How Satsub Studios Founder Michael Katz Built WordHuddle to 300 to 400 Daily Active Players While Running Solo (Interview with CEO Michael Katz)

Host Intro: Michael Katz and His Game History

Nathan Latka

00:00Guys, and Amazon both love Mike. He launched Gem Spinner in 2009 in the Apple App Store. Was featured as making, you know, a dollar a day in terms of using it, making 7 k per day at its crush at its height. Think of it almost like candy crush, and then quote, unquote, was featured by the Amazon Appstore many times. He was getting 3,000 downloads per day. Now he's taking what he knows about gamification, and he's building wordhuddle.com.

00:21And, also, he's doing a lot of b two b stuff as well, whether it's a marketplace for folks to find help in terms of psychology and other stuff. Hey, folks. My guest today is Mike Katz. Great guest today. He's made games for Apple two, games for first generation Mac, games for the nineties PC and modern PC, Macs, iPhone, Android. You name it, he's done it. He's got chemical emergency response databases and mapping built for NOAA, consumables

00:43and recommendations for Amazon, and medical devices for epilepsy, concussions, and sleep apnea. He touches a lot. We're gonna dive into all of it today. Mike, are you ready to take us to the top?

WordHuddle: Daily Active Players and Early Traction

Michael Katz

00:52>> I'm ready.

Nathan Latka

00:53Alright. Let me start with your consumer play, which is interesting. A lot of people go, man, one day when I'm old and retired and rich, I'm gonna launch my own game, my own little app. You've launched wordhuddle.com, which how many active people are playing it actively today?

Michael Katz

01:05>> I'm getting 300 to 400 players per day right now finishing games.

Nathan Latka

01:10And that's interesting. So so how did you get those downloads? This is equivalent to a SaaS company building like an internal marketplace. Right? You've gotta get the players to play each other live. How did you get your first 100 players?

How Facebook Groups Drove the First 600 Players

Michael Katz

01:20>> Well, actually, I posted on a Wordle group on Facebook, and that gave me about 600 players to start right away. And it's it's sort of dropped down to 400 now because I know some of them were just trying it out. But so so that's that's a way.

Nathan Latka

01:35How did you do that? Did you get permission from the Wordle group owner, or did you say, screw it. I'm just gonna post and see what happens?

Michael Katz

01:40>> No. It's actually a very friendly group. There's a lot of posting people posting different games and so on. I think the the Wordle players are generally, you know, friendly and curious to try new games. So it wasn't a problem.

Activation Metrics: Completed Games and Time on Page

Nathan Latka

01:51Interesting. So you get all these sign ups when you post in the Facebook group, and you're watching the activation metrics. You strike me as an analytics driven guy. What were you watching for? You mentioned completed games. Was that the key activation metric, or what were you looking for?

Michael Katz

02:03>> Yeah. Completed games is important, you know, time spent on on on the page.

02:10>> I I'm actually, you know, recording all the plays that are made in the game. So I'm looking at, you know, which which when people get discouraged, you know, when people give up, and so on. So the I actually early on, I put in a feature, you know, just to get feedback on the puzzles, and that's been really helpful in terms of understanding, you know, what what players like I found. It was a little surprising to me,

Player Psychology: Winning, Losing, and Puzzle Design

Michael Katz

02:35>> but I found that players almost never rate a puzzle as too easy. But if they fail the puzzle, you know, they're gonna say it was too hard and it was no fun. So peep people have fun when they win, basically.

Nathan Latka

02:47That's really, really interesting. So do you if some if you if you see something that makes you believe a user is about to stop coming back every day, will you give them an easier puzzle so they can complete it and get a positive dopamine hit?

Michael Katz

03:01>> It it's it's a good idea to have to have some easier puzzles on that or some alternatives for people to try different puzzles. Currently, there's just the one puzzle per day. But but it's it's a good it's a good thought.

Nathan Latka

03:12Interesting. And so what is average time spent on page daily today?

Michael Katz

03:16>> It's about three minutes.

Nathan Latka

03:17So Three minutes. Interesting. Is that good, bad?

Michael Katz

03:20>> Yeah. I think that's good for these types of puzzles. That's about how long it's supposed to take. And, you know, people,

03:28>> you know, almost everybody who starts a game finishes the game. So I feel good about that.

Gem Spinner: Apple App Store Launch in 2009

Nathan Latka

03:33You've built games for a lot of companies. My audience, I think, are gamers when they're wanting to wind down from running their companies every day. Is there what what game would peep what's the biggest game you've built? Most active users, the most publicly well known.

