Sharkius: The Rise, Fall& Important Lessons

Sharkius was a promising startup founded by a 20-year-old David Kramaley in 2007. The startup was a social games platform, a sector for which David had always been enthusiastic. This article will recap the interview with David Kramaley as it was seen on Reddit. It was a real eye-opener and every startup founder and entrepreneur has one or two things to take away from the interview. So, before we go into details of the rise and fall of Sharkius, let’s shed a little light on the personality of David Kramaley, the founder.

David Kramaley can be best described as a serial creator of tech products. He has interest in a wide range of products among which gaming takes prominence. In 2007, he started Sharkius, social gaming platform and the startup was largely successful in the initial stages. Over time, the fortunes changed and Sharkius which once made a revenue of $80k in a month took a nosedive and went underground, never to recover again. The interview chronicled the beginning and the end of everything about Sharkius let’s get right into business and check out all that happened.

The early days were incredible. This was in 20007 and the explosive growth of Sharkius was aided largely due to its presence on Facebook. The startup was doing good, the traffic was coming and David was smiling to the bank. He, however, had no marketing plan in place. The founder thought the presence the platform has on Facebook, coupled with the appealing and compelling nature of the games would be enough to sustain the growth of this startup, but this would not be a reality as the startup would not last for many years before the cracks start to open.

The first problems had to do with team management. David was youthful and inexperienced. He admitted he made quite some mistakes in hiring employees and in further managing the team. As he was in the middle of getting through this, Facebook, the major source of its revenue traffic experienced unexpected changes and the traffic was reduced to a far lower level. Due to the absence of a marketer or marketing plan in place, Sharkius went down and didn’t recover from the fall.

David is not one to dwell on the failures and success of the past, for that we salute his courage. The young man is 30 years old now and is making Chessable, his latest venture another success. Chessable is committed to helping people learn the beautiful game of chess in the most simplistic way. Unlike the Sharkius project, David has learned from his mistakes and this is kind of helping him with the new project. Chessable is gradually becoming a success and sustaining the growth will not be a problem. Of course, they say, once bitten, is twice shy.

David recommends three books for aspiring entrepreneurs, Founders at Work, The Lean Startup and Mistakes Were Made (But Not Me). He recommends having a co-founder at the early stages along with a mentor and adviser. He also recommends entrepreneurs learn how to learn. We can as well deduce and realize the importance of proper marketing to every tech ventures, both for startups and established ventures.