00:00 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
In 2020, you're making about 1,500 a month and then, within a year and a half, 10K plus a month. What happened in that 2020 to 2022 range? I'm curious, like what went from 1,500 to 10,000 a month? What did you do? Uh, yeah, I mean.
00:18
I implemented. Welcome to the hey Good Game podcast, where we chat with the creators of your favorite games that you secretly play in the cracks of your day. I'm Nate Cadlak and I'm here with my co-host, Aaron Kardell. Today, we are excited to speak with Holger Sinback, the creator of online-solitairecom and worldofcardgamescom. Holger came on. We had a great chat. What did you take away from that, aaron?
00:48 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
You know, I think his whole story was inspiring. You know, started out as a designer, learned to be a developer along the way. But you know, I think the thing that really stood out to me is a lot of developers can get kind of focused on like just the tech around it or just the gameplay or what have you Like. Holger strikes me as like a true entrepreneur at heart, and just some of the techniques that he used to both figure out what game to pursue and just some of those different things along the way I think were very inspiring and a great story to hear.
01:27 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah, I think for me it's the idea that he did not take it serious for a long time and he built this game out of just kind of a passion to learn development and at some point, you know, for him, at some point, it's just something changed and he just started focusing on a little bit more, and that's what really helped it take off. And I think that's such a great lesson for entrepreneurs, people even for myself who are doing a lot of things like take things serious and put some intention behind it, because that can actually pay off. So we hope you enjoy this interview with Holger. We'll get right to it Holger is a developer living in you're living in Denmark, right, copenhagen, denmark.
02:16 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, in Copenhagen, denmark, and that's why I'm from as well. So, yeah, yeah that's great.
02:21 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
We love it there. He is the developer. Designer of OnlineSolitairecom. Online-solitairecom. Yeah, I couldn't get that other domain name there Exactly, and he also recently started running WorldOfCardGamescom. Is that correct?
02:41 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, that's correct.
02:43 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Love it and Holger's done pretty well for himself. In this interview we're going to be chatting and talking about some questions with how he's using this as his main income, what he's doing with it every day and how he's really become an entrepreneur at heart and built games like this for other people to play. So we'll just jump into it, but thanks for being here, holger.
03:06 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Well, thanks for having me.
03:07 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
So to kick things off, Holger, what's your favorite game to play?
03:11 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean at the moment it's probably Diablo 4, right. So it's Far Cry from Solitaire. So I mean I would be lying if I told you that I was like a solitaire enthusiast or something like that, even though I did play it a lot when I was a kid. But I mean I haven't really done so that much in my adult years. So it wasn't from a great passion of Solitaire that I created the game. It was more of a. I mean, I wanted to find something like an interesting programming task that I could do that might also earn me some money, right. So that was kind of the reason that I programmed the game at the initially.
03:54 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I'd love to hear more about that, but I think, as a fellow entrepreneur, I'm always intrigued by how do people search for their idea and really decide which one to pursue. Was there a particular path that led you to like you've been in the solitaire space for a while, but was there something initially that led you down that path?
04:16 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, I usually tell people that I'm a designer and developer. So I was a designer and I've always had my own projects right. And then nobody wanted to program my designs right, so I had to learn programming as well. And then when I was younger, I made a lot of different projects. I've always learned by doing, and most of those projects, I mean, I always wanted to try to earn some money on the projects, right, but I didn't have any really big success stories.
04:48
And then I became kind of tired of that at some point and then I took a bit more of an analytical approach to things. So I actually scraped like an app and I don't know if that still exists, it's like a website with a lot of analytics for the iOS store and the Mac app store. Then I scraped the Mac app store for all the games and kind of you know, for amount of reviews and estimated downloads and all that sort of stuff. And then you know I could make this a table of you know. Okay, these apps they have kind of this many downloads but they have, you know, bad reviews. So I kind of found out that I think it was free-sell Solids Air actually, which is like a variant of Solids Air. That was the first game that I programmed for the Mac because it had a lot of downloads, but you know, the reviews weren't that great and when I looked at the app then I felt that I could definitely do it better. And then on top of that then, you know, it got me going in this new programming language that I wanted to try out right. So that's the first version of the game that I made.
05:59
That was actually for the Mac app store and I mean it wasn't a huge success, but it was a bigger success than any of the other projects that you know that I've done, at least financially right. So I think I went like 20 bucks or something like that on the first day, and I don't know if it's settled at 10 bucks a day, right, which is not a lot of money. But you know, if you're a student still I mean that's great, that's, you know, just money coming in without you doing anything really. And that kind of money kind of got me hooked right, because that's really the best kind of money, that's the money that you're involved, you're sleeping, so yeah. So the very first, the reason that actually this Solids Air was kind of you know, kind of a was a fun project. Right, it's a fun game. But you know, I had this analytical approach where, you know, I wanted to see if I could make an app where I actually earned some money on it.
