Why Did a Chinese Peroxide Company Pay $1 Billion for a Talking Cat?

Samo and Iza Login were Slovenian high school sweethearts who studied computer science in college and then decided, in 2009, to get into the business of apps. Steve Jobs had introduced the Apple App Store the year before, and it was easy to believe that an overnight fortune was just an eccentric idea away. With $250,000 they’d saved while working for local IT companies, the Logins—who legally changed their surname to sound techy—started a company called Outfit7. Alongside six friends, they set up an office in the capital, Ljubljana. Their first few attempts bombed: a soccer app, a travel guide to Iceland, a “wealth affirmation” tool that shared financial mantras. They tried apps about healing crystals and ones that sent digital hugs. “Obviously,” says Samo, whose close-cropped graying hair contrasts with Iza’s red, “this is not what the majority of users are looking for.”

Then, after six months of misfires, the Logins built a children’s game in which an animated cat, Talking Tom, repeats in a high-pitched helium squeak whatever is spoken into an iPhone’s microphone. If a user feeds Tom hot peppers, pets him under his chin, or flicks his stomach, he responds with belches, purrs, and groans. Samo says he was optimistic that kids would love it, but acknowledges that “the whole team had some doubts.” One feature, added later, requires Tom to make regular stops in the bathroom, where he ceremoniously relieves himself into the toilet.