Chess.com ARR, Takeaways, and Sound Bites

Only 180 views for a chat with the man who shepherded the greatest chess boom of all time? The most popular chess streamers probably get that much attention in the first millisecond of their latest stream. There is definitely something wrong with this picture.

Erik Allebest - From 0 to 150 million ARR - The Chess.com story (1:12:33) • '[Published on] May 12, 2024'

I thought I knew most of the important accounting and investing acronyms, but ARR had me stumped. Although there are dozens of ARR acronyms in use, I'm guessing that the right one is explained on the page What is annual recurring revenue (ARR) and how to calculate it (paddle.com):-

Annual recurring revenue is a crucial success metric for subscription companies. Learn why it’s important and how to calculate it correctly. [...; AAR] is the yearly value of revenue generated from subscriptions, contracts, and other recurring billing cycles.

The description of the video starts,

Chess.com has grown from being a simple chess service to a thriving 150 million ARR business. The company has focused on making chess accessible to everyone through services around a product that hasn’t changed in centuries. We touch on the challenges of scaling a company and the role of titles and leadership in an organization and how many times Erik wanted to give up in the process.

Wanted to give up? Say it ain't so, Erik! The rest of the video description is worth a look and covers 'Takeaways', 'Sound Bites', and 'Chapters' (important segments in the video). Someone spent time putting all of this together and received only 180 views. For a previous post on the world's most successful commercial chess enterprise, see The Rise of Chess.com (January 2023; 32,365 views).