Before selling his company to Zynga for $210 million last month, OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter took care of one important business matter — he hired back everyone he had previously laid off, ensuring they would get a cut of the deal, according to a Business Insider report.
"He was literally negotiating the deal and jamming the re-hires back into payroll to make sure they were covered with hours remaining in the close," an unnamed source with first-hand knowledge of the situation told Business Insider. "Their options kept vesting and they benefitted from the sale."
The source continued: "Porter didn't have to do it. It was just the mensch thing to do."
Just a few months earlier, things were looking bleak for OMGPOP. The New York-based social gaming startup was struggling to stay afloat as its games failed to perform on Facebook. To save money and bide time, Porter made the tough decision to lay off several Flash developers.
Then, of course, everything changed when OMGPOP launched Draw Something, a Pictionary-like game for the iPhone and Android devices. Within weeks, the game had been downloaded tens of millions of times, and became the top paid, top free, and top-grossing app in the App Store.
And that's when gaming giant Zynga came calling. In total, every OMGPOP employee benefited from the Zynga acquisition — even new employees, Business Insider reported.
"There was one guy who used to work for OMGPOP who was facing a deadline on whether or not to exercises his options," the unnamed source said. "He couldn't decide, and Porter didn't want him to lose out, so he hired him as a contractor to extend his vesting as well. He made money too."
Meanwhile, Draw Something last week passed 50 million downloads, after launching just two months ago. It is likely the fastest growing mobile game of all time.
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