By now you either play it, know someone who plays it, heard about it, or if you are like many of us, you obsess over it, and if you are The New York Times, you bought it.
Wordle. It’s the word game we didn’t even know we needed but love to love.
How much do we love it? 90 people worldwide were playing it only a few months ago in November, 300,000 joined in January, and now the estimate is that more than 2 million of us play it daily (is it midnight yet?)
So the question is, what did inventor John Wardle do right and is there something the rest of us might glean from his runaway success in our own ventures?
It starts with doing one thing not well, but great. One reason that Wordle is so beautiful is because it is so simple: you have six chances to guess a five-letter word and each guess (theoretically) gets you closer to the answer. That’s it.
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Wordle does one thing, and one thing only, exceedingly well:
It is a word-guessing game.
There is no “free trial period” looking to hook you, then upsell you. It is not a gateway into something else. It’s not a confusing multiverse requiring bulky goggles, and it’s not some confusing 8-step process.
It is what it is. It is a simple, elegant, fun, free, wily game.
Lesson: “KISS” is an old acronym in business for a reason. “Keep It Simple, Stupid” means just that. If you are going to create something – a course, a product, a game, a business – KISS.
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Wordle is a shared experience
The thing that took Wordle from an idle curiosity tucked away in a remote corner of the Internet to a legitimate worldwide phenomenon was the subsequent addition of the “Share” button.
Sharing your score, and in that clever, discreet, blocky Wordle way, lets you share and allows you to be in on a secret, as it were. You are part of the smart-kids club.
For the creator or entrepreneur, the lesson is not that you need to find a way to have people “Like us on Facebook” but rather, you need to create an experience or product that is so excellent that people want to share their great experience with your company or product.
Apple creates fans like that. Disney too. Trader Joe’s has rabid fans and so does Amazon and Costco.
What do all of these great businesses have in common, and have in common with Wordle? They are great at what they do, what they do is obvious, and their commitment to their fans, err – customers, is obvious too.
Do that, and you won’t need to bug people to share the gospel of your business.
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You don’t need to reinvent the wheel
There have been games like Wordle around for decades, from back in the newspaper days. Inventor John Wardle simply reinvented and repackaged it for a new era.
That’s good news for us mere mortals. Not many of us can invent something great from scratch, but a lot of us can re-think and improve upon something else; indeed, many a business has been borne from an entrepreneur who thought they could ‘do it better.’
Leave them wanting more
One of the great things about Wordle is that you can only play it once a day. No binging. That scarcity creates desire.
The pressure is off: You do not have to sell, and sell more, and sell more. Out in my garage, we have an old Frigidaire refrigerator that was made in 1952. Solid as a rock, it still runs cold, perfectly actually, and the door still closes with a satisfying thunk.
When they made it, Frigidaire wasn’t trying to get people to buy a new refrigerator every seven years, instead, they endeavored to make something superior, something of value that would last and build a brand.
And they did.
And so did John Wardle.
And so can you.
The key is to be authentic, offer value, serve your market, and do, something, well,
G-R-E-A-T.
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