Game Site Grows Up

Launched in an apartment during the dot com boom, Miniclip has grown into an online empire with more than 43 million unique visitors a month. Their target audience skipped the typical teenager and tween crowd to gather adults and working professionals with a few minutes of free time during their day.

Miniclip had a novel business plan for the time: don’t charge visitors to play games, and collect revenues from advertising. The difference between Miniclip and the millions (literally, millions) of competitors on the web is that Miniclip has been profitable for six of its seven years in business. That’s an accomplishment that was almost unheard of during the dot com bubble when they launched.

But now the company is forced to implement a new structure as it grows. An article in the Financial Times says Miniclip co-founder Rob Small has a few changes on his hands:

With so many potential deals on the horizon, Mr Small says the company must now develop a more sophisticated structure. He has recruited a new chief operating officer, employed more managers and created distinct departments for finance, marketing, graphics and game development.

It will be interesting to watch this small but profitable startup make the leap that all small businesses hope for.