Two teens built JailBreak (played 4B times on Roblox) ... learn 11 lessons from these teenagers

Two teens created Jailbreak and paid for college (+ way more) by selling virtual goods. Alex Balfanz, the scripter, is pictured here.

"Kids" can earn more than $1 million / year publishing eGames on Roblox.

Before discussing 11 lessons for innovators, let's talk Roblox. Roblox is a gaming platform for pre-teens. Independent developers, like Alex, create the games for Roblox much like Apps are developed for the iPhone. Roblox is expected to IPO at an $8 billion valuation.

"As of August 2020, at least 20 games have been played more than one billion times, and at least 5,000 have been played more than one million times," according to?"Gamers are logging millions of hours a day on Roblox" in The Economist, August 21, 2020.

In 2017, "one Roblox creator make more than $3 million, while several others pocketed upwards of $1m to $2m. Top creators earn as much as $250,000 per month." source: PockectGamer.biz.

Roblox's creativity is fueled by kid developers who develop games instead of mowing lawns or working at Taco Bell.

"Roblox?is set to have its best year ever by a wide margin, with its developer community expected to earn $250 million in 2020 alone." according ScreenRant.

Citizen Developers and Platforms are becoming an important part of the emerging tech landscape today. This fun 3.5-minute video (below) illustrates the power of an 18-year-old software developer, Alex. Software developers, designers, merchants, CEOs, and marketers should watch it.

This insightful video provides 10 takeaways for innovators in today's digital ecosystem:

1. the power of Small 1-Pizza Teams. This game was built by two teenagers. Alex was 18 years old when Jailbreak was released. Many Roblox games are built by one or two people.
2. the power of Inexperience. The game was created and built by two teenagers.?Age isn't a success factor in the digital world.
3. the power of Remote Work. The two Jailbreak developers have never met in person.?With the right people, remote work works.
4. the power of Open Innovation. Roblox is an Open Innovation ecosystem. It's a platform where everyone is invited to create and script games, then launch those games as Apps in the Roblox platform.?
5. the power of the Gut-Feel. Intuition is powerful. As young kids, the creators played cops and robbers. In their gut, they figured that recreating that experience would be fun to do digitally.
6. the power of Listening to Customers. While this should be obvious to everyone, it's not always the case.
7. the power of Agility. After listening to game-players, they make changes. On the fly.
8. the power Self-Serve. Alec says in the video, "My goal going in was to have no tutorials, nothing. It just was something that people would know what to do."
9. the power of Humility. Watch this video and you'll know what I mean.?
10. the Power for Platforms and Network Orchestration. Roblox joins Airbnb and Uber as a platform following a network orchestrator business model.?
11. the Power of User Generated Content (UGC). Roblox wins as a platform. Content creators win as individuals. Sort of like the iPhone platform and App creators. Sort of like Amazon's third party marketplace platform that let's individuals sell products. Sort of like Etsy.com as a platform.

On a related note, platforms that empower people like Alex represent many of today's most powerful businesses -- from Airbnb to Lyft to Youtube. Roblox is expected to go public at an $8 billion valuation as this Venture Beat states on October 1, 2020:

The Roblox platform has enabled a number of breakout games similar to Jailbreak. One example is Adopt Me! which was averaging 600,000 concurrent players as of June 2020. DreamCraft, the organization behind the AdoptMe!, was founded in 2017. It has earned over $16 million, mostly from microtransactions." (Source: GameIndustry.biz article about AdoptMe).

The AdoptMe team was just 3 people in the beginning. As AdoptMe's popularity grew, it hired a "supervisor" (Josh Ling) and then more people. Josh told GameIndustry.biz, "It starts out with a couple of friends making something, one thing leads to another, right place, right time, right decisions, a little bit of luck, and suddenly it blows up." One of the "founders" -- called Fissy -- says on his Twitter account (below) that Adopt Me! is hiring developers who are 18+.

Now the Adopt Me! team employs more than 30 people -- anywhere in the world.

I love this story because it proves that remarkable work can be done by anyone of any age, anywhere. Our digital world is creating unprecedented opportunities for creative people with initiative -- much like superstar athletes.