06:51 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
I think that there's something kind of back in there that a lot of people might skip over, which is interesting. So you had the idea to scrape app Annie and you're trying to validate an idea. I'm guessing in that moment Like what?
07:06 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean the other ideas or the other projects that I've done. I can't remember exactly what the projects were, but they were kind of a bit more innovative, or whatever you want to call it. And I really didn't want to what do you call reinvent the wheel? I just wanted to to to now I just want to try to make something that you know people already using just better, right. And then the question is okay, what are people already using and what can you do better? So that's when I scraped app Annie, because that could kind of give you me an estimate of these apps. Have this and this many downloads, right? So so you kind of sold it by by how many downloads they have. And then you just kind of go down the list and see, okay, are they getting good or bad reviews? And if they're getting bad reviews, then you know, have a look at the app and see if you can make you know something better.
07:55
And there, you know, I think there were a few games that kind of stood out, but Solitair was one of them.
08:01 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I absolutely love that approach. I think that's so smart and it's honestly not an approach I hear a lot of from others, you know, starting out or figuring out what, what path they want to pursue. So Kudos to you.
08:16 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I think it might also have been a bit easier at that time. I think that was 10 plus years ago. I did that and it was the Mac App Store, which is, you know, it's still kind of limited. How many apps are on there.
08:28
I mean, I've also tried to create apps for the iOS, you know, for the iPhone app store, right, and it just kind of disappears in the sea of apps. It might lead me to you know, where do you get your customers, your users, right? Because when you rely on them I mean small in-app purchases or when you rely on ads, then you can't really afford to buy them with ads or anything like that. So you're kind of down to people having to search for you, right. So I don't think I thought of it at the time, but one of the great things about the Solitare is that it's one of those things that the people search for and the Mac App Store there were so few Solitare apps on there that people actually had a chance to find that that I created, I think. Sorry if I'm just kind of going off a bit unattended.
09:26 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
No, I think you're telling this story and there's a lot of interesting milestones along the way. For instance, one is you chose to develop for the Mac App Store at the time, which probably was a new. The store was likely pretty new at the time and you were trying to take advantage of a trend.
09:42 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
It was relatively new.
09:46 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
And now, I guess, just to show the transformation. Now it's a website, it's basically a web game. Do you even have a Mac App anymore?
09:53 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I think they're still up there, but I haven't touched them in ages and I might also still earn a bit of money on it, but it's so little that it's just. I mean, actually the first app that I coded for the Mac App Store was a calculator that became quite popular. Actually, at times it was the most public calculator, for the Mac App Store at least. But I mean, people don't want to. I couldn't earn any money from it. So even though I had like thousands and thousands of downloads right, I couldn't earn any money from that app. But Solace, for some reason people were a bit more willing to pay for it and I still have them up there like a pro version that people have to pay for before they download. But yeah, I mean I don't really earn any money from it anymore.
10:41 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
So you've hinted at a little bit of business models in your first Solitaire game. At least in the Mac App Store, it sounds like maybe that was a paid app or paid purchase, but your website is primarily ad supported, is that correct?
10:59 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean it's almost 100% ad supported. I mean you can upgrade to premium or whatever you want to call it right like a subscription and then you have you know, then you get rid of the ads. But I mean there are so few people you wouldn't believe how few people actually want to pay for it. So I mean it's almost 100% ad supported.
11:22 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
But on the Mac App, which it sounds like you still have. Have you gone back to put ads in that, or is that still primarily a paid option?
11:31 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
The ones that are on there now you have to pay for them before you can. I mean, that's like a paid ad, right, so you have to pay it, then you can download it. I think I had a free. That was the first one. It was a free one and then there was like, I think the way it worked I can't remember to be honest, but I think the way it worked was that you had like 30 free games and then you had to pay for it, and I think you could do that at that time. I don't think you're allowed to do that anymore by Apple. I'm not sure to be honest, but I think there was at one point then I couldn't do that anymore.
12:07
People, people, they only pay for it if they're really forced to pay for it. You know, solidsay is one of those games that people just expect to be free, and I mean, in a sense, rightly so. Right, because there are so many options and you can still download on Windows. I don't think it comes on default with Windows anymore, but you can still download it and I mean so, yeah, it is one of those games that are usually kind of free, right, and people they you know the way the internet works is either you pay for it, otherwise you see ads right.
12:38 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I think you honed in on a key business insight. It's really hard to stand out in the iOS app store in a field of literally millions of apps. Yeah, you know from a, I guess both from a business perspective but also a developer perspective. What are some of the other just differences you've noticed on native apps versus Web games?
