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it comes to raising the

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funds necessary to bring your

2:28

game to life. to the board game

2:30

design lab. Today we're talking business, talking

2:33

about what it looks like to run

2:35

a indie publishing business and all the

2:37

things involved, whether it's crowdfunding,

2:39

tariffs, fulfillments, Amazon.

2:42

We're going to dive into as many

2:44

topics as we can pack into this

2:46

episode. I'm talking to my good friends

2:48

Amy and Dusty Dros. Welcome to

2:50

the show. Howdy. I guess I should

2:52

say welcome back. Last time we chatted,

2:54

y'all had just made, you know, a

2:56

million dollars on Kickstarter running your very

2:58

first campaign. And it was so, it's

3:01

such a great episode. I got a

3:03

lot of really good feedback from that

3:05

episode, from people saying, oh, oh, that

3:07

makes sense. Like there's a lot of

3:09

understanding of people going, oh, okay, maybe

3:11

I could do that too, maybe not

3:13

make a million bucks. But I feel

3:15

like y'all did a great job of

3:17

just kind of simplifying your process,

3:19

And you've got a whole publishing

3:22

business where you're just now launch your

3:24

third campaign. All your campaigns have done

3:26

very well, very, very well, like

3:28

hundreds and hundreds of thousands of

3:30

dollars. Maybe not quite hitting that

3:32

botany level, but still doing great.

3:35

You're selling a ton of games on

3:37

your website. You're selling the ton of

3:39

games in distribution and Barnes and Noble

3:42

and like, y'all got a lot going on.

3:44

And so what's really cool is I've been

3:46

able to watch this whole process. I think

3:48

I talked to you more than anybody else in the

3:50

industry. Like it's pretty regular, where something will happen and

3:52

I'll be like, hey, does it? Do you see what

3:54

happened today? And we just said, you know, then we

3:56

started talking about the death of Star Wars and like

3:59

all the other crazy. you know, things are going

4:01

on in life. And I feel bad

4:03

because I'm bouncing between, well, let me

4:05

talk about the math here and oh

4:07

my God, did you see what happened

4:09

in Star Wars? And okay, now we're

4:11

back to math and oh, but Warhammer

4:13

was cool. Like. Right. And it's, it's

4:16

just been really fun to get to

4:18

know y'all and become friends, but

4:20

also just to see your journey

4:22

from, hey, we had this idea for a

4:24

really pretty pretty game. business that we've built

4:26

and we were able to, y'all quit your

4:28

photography jobs, y'all quit everything else, is that

4:30

right? It's sleeping, because we believe in, we

4:32

believe in backup plan, my backup plans have

4:34

backup plans, and so the photography is hibernated

4:36

and could be turned on at a moment,

4:38

and it could be turned on at a

4:40

moment's notice if needed. Yeah, right. I guess

4:42

as long as you have the camera. Yeah.

4:44

But right now, publishing is y'all's full-time gig, right?

4:46

Yes. Right. Right? Yes. Right. Yes. Right. Right. Yes. Yes.

4:48

Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

4:50

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

4:52

Yes. Yes. that's that's a dream that's

4:54

like a long-term goal is how do

4:57

I get to that point now if

4:59

you're only designing games that's

5:01

gonna be hard like that's a

5:03

challenge like you're gonna have design

5:05

ticket to ride you know 2.0

5:07

and just sell a million copies

5:09

every year or you're gonna have to

5:11

design like 20 games a year and

5:14

get most of them signed or you

5:16

could go into publishing and I think

5:18

that's really the best way to kind

5:20

of do this full-time I don't

5:22

mean customers and their service is

5:25

loving garbage. It's a good garbage

5:27

to have. It's it's cleaning out

5:29

septic tanks sometimes, man. It's what it

5:31

is like. And it just is what

5:34

it is. But you have to deal

5:36

with all the other stuff. And so

5:38

y'all have figured a lot of that

5:40

out. And you and I have had

5:42

a lot of conversations and kind of

5:45

figured some things out together. I've been

5:47

learning a lot from you. I

5:49

like to think you've learned a

5:51

few things on my end. internationally and

5:53

you're doing the more traditional you

5:55

know run a one or two

5:58

campaigns a year you know freight ship into

6:00

retail, get on Amazon, get into

6:02

distribution. And so we have so

6:04

many cool differences, but at the

6:06

same time, you know, a lot of stuff

6:09

to figure out. But yeah, I'm just excited

6:11

to chat with you all about some

6:13

things. Let's dive right into the hot

6:15

topic of the day, though. We got

6:18

some plenty of business stuff to get

6:20

into that's more like core evergreen stuff.

