WorldGuessr
Gautam Anand, Founder
Rochester, Minnesota
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How a high school student built a free geography game played by millions worldwide
In 2024, high school junior Gautam Anand noticed his classmates were disappointed when their favorite geography game went behind a paywall. He decided to build a free alternative called WorldGuessr. Today, the game boasts over 2 million monthly active users, remaining completely free for students and teachers worldwide thanks to an ad-supported model.
Escaping the cold, and discovering code
Gautam Anand's journey into coding started as a simple desire to stay warm. Growing up in Rochester, Minnesota, the frigid winters made outdoor recess unbearable.
"I would just sneak downstairs into the computer lab," Gautam recalls.
There, he discovered how to manipulate web elements on browser games like Cookie Clicker, eventually teaching himself to code using platforms like Scratch and Replit. Because his school didn't offer formal computer science classes, his entire coding foundation was self-taught through trial, error, and curiosity.
Fast forward to his junior year of high school. Gautam and his friends loved playing a popular geography game called GeoGuessr to pass the time after finishing their work in calculus class. But when the game was placed behind a restrictive paywall due to rising API costs, his classmates were suddenly locked out.
"I saw how disappointed my classmates were, so I decided to build a free, open-source alternative," Gautam says.
Over his winter break, he utilized the Google Maps Official Embed API—which allowed him to display street views without incurring massive fees—to create a simple geography guessing game he called WorldGuessr. It started as a race just to see if he could build something functional fast enough for his friends to play when school resumed.
But once he shared the link, it spread like wildfire. First it took over his classroom, then the entire school, and soon, nearby school districts were playing it daily. After posting about the game on Reddit right as the original game's paywall went into effect, WorldGuessr's organic search traffic exploded.
Keeping the gates open with ads
From day one, Gautam was adamant that WorldGuessr remain completely free.
"It is vital to me that WorldGuessr remains free. Geography is a global interest, and many of my users are students or live in regions where subscription models are a barrier. Ads allow me to keep the 'gates open' for everyone while still building a sustainable business," he explains.
To manage the massive influx of players, he uses Google Ad Manager to handle the website's inventory, noting its advanced controls over direct deals and to manage complex multi-network competition, and utilizes Google AdMob for the mobile app versions because of its easy setup and excellent reporting tools.
"Ads helped me immensely with constantly upgrading to beefier servers and keeping the game infrastructure alive," he notes, recalling how his initial servers continuously crashed under the weight of the game's sudden popularity.
Beyond just maintaining the game, the reliable ad revenue has become an economic engine for Gautam's other entrepreneurial pursuits. He frequently builds and tests new AI-powered applications, using the profits from WorldGuessr to cover the initial operational and server costs of these new apps until eventually the AI model costs decrease and the new apps become profitable themselves.
"In the beginning I invest my own money in it and then in the end it becomes consistent income," he explains.
"It is vital to me that WorldGuessr remains free. Geography is a global interest, and many of my users are students or live in regions where subscription models are a barrier. Ads allow me to keep the 'gates open' for everyone while still building a sustainable business."
A global classroom
Today, what started as a winter break project in a high school math class has scaled into a global phenomenon. WorldGuessr now boasts over 2 million monthly active users, with the mobile app surpassing 100,000 downloads on the Google Play Store.
While the game features a highly popular "Ranked Duels" mode where friends can compete in real-time, the most rewarding feedback comes from educators.
"Seeing teachers reach out to tell me they use WorldGuessr in their classrooms to teach geography has been incredibly rewarding," Gautam shares.
The game has also fostered a massive, engaged community, including a Discord server with over 15,000 members who discuss strategies and host their own speedruns.
To balance running a global game with the daily responsibilities of being a high school student, Gautam leans heavily on artificial intelligence.
Using tools like Gemini CLI, he generates code and design elements rapidly to launch new features. In fact, he considers his primary skill to be effective AI prompting and "debugging AI code" rather than writing raw code from scratch.
As he prepares to head to Stanford University this fall, Gautam is excited to dive deeper into how large AI models are built and trained. But his core mission remains unchanged: building educational technology that brings people together.
His advice to other aspiring developers? Don't wait for perfection. "Try to build things as fast as possible and see what happens," he advises. “Successful projects often require a good idea and impeccable timing, which is impossible to get both those right—so the best strategy is to keep building and trying again and again.”
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