How This Product Manager Turned a Simple Sudoku App into a Million-Dollar Idea

The one I, I use every day and, and didn't come with the this might be very simple to use, but I use, I love Sudoku, um,

I mean, that's a game, but,

It's my thing. So, so, um, I, I, I love it. I mean, I can play Sudoku on, um.

OK, so I was talking about the app I love every day and that didn't come default install was uh Sudoku. Um, so that's, uh, because I, I kind of, uh, it's a meditation for me. So when I'm doing Sudoku, I'm just like, you know, putting my mind in a different zone. And I use it on my phone because it's uh mostly when I can be out in the park and, you know, or with my kid or, you know, doing something else, but also just finding my own time to, you know, do what I want to love to do. So yeah, that's the one.

perfect.

So, so what happens with my, my current, uh Sudoku is, it's perfect. I mean, in the sense that, you know, I, I get the daily game, um. And I can play the game. I can get the results. I know where I'm stacking. I would say two things. One, It doesn't Uh, automatically. Pushes me to the next level. Like, like if there are categories here, you know, hard, this, that, and you can pick the category, but I would love this Sudoku to say, hey, I know you were at this level yesterday, you know, I want to push you up. I want to give you this kind of work flavor. So that's, that's only one thing just so that I can get better, um, as I'm playing more and Uh, there's one more if there's time permits for two features, and the second one would be is it gives me a good ranking of where I am as compared to my cohort, and, and, and, you know, but it doesn't have any link to the social media and other places. Like, I would like to interact with some of those, you know, who I'm competing with, and, you know, just to build this kind of community around this game. I guess that's another thing I would say.

so, so one is that, and second is like when I, when I finished the game, it ranks me amongst other people who have played that game and where I stand and all that. But I don't know

yes, and I could, I would love to discuss that game. It's like, hey, how did you, like, you know, how long it took you, and what was that, you know, thing you were able to figure out quickly where I was like, you know, not, so I think that kind of cohort and where you can connect with people and I think it would be very interesting to me as a user.

I, I think it's going to increase my engagement level. And, and one is, um, I've been playing this for like years, so I'm pretty hooked into it, but that's just somebody who's new, and nowadays people are like, you know, very much uh social media, you know, connected through social media on pretty much everything they do. So I think it. will help them to kind of keep the, the people who might have stumbled upon this app casually, give it a try for a week or so, and then kind of move on. Uh, so I think that, that would be the, the key thing with the social media thing. And for increasing the, the level for somebody who's like, you know, very serious about it and, and wants to get better, they don't need to figure out their own level and and all that. So it, it kind of So one, it kind of like, you know, helps with onboarding the users who are like new to the platform because they have a community around it and all that. And second, I think it keeps you there for a long time because it automatically, you know, making you do the, the next level kind of thing.

So I think So as a CEO you want, OK, I was telling you thinking that like, you know, as a user what I'm, I'm thinking is, is, it makes sense for me it's like then you have to look at, uh, as a CEO what are your business goals are, I mean. This was just my user perspective, but I don't know what business challenges are you seeing. Are you seeing, um, in terms of growth, like not many people signing up. Maybe the social media thing will help you. Are you keeping seeing the churn? Maybe that engagement level will help you to retain people, and maybe that's not your goal. Maybe your goals are revenue, and none of this might solve your revenue problem. Then we might need to look at something else, you know. How can you monetize, uh, some of these, um, features, uh, we are building like right now I pay one flat fee. Um, and I got the app. Maybe you have different models. Maybe you have a subscription model for that kind of label I'm suggesting that, hey, as a regular user, you can choose your own category, but if you want to get into this where, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, take you to the next level and level it up as like more like a subscription model or something.

So I guess. Um, I go back to, to me, the success for, for engagement thing would be is, um, one is like the uses and churn, and, and the second would be, uh, for social media thing would be is more of people signing up, um, and then kind of, you know, building that, so it's, it's two sides of the same equation is, are you, um, adding and growing, or, and are you losing your customer and customers are turning out. So those would be two main. A metrics I look at. OK.