13:02 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, I know they're kind of similar in the sense that I mean, whether people are searching on the app store or on Google, then you kind of want to pop up right. So you kind of have to either get good at search engine optimization otherwise you have to get good at app store optimization or good at it or, you know, be able to run campaigns and stuff like that. But I think it's a lot harder and a lot more expensive on the app store than it is on Google. I still, I think that you still, if you kind of find your right niche or if you kind of get in at the right moment in time or whatever, you still have a chance on Google, where I mean, I've had on the Mac app store I did have some success. But on the iOS store I've tried several times and I've had so little success. It's been, you know, super, super hard I find.
13:54
You know to kind of pop up when people search for you and then you're kind of left with paid advertisement right where people kind of have to know your brand or whatever, right, and then they search your brand.
14:07
But but I mean, if you're making games, at least these classic games where people kind of know them already and are searching for them already, then you're just competing with so many apps, which is really really difficult. So yeah, I mean that's a very big difference between those two avenues, or whatever you want to call them. I mean then there's the whole coding aspect as well. At least, if you want to go completely in native and, you know, program it in Objective-C, I mean you can probably also do it in React. I mean you can do it in React Native nowadays or some of these other platforms. But I mean that's a whole different aspect. Right, that's the programming aspect of it, and when it comes to the business part of it, I mean the programming aspect is kind of the last thing that you want to think about really, which is, I mean, it's not very satisfying as a programmer, right, it kind of comes to that realization, it's spoken like a true entrepreneur, Knowing that the bulk of your revenue is really coming from ads.
15:16 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
has there been any major frustrations with that business model along the way or any hiccups on monetizing through ads?
15:26 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean, I hate ads as much as the next guy, right? I don't want to see ads, right? Nobody wants to see ads. But then again, nobody wants to pay for stuff either, right, then I don't want to pay for stuff either. So you're kind of left with ads and from a business perspective I can just say that ads are super nice. I'm a one person business, right, so I don't have like a whole financial department or anything like that. So the way it works is that you just kind of hook up to an ad network, and there are a lot of different ad networks. I use Freestar and have been very happy with them. There are a lot of other ones that I mean, you know, find the one that you like. But the way it works is, you know, they show ads on your website. You basically just provide the space for them and then they send you a check at the end of the month.
16:15
Revenue wise is just so simple, right, compared to a paid for solution, right, where people are subscribing or whatever. I also just implemented a subscription model on World of Card Games and people are willing to pay more, willing to pay for these multiplayer card games on that page. But then I log into Stripe and I've implemented all this stuff. But then I also see, okay, I have to deal with taxes somehow, right. Then you have to deal with taxes and deal with taxes from England and from different states in America, and it's just like, oh Jesus, that's. I mean, that's just, it's a lot of hassle compared to you know, just, you know this amount of money getting into your bank account once a month, right, that's just. It's a lot simpler and easier. And people complain about ads, right. But then when they have the option to remove the ads for a small fee, then you know, they don't complain that much anymore.
17:13 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
That's potentially really interesting insight. So when you give people the option to pay to remove the ads, do you get less complaints about the ads, even if they're not exercising that option?
17:26 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean, I don't really have any measurable insight into that, but I would say, yeah, I do get less complaints. I think people are less likely to write me. I mean, the way that I do it is that I have the ads and then just above the ads and I have a little text button that says hide ads and then when you click that, then you kind of go to like a screen where it says you can hide ads for I don't know, it's on World of Card games. I think it's $5 a month or something like that, which might sound like a lot. But you know a lot of people. They spend several hours a day on the side and when they kind of see that, then I think they're less likely to complain because they know. You know, they know like everybody else does not so sing as a free lunch, right. So either you pay, otherwise you get ads.
18:08 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Do you think, with web-based games, there's any other way to monetize? No ads is one option, but coming out with a product or coming out with something else that's maybe more in line with your brand have you thought about this at all?
18:22 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I have. I had a period where I thought about it. It's a couple of years ago, it was with online solids, and I tried a few things. One thing, for example, that I was intrigued about was this I can't remember what you I think it was called like an offer wall, and there are different services out there that are kind of, you know, offering those kind of things, which is okay.
18:46
Then you go through a survey, for example, right, and then, once you've gone through a survey, there's something that somebody else is paying for, right, that they want a survey made, and then they need somebody to do the surveys. And then you know you can choose to do the survey and then you give them like okay, then you don't see ads for a week or something like that. And I think I still have like a poll fish survey kind of thing on online solids. I still that people can take, and then they don't get ads for a week or something like that. But I mean so few people are using it and I mean there wasn't anything effective about it. I also tried to kind of hook up with what do you call it like a card deck website that just sold the card decks, like.
