HQ Trivia. If you haven't heard of it, you either:
A) Are over 25
B) Don't like free money
C) Have better things to do than waste 10 mins a day to try to win $12
August 26, 2017- HQ is born! The app is first released, a revolutionary live trivia game. Users compete live everyday at 6PM PST to win. There are 12 multiple choice questions, if you get 1 wrong you are out. You have 10 seconds to answer each one and if you get all 12 correct you win a prize. The prizes vary from $200 to $400,000! The app is founded by Colin Kroll, who also founded Vine.
October, 2017-HQ grows to 3,500 concurrent users. 3,500 people playing the live trivia game everyday. Not a ton, but a lot to be tuned in at the same time everyday.
November 21, 2017- DailyBeast reaches out to Scott Rogowsky, HQ's beloved host to do a feature on him. Scott is the quirky host being seen by hundreds of thousands of super fans who love his personality, he is becoming insanely famous. During the interview, Scott casually mentioned he liked Sweetgreen salads. HQ's CEO Rus Yusupov freaks the frick out. He says "You’re putting Scott’s job in jeopardy. Is that what you want? Scott could lose his job. Scott said that despite the attention, he’s still able to walk down the street and order his favorite salad from Sweetgreen without being accosted. He cannot say that!” We do not have a brand deal with Sweetgreen! Under no circumstances can he say that.”
Bro it's a salad, calm the heck down Rus. Looks like there is some trouble in paradise and this dude Rus is a psychopath...
Feb 2nd, 2018- Turns out even though their CEO is crazy, HQ's growth numbers are insane! Less than 6 months after their launch, they raise $15M at a $100M valuation! Venture capitalists care more about metrics than character!
March 2018- HQ grows to 2.4M concurrent users! 2.4M people live at the same time every day playing this quiz! These numbers an INSANE! HQ grows to the 3rd most downloaded app on the app store! HQ is on fire and can't be stopped!
September 2018- More trouble in paradise... Turns out this CEO Rus is really a savage. No one likes him. Jeremy Liew, the partner from Lightspeed, the VC who invested the $15M is fed up. He tries to remove Rus as the CEO and appoint Colin Kroll, the other founder to CEO. Some people internally even want the host Scott to become the CEO. I guess Rus does a ton of sketchy shit and manipulation to keep his role as CEO, even though everyone hates him.
December 2018- In very sad news, Colin, the other founder in line to be CEO, passes away from an apparent drug overdose.
February 2019- Over half of the 35 employees write a very angry letter to the board begging for Rus to be fired as CEO.
March 1, 2019- Rus doesn't get fired, but the 3 employees who lead the campaign for the angry letter get fired... Everyone is scared of Russ, but they can't do anything about it or they will get fired.
March 24th, 2019- Theface of the company, Scott Rogowsky, gets fired. It's obvious he left on bad terms because he tweets “I wasn’t given the courtesy of a farewell show.”
March 24th, 2019 to Feb 2020- HQ growth declines, people stop playing as much, the fun and excitement is over. Less and less people play the game. They have issues monetizing. Funding is running out...
February 2020- Three years, billions of impressions and $15M in funding later, HQ officially shuts down. It goes down in flames.. Scott, the face of HQ, tweets this-
-Taylor "never won an HQ game but played a ton" Offer
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