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Hatchlings Match attracts 500K active users in month since launch
Just over a week ago, Hatchlings Match—a new game from the Des Moines-based Hatchlings team—reached 100K users. Seven days later, the game had surpassed 500K. “I’m also happy to announce that Hatchlings Match has officially passed Hatchlings 2 in terms of number of users,” Hatchlings founder Brad Dwyer wrote in a blog post Tuesday …
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Hatchlings team prepares for launch of second game, AlphaBrawl
The Hatchlings team last November headed to Startup Weekend Des Moines as a team building exercise of sorts. The result of their 48 hours of work, originally called BattleType, won second place at the event. More than six months later, the team is preparing to launch its first iOS and Android app, now called AlphaBrawl.…
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Hatchlings surpasses 250k users, releases egg-filled infographic
Historically, the month leading up to Easter has been the busiest time of year for the Des Moines-based staff of Facebook game Hatchlings. March 2013 proved to be no different as the game’s popularity reached an all-time high since its relaunch last year, surpassing 250,000 users. The team of 10 worked to release new collections…
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Easter brings “month-long hackathon,” growth to Hatchlings
Though the Hatchlings team has no set office hours, its team of 10 has been putting in a lot of extra time in preparation for the holiday that served as an inspiration for the game. “It’s been pretty hectic,” creator Brad Dwyer said earlier this week. “I mean, I kind of enjoy it. It’s like…
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Hatchlings leaves beta mode on fifth birthday
In honor of the company’s fifth birthday Friday, Hatchlings is dropping its beta classification and releasing a bevy of new features, including expanded privileges for premium users, additional levels and a redesigned site, to its loyal fans. Billed as the “world’s largest virtual Easter egg hunt,” the …
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Brad Dwyer tells the Hatchlings story at BIZ luncheon (Video)
When Brad Dwyer created Hatchlings in 2008, he was a college sophomore who viewed the game as little more than an entertaining way to pass a weekend in the dorms. “At the time,” Dwyer said, “I just thought it was going to be another fun project that I did.” Far from it. Hatchlings, a game…
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Holding yourself to a “hire” standard
(Guest post by Brad Dwyer.) Hiring your first employees is one of the scariest propositions a startup founder will face. It’s often tempting to go it alone and make do with the superhuman efforts of a startup’s founders for much longer than is healthy. The decision to build out your team is a huge responsibility…
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Prairie Portrait: George Jurgens of Hatchlings
Silicon Prairie News: What led you to Des Moines and Hatchlings? George Jurgens: Eight years ago I was invited to a friend originally from Iowa’s lake house on Lake Panorama. Ever since then I’ve been visiting every year and got to know Brad through mutual friends. | After graduating from university this year in England,…
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Brad Dwyer breaks down Hatchlings 2 (Video)
With the recent retirement of Version 1 of Hatchlings, we turn our attention to Version 2 of the online social egg-gathering game. Brad Dwyer, the Panora, Iowa-based founder and CEO of Hatchlings, sat down with us at Big Omaha in May during beta testing for Version 2 to demo Hatchlings’ new user interface, which is…