Skip to content

ITERATION_PLAYBOOK.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
168 lines (129 loc) · 5.86 KB

ITERATION_PLAYBOOK.md

File metadata and controls

168 lines (129 loc) · 5.86 KB

StatStack — Iteration Playbook

Deployment Checklist (Do Now — ~15 min)

1. Push Code to GitHub

cd ~/Documents/claude/statstack
# Option A: SSH (add your key to GitHub first)
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:THatch26/statstack.git
git push -u origin main

# Option B: HTTPS with token
git remote set-url origin https://<your-token>@github.com/THatch26/statstack.git
git push -u origin main

# Option C: GitHub CLI
gh auth login
git push -u origin main

2. Enable GitHub Pages

  1. Go to https://github.com/THatch26/statstack/settings/pages
  2. Source: Deploy from a branch
  3. Branch: main / (root)
  4. Save → site will be live at https://thatch26.github.io/statstack/ within 2 min

3. Verify

Revenue Setup (~10 min human time)

Google AdSense Application

  1. Go to https://adsense.google.com
  2. Sign up with your Google account
  3. Add site: thatch26.github.io
  4. Add the AdSense script tag to index.html <head>: 
    <script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-XXXXXXX" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
  5. Create ad units and place them in the ad-top, ad-results, and ad-bottom divs
  6. Wait for approval (typically 1-3 days for new sites, can take 2-4 weeks)

Alternative: Start with Buy Me a Coffee

While waiting for AdSense approval:

  1. Create account at buymeacoffee.com
  2. Add a small "Support StatStack" link in the footer

Week 1 Distribution Plan (Day 1-7)

Day 1: Soft Launch

  • Post in r/WebGames with title: "I made a daily higher-or-lower statistics game — can you beat 8/10?"
  • Post in r/CasualGames
  • Share personal social media with your score screenshot

Day 2: Broader Reddit

  • r/InternetIsBeautiful — "StatStack: a daily game where you guess which stat is higher"
  • r/boardgames or r/puzzles if first posts got traction

Day 3: Twitter/X Push

  • Post with your score grid + "Can you beat my score?" + link
  • Use hashtags: #StatStack #DailyGame #Wordle

Day 4-5: Community Seeding

  • Discord gaming servers (find 3-5 "daily games" or "casual games" channels)
  • Hacker News "Show HN" post
  • Product Hunt listing (schedule for Tuesday 12:01 AM PT for best visibility)

Day 6-7: Observe and Optimize

  • Check which sources drove traffic
  • Read any feedback and note improvement ideas

Growth Levers (Weeks 2-8)

Content SEO Pages (High Impact, Free)

Create individual pages for popular stat categories:

  • /stats/world-populations — "Can you rank these populations?"
  • /stats/company-revenues — "How well do you know Big Tech revenue?"
  • /stats/space-facts — "Test your space knowledge"

Each page targets a long-tail keyword and links to the main game.

Social Proof Loop

The emoji grid sharing is your #1 growth engine. Optimize it:

  • Make sure the share text includes the URL
  • A/B test the share format (add a tagline, change emoji style)
  • Consider adding "Challenge a friend" with a direct link

Retention Hooks

  • Streak counter: Already built. Players come back to maintain streaks.
  • "Yesterday's answers": Add a section showing yesterday's stats so returning players feel rewarded
  • Weekly leaderboard: Use localStorage to track weekly performance, show "Your best week"

Monetization Progression

Month Expected Traffic Revenue Source Est. Revenue
1 100-500/day Buy Me a Coffee $0-20
2 500-2K/day AdSense approved $5-30/mo
3-6 2K-10K/day AdSense + affiliate $50-300/mo
6-12 10K-50K/day Premium ads + sponsor $300-1500/mo

Revenue Optimization

  1. AdSense placement: Top banner + between-results + bottom. The results page ad has highest viewability.
  2. Affiliate potential: Link stat sources to relevant books/courses (Amazon affiliate)
  3. Sponsored stats: Companies pay to have their stats featured ("Sponsored by DataCamp")
  4. Premium tier (Month 6+): Ad-free experience, stats archive, custom challenges

Technical Iterations

Quick Wins (< 1 hour each)

  • Add Google Analytics / Plausible for traffic tracking
  • Add "Yesterday's Answers" section on results page
  • Add social meta tags for specific daily challenges (dynamic OG image)
  • Service worker for true offline PWA support

Medium Effort (2-4 hours)

  • Difficulty modes (Easy: same category, Hard: mixed categories)
  • Category-specific daily challenges (e.g., "Space Saturday")
  • Archive page showing past days and your history
  • Multiplayer mode: challenge a friend with a shared link

Growth Features (4-8 hours)

  • Programmatic SEO: auto-generate 100+ stat comparison pages
  • User-submitted statistics with moderation
  • Email digest: "Your weekly stats recap"
  • Embeddable widget for blogs

KPIs to Track

Metric Target (Month 1) Target (Month 6)
Daily visitors 100+ 5,000+
Game completion rate 70%+ 80%+
Share rate 15%+ 20%+
Return rate (next day) 30%+ 50%+
AdSense RPM N/A $5-15

Adding New Statistics

Edit js/stats-data.js and add entries in this format:

{ text: "Description of the statistic", value: 12345, unit: "unit", source: "Source Name" }

Guidelines:

  • Use verified, citeable sources
  • Round to significant figures (no false precision)
  • Include a mix of surprising and intuitive values
  • Aim for 365+ total entries so daily content doesn't repeat within a year
  • Keep values comparable within reasonable ranges to maintain fun (don't pair a number in the billions with a number less than 10)