Eric Barone has made $300M+ (yes, that's not a typo) in revenue in 6 years with 0 employees.

He developed a game that has sold 20M copies to date.

At this rate, he can easily become the first one-person founder to do 1B+ in sales.

Here's how he did it:

1/ In 2011, @ConcernedApe made the video game Stardew Valley to improve his chances of getting a job.

The premise was simple: You inherit a large farm.

You now have to grow crops, raise livestock, build relationships with the villagers, and start a family.

2/ Going full-time

Eric decided to work solo to retain 100% creative control.

He learned everything—adding 3-D graphics, animations, & music—as he built the game.

By Dec 2011, he was so obsessed with the game (he worked 8-15 hrs/day) that he gave up on finding a job.

3/ Building a community

Eric launched a website (20M visits/month) and a subreddit (1.3M subs) to share updates and take feedback from gamers.

He capitalized on the audience to promote his game, educate gamers on how to play Stardew Valley, and answer FAQs.

The community also helped him gain Steam's (a video game distribution platform) approval.

Steam rejected solo developers. But, if fans voted for a game they'd want to play, & it got the required votes, Steam approved it.

Eric leveraged his audience to get the minimum votes.

4/ Official launch

Eric finally abandoned perfecting every aspect of Stardew valley, & launched it in 2016 for $15.

After 2 months, it sold 1M copies, generating $15M. Today, it has sold 20M copies and made $300M in sales.

Some factors that contributed to its success:

• Cheap price for global adoption.

• Initially, Eric outsourced PR, marketing, & publishing to a firm for 10% of the profit share to focus on coding.

• A strong community that promotes his game every day.

• And of course the game itself.

5/ What's next?

Eric has got multiple million-dollar offers from Sony, Nintendo, and other giants to sell, but he doesn't.

He's busy upgrading the game with new features.

Lately, he's developing another game: Haunted Chocolatier.

That's a wrap!

If you enjoyed this thread:

1. Follow me @volodarik for more of these
2. RT the tweet below to share this thread with your audience