19:31 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Sure, actual card decks, yeah, actual yeah, physical card decks.
19:36 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
And then they had like a referral fee that you know. Then you could get 10% of the when people bought something, and then I kind of tried to advertise with that, but there was also just a total failure, right. I don't think that I got as like a single click, and it's also the thing about ads is that it's at least it still is before Chrome, kind of it. You know Google will take it away at some point, right. That you know you attract all of the web, right.
20:02
So the advertisers have become really good at you know targeting specifically what you want, right, and with these other things like a survey, I don't know it's not really targeted. And the same with things with the card decks. I mean, you might be playing like an online solid state game, but I mean the chances that you're in need of like a physical card deck. They might not be that big right. So you know ads they're just magical in the way that you know they're really targeted towards whatever you're interested in and what you search for, whatever, right. So, yeah, so you know. In summary, I found nothing that you know compared to ads when it comes to revenue.
20:43 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
You know, one thing that I've I'm always intrigued by is I'm a designer myself but I'm not really a developer at all, and you made that transition and I guess maybe for designers who might be listening to this, what would you kind of say to them in terms of, like, how it's helped you? Just I'm curious about your path a little bit from designer to developer, because that is always a dream of mine to be like I just want to build all my own stuff that I've designed, but I've backed away from that a little bit. So I'm kind of curious about your story from that change.
21:19 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
And you really have to want it right. It's hard to be good at everything. You know, these days if I wasn't self-employed and I had to find like a job somewhere, it might sound like okay, then I can just go out and say I can do everything, I can design and I can develop and I can do back in and I can do front end right. But the truth is that you know, I wouldn't really fit super well into any of those roles, right, because I'm not amazing at any of those things. So I mean, for many designers I don't know, if you want to go into development I probably kind of maybe stick to a front end because it's so closely at least when you're developing for the web and the SNIOS app or whatever it's so closely related to design that you kind of have to. I think you almost have to know a great deal about the front end development to be a really great designer, because now it's also about, like, the movements of buttons and what happens when you hover over this thing and all that sort of stuff, right. And I think for designers that's a much more natural step to look at this front end stuff, because it, you know, that's how you integrate that design right and you're moving around colors and making buttons bigger and smaller and all this sort of stuff. Once you get into like the back end stuff, you know, working with databases and all this sort of stuff, I mean that's just, it's so different from what you're doing. So if you really want to do it I mean you really have to want to do it just do it.
22:58
As a designer, I think I've always been kind of an entrepreneurial type, so I didn't really think, I don't think that I felt like I had a choice. I kind of felt like I had to do it to kind of, you know, get my own little weird projects off the ground, and then I also found some interest in it. You know, at some point down the road I kind of, you know, then becomes interesting that you can do all this sort of stuff. And I mean, at the beginning you kind of, at least, I felt kind of powerful right, because all of a sudden you can deploy a website and you can make use of Slugin and you know you can do these apps that really big companies do and it's the same functionality. But you know, you're just you. So, yeah, I mean, if you want to. You know, try your hands on it.
23:53
I definitely do like my own project right. You know, designers usually also have their own projects right. Those are usually the projects that tend to be most enthused about, and so you know, that's kind of where you're willing to put most of your energy. So at least that's how I kind of learn programming right. That's all through my own projects. And then later down the road then I went to something called the Hacker School. That was when I was living in New York. I think it's called the Recourse Center now and it's like a writer's retreat for programmers, people who want to be programmers At least it was at that point. So there I got like a good deal better at programming, I think. So it was kind of a long. There was a long period where I didn't really know what I was, and I still don't really know what I am. But there was a long period where it was kind of, you know, going from just being a designer to it's being a developer.
24:53 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I like to say that you know startups need journalists and I you know. It strikes me like you've got. You started out as a designer. You picked up the development. You know you've got one of the top ranked search terms on Google for Solitaire, so certainly you figured out some things along the way about SEO, optimization and marketing. I'm curious it seems like you're getting to a scale now that you might begin to entertain starting to hire others maybe not full time, but, you know, bringing in others to help out on certain things. Is that something that you are doing or that you've entertained in any way?
25:35 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
So I rather not like have employees, right, because that's a hassle and it's just. It's so nice just being like a one man shop because I mean you don't have to be considerate of anybody. Really it can also be, you know, pressure sometimes, but you know it's just, it gives you a lot of freedom, right. I think if I was to hire somebody, I think it would be a programmer, specifically because I got, you know, this world of card games. I bought that earlier this year and there's a lot of stuff that needs doing there, programming wise, but I mean that's just a whole new ball. You know kind of game, right. So you know, find a good programmer and you know, hire them and manage them and all this sort of stuff. You know that's like learning SEO from scratch or something, and it's just. It seems like a big task, in my mind at least. So I mean I get these days I do pay.
