I Built a $12 Billion Company By Figuring Out The right way to Come Up With Hit Products. Here’s My Simple Formula.

The technique of defining, testing, and launching new merchandise can really feel chaotic. So how can we enhance the percentages of successful, and reduce the time it takes to get to “right”?

This is one thing I’ve spent my entire profession desirous about. I’m a serial entrepreneur, finest identified for founding Zynga, which pioneered social gaming with hits like FarmVille and Words With Friends, in 2007. We achieved $1 billion in income inside 4 years, and went public in 2011. (In 2022, Zynga was valued at $12.7 billion when it merged with Take-Two Interactive, finest identified for Grand Theft Auto.) I additionally cofounded a enterprise capital agency with Reid Hoffman, and we backed firms together with SpaceX.

Reid is a pal and lifelong collaborator, and he calls me an thought generator. But my problem has at all times been bringing my concepts to life. That is true for everybody, in a way: We all have concepts that we by no means pursue. Real life can really feel like a beatdown. Once we begin imagining the numerous steps essential to implement our thought, it could possibly really feel overwhelming, costly, and so much much less enjoyable. Often, that’s after we determine that perhaps the thought wasn’t that nice. Even after we do pursue an thought, we’re normally compelled to make painful trade-offs, with time as our main foreign money. The strategy to change this equation is to massively speed up the velocity at which we construct.

With Zynga, to be able to survive, I needed to be proper about which merchandise had the most effective shot at success — so I developed a easy framework. I name it Proven Better New. It turned a faith inside Zynga, and has unfold to a lot of my fellow product makers.

Proven Better New is a scientific method to producing profitable merchandise sooner. Its core worth is in isolating really new concepts after which testing them quickly to get correct buyer suggestions. It protects us from our urge to make every part higher, avoiding wasted cycles and false indicators. And it stops us from reinventing options that another person already perfected. That manner, we will spend our time and vitality on innovation that truly excites us and our customers.

Image Credit: Nicolás Ortega

Start with what’s confirmed.

In order to implement the “Proven” a part of this system, there’s one thought that each product maker should get snug with: Copying what already works (legally). 

I get it. There’s an inherent pressure in actually going after the “Proven.” We all wish to be revered by our friends, so our egos maintain us again. Copying additionally goes in opposition to each intuition that now we have as product makers: We wish to innovate! Copying different individuals’s work can really feel distasteful, mistaken, unfair, and never one thing we’d take delight in. In my expertise, the extra junior the product groups, the tougher they fight to not copy and even look as in the event that they have been copying.

But the best artists and product makers have usually been the most effective at copying what’s already on the market; they’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. Steve Jobs, the grandmaster of product making, famously stated, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” (Ironically, he stole this quote from Picasso, who was a grasp at tracing and copying different artists’ works earlier than he created his personal.) Only a grasp craftsman can spot excellence and be snug copying it.

If you’re really formidable, you have to cease worrying about getting respect out of your friends. What seems modern to your prospects is probably not spectacular to the remainder of your business.

Steve Jobs spoke about this in 1997, when he addressed one in all his first developer convention audiences concerning the new Mac. “This whole notion of being so proprietary in every facet of what we do has really hurt us. It might be 10% better, but usually, it ends up being about 50% worse.” 

Of course, if all we did as product makers was copy, individuals would don’t have any cause to make use of our product as a substitute of no matter we have been copying. So that’s the place our innovation zones of “Better” and “New” are available in.

“Better” refers to one thing within the Proven product that you are able to do higher within the eyes of the present viewers, in order that 10 out of 10 of these customers will say, “Yeah, that’s better!” 

“New” refers back to the novel thought that’s our actual innovation zone. It’s one thing so new that it’s going to get individuals to attempt, discuss, and even love our product. Here, now we have to acknowledge simply how exhausting it’s to get an precise new concept that the world is prepared for and needs. One of my maxims inside Zynga, repeated to at the present time, was “all New fails.” It’s to not discourage innovation, however reasonably to encourage experimentation and curiosity with out presuming success. “New” is the shiny penny everybody desires to spend all their time on. We put all our hopes and desires in imagining how our new thought can change the world. The disciplined product maker is aware of to isolate the brand new zone to derisk their product.

Here’s the method: Start with sufficient “Proven” that your product doesn’t fail for the mistaken causes. Find “Better” in case you can, as a result of it is going to enhance your odds of success. Then, attempt tons and plenty of remoted “New” concepts on high of your product till you get to one thing that does work. This technique of remoted innovation will allow you to massively change your odds of success to provide you with a profitable product.

Case Study: Zynga Poker

The quickest strategy to perceive Proven Better New is to see the breakdown for the unique Zynga Poker recreation from 2007. 

Essentially, we took the confirmed desk format and recreation mechanics from on-line poker, made it higher by eradicating the obtain, and added a new characteristic: actual individuals, usually your pals, with their photos on the desk.

Zynga got here from my deep intuition that video games may turn into a every day behavior for busy adults. They simply wanted permission to play, which got here within the type of being social and subsequently considerably productive. Games had at all times been “empty calories” — by no means thought of a great use of time. I knew social gaming could possibly be huge.

But Zynga Poker was so unambitious and noninnovative that it was embarrassing. It was only a poker recreation that seemed precisely like each different — besides for 2 easy adjustments.

