Check out this growth curve –

Source: Google Trends

This is the growth in search queries for Indie game Minecraft since it was founded in 2009 by Sweedish Entrepreneur named Markus Persson. It has grown pretty much by word of mouth, and only word of mouth.

If you want to know what it takes to build a great [insert whatever you care about] it takes a great product, where the users & customers LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Rarely is a great product found in the first version of anything, and when it is that probably means the company took a big risk to get it just right.

A great example of that investment working out is with the iPad and Apple. But there are many more examples of great companies failing to deliver on the “big project.” Most recently you could point to Microsoft with Surface. Even the greatest of companies like Google fail as they did with Wave.

Minecraft started with a basic product and basic functionality. They continue to innovate and they allow their community to build on top of the core ecosystem too. If you watch a child play with legos, you can watch them build a small building or a gun, or if you buy the $100 package, you can watch them follow someone else’s design. If you watch a child play Minecraft, you will watch him mine his own raw materials, craft materials, and build cities. There is no limit to what can be built. It is awesome. And the kids (and adults) that play it LOVE LOVE LOVE it. If you want to have hyper growth, you have to tap the love affair. Its that simple, but its also that hard!