26:35
You know people like freelancers, but that's I think it's mostly entirely for SEO related stuff. So that's for like running campaigns and, yeah, different kinds of SEO related stuff, and I, you know a lot of people are doing that, are working with SEO. You can only get so far doing things. You can get far by doing things by yourself, but you can only get so far. And if you also want to spend time, you know, doing other stuff, then you better find somebody good who can help you with it. I mean, I could spend all my time doing SEO and I mean, from a business standpoint that might actually be the best thing that I could do, but it's also incredibly boring all this SEO stuff. So, yeah, so that's. You know, that's kind of that's where I spend the most of my money on freelancers.
27:33 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Cool. Yeah, you know, I think a lot of developers whether they'll be able to verbalize this or not are kind of averse to the idea of doing acquisitions. I think there's sort of a mentality of, well, well, I could just build that. So I'm curious your thought process on making your first acquisition. I think that's super cool that you explored that and actually saw it through. Yeah, tell us a little bit more about this acquisition and what led you down that path.
28:05 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Sure, I mean, it wasn't something that I was pursuing like myself. It was kind of a bit coincidental in a way. I wrote an article a couple of years back talking about my story with online solids and then I got an email from the owner of the world of card games and we just kind of, you know, exchanged ideas and I gave her some advice, and she gave me some advice and that sort of stuff. And then we just kind of kept in contact and you know, I liked the site and I didn't really know where to, you know, to go from where I was with online solids. You know, kind of, how do you scale? If you can say that, right, do you build iOS apps or do you go back to Mac apps? Do you build like new games and which games to build, right? And then at one point she got thoughts about selling the site, that kind of. You know. Okay, then it became interesting for me and then, you know, I had a serious look at it and you know we looked at it together and then she ended up deciding selling it to me, which I mean it's super. I really, I really like the site. It's built a while ago, so it needs some updating, both design-wise and programming-wise, but I'm working on that. So I mean there's a lot of work that needs to be put into it, but it's really got a lot of great potential for growth. And I mean in relation to you know, programmers yeah, they're notorious for saying that you know you can just build that yourself right, and that's true with all things program, you can just build it yourself, but some things take a long time to build.
29:49
And a solid website. I mean it might not look that complex, but it is a bit complex and it will take you some time to build multiplayer card games. I mean that's a whole other ballpark. The codebase for World of Card Games is a good deal bigger than for online Solitaire and it's also more complex. So I mean that would have taken me a long time to build those games. And, more important than that, it already had a stable user base, which is something that's worth a lot of money, even if I had to like scrap all the games and build everything from the ground up. I mean the active user base, and it hasn't got like great rankings in Google, but I mean it's been up there for a while and has decent rankings in Google, trust aside, and that's worth a lot as well. So I mean you're not only buying a codebase, you're buying, like current users, the current user base, and you're buying like a placement in Google or on the App Store. Whatever it is you're buying right. So you're buying more than just a codebase.
31:00 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
There's a lot of interesting tie-ins too. I mean that feels like it was just a natural fit, you know, in terms of being able to cross-promote Solitaire with World of Card Games. How do you deal with all of these new users? Like, how do you? You wrote a blog post recently a little bit about email communication and how you're really trying to adopt email more Like, how do you build that community, keep it going, not upset people in that transition? How do you think about these things?
31:27 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I mean you don't really I upset people. People are very upset. At least some people are very upset. I mean I keep the lines of communication open so people they can write me. It's very easy to find my email and they write me and they complain or they vent.
31:45
I also have like a canny Do you know a canny board. It's like you know. Then people can come with product ideas and stuff like that. So people are also right there and I mean it's just I mean the angry people they shout the loudest also, right, so I can see on the canny board it seems like there's a lot of angry people. But I also do get emails from people who are very happy with some of the recent changes. One of the recent changes that I made which pissed a lot of people off was like what do you call it? Like an AI checker for the chat, so people they can chat with each other and their website, right, while they're playing games. As with all other places where people can communicate, there are some very people who are saying horrendous stuff, right, but just after the assholes, right, or just have a zone that you know it doesn't fit with new users who are coming in.
32:45 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
So this was like a bot in the bottom corner, kind of like an intercom chat window that was public.
32:52 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
No, it was just people that were able to chat with each other right.
32:55 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Oh, I see.
