QuizUp
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
QuizUp was a social trivia game developed by the Icelandic studio Plain Vanilla and launched in November 2013. Players challenged each other in real time over seven rounds of timed multiple-choice questions across hundreds of topics. It became the fastest-growing app on the App Store at the time and amassed more than 100 million users.
02 / QuizUp FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
QuizUp was a massive hit that never made money. As founder Thor Fridriksson later admitted, the company never managed to monetize properly — a common fate for early apps that went viral before building a revenue model. User numbers faded after the initial surge, a planned NBC television game show was cancelled after 13 episodes had been ordered, and with no sustainable income the studio ran out of options.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
Plain Vanilla launched QuizUp in November 2013; it became the fastest-growing app on the App Store ever and raised fresh funding on the back of its success.
- Collapse
User numbers faded, the NBC TV deal was cancelled, and in August 2016 Plain Vanilla closed its Iceland headquarters and fired all 36 staff.
- Acquisition
Glu Mobile acquired Plain Vanilla and QuizUp in December 2016 in a deal valued at $7.5 million, including forgiven convertible notes.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Plain Vanilla raised more than $40 million in funding behind QuizUp.
- 02
In August 2016 the company closed its Iceland headquarters and laid off all 36 employees.
- 03
In December 2016, Glu Mobile acquired the studio and the QuizUp app in a deal valued at $7.5 million, including $7.5 million in forgiven convertible notes.