6:22

But let's talk about tariffs. Let's

6:24

talk about what everybody is posting

6:26

online about, you know, the sky

6:28

is falling. all sorts of tariff war

6:31

kind of stuff. And I've seen so

6:33

many people post about like, I'm just

6:35

gonna not, you know, publish any games

6:37

this year, I'm just gonna wait and do

6:40

it next year, or, you know, we're gonna have

6:42

to raise our prices $30. And it seems

6:44

like people are thinking or saying

6:46

the sky is following. But I don't, you know,

6:48

I'm not a math guy. You're gonna have

6:50

to help me out here. I don't believe

6:52

it's that big of a deal for most

6:55

publishers for most publishers. that

6:57

their margin is already like so paper thin

6:59

that now we're getting even thinner you know

7:01

now we're getting into air it's air thin

7:04

at this point but I feel like for

7:06

most any publishers it's it's not the

7:08

it's not the end of the world so

7:10

tell me where you're seeing as far

7:12

as tariffs go how do they actually

7:14

work because I think some people just

7:16

don't understand what 10% literally means like

7:19

it doesn't mean if you have a

7:21

hundred dollar game you have to pay

7:23

ten dollars in shipping that's not what

7:25

that's right now so I have a

7:27

I have a bit of a complex

7:29

take on this because it is directly

7:31

affecting me, but at the same time, I've

7:33

studied a lot of economics, and

7:35

so I understand what is happening

7:38

globally and why these things need to

7:40

happen for certain things to be healthy

7:42

in the economy, which is going to be

7:44

a hot take for some people. But

7:46

up until the last few years, terrorists

7:49

were not a thing that was like

7:51

one political side or the other. They

7:53

were just a standard tool of economics.

7:56

As far as like how they work, people

7:58

get confused by... the term

8:00

declared value. The declared

8:02

value is not what you declare

8:05

your value is, it's the value

8:07

that you paid for that thing.

8:09

So it's not your $60 MSRP. Yeah,

8:11

because imagine coming into port and they're

8:13

like, well, how much is this worth?

8:16

And you're like, well, I might sell

8:18

it at full retail to a consumer

8:20

for $60 or I might sell it

8:23

wholesale to a store for $30 or

8:25

I might sell it wholesale to a

8:27

store for $30 or I might sell

8:30

it to a distributor for $24. Or

8:32

maybe I'm going to look at you

8:34

and just be like, you know, I don't

8:36

know. And so when it comes into

8:39

port, whatever you paid for it, and

8:41

then sometimes shipping, it varies.

8:43

Your freight costs. Yeah, your freight

8:45

costs. So the safe thing to

8:47

do is just estimate based on

8:49

landed costs. So if your landed

8:52

cost for your game is $10, your

8:54

tariff is $1. That's it. That's

8:56

the whole thing. That does matter

8:58

multiplicatively when you're

9:00

looking at your, like your

9:02

multipliers. So if you're doing a

9:04

six X or a seven X. You

9:06

still have to sort of take that

9:08

into account to make sure that the

9:11

rest of your deals are healthy

9:13

through distribution and through

9:15

other stuff. But for the most part,

9:17

I mean, I talked to somebody and

9:20

he was like, my tariff's going to

9:22

be $6. And I'm like, but I

9:24

know for a factor game only costs

9:26

$3.50 to produce. He's like, and my

9:29

tariff's going to be $35 for copy.

9:31

And he goes, I am so

9:33

much calmer right now than I

9:35

was this morning. terrifying or scary

9:37

things and the other part of

9:39

this equation is that if you're

9:41

doing things in a way that's

9:43

it's really healthy for your business

9:46

you're dealing with this

9:48

stuff full-time anyways because

9:50

it's not just a 10% tariff

9:52

now it's 9% inflation year over

9:54

year it's oil prices have gone

9:57

up and so you have to pay

9:59

more for freight It's a butterfly flapped

10:01

its wings and sneezed in Australia,

10:03

and now there's a hurricane somewhere.

10:06

It's somebody's shooting rockets into the Red

10:08

Sea, and our boat, twice now, has had

10:10

to go around Africa. And both times, they

10:12

said, well, we thought it was going to

10:14

be cheaper, but now the cost went up

10:16

by 20%. This stuff is happening continuously,

10:19

and that's why you build your

10:21

multiplier. You watch your margins carefully. And if you're running

10:23

paper thin, yeah, that's a problem. But if you have

10:26

a good healthy margin on what you're doing, the point

10:28

of that is not just making a profit, the point

10:30

of that is also protecting yourself from all the crazy

10:32

stuff that the world was going to throw at you

10:34

when we're a bunch of small businesses dealing with a

10:37

global economy. Yeah, absolutely. And unfortunately, there are some people

10:39

out there, some businesses, maybe not in the board game

10:41

space, hopefully, but probably just because that's the nature

10:43

of human nature, human nature, that are seeing this

10:45

as an opportunity, that are seeing this as an

10:47

opportunity, as an opportunity, as an opportunity, as an

10:49

opportunity, to increase, to increase their margin. to say,

10:51

oh, hey, there's 10% tariff, 20%

10:53

tariff. You know, the MSRP, unfortunately,

10:55

has to go up $9, $10.

10:57

It's like, wait. But it only

10:59

cost $9 before. Like, that math

11:02

doesn't fit a square. You know,

11:04

and so they're raising prices to

11:06

increase the margin, which is just

11:08

kind of what people do. You know,

11:10

and we might call that price gouging.

11:12

We might just call that capitalism.

11:15

I don't know. I'll let the

11:17

listenersners decide what they want to

11:19

call it. Substantial margin?