32:55 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Okay. And then I integrated like an artificial I think it was a Google project actually I've integrated like an artificial intelligence checker that can kind of take a snippet of text and then see how they call it toxic, right, and then I can kind of well, the thing I'm doing, really, I'm not really saying you can't write it, but I'm kind of giving people a pop up, saying, are you sure you want to write this? Right, you're an absolute asshole. Are you sure you want to? You know, post this. And then you know they can say, yeah, I want to post that, right, and then if they cross like a threshold or if they write like enough messages now I've also implemented that they're getting automatically banned, right, you know, and it's like a three strikes and out thing, right, first for an hour, then a day and then forever.
33:42
I think it is that upset a lot of people, but mostly it was. I mean, there are some people who just really don't like that. You know that people are checking on that, but it's not really like a public square, it's a card game website, right, and you're supposed to not be very. You know, you're supposed to be a little polite.
34:00 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
You would hope yes.
34:02 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, so, but I mean also then there are people who are really happy with that. So you know, you make changes, and every time you make changes you kind of piss some people off. But you have to make changes to move forward. What I do is that I also check. I can kind of see in the back end, you know, how many people visit the site and approximately in aggregate how much time do they spend on the site. And then if there are, you know, bigger movements in those parameters, then I kind of get worried. But you know, if I get three angry emails a single day, then you know I usually take it a bit more cool these days. I don't, yeah, it's just. I mean, change is also annoying, right? We all know that. You know most people don't really like changes.
34:49 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
So you're a one person business. You just acquired a new website. I'm trying to think about, like what are your goals as a entrepreneur, because there's kind of a cap maybe in terms of, like, how much work you can actually do in a day, how the quality of life you know, in terms of, like, what are you willing to give up? I'm curious about your goals in terms of whether it's financial or freedom, like how do you balance this with developing these games?
35:20 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
So I used to have a goal and that was that I could kind of, you know, make a living from it. And then you know, I reached that goal. So now I make a very comfortable living of it. And then, you know, I kind of have goals revenue wise as well, but it's more like, you know, hitting that next little threshold, right. But I mean it's not like a big goal. It's just like we all like progress, right? You know that's how humans are, especially when you put a lot of work into it. So you kind of want to see that next little progress being made.
35:55
But it's not like I have a big overarching goal. I mean I have goals with what I want to accomplish, work wise, with the projects, and I have lists and lists and lists of stuff that I want to do and I have, like also, I started making small, like quarterly plans that I kind of try to. You know I use to guide me, you know, as to you know what I kind of want to implement in this quarter. Right, you know big things, right, but it's not like I have big, big goals and I mean now I also have a kid. So I mean I definitely feel that, you know I'm limited with time, right.
36:38
You know, once you get a kid you can't just you know. Okay, I'll just work till nine in the evening today, right, and I'll work, you know, over the weekend or whatever, because I feel like it just doesn't work like that anymore. So now you know I work until five or whatever, and then whatever I can do until that time I do. And you know, if I don't reach my goal, you know with what I want to do that day or that week. You know, that's just how it is. I mean, I mean that's also fine. That's kind of one of the the great things of being a one person businesses that you know you don't have anybody and the other and Giving you a deadline and you know there's no big deadline that you have to to reach, right love it, love it I also also kind of consider myself more for an indie hacker nowadays I don't know if that's the term is still like a.
37:29
I think it's still a thing.
37:30 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Well it's still a website at least.
37:32 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, it's still website and it's. You know, I think the thing that differentiates An indie hacker from, like, an entrepreneur or startup person or whatever I mean indie hackers are definitely still entrepreneurial is that they have. They basically just want to run a small internet business and make a living of that, and I think that's a that's a great goal. I really like the freedom of it that. You know, I can just kind of leave, you know, the website for a while, for a week or even a month if I, if I wanted to do and then do something else, like this spring, then I have a small summer house and it's very run down. Then, you know, I spent a couple of weeks, you know, building a new shed and you know Painting and that sort of stuff, and I didn't have to worry about. You know I could only do it in the weekends or whatever. Right, because you can. I can just kind of leave it, the work and the website, and then just, you know, go do other stuff if the, if the weather is nice.
38:28 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
That sounds like a life man. I do want to. I do want to touch on Something. Very so. When you first launched this car game it was, I think you mentioned it was making about 20 bucks a month, or maybe a day, I can't remember. Was it about a month or?
38:41 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I think was the first day was 20 20 bucks, and then there was like $10 a day, something like that, on average.
38:47 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Okay, and then in February of 2022 you're making about fifth, I'm sorry. In 2020 you're making about 1500 a month. That's, it's quite a leap. And then within a year and a half You're making 10k plus a month, and I'm sure much more than that now with the acquisition. But what happened in that 2020 to 2022 range? I'm curious, like what went from 1500 of 10,000 a month? What did you do? Uh sure, I mean, I implemented ads. Okay, it's just that so.
