, maybe went from, like 1000 a month 2000 months on. I think by the time we raised investment, but had, like, $34,000 a month in revenue, which wasn't badge and is investing you to space knew that chess could use some, like some fresh ideas in it. Really? And he was willing to Bacchus for, like,

probably half them aren't. We need it. And once you have half months, we have Ah, first investor backing you is much easier to find. The rest. So so all of a side. And we filled the first round. Yeah. I mean, I guess the rest is history, you know, as I would say, because after that, things really started taking off after closing the first round, investing that money wisely heating milestone after milestone, you know, and lead into the second round and then into being acquired by plane. Magnus. Great.

No, absolutely. You know, congratulations

on that, by the way. Thank you.

Thank you. We will touch on it down the line, but I hope this in, like, two, like, critical of a question. I love to just, like, get your thoughts on. But I learned that testable is doing you know, MOOCs are like online video you know, books that you can buy, just like consulted, all on testable. You know, this is kind of like something I've talked like Ed Tech founders about this.

I think it's like split 50 50 where one side of the debate is, you know, praises moves and all and resources to allow students to learn at their own time, etcetera, and, like, not have to worry about, like, the structure that has to go into, like, actual school. And I think the other side of the debate is you know, it criticizes it for being to general and, you know, less personal, Then it will ever be.

And you know that students can't learn without, like, the physical structure that comes with an actual school. And I'd love, you know, to get your thoughts on this working in, You know, the chess education, like education space in general. Do you think folks can will relearn everything online? And I guess, you know, as using chess is like a umbrella term toe, like justify, like learning anything online, I guess. What is your best way of like learning

chess? A lot. Some factor, I guess. But yeah, sure. One of the chestful missions. Grand vision, if you will, is that once we can show how we can do this for chest, we can apply this to any education. And, you know, if we can show that a grandmaster instead of taking 10 years or 15 years to become one can consistently become a grandmaster in three years with the help of online tools, you know we might be able to convince people that there is a very, very big place and necessity for this in schools, for regular subjects and universities on.

I mean, I think it's a movement that slowly gaining speech like this attack movements. Unfortunate to say. I mean, there are people arguing on both sides. Or maybe fortunately, I don't know, maybe it's a natural process. I mean, we live in a world that polarizes opinion everywhere. On I find science the same. Like if you find anything, you believe in science. There is like I know the camp that believes in the complete opposite on usually just spend time arguing, and I'm contradicting each other. But I think there is like a middle ground there summer that eventually some people managed to find an agreement on.

That's the violence that we seek, right? I mean, the solution is not just one or the order. The solution lies somewhere in the middle because, like if you look at it like in very basic terms, everybody learns differently. Everybody has a different schedule, everybody, you know, I need more repetitions, Lester position. Some people might needs that 1 to 1 contact with a coach with a teacher. Some people might need a social contact of going to school, so they learning right people on. Nobody knows what each individual needs right now.

All right, if you go to university, people don't know you that well to know, like, how do you learn better? We don't know that, and that's what we're trying to figure out. And I think that's where at text fits and right there are. Some people are definitely learning better on their own. You know, we still cannot tell you who that will be. Predicting that would be amazing. But it's just not enough data and know enough technology to be able to make a prediction. So, you know, maybe in 50 years they'll be enough data and will be managing that they'd ever responsibly that there be some kind of like Netflix for learning,

like a huge, huge company that can just tell you how you learn best. And I think these are the early days we're figuring out how to get there between artificial intelligence and the science backed methods like spatial petition, which we use, which, you know, if you look a spaced repetition, I should. It has a long, long history. I mean, people were doing this kind of repetition like way before the Internet, you know, And it's just about like Kalev early managing your time, right? I mean,

you don't wanna review whatever it is what it is chest or like, I don't know the chemistry or something on physics. You don't want to review the same concept everyday. That will get boring quickly. And it's a waste of time if you spaced it out, though you know you re a today tomorrow than in a week that in a month, then six months using your time wisely and you still remembering. And that's what ebbing house ISS researcher discovered that actually doesn't forget incurred. And actually, he said, learning by spacing is very efficient, so we should do more of it. You know, it's been discovered a long time ago, and it's actually surprising that schools don't really use it. I mean, schools are a bit, I don't know. Every country has their own solution to schools, and there's definitely

room for improvement. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when we're about to get to, you know, the Netflix of learning. I think you know, our companies, you know, like yours, like testable is, you know, the people who are making the steps necessary towards you know, that future of education. And, you know,

I'd love to just, like, type two questions into one here. But, you know, we talked about their like, the elephant in the room. You know, the play Magnus sweet or like the joining the play. Magnus, We don't like just the Magnus Carlsen acquisition in general. And you know, this recent article that I read there was, like, very, very coincidental.

