Nicholas Talarico
Founder of Super Free Games
Nicholas Talarico
Founder of Super Free Games
Washington, District of Columbia
Overview
Work Experience
Founder & CEO
2010 - 2024
Founder & CEO of mobile games company that we grew to over half a billion dollars in lifetime revenue and 300M lifetime installs with >4.9 stars ratings in the Apple AppStore and Google Play store on less than $1m of funding (convertible). Acquired by Stillfront Group (Nasdaq: STLFF) for nine figures in 2020, successfully completing an earnout in 2023 before transitioning studio leadership to a pair of leaders who'd begun their careers with the company out of college. Built Word Collect (spent much of 2020-21 as the #2 word game in the world and was reportedly the 6th most downloaded Apple game worldwide in 2020) as well as Trivia Star (#1 trivia game worldwide in much of 2020-2021) among other global favorites in the Word, Trivia, Puzzle, and Casino categories, which have reached top grossing status in 114 countries.
Investor & Advisor
2014 - 2020
Teachable allows creators to build & sell their own online courses, complete with content support, payments, and more. www.Teachable.com
Member, Board of Directors
2012 - 2015
Open source code is more efficient than redundant, private code. BountySource accelerates that. Bountysource is a website for open source bounties and crowdfunding of open source projects. Users (called "backers") pledge money for tasks using micropayment services that open source software developers pick up and solve to earn the money. It also allows large-scale fundraising for big improvements on the project. It integrates with GitHub using its bug tracker to check if the problem is resolved and connect the resolution with GitHub's pull-request system to identify the patch. When the users agree that they are satisfied and the project maintainer merged the proposed changes to the source-code, Bountysource will transfer the money acting as a trustee during the whole process.
Director, Publisher Development
2009 - 2010
In a year+ at Offerpal/Tapjoy, I oversaw the Publisher Development team. In this function, I worked closely with the Product lead, Sales Engineering, and my own team to rapidly and repeatedly deliver solutions to publishers. Because I came originally from social gaming, I was able to clearly understand publishers' needs and help them with monetization strategies. During my time there, Offerpal enjoyed sharp and sustained revenue increases and sole place as altpay monetization platform for most of the industry's top developers.
Producer
2007 - 2009
Produced, organized, assisted in shooting, assisted in edit for 'Far From Gone,' a documentary film about two Congolese refugees, seeking safety in Zambia, as one is resettled to Norway and the other is left to remain in a rural refugee camp in Southern Africa. "Far From Gone does more in 40 mins than most feature docs can pull off in twice the time. Brilliant!" -- Sheffield Doc/Fest -
founding member & Director of Operations
2007 - 2009
YouWeb is a unique, meritocracy-driven incubator which founded, funded, incubated, and launched its first three startups (CrowdStar, Open Feint (acquired by GREE, 2011), & Spaceport.io (acquired by FB, 2013)) in 2009. Subsequent startups include OpenKit.io, Pluto Games, & iSwifter/Agawi.
Education
BS
1998 - 2002