Trust your instinct

David Natroshvilli, Founder of SPRIBE, says that without gut feeling and persistence, Aviator would not be the flyaway success that it has become

Aviator is one of the most successful online casino games in the world, with more than 50 million active users placing 400,000+ bets a minute at more than 5,000 online casino brands and counting.

It has become a brand in its own right, helped in part by the multi-million-dollar marketing deals we have with global sports franchises like the UFC and WWE, and teams like A.C. Milan.

But that hasn’t always been the case.

Rewind back to ICE London 2019, and you would have found me and my business partner, Nick, approaching every stand we could to speak to people about this great new game we had created.

We had no stand, no tea and coffee machine, no staff – just the two of us, and an iPad (which we debated long and hard about purchasing because we were a start-up with no money).

But we also had persistence, and despite being turned away by the vast majority of the people we approached, we did manage to have some conversations.

And those who took the time to try the game really got it – this included EveryMatrix, who became one of our first distribution partners (and remains a crucial partner to this day).

When I look back, I think what made us so persistent is that we knew deep down that in Aviator, we had a game-changing product; we just needed to get it in front of the right people.

But this is easier said than done when you are being turned away time after time.

It was also hard to generate interest because ultimately, we didn’t create the crash format. Crash games had been around for several years and were simply not popular with players.

What we had done, though, was revolutionise the format so that it offered a thrilling player experience through a smooth and seamless user interface.

We also built features into Aviator that had never been seen in an online casino game before – I’m talking about real-time leaderboards, in-game chat, multi-bets and multiplayer gameplay.

We’d also spent an incredible amount of time working on the user interface and experience. We knew it had to be smooth and seamless, especially on mobile with one-handed play.

We poured over the fine details and made sure that everything was a simple, fast and easy to understand as possible, while delivering edge-of-the-seat thrills and social interaction.

While we know this is what the players of today are seeking, at the time, this was an entirely new combination of factors, and pretty much everyone we spoke to thought they didn’t work together.

But we knew it worked; we just needed to get a couple of initial partners on board, and we could build momentum from there.

Thankfully for us, that happened with EveryMatrix and the other platform providers and aggregators that took a bit of a risk and added Aviator to their lobbies.

And since then, momentum has built and continues to build as we keep refining Aviator and pushing boundaries, both within the game and how we market it to players.

I know that people look at the Aviator story, especially the meteoric growth it has achieved in recent years, and think it’s been a smooth flight since takeoff.

But the reality is, it has been incredibly turbulent with a lot of tough times along the way.

ICE London 2019 was especially difficult, and in those moments of rejection, pretty deflating. But despite the setbacks, we trusted our instinct and kept knocking on doors until one opened.

This is an industry where fortunes can change on the spin of a reel, and our bet on Aviator has certainly paid off.

But for myself and Nick, as well as the founding members of SPRIBE, it wasn’t really a gamble to begin with.

We knew Aviator would be a hit, we just needed to convince a few other people of that, too.

Six years later, it’s safe to say that none of us expected to see Aviator flying so high, but that we are incredibly proud to see it soaring.