Related article: What does the maker of Angry Birds plan to do next?
Om Malik at GigaOM, did a terrific interview with the leaders of Rovio, the Finnish firm that created the enormously successful iPhone game called Angry Birds.
The game has had 6 to 7 million paid downloads, and about 11 million free downloads.
It is currently the number one paid app in Apple's App Store.
The video has much information that is very useful.
Here are 4 takeaways.
1) It is very interesting that this blockbuster hit resulted from careful screening of proposals, and was not simply a rags to riches hit from out of the blue, as was the case with J.K. Rowlings and the Harry Potter books. She did not go through dozens of book plots, and test them with potential customers, and pick the one that resonated.
The Rovio process was more like a venture capitalist process that weeds many proposals, and then invests in one.
2) Rovio has spent hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars on the game.
3) They began by reaching the Top Ten and the number one position in small countries (such as Finland). This is an interesting marketing strategy for app developers to try.
4) The advice they have for app developers is this -- you have to be terrific at making the game, and you have to be terrific at marketing. You have to be great at both. An excellent game is not simply going to get their by viral. You have to work on your marketing strategy.
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So that you don't have to listen to the video over and over again to get the important insights, we have provided a transcript below.