39:20 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Actually, I created the website I don't know how long was ago, like five, six years ago or something like that. I was living in New York and I had a startup and I was living the startup life and I had been doing so for three years and then things started to Turn tits up, right so, and I was kind of depressed and I was tired of programming and I was tired of I was just run down Right, and then I kind of came back to this, this old Solitaire ad that I had, and then I thought, okay, what if I made it into a website? You know, then I kind of did that in my spare time, right, just because I didn't know what else to do really and I could be a fun little project. And then, you know, got up there on the internet and then I Worked a bit on it the next couple of years, but I didn't really do much. It was just kind of there, right, and I did see, you know, there were people starting to come in and it started to rank a bit better and that sort of stuff. But honestly, at that time I thought that nobody earned money on ads anymore. I don't know why. I just had that perception that you know you couldn't earn money on ads Because you know I never clicked an ad right. You know why should anybody else click it right? So I didn't think you could earn money on ads.
40:31
And then it was under the first corona lockdown here and In the in Denmark. You know I got some more time on my hands at that time. I was actually studying to be a mechanical engineer. I had kind of come home to Denmark and I became tired of programming and I couldn't see myself doing it for the next 40 years or whatever. So then I started studying again at the University, but then, you know, the lockdown. Then I kind of went to my summer house with my girlfriend and I had some small time on my hands and then I said, okay, why not try to implement some ads? And then I reached out to an ad network and I implemented their ads and I can't remember how much it earned me. It wasn't a lot as you say. It might have been those 1500 dollars a month or something like that, I mean, which is not a lot in terms of what I'm making now, but I mean it's definitely great when you're studying again, right.
41:27
But that's also when I, you know, started taking it more serious, because I had never really taken the project that serious, even though it earned me money, because it was more like a, you know, pocket money that it earned me. Right, and it's a solid-take game, right. How could you take a solid-take game Seriously and you know I didn't. I had to starve in New York and mean that was very serious and you had investors, money, right, that was very serious as well, right, but you know, a solid-take game. But then I said, okay, let's kind of give it a go, right, I was still studying, right. So you know, it was basically just money on the side. So, which I mean I think that's a great way of Doing a side project is doing it while you're doing other stuff, because then there's not that big amount of pressure, right, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't really take off or if it doesn't meet your expectations or whatever, because you're doing other stuff, right.
42:21
So this was like my side thing. But then, you know, I started to fix all these bugs that the website had and I started to, you know, learn more about SEO, right, which I hadn't really known much about, right. Well, it had always been like a black box to me something that I've been scared about, you know. And then I implemented all these SEO improvements and, you know, I just got more serious with the whole thing, right. And then I found a new ad network.
42:49
And then, you know, gradually, month after month, things just Started to take it off in some sense, and I think the first month that I hit it must have been almost ten thousand Dollars, right. Then I was like, okay, maybe I should really take this thing seriously. Maybe it's, maybe it's not just a silly little side project, maybe it's something that I can actually make a living from. Yeah. And then I kind of took a half year off and I did the yeah, I just started to take the whole thing a lot more seriously, right. And then at some point, I went full time on it. It's actually not that long a time ago. I went full time on it because I didn't finish my studies that long a time ago, but I did finish them, even though I'm not doing mechanical engineering right now, right. So I don't know how useful it was, but at least it kept me occupied until I found this.
43:46 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Did you start out with the online-solitairecom domain name or?
43:52 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
No, actually I think it was called. I can't even remember what the domain name was called. I think it was like solitairecardgamecom or something like that. And actually I did a big screw up at one point because I got the domain name online-solitairecom at some point and it actually was somebody like a domain broker who reached out to me and said, hey, do you want to buy this? And it's like I think it was a thousand bucks or something like that. And I was almost like, nah, I mean because I wasn't taking the game seriously at that point, right. But then I decided, okay, yeah, it's definitely a better name, let's just do it right With you. Know, thank God for that.
44:34
But then the way that you do switch a domain right Is that you basically just do a redirect. You might redirect the sub-sites, sub-pages as well, but you just do a redirect of the old domain to the new domain. But then, and then you know you have a lot of other pages, you know, linking to the old domain, probably right. And then you get all that SEO juice. You call it right To the new domain. So Google kind of concatenates the two domains and then you know, rank you with all the SEO juice from the old domain.
45:06
But at one point I forgot to pay the bill for the old domain because I wasn't using it anymore, right, and I didn't know much about SEO. And then I could just see my rankings in Google just absolutely tanked at one point and I think it was actually just after I implemented ads or something like that and started to take the whole thing a bit more serious. So it was kind of a bad start to that whole thing. But I mean, since then I've come up. I mean now it's just like a small bleep in a graph, right, but at that time it was just like wow, it was like a long, long way down.
