Wordle Creator Becomes Overnight Millionaire: Here Are 4 Things You Can Learn From Its Success

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen grids of green, yellow and grey squares popping up all over social media.

Enter Wordle, the viral game that has been sold to The New York Times for an undisclosed seven-figure sum.

In other words, the creator, Josh Wardle, has become an instant millionaire at worse or multi-millionaire at best, granting him immediate FIRE status.

So, how did an average joe turn into a millionaire seemingly overnight?

Read on to find out how Wordle became popular and the lessons we can learn from its success!

TL;DR: Lessons Learnt From The Success Of Wordle

1. Stick To The Simple Stuff

You don’t need a complicated project and/or business to find success.

2. Build A Community

Having friends along the way will always help you no matter where you are in life.

3. Create Opportunities

Be it sending out resumes or networking with people, it’s always good to create your own opportunities and jump on them when the time is right.

4. Perseverance Is Key

Perseverance will ultimately help you achieve what you want! Don’t dismiss old ideas just because they didn’t work out then.

What is Wordle?

For the uninitiated, Wordle is a word game whereby players have to guess a five-letter word within six tries.

After entering a word, the boxes will show one of three colours:

• Green – the letter is in the word and in the right position
• Yellow – the letter is in the word but in the wrong position
• Grey – the letter is not present in the word

Each day, there will be a new word for everyone to guess, and each person only has one attempt (unless you use another browser or clear your cookies, etc). It’s a simple and fun game that has since gone viral towards the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.

Lessons From Wordle’s Success

Stick To The Simple Stuff

One of the biggest factors that contributed to the game’s popularity is how easy and simple it is to pick up and play.

Even if you aren’t a wordsmith, the game is enjoyable and gives you a sense of accomplishment when you get the correct word.

Wordle is also a web game that is easily accessible; all you have to do is open up the game’s website in any browser.

Build A Community

Like most games and businesses, its success ultimately boils down to the community surrounding it.

Initially created for his partner, Josh Wardle decided to share his game with his family via WhatsApp.

It was so well-received that he then decided to publish it online.

The rest, of course, was history when the New York Times bought it for a seven-figure sum.

Wordle itself also has an emphasis on community, giving everyone a sense of belonging as each player is given the same daily word to guess.

Once you’ve completed the game, you are able to share your results without giving away the answers to others. This is why you’ll sometimes see coloured boxes on your social media feed.

Part of the fun that comes with Wordle is seeing how many tries it took for your friends to guess the word correctly and discussing strategies to do better in future rounds.

Similarly in your career, personal finance journey and hobbies, building a community of friends goes a long way to finding success in life.

Psst… If you’re new to personal finance and want to know more, don’t forget to join the Seedly Community.

Create Opportunities

Aside from landing the sweet deal with the New York Times, Josh Wardle has also created many opportunities for himself.

In an interview with TIME magazine, Wardle expressed how his partner, Palak Shah, loved word games. After playing lots of word games together like the good ol’ crossword, he decided to create his own word game for her.

The couple worked on Wordle together before releasing it to the internet after keeping it among themselves and their families.

Despite costing Wardle roughly $100 a month to keep the game online, he did not miss out on the opportunity to share what he made with the world.

The game soon went viral, with a reported 90 players on 1 Nov 2021, and 300,000 players by December.

In January 2022, the game had amassed a whopping 10 million players and was later featured in talk shows and mainstream news outlets.

Just recently, the New York Times offered to buy the game from Wardle, which we all know by now has gotten him at least a million dollars.

Likewise in life, personal finance and especially investing, it’s good to create your own opportunities by taking chances and managing risks.

When an opportunity arises, don’t be too quick to pass on it but instead take some time for careful consideration. If it fits into what you want to do, take the leap and don’t look back.

Perseverance Is Key

Despite its peaking in popularity in 2022, Wordle was actually first created way back in 2013. Crazy right?

The prototype had lots of issues, such as having too many obscure five-letter words which the average person would probably never have guessed. Although the game “didn’t feel good” according to Wardle, he did not scrap his idea but instead revived it almost eight years later when the pandemic hit.

With help from Shah, the couple managed to narrow down the list of possible words and made Wordle into what it is today.

Perhaps you too have an idea for a game, product or even a business. While you may not feel like it’s a great idea today, you’ll never know if it may be successful in the future.

For investors, this can also serve as a lesson. For example, if you are practising Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA), you may feel like giving up whenever the market turns bad.

However, so long as you have done your due diligence and believe in what you are investing in, your future self may thank you when your stocks go to the moon.

Afterthought

While not all of us are lucky enough to become millionaires as game creators like Wardle and Shah, there are certainly some takeaways that we can bring home with us from this success story.

Be it sending out your resume to your dream company, planning out your finances, or starting to invest, I hope that this story inspires you to keep at it despite the obstacles that life throws at us.