Habitica

Habitica began as a personal project by developer Tyler Rinelli, who put the code on GitHub because he was a strong believer in open source software. The idea was simple: take the sticker chart that most people remember from childhood and model it on the mechanics of a massively multiplayer role-playing game. Users check off habits, dailies, and to-dos, earning experience points and gold that level up an avatar and let them fight bosses with friends.

The project was largely volunteer-driven, with volunteer developers, moderators, and pixel artists. As it grew, its hosting costs rapidly outpaced what one person could support. Reddit and a Lifehacker feature brought a flood of attention, and the team turned to Kickstarter, which was a new platform at the time. The campaign raised more than $40,000 and provided early momentum. The original model relied on in-app purchases, but the team soon realized that a subscription model was needed to sustain a business that could pay full-time employees. That change made it possible to bring on three people full-time at very low salaries.

Most growth came from people discovering Habitica on their own. The team says it does very little marketing. Its social media presence, run by a team member across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and later Instagram, focuses on direct, human interaction with users rather than paid acquisition. Vicki Shu, who later became CEO, first encountered the project after a Comic-Con networking trip. She began contributing legal advice and flagging small issues, such as a copyright notice that made no sense on a task page, and that work built her reputation in the community.

The community was the team's greatest strength. Contributors were promoted through a public leveling system with small rewards, and many of the team's paid staff came out of that volunteer pool. Mobile became a major channel: at least two-thirds of users were on mobile by the time of the interview, and the company generally gained at least 2,000 new mobile users a day. The company also found that many users burned out once they had exhausted the game's content. Shu also noted that several venture firms turned down or low-balled the company, which pushed it toward staying cash-flow positive instead of taking venture capital.

Habitica remains on a subscription model that brings in what Shu described as a mid to high six-figure annual revenue. That revenue supports a handful or two of employees and contractors while the company remains cash-flow positive. The company is a remote team that avoids office costs. Its next focus is group features for workplaces, classrooms, and households, which Shu sees as a possible new revenue stream.