- Dooit Live, recently released in Malaysia, is a app that tests your general knowledge with trivia questions.
- Get all the answers right and you stand a chance to win a share of the cash prize.
- Dooit Live is the sister company of Filipino app, Paydro Live.
At 12 pm sharp, take a quick glance around our office and you’ll see everyone intently staring at their phones, with earphones subtly plugged in. As the minutes tick by, the contrast between anticipation and exasperation is clear to see as most of my colleagues get eliminated one by one.
Dooit Live, a game-show styled app, tests your trivia knowledge, with winners getting to take home a slice of the cash prize of the day.
Usually starting at around RM1,000, bigger prizes are sometimes up for grabs. The prize offered in conjunction with Malaysia’s 61st Independence Day on the 31st of August was, appropriately, RM6,100 as well.
Going live a mere 3 weeks ago, Dooit has grown in user numbers from rough estimates of 50 players per show to regular turnouts of 1,500 hopefuls—during the special Hari Merdeka session, the number of active users increased to 2,000 players.
Early Success
This format is not unknown internationally, with apps like HQ Trivia seeing prize pools of up to USD250,000 and boasting over 1 million players.
Dooit is a little closer to home, a localisation of Paydro which is active in the Philippines.
Brian Foo, the CEO of Dooit, credited the large part of the initial success of the app to the interaction they’ve had with the audience, with reaction videos of winners (or losers) being regularly posted.
“They’re almost always videos of a group of people reacting to wins or losses and it’s hilarious. It’s so awesome to see people coming together and working as a team while learning some pretty cool stuff.”
To cope with their increased popularity, the team at Dooit has more than doubled from the initial 3-man team to the current team of 7.
At the current rate that Dooit is gaining popularity, or notoriety (depending on who you ask), the team behind Dooit seemingly has its work cut out.
While maintaining the secrecy of future plans when prompted, Brian teased that there is “exciting stuff” that is being worked on that will hopefully be rolled out by the end of 2018.
Business Model
You’d be forgiven for wondering, where exactly is the money for their cash prizes coming from? Generally ranging from RM1,000 to RM2,000, the sessions are held every weekday afternoon at 12 pm. Occasionally, they have night or holiday sessions as well.
I asked Brian how they manage to sustain their business model, and where their revenue is generated from—however, he refrained from giving more info on that for the moment, although he did say that he’d be happy to speak about this in the future.
An educated guess would be that they monetise via several different methods: data exchange, content marketing, product placements, or potentially sourcing for sponsors. This, however, is purely speculation at this point.
Dictionary time: Data exchange is a method for selling data on a dedicated marketplace for buying/selling data products.
“Dooit Is Made For Everyone”
The format of Dooit, arguably, has been key to such rapid growth in a short period of time. If you log in at the predesignated time, you’ll join an average of 1,500 other players in watching one of the local hosts.
As the game session begins, you’ll have 10 seconds to answer each question, with 11 questions required to be answered correctly to win a share of the prize.
Assuming you answer all of the questions right, you get a share of the prize pool. This means that for a prize of RM1000, if 100 people ‘win’, each player receives RM 10. The catch, however, is that you need a minimum of RM50 in order to cash out, something that is clearly designed to keep players hooked.
Dooit does have a get-out-of-jail-free card, known simply as PUSO, which can be used when eliminated in order to continue onto the next question. However, note that you can only use PUSO for every question other than the last one, and only one PUSO is allowed to be used per game.
Dooit incentivises players to spread the news with their friends by offering PUSO for new users who use referral codes, no small factor in the fast growth.
With the number of players jumping from 30 in the first Dooit game session to eventually reaching 2,000 players, Brian proudly tells me that Dooit is one of best things he’s ever done, professionally.
“We’re so proud of how we’re bringing people together, and I feel this needs emphasis, to learn new things while having fun. It has been an absolute joy for not just me but the entire team.”
Having joined in on a couple of games myself over the past few weeks, I’ll be the first to say that the questions are not easy.
Out of a number of us in the office who’ve attempted to earn a quick windfall, only one managed to successfully win (three times so far). He’s still on a crusade to make up the difference to RM50 so that he can cash out (about RM 3 left!).
The knockout nature and quickfire answer style of the game sessions make the task unforgiving, but often times it’s not just about winning.
The team behind Dooit is constantly (through their host) requesting for more reaction videos—with unwittingly-chosen cameramen usually the ones who were eliminated earliest.
“The effect of Dooit is so viral, we’ve seen our numbers grow so organically because people have been sharing it with their friends and posting their reactions on social media.”
Dooit’s strategy is to continue to build upon the game’s pulling power, banking on existing players to continue to share the game with their friends and family.
Whether you’ve won RM1,000, RM10, or flunked out at the first question, Dooit manages to bring the gameshow to you, smack in the middle of the day.
The next time you see a group of people madly cheering (or whinging) huddled over a phone, you’ll know what’s going on. Or will you be glued to your own phone instead?
- You can download the Dooit Live app on the Apple App Store or on the Google Play Store.
Feature Image Credit: Dooit Live