Michael Katz

03:45>> Yeah. So there are two. One of them is called Gem Spinner, which is sort of a, you know, in the match three bejeweled Candy Crush family, but with a pretty interesting twist. So I was pretty proud of that. It got featured on the front page of the App Store, actually, back in the day when, you know, the App Store opened in 2009, the Apple App Store. And I think it was that year or early two thousand

04:06>> ten where we got featured on the on the front page.

Nathan Latka

04:09How many plays or downloads?

Michael Katz

04:13>> Let's see. I I think we were charging a dollar a dollar per day at that point. And I I remember it was about 7,000 in in a day in that day. So

Nathan Latka

04:23Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with SaaS founders. But imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually, saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this, we've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second. But you log in, you connect

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06:47the interview. That's amazing. Okay. And what's the second game?

Quote Unquote: Amazon Appstore and 3,000 Downloads Per Day

Michael Katz

06:51>> It's it's called quote unquote. And so it's a it's like a crossword puzzle where you get a bunch of clues, but the answers to the clues are found inside of a famous quotation. Like an example would be, Mark Twain has a quote, familiarity breeds contempt and children. Okay. So so familiarity breeds so then then we we would take parts of those words and create a set of crossword clues where you pick out the parts of

07:24>> of the answers in the thing. So all the answers are sitting there in front of you, but you have to figure out where where in the quote, the different segments of the words.

Nathan Latka

07:32What year was this?

Michael Katz

07:33>> That was probably about 2013, 2014 when we did and and that one had really great success on the Amazon Appstore. They used it as a free app of the day multiple times. And

Nathan Latka

07:47And so how many downloads did you get via Amazon?

Michael Katz

07:50>> I think it was about

07:54>> 3,000 a day when it was featured on on the on the front page.

Nathan Latka

07:59Free or paid?

Michael Katz

08:00>> It was all free because that was that was part of their deal that they would feature your app, but it but it is free for that day. So but it was it was a good publicity.

B2B Work: NOAA, Psychologist Marketplace, and Indie Hacker Tool

Nathan Latka

08:10And so how does all this game theory how does all this apply to the b to b work that you're doing? You're building some cool stuff for businesses.

Michael Katz

08:17>> Well, I mean, at at base level, I guess, you know, programming is programming. So it it's, you know, all the same in in that sense. But a lot of it is just to mix it up. I I, work for NOAA, the Ocean and Atmosphere Administration, and I do, mapping programs and chemical databases for hazardous chemical response. So that that's just, you know, completely different thing. And then I'm working on a marketplace for psychologists to find clients.

08:47>> So it's a completely different thing. I think a lot of it is just driven by the desire to learn new frameworks. You say, okay. I'm gonna do this project and try try to use this framework with it.

Nathan Latka

08:56But let's say NOAA wanted to I mean, I hate to say it like this, but let's say NOAA wanted to take advantage of all, you know, the train, obviously, issue happening right now. I think it's in Ohio. Right? Hazardous chemicals all over the place. Will they say, hey, Michael. Figure out a way to gamify this, add some psychology to get so we can get the the awareness spread faster to more people?

Michael Katz

09:15>> Okay. I yeah. I I think that would more be related to

09:24>> with the NOAA products, it tends to be just give me the answer as fast as possible. So there's not a lot of not a lot of game playing there. The the mapping component of it was informed by, you know, the graphics knowledge that I got from games. So there's that that overlap. And then,

09:42>> one tool that I'm building now is sort of a a way for, indie programmers, indie hackers to document their, tech stack. And so it you know, there's a lot of information that I want them to be able to document easily. So I'd say that the user interface design in terms of it being as easy as possible to take those steps is

Nathan Latka

10:02Where can people find that, the tool you're building for Indie Hackers?

Michael Katz

10:05>> That actually is not yet up. So so but I I will let you I'll let you know.

Nathan Latka

10:13What what would it take for you to quit, like, your full time gig and do some you know, build one of these side projects out? Or are you really just sort of a serial tinkerer and you just wanna rely on your full time gig at NOAA to pay the bills?

Solo Founder vs. Team: How Michael Works Today

Michael Katz

10:22>> Actually, it's not a full time gig, so I'm a contractor with them, although I'm working with a group that I've worked with for years. And, hours are are very flexible. When there's deadlines, of course, you have to meet them. But if if, it's not a crunch time, you know, I can work half time or quarter time at any time if I need to. So Interesting. I appreciate that.