That's been like a recurring theme in this show. But I read this recent article about, you know, the bubbling popularity of, like speed chess turned into like an e sport. So there's this, you know, very nascent still, but this dedicated group of followers for chess who are watching people on Twitch. You know, I think GM Alexandra both says, has again quite a following. Unlike Twitch, But I love to just, you know, I love to talk about the future of,

like, chess in general with you, and, like, I guess, the future of testable in general and like, where testable fits in that future, you know? What do you think of developments in E sports? What do think of developments of, like, chess getting like, quote unquote sexy? And would you ever, you know, stream yourself your streamer games

on twitch. So I think first, the second, the future of chest And then just I guess just was, Yeah. I mean, this e sports movements is awesome. I mean, I think chess has always lent itself well for this kind of direction. Off esports. Originally, when you play with your friends, when you start playing chess, everybody place quick games, right, and everybody has his interaction against a person to playing with. And it's a little bit of fun.

Maybe a little bit of trash talking, and it just brings Chester completely there from level from this, you know, six hour slug where people have to be quiet. They boat half their beauty to it They bought are very attractive in different ways. But I think for a mass market experience E sports and this fast space chest and this trash talking and just a bit of fun, like, is just better, right? I mean, that's how I got into chest as well, with friends face to face. And I think it's just a natural evolution of the market like TV. Look at chess, saying years ago everybody was displaying online against each other, and I really grew quickly on.

People tried to trash stuck up on the chat, but it's not the same in the same usually loses quality is not fun. People usually just, you know, say something stupid. That's a so most people just end up turning off the chat, for example. So you missed that connection, that human connection that the adds the extra level of fun. But when you're streaming right and you during this East bursting on switch, that element is back. All of a sudden, right, A lot of starting you speaking toe all of the people who washing your stream a city speaking to the player in front of you in a way, you know, and that human element is just broke back,

and it just makes chest so much more entertaining, so much more fun on. That's what's been fueling the growth of the East per segments, and I think it's just going to continue to grow. I mean, we've spoken to Twitch before as part of the group on Deaf said that chess is one of the fastest growing segments that have, and I expect it to continue. I mean, it's a wonderful game that, you know, you want to take seriously and really work your brain out. You can. But if you want to just have some fun, he also kind. I mean, so what's not to love?

Yeah, I guess the second part of your question was division for testable. So e sports is great for testable because it's, you know, growing the market, but not directly for us, I guess, more indirectly, because Jessica was always created, maybe with a double mission. So my mission was that we would be the ultimate source for improving learning and training and chest on. You know, we're well on our way there, and the second part of our mission was that we were going to operate on a revenue share basis so it will become like a nap store, kind of like the Facebook Games platform was for me. I wanted to create something like that for chest content creators because we very quickly found that they were not earning enough money to create wonderful chess contents.

So by bringing this revenue sharing model, were able to better reward them for all their efforts and to really, like, secure all of their partnership, you know, they were working for us. Every person who publishes them, testable is our partner. I'm really tried to, like violence it out so that the revenue share is fair. You know, we've lowered its considerably since our lunch. I think if you signed out to testable online, she was 70% on. Now it's more like 40 62 testable, and we've done that because,

you know, we're trying to be fair to the authors, but also fear to the platform. We're investing a lot of money to it. We have a lot off of things to achieve because division for testable is that We want to be a useful tool for every chess player that wants to improve for every coach for every parents. And we want to be in every school that wants to have a chess program because we believe we cannot value in every one of those segments. So you know we have a long way to go to achieve all that. I think it's still early days for testable. We have, you know, motorist success in the direct, self improver kind of market. But there's a lot of work to do with coaches and schools, especially on Ultimately, as I was alluding to earlier, like,

We just want to help people master the game, the love quicker and save some of the time to invest into order endeavors to go without. It's like if we can show that we chest. As I was saying before, we can show that for for anything on chess, traditionally in psychology, has been used kind of like a proving ground time and time again, kind of like the fruit fly has being in biology and just being in psychology, right, so that's kind of like the big, big ambition, like we're gonna go into schools. We're gonna worry coaches. We're gonna expand by 100 times our user base. Our stuff on that eventually. Maybe we can run research that could be applicable in order fields. That's

a grand vision. Yeah, absolutely, you know, and just bring it back. But, like, it's very reminiscent of, you know, shark is his relationship with Facebook and, you know, instead of, you know, just squeezing every inch of money. As I like these video game developers, I like how you're, you know,

you're tying it back to your roots and still helping, you know, the authors make their money. Yeah, you know, with you know, the Magnus Carlsen acquisition. And, you know, like the fresh capital invested. I am very, very excited for testable future and, you know, very excited for a game. Hopefully

the future. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a little bit of a part of their like, right? We mean, we've lowered the revenue shares over time, but I think there's a difference, right? So with Facebook, it got so compare. There were so many people that, like revenue, naturally went down. But what I was different because testable as a gross even though the revenue shares are lower. Everybody's making more revenue anyway.

That's always Yeah, there's just more money to reinvest into, like, our grand mission. And I think, like I said, we have ah, 10 X and 100 X still coming. So I think we find a good balance now. And now it's time to make this rocket

ship fight, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited. You know, hopefully, you know, after this, like, after this conversation, I'm definitely gonna get myself on testable to get myself on your level to actually compete. But, David, this is a you know, a family tradition. And,

you know, I hope that, like, this is like something that you can share. But, you know, David, circa, you know, march 5th, 2020. If you had to. You know, talk to David Post. You know, shark es in 2012.