One change — our higher characteristic — was on the spot play with no obtain, as a result of we constructed it in Flash for the online (which was novel on the time). This was a giant deal, as a result of I’ve at all times discovered you lose 80% to 90% of your viewers while you require a obtain. No different video games may afford to supply on the spot play over the online as a result of all of them supplied real-money playing, the place safety was essential. We had a bonus as a result of we have been pursuing a free mannequin. 

Our different change was our new characteristic:  exhibiting gamers’ actual identities with their Facebook profile photos as a substitute of random, creepy avatars. By isolating our new facet to purely social parts, we may take a look at our core speculation with out reinventing every part else. When we noticed that 25% of individuals have been becoming a member of their mates at tables, we knew we have been onto one thing huge.

We referred to as this social recreation mechanics, and it turned Zynga’s complete innovation and progress engine. With social recreation mechanics, we constructed one thing nobody had supplied earlier than: the combination of a participant’s social community into their recreation board. This was how we disrupted the sport business.

Case Study: Slack

Now let’s take a look at how Proven Better New works in a very completely different business.

In 2012, Stewart Butterfield realized he needed to make a tough pivot. His firm, which had been constructing a large multiplayer recreation referred to as Glitch, was low on cash with no prospects of extra funding. People on the firm requested themselves, “What can we do?” and realized they’d this one inside engineering software all of them used. That was Slack.

Slack completely carried out the Proven Better New mannequin in opposition to HipChat, an present crew collaboration software. HipChat was a preferred chat product used inside most massive enterprises to handle inside communications, primarily between engineers. Here was an enterprise product everybody had relied on that wasn’t enjoyable. Because Slack was the product of a recreation firm, they constructed a extra “cuddly” consumer interface on high of what was functionally nonetheless HipChat. Slack’s Proven Better New technique was to supply the very same product, however make it higher with an interface that felt extra pleasant. I don’t even keep in mind whether or not they had something new initially. I do keep in mind that the product greeted you with 25 completely different phrases for howdy.

When the corporate launched the product as Slack, it unfold virally: Eight thousand firms signed up inside 24 hours.Everyone liked it — however they couldn’t clarify why. Inside Zynga, our IT group was rolling their eyes: “There’s nothing different. Why are you forcing us to get this?” But the large thought of Slack was making very small improvements that have been very significant to the tip customers (to not the IT division). The product unfold via work teams and surpassed HipChat in a 12 months. Eventually, Salesforce purchased Slack for $27.7 billion, making it one of many largest acquisitions within the software program business on the time.

Image Credit: Nicolás Ortega

Using AI for Proven Better New

AI is an incredible software to get us leverage in implementing Proven Better New, and has already turn into a vital and magical software for product making. But up to now, it could possibly’t change what we people add: creativity, empathy, and style.

I had plenty of enjoyable asking ChatGPT to ship a Proven Better New evaluation of a number of hit merchandise to clarify their success — after which to assist us generate concepts for Better and New merchandise. What I discovered was that AI is nice at wanting backward to research and clarify the world round us. But as of right this moment, it doesn’t have the power to differentiate between false and true indicators. It can’t ask 10 customers what they’d say “Yeah!” to, and it has but to match the human skill to foretell and picture new merchandise, new markets, and new worlds.

AI and LLMs supply the potential to massively speed up Proven Better New, however are additionally more likely to homogenize, lowering each quirkiness and the potential to shock and delight individuals. GPT can get you to a B-plus in seconds, but it surely would possibly truly be pulling you away from attending to an A.

In a manner, that’s not too completely different from the dangers of the Proven Better New system itself. Years of deploying Proven Better New have proven me that the system can turn into a crutch. It can ship false indicators within the type of B-plus merchandise that by no means get to A-plus. Because you’re copying profitable merchandise, you could get constructive indicators even when your distinctive new thought isn’t that good.

A core philosophical query about product improvement is whether or not it’s an artwork or a science. My reply is that it’s each: The artwork is style, and the science is course of. 

The finest product makers don’t chase novelty for its personal sake; they begin with what’s been confirmed, construct with self-discipline, innovate the place it counts, and know when to interrupt the foundations to ship one thing magical.  

Adapted from Life on the Speed of Play. Copyright © 2026 by Mark Pincus. Published  June 23 by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. 

The technique of defining, testing, and launching new merchandise can really feel chaotic. So how can we enhance the percentages of successful, and reduce the time it takes to get to “right”?

This is one thing I’ve spent my entire profession desirous about. I’m a serial entrepreneur, finest identified for founding Zynga, which pioneered social gaming with hits like FarmVille and Words With Friends, in 2007. We achieved $1 billion in income inside 4 years, and went public in 2011. (In 2022, Zynga was valued at $12.7 billion when it merged with Take-Two Interactive, finest identified for Grand Theft Auto.) I additionally cofounded a enterprise capital agency with Reid Hoffman, and we backed firms together with SpaceX.

Reid is a pal and lifelong collaborator, and he calls me an thought generator. But my problem has at all times been bringing my concepts to life. That is true for everybody, in a way: We all have concepts that we by no means pursue. Real life can really feel like a beatdown. Once we begin imagining the numerous steps essential to implement our thought, it could possibly really feel overwhelming, costly, and so much much less enjoyable. Often, that’s after we determine that perhaps the thought wasn’t that nice. Even after we do pursue an thought, we’re normally compelled to make painful trade-offs, with time as our main foreign money. The strategy to change this equation is to massively speed up the velocity at which we construct.