Nathan Latka

10:44But how do you I mean, some of the most successful SaaS companies start off as agencies. I mean, are you you're are a one man agency right now? Is that what you call yourself or

10:50do have a team?

Michael Katz

10:51>> I have worked with others in the past. I'm Gem Spinner. I worked with a team of artists. But right now, I'm just doing this stuff on my own. So like, WordHuddle, for instance, is just driven by feedback from family, friends, and users, and I'm just doing all of the all the graphics, all the work.

Nathan Latka

11:12That's interesting. So are you a guy that sorry. You you actually wouldn't enjoy taking something from one to ten? You really like to take a bunch of stuff from zero to one?

Multi-Project Strategy and the Zero-to-One Mindset

Michael Katz

11:20>> Well, I think you have to, you know, just have a lot of irons on fire to to hope for, you know, something to really catch on. So, you know, there's different attitudes about, you know, whether working on multiple projects is gonna spread you too thin, and you're not gonna be able to give anyone the focus it needs. But for for me,

11:41>> you know, three or four projects going, it's a good balance. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

11:44Well, we'll we'll certainly see what happens. I I just have a sense that folks that have your kind of DNA, they end up building the big SaaS companies of the world. So on that note, though, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Michael, what's your favorite book on let's do it on game design and creativity.

Famous Five: Books, Founders, Tools, and Life Advice

Michael Katz

12:03>> Well, you know, I I think I would actually say drawing on the right side of the brain, which is an old book that I read about twenty years ago. And it's just to teach people how to draw, but but it's

12:19>> you you realize after a while what it's really teaching you is how to see. And and that was a really important insight for me that sort of like bad drawings come from bad seeing, and and it opened up sort of a world to me that that I hadn't known about.

Nathan Latka

12:35I love that. Number two, is there a founder that you're following or studying?

Michael Katz

12:40>> There's a guy named Damon Chen who's doing really well. He made a testimonial. Yeah. Which is, you know, it seems so simple. It's like it's like, yes. Of course, everybody needs a testimonial, you know, and and he he did a really good job with it, and he's also balancing other projects as well. So he he's a good example of someone who I'd be happy if I was doing what he's doing.

Nathan Latka

13:06Yep. No. He he's he's great, and he's using Founderpath, which we love, and he's growing nicely. So number three, what's your favorite online tool for doing all these projects that you do?

Michael Katz

13:17>> Well

13:20>> so online tool.

13:24>> I'm trying to think. I I've used Figma a bit, but I tend to honestly, I tend to just draw my mock ups directly in paint.net, you know, for Windows. I got fast at that. So I'm trying to think of online tool. I mean, I I rely on Visual Studio Code and a bunch of plug ins constantly. That that's sort of my

Nathan Latka

13:44That's good.

Michael Katz

13:45>> Most efficient tool.

13:46>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

13:47Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Michael Katz

13:50>> Boy, that's a tricky question. I would call it maybe three plus two plus one, which which reflects the two two naps that I

Nathan Latka

14:01Alright. Six. That's good. And what's your situation, Michael? Married? Single? Kids?

Michael Katz

14:06>> Single. I actually have a girlfriend in Romania, so I've been spending about half my time over there, which has been really great.

Nathan Latka

14:13That's amazing. Okay. And how old are you?

Michael Katz

14:16>> I am 55. So 55.

Nathan Latka

14:17Last last question.

Michael Katz

14:18>> The reference the reference to Apple two games was sort of supposed to Yeah. Give that away.

Nathan Latka

14:24Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Michael Katz

14:30>> Wow. I

14:33>> think I think this idea that online was gonna be the way to go, I think, you know, with the network speeds that we had back then, you just couldn't imagine, you know, being able to have this conversation online. And so I I wish that I was sort of had known that or someone had told me, like, you know, this stuff's gonna get really fast, so think about that.

Nathan Latka

14:52Guys, Apple and Amazon both love Mike. He launched Gem Spinner in 2009. The Apple Appstore was featured as making, you know, a dollar a day in terms of using it, making 7 k per day at its crush at its height. Think of it almost like candy crush. Then quote, unquote, was featured by the Amazon Appstore many times. He was getting 3,000 downloads per day. Now he's taking what he knows about gamification, and he's building wordhuddle.com. And also,

15:14he's doing a lot of b to b stuff as well, whether it's a marketplace for folks to find help in terms of psychology and other stuff. We'll see what happens next. He really enjoys Damon Chen at Testimonial. On that note, Mike, thanks for taking us to the top. Okay. Thanks a lot. One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it

15:34deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss

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