You know, post shutdown, post Facebook, post everything, and, you know, just translating this over to, you know, advice. You can give plucky young entrepreneurs, you know, whether they you know, they're still in the trenches. Whether it be going good, whether it be going really really city. Any advice? You know what would you say to like David Circuit? Who doesn't hold?

I mean, I think it took me a while to realize how important reading is. So we go back and say, Start reading earlier because that way you can learn from other people's experience, not just your own. And it is super super important that you do that and, you know, I eventually ended up doing that. I wish I had done it earlier that so, like, I wish I had fun. Amazing works. Like I was saying, The Lean Startup by Erik Reece. I wish I had found it earlier on average. Now probably close to 200 books in all areas of tried Teoh brought in my mind as well. So I've read things that you might know immediately find applicable,

especially fiction. I don't usually like reading fiction. I would like more practical things. But, you know, I forced myself to read a few like good fiction reasons. You'd be surprised. I mean, how sometimes that helps connect the dots, right, like Neurosciences on new fields. And we don't quite understand how the brain makes all these connections yet, so I like to earn the side of like, let's learn as much as we can from as many different disciplines as we can. I didn't see how that helps me connect the dots and yeah, I mean,

based on that of being advocating to my friends and family and anybody who would listen that you should really try on study something that you wouldn't think you would be studying something if you look at me in 2000 and eight. So I mean the reason why the computer sciences? Because I heated writing essays and I hated reading on that. You could not compare me back in 2008 with 2013 where I was just seriously reading on applying for masters degree that required frightening old It's high right, and I did that. So they kind of like over in my weakness. I guess you know you and I think it may be a better person, maybe more balance, to make me a better manager. But a colleague just, you know, better all around running, and I think that's very, very important just to read, read more. I mean, there's so many wonderful books written that can help you in any stage

of your life. Yeah, absolutely. David, You know, thank you so much for being on the show. I think, like, definitely love a great advice in, like, reading more. But this is you know, now, like after this conversation like this, your moment, any, you know,

Just like quick plug testable dot com test will come. But you know, anything you'd like to share, you know, anywhere our listeners confined you on social media. If you're on that, you know, like then anything that they can do to each

other, You've just on my block for me. So thank you for that. Yeah. Just come visit. If you're interested in improving your chest on, I guess other than that, I mean, that thought just popped into my head. I mean, podcasts are also a wonderful learning resource, right? I mean, the reason we're having this conversation is because I mean, order them writing. You also get to tap into this different dimensions off. I mean,

in this particular case, failure and how to overcome it better next time. I think part cause I'm gonna keep growing. I mean, there's a great thing that people can listen to something like this. Maybe during their commutes and still learn. So I wanted to go beyond reading and say, Just try to listen. I know it's you know, it's actually very funny because listening is a difficult skill to acquire. You don't know it. Do you think hearing is the same as listening? But it's not. You know, listening is really just trying to, you know,

just attentively. Look, somebody in the eyes are attentive in listening to every word you're saying and really understand and make something of it without, like, going over the time gents like, and you bring it to like something else you gotta be. Then you gotta stay presence and really listen and try to ask meaningful questions. And that's where real learning happens. So what? It's a podcast or it is reading. You know, just keep learning, keep picking. You set out from your failures. Try and get a growth mindsets on re. There's nothing else I want to plug or say.

I mean, thank you very much for having this conversation. It was great fun on If anybody wants to find me, my Twitter user name is at simply DT simply Delta Tango. It's a bit of ah weird handle, but, you know, it goes back a long way. So it is what it is. Yeah. Thanks

a lot. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and any of our listeners, you know, want to reach out to David and tell him to take it easy on me when we do eventually play our chest game. Please do that. Please. Please do that. I think I might have dug myself in a hole here. But, David, you know, thank you so much again. You know, I've learned so much,

you know, whether it be about chess, whether it be about, you know, business, whether it be about, like, you know, reading and like, things I can apply to my life. And I think a lot of our listeners will get so much out of this show. Thank you so much

for being on the show. Thank you. Every I appreciate that. And send me notes and I'll hook you up with a few testable courses. Of course you can get started.

Oh, no.

You know, I don't know. I don't

know where we're here. I'm very, very scared.

I will follow up as well, and I year to see how you doing?

We'll see. We'll see. I'm stuck at zero yellow right now. Thank you so much again, David.

OK, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, that was another upset with Hillary. Podcast. We're doing a bunch of these in the future, so thank you for listening and stick around. Once again, This episode is brought to you by a four E. If you're looking for an accountant who been complete your books, taxes, payroll and budgeting in an all in one affordable package, check out a four e. They'll take care of all of your boring accounting work so you can focus on growing your business. Check them out today at meet a four e dot com to learn more about how their C p. A qualified team can help you grow. Save you money and guide your business.