Scrabulous Co-Founder Jayant Agarwalla
I’ve been exchanging emails with Jayant Agarwalla, who co-founded Scrabulous, the Facebook game that’s been getting 500,000+ user per day and whose company was recently sued by Hasbro. Thought you might want to read some of what he’s been telling me.
I asked him what he thinks it takes to build a successful app on Facebook.
His Answer: “I think applications need to be sticky and not fade away after being used a few times. A lot of applications on Facebook attract thousands of users but are not sustainable. Developers should focus on giving quality products and fill a void rather than simply offer new alternatives.”
I asked him what blogs he reads.
His Answer: “Mashable, GigaOm, TechCrunch, are some of the blogs I enjoy reading.”
I asked him about the resources that social app developers need to know about.
His Answer: “We have been using Google AdSense ever since we started on Facebook and it has performed really well. Their system is stable, easy to implement, and we have never had even minor problems with Google so far. Another great network is Videoegg. So if you have an application with high page views try one of these networks. For stats, Google Analytics should be good enough, although for someone who is building new apps, they should focus more on getting users and retaining them rather than analyze stats for hours.”
I asked him what he thought of the lawsuit.
He wouldn’t comment.
His background:
Jayant Agarwalla (22), from Kolkata, India, is the co-founder of Scrabulous.com and the Scrabulous application at Facebook. Currently, he is the VP of business development and marketing for Scrabulous. Earlier, he had founded BingoBinge.com – a word game site – with his brother Rajat. Prior to BingoBinge, he had some experience working with RJ Softwares, a web solutions company founded by his brother in 2000. He has a keen interest in Chess, Scrabble, and Table Tennis. Jayant graduated with an Honors degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, in April 2008.