The Origin Story Of Sporcle
On May 16th, Sporcle’s founder, Matt Ramme, and CEO, Ali Aydar, spoke with Fred Fishkin on Techstination about the creation and success of the popular trivia platform.
Sporcle, founded in 2007 by Ramme, is the leading provider of trivia and quiz entertainment on the web, mobile devices, and in-person and virtual events. Sporcle fans have played over 4 billion quizzes on the platform, with over one million user-generated quizzes on every conceivable topic. Since 2013, Sporcle has hosted more than 120,000 in-person Sporcle Live events. Every day, nearly 2M quizzes are played online and 20K attend live events each week.
“I was a big fan of doing crosswords, watching Jeopardy! … My wife and I would play with crosswords together, play New York Times, and we would kind of work on it together. A lot of it for me was that she tended to be better at figuring out a lot of the answers,” said Ramme.
Ramme decided in 2006 that there had to be a better way than learning with flashcards, so he turned to the internet to hone his trivia skills. However, most of the content he discovered was either incorrect or unenjoyable to play, so he decided to create a platform for other trivia fans to use. From there, Sporcle was created.
“It was born out of my own desire to learn some of this kind of information. And then because others had a similar interest, I kept creating more and more and then eventually got the users,” said Ramme.
But how did Sporcle receive its unique name recognized by millions? “I made the name and then when I actually pivoted to trivia, everybody just really liked the name so we just kind of kept it because everybody just had a really positive association with it … and I do like that it sort of doesn’t sound like anything in particular, so it isn’t a thing. It’s its own thing, which I kind of liked,” said Ramme.
Today, big names on Jeopardy! use Sporcle in preparation for their shows. Austin Rogers, a twelve-time Jeopardy! champion, is a prominent Sporcle user. Furthermore, celebrities such as Ray Romano, Rob Lowe, and the cast of Parks and Recreation enjoy using Sporcle in their spare time.
What sets Sporcle apart from other platforms? The diverse and enthusiastic user base. The goal of every Sporcler is to engage in mentally stimulating distractions that bring the community together.
Building a Community Amidst the Pandemic
Sporcle, like many other businesses, faced significant challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world. “There was certainly during the height of the lockdowns a surge of traffic on our website so from that perspective it was good. There were a lot of people sitting at home, we were able to entertain them while they were home,” said Ali Aydar. “However, our pub trivia business struggled because all bars, restaurants, and retail businesses were shuttered and so we went from operating 750 shows per week to 0, so that was quite a challenge to overcome.”
In an effort to combat the pandemic’s social isolation, Sporcle launched virtual trivia events to connect the Sporcle community. In place of actual high-touch situations, Sporcle fans gathered on Zoom to play virtually on the platform in order to stay in touch and connect. Though as lockdowns ease, Sporcle will continue to host weekly live virtual events to connect with the community across the country.
The Future of Sporcle
Sporcle aims to increase the platform’s quality, efficiency, and recognition through various mediums now that it has achieved great success in its web, mobile, and live events.
“Most recently people playing Sporcle on TikTok has gone off because it has really been growing a lot recently so while it’s kind of a short-form platform, it’s a way where people can sort of show their knowledge again and interact kind of differently than they had as well,” said Ramme.
While mobile applications have become a part of our daily lives, Aydar believes that the platform is best suited for desktop applications. Sporcle was founded several years before the iPhone, so the complexity of creating a quiz is geared toward desktop applications. Creating a mobile application is appealing and likely in the company’s future, but the platform is much easier to interact with on the desktop.
“I think we just have a lot of aspirations of adding more ways where people can experience the Sporcle feeling in different places beyond just the website and bars,” said Ramme.
Monitoring the Platform
So, how does Sporcle ensure that the user-generated quizzes are accurate? Aydar states that “anybody could come and create any content they want and we’re not going to check every single quiz. We just provide a platform.” However, if the company chooses a quiz to highlight on their featured page, the Sporcle Staff of Curators will diligently fact-check the quiz for any outdated information or inaccuracies.
“To keep all the content up to date is definitely a herculean effort put forth by our team of both employees and contributors, and volunteers on the site,” said Ramme.
The Power of Sporcle
Sporcle places a high value on creativity in its user-generated content. The platform’s tools enable users to unleash their creativity and create powerful quizzes that have a positive impact on the community. In fact, Aydar mentions one of his favorite Sporcle moments was a user who created a Sporcle quiz to propose to their girlfriend.
“To be that creative and utilize our tools to do that … we’re always amazed by the creativity of our users,” said Aydar.
Join Sporcle next week in partnership with 12-time Jeopardy! champion, Austin Rogers for his virtual trivia show on ZOOM.
Go to Sporcle.com/austinrogers to get your tickets!
