Podbit · Freakonomics Radio
The NYT tests new games in Canada first, watching day-1, day-7, and day-30 retention above all else. If people come back, it's because the game made them feel accomplished. If they don't, no solve rate fix can save it.
Where this was said
At 43:10 · chapter starts 39:30
Josh Wardle built Wordle for friends and family — it was actually his second attempt at the game after putting it down and returning to it. The green-and-gray emoji grid that players share after each round grew organically out of community feedback during peak pandemic Twitter. By January 3, 2022, when the NYT's own newsroom published a feature about the game, it had about 300,000 users and was clearly going viral. Knight read the article that morning, got multiple forwarded messages from colleagues, called Wardle two days later while flat on his back with COVID, and moved as fast as he could. The acquisition was announced publicly on January 31, 2022. The Times won't confirm the price, but it was reported as a low seven-figure sum. Wardle was eager to sell — the game had grown beyond his capacity to manage — and the Times was eager to acquire something that already 'looked and played like a New York Times game, very clean, very elegant.' It brought tens of millions of new users. The Times, Knight notes, aims to be good stewards of it.
Josh Wardle built Wordle for friends and family. By January 2022 it had 300,000 users and was exploding on Twitter. Jonathan Knight, sick with COVID, got on the phone with Wardle and closed the deal in weeks — for a reported low seven figures.
When the NYT published a news article about Wordle on January 3, 2022, the game already had about 300,000 users and was going viral.
The New York Times publicly announced it had acquired Wordle on January 31, 2022, just weeks after the game went viral.
The New York Times reportedly acquired Wordle from creator Josh Wardle for a price reported to be in the low seven figures, a bargain given the tens of millions of new users it brought.
Wordle cost the NYT a reported low seven figures and brought tens of millions of new users. That makes it one of the most cost-effective media acquisitions ever — compared to the $1 billion paid for the Boston Globe, which sold for $70 million.
Sam built Algrow, a SaaS for finding viral content formats, with zero coding experience using ChatGPT and Cursor. Six months later: 10,000 users, $14K/month in revenue.
Sam's first MVP threw an application error on its very first user — and he shipped it anyway. The core idea worked, and that was enough to validate the product and keep users coming back.
Sam joined Discord voice chats, muted himself, and silently screen-shared his product. Users in the chat started tagging him asking what the tool was. No pitch needed — curiosity did the selling.
Most founders post links in Discord and immediately get banned for self-promotion. Sam's approach was the opposite: build rapport, help people with the tool, let word of mouth do the work.
Find where your ICP lives. Listen before building. Validate with DMs and Loom recordings. Build in public with users inside your own Discord server. Turn early adopters into advocates with free access.
Instead of fearing the self-promo ban in large Discord servers, create your own private server for your product. You funnel in ideal customers and build a relationship that email can't replicate.
Algrow helps creators find and replicate viral video formats, starting at $25/month. It analyzes subscriber counts, average views, and trending formats — and can even generate the videos with AI.
After weeks of Sam silently screen-sharing in a Discord server, the server owner — unprompted — made a full YouTube promotional video about Algrow. Sam paid nothing and asked for nothing.
Producer Gus admits Discord never crossed his mind as a customer acquisition channel. Pat connects the insight to a broader lesson: match your distribution channel to where your actual customers live.
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