Uri Marchand

The Rise of UGC: Uri Marchand, Founder of Overwolf

Today’s guest is Uri Marchand, Co-Founder and CEO of Overwolf, one of the biggest platforms for creators to build, share and monetize mods, user-generated content, and companion apps for their favorite games. After 13 years, 98,000 creators, and 33 million players a month, Overwolf now functions across more than 1000 supported games.

In this episode, you’ll hear Uri discuss the early days solving problems like Skype freezing when a text came in, Overwolf’s many ups and downs raising and running out of money, the many necessary pivots until finding their lane as a platform for third-party creators, and the continual scaling challenges and pressure to grow the business.

Discussion points#

• Overwolf’s origin story
• Solving problems in the early days: Skype, Starcraft, World of Warcraft
• Failed strategies early on, and challenges finding funding
• Pinpointing problems that plague developers
• 2015’s first app for League of Legends
• Acquisitions and integrations: at the time, creators wanted people to stay out of their creations
• Building a modding strategy, hiring more staff, and acquiring CurseForge
• The five-year gap in fundraising from Series A to B, team growth driven by P&L
• Careful, planned scaling and growth, avoiding toxic pressure to grow too quickly
• The Tel Aviv tech space
• Communication, core values, and target numbers changing over time
• Lessons learned: planning limitations and the 90-day vision approach at Overwolf
• Overwolf’s commitment to tools and services for third-party creators