This App Was Shut Down Because It Was Doing Too Well

90M+ downloads & $50k/day in ad revenue, all down to drain — what happens?

Uzman Ali
ILLUMINATION

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Read the whole story for free here.

Yup, the story is as crazy as my title and subtitle sounds.

It started in May 2013, when Dong Nguyen created Flappy Bird. But by February 2014 alone, it had been downloaded by 90M+ people and played over 20 billion times.

But how did Dong get into building games? Let’s start from the start.

Just a quick reminder, here is a link to my Medium list which includes all founder stories I have written to this date. Thanks

Dong Nguyen: Image source

Background flashback

Dong’s first introduction to the video gaming industry was Super Mario Bros as a child.

Image from Super Mario Bros.

This early love for Super Mario Bros. inspired him to start coding his games when he was just 16. After that, Dong started studying computer science at the Hanoi University of Science in Vietnam. Instead of doing traditional programming, he decided to act on his love for games.

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Uzman Ali
ILLUMINATION

Founder: startertracks.com → On a mission to help 10,000 people grow and create income online in 2024