45:43 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Did that last for like a few months, or was it longer than that, because it dropped like 50%, I believe, from the graph.
45:50 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, I mean it's dropped several times. I've also been hit by a Google Core update at one point, but I think the things that you're seeing on what you call a Mars, or on the Simrush or AHA, for whatever it's at least for my website is quite different from what they're showing. So the drop at least the recent drops haven't been as dramatic as they look on there. But I mean, at that time it was a big drop. I think it was like 80% or 70% drop and it lasted for a good long while. So I mean it was not good. It was not good. I definitely. I mean, but it's good to know a little bit about SEO, right? If you're running a website that really relies on traffic from Google, right? So I can definitely recommend reading a bit up on SEO if that's the case.
46:49 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
It's a good lesson.
46:50 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Yeah, it was a tough lesson.
46:52 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
So, hogar, I'm kind of curious what's next for you. So you've got two websites. That is taking up most of your time. Do you plan to do more acquisitions? I'm kind of curious what's next for you.
47:06 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
I think most of the time I'll be most of my time the next couple of years which I will actually go to World of Card Games because there's a lot of stuff that can be done there. At least, I feel like I'll reach my limit with Solitare games. I mean, a lot of it is just SEO related stuff. Nowadays. You can add new features and such things, but it's I mean the return on investment. It's limited how much better you can make them.
47:35
Right now I'm working on a big redesign of World of Card Games which will also make it mobile responsive, which it really isn't right now, which is a big no-no in the eyes of Google these days, right, and also a big no-no in the eyes of the users, right, because a lot of people are playing from mobile devices or from iPads and stuff like that. And once that's in place, then I'll probably also try my luck with the iOS apps again, because, unlike Solitare, then some of these games on World of Card Games, like Hearts and Spades and Double Deck, pinnacle, and I mean all these games they aren't that many of them on the App Store, at least not in the true multiplayer form, so I think they have a bigger chance of I mean surfacing to the top when people search for them, and after I've done this redesign, then I think they'll also be up to par with, and maybe even better than, many of the ones that are in the App Store. And I mean, if that becomes a success and it's always a big, if I mean I've had big plans before of implementing this or doing this, and then it's just like it doesn't take off, right. So, but I mean, if that becomes a big success, then you kind of have something nice, right, because then you have something that can both be for the web and for the iPhone and that is like a multiplayer card game platform, right, and there's a lot of classic multiplayer card games. So the next step after that would probably be to expand the selection of card games on worldofcardgamescom. So yeah, so I mean and now there's enough work in that to keep me occupied for at least a year or two, I think, and that's fine with me that I kind of know what I'm doing.
49:37 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Well, I think that's really interesting, I think, especially since you were scraping app Annie for ideas for things to build, and now you have, however many I'm guessing millions of users at this point who are, have or are playing your games and you get to use them Like you get to source ideas from your players, and so I think you know you have this ability to validate and I think that's your instinct and that's what's really interesting to me to see, like what's going to come for you. I think there's a wealth of knowledge that you have that you didn't have before, so that's kind of a cool, cool story and being able to tap that for new ideas.
50:18 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Actually, I think the truth might be a bit simpler and a bit more boring, which is that I stopped reinventing the wheel, right, that I just kind of I took something that was already there, something people already know, and then I just tried to make it nicer, and I mean that's not that sexy, right, but but it's nice right, and at least I've liked it right, because then you can kind of finesse with the design and make it how you really like it, instead of trying always when you try to reinvent the wheel, then you kind of have to find the people who would actually want this and explain to them what it is and then convince them to try it out.
50:53
Right, no, I couldn't, I couldn't fathom making a new type of game. I mean, I think that would be so difficult. Then you kind of have to convince people to try a game they don't know nothing about, right? I would have no idea how to you know to do that, even though you know I admire people who do it right. But you know, I would have no idea how that's just such a whole different bowl game, right?
51:19 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah, absolutely Well. Thanks so much for being here. I think for people listening there's you know there's so many great things to come out of this talk in terms of like entrepreneurship, indie, hacking, building games, even if they seem boring at first, and then there's potential for it to actually pay for your lifestyle, which is quite amazing.
51:40 - Holger Sindbæk (Guest)
Well, thanks for having me, and if you have any questions or whatever I mean, feel free to write me at either Holger at World of Card Games or Holger at online-soliderecom. You know, I tend to answer most people, unless you're very, very rude, right, which most people aren't, even though it might take me a couple of days to kind of get to it.
52:01 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Very good. Your story is really inspiring and thanks for being with us, Holger.
