Mark Pincus and the role of Game Mechanics in Startups
I was talking with a friend over the weekend about Zynga's filing for IPO. We were discussing Zynga's impressive business model but the conversation quickly shifted to Mark Pincus and the impact that he has had on the startup world. Pincus is an idol to many startup entrepreneurs and for good reason. He has likely been the single biggest source of inspiration behind the role of game mechanics in software.
Game mechanics in startups, also known as gamification, is the notion that game elements such as points or levels can be used in software to increase engagement and elicit a desired response from a user. These game elements make applications much more engaging and addicting. (The best recent example I can think of is Turntable.fm's successful social engagement loop.) Every entrepreneur should think long and hard about game mechanics and feedback loops if they want to make software that people keep coming back to over and over again.
Here are three must-reads for entrepreneurs wanting to learn more about the role of game mechanics in startups:
- Bing Gordon, former EA exec and venture capitalist at KPCB, on how Every Startup CEO Should Understand Gamification. Here are the slides:
- Wired's article on Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops. My favorite quote from the article:
So feedback loops work. Why? Why does putting our own data in front of us somehow compel us to act? ... Feedback loops are how we learn, whether we call it trial and error or course correction. In so many areas of life, we succeed when we have some sense of where we stand and some evaluation of our progress. Indeed, we tend to crave this sort of information; it’s something we viscerally want to know, good or bad. As Stanford’s Bandura put it, “People are proactive, aspiring organisms.” Feedback taps into those aspirations.
- And last but not least, Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner's video from 2009 with both Mark Pincus and Bing Gordon. It's an oldie but is still one of the most insightful lectures I have seen.