11:21

I just have to question that.

11:23

I don't know their math. I don't,

11:26

I don't see their, you know, profit

11:28

and loss sheet. I don't see their

11:30

ends and outs, but it just

11:32

doesn't seem like the tariffs for

11:35

our particular industry. Are

11:37

that big a deal over all? Now again,

11:39

if you have a $20 game

11:41

and you're selling that into distribution,

11:43

so, you know, maybe you're

11:45

selling the game for eight and

11:47

you're, it costs you, I don't know.

11:49

Now all of a sudden, like your

11:51

margin was already from a dollar perspective,

11:54

already kind of low. Not necessarily from

11:56

a percentage, but from a dollar perspective,

11:58

that's not a lot of money. and you're

12:00

only making $3 a box, making

12:02

$2 a box is a pretty

12:04

big cut, like that's some damage.

12:06

The other thing too, like to take

12:08

it one step further, is a lot

12:11

of people are like, you know, oh God,

12:13

I might have to change my price, I

12:15

might have to change my price. Okay,

12:17

yes. You set your price originally,

12:19

and our, like, our, botany

12:21

cost $60, even before tariffs,

12:24

I knew that it would not cost

12:26

$60 dollars forever. 10 years from now,

12:28

it's going to cost more to produce

12:30

botany. Like that's just the world, right?

12:33

And if that's the case, if that's going

12:35

to happen 10 years from now, then I,

12:37

every time we do a print run, I

12:39

check, hey, is the mask still adding up?

12:42

Are we still hitting our multiplier? Is it

12:44

costing more for freight? And so far, we

12:46

haven't changed the price. Teriffs aren't

12:48

going to change the price because we

12:50

have a healthy multiplier, but

12:53

there's two options. Cogs, because

12:55

it's affected what's happening

12:57

with 10% tariff, go up by 10%.

12:59

Either you look at the math and

13:01

you say, well, you know, I had

13:04

a better multiplier before, but I'm

13:06

still within like that minimum

13:08

five, six, whatever I'm aiming

13:10

for, price doesn't change. Or

13:12

you look at it and you're

13:15

like, oh, yep, my multiplier is

13:17

not where I need to be. It's down

13:19

to 4.8. Let's bring it back up

13:21

to five. Yeah, you don't want to be

13:23

raised by a dollar and then a dollar

13:25

again two weeks later and a dollar again

13:28

three you know you go up in increments

13:30

of five and so Yeah, and that's the

13:32

that's just a simple math and people

13:34

are freaking out I think because it's

13:36

a politics thing but if you look at

13:38

it They were already doing that like

13:41

I said for inflation for random

13:43

wars for hurricanes, you know for that

13:45

fluffy puppy that distracted the UPS

13:47

driver whatever, doesn't matter. All this

13:50

math is things that everybody's already

13:52

doing, but for some reason, some of it,

13:54

they just are like, oh, I'm just doing math, and

13:56

some of it, they, you know, they get really tied

13:58

up over, and it's better. to look at

14:00

the obstacles, see how you're going to get

14:02

through it, and move through it. And then you're

14:05

done. Exactly. And that's the way I try

14:07

to look at everything, is take the emotion

14:09

out of it. Now politics get very emotional

14:11

for all sorts of reasons, and all those

14:13

reasons are good. But when you start allowing

14:15

the emotion to affect the business, we got

14:18

to take a step back and go, wait a

14:20

minute. What would I do if the container with

14:22

all my games fell off the boat? What would I

14:24

do? If I had to just like replace

14:26

all the things and figure out

14:28

the money and figure out like,

14:30

okay, how we're gonna, I wouldn't like,

14:32

hopefully I would not lose my

14:34

mind and post a bunch of

14:36

stuff online and be like, oh no,

14:38

the sky is falling, I would just

14:40

be like, okay, how are we

14:42

gonna overcome this obstacle? And then

14:45

do it, like figure out a plan

14:47

and then work the plan and then

14:49

come out on the other side,

14:51

hopefully, hopefully, okay. Doesn't help anything

14:53

if anything it just makes everything worse

14:55

to if I go online and I do these

14:58

rants and raves and all that It's I'm

15:00

not the only one seeing that like other

15:02

people are seeing that and so if other

15:04

people who maybe want to do business

15:06

with me and partner with me on things

15:08

They say they see me losing my mind and

15:11

like this rant and rave on this kind of

15:13

stuff. They might take a step back and

15:15

go hmm Hmm. Maybe I don't want to

15:17

work with somebody who lets things bother

15:19

them this much. You know, politics

15:21

aside. It's just like, because I

15:24

personally have done, I have taken a

15:26

step back, like I've seen artists

15:28

that maybe I wanted to work with

15:30

or freelancers that I maybe wanted to

15:32

work with who post these long

15:34

things about like specific people

15:36

or specific companies and they're

15:39

just like airing all their

15:41

dirty laundry. And you know, maybe there's

15:43

a time and place for that. But

15:45

in general, I go, I don't want that

15:47

to be me. you know return an email quick enough or

15:49

maybe I don't like I mean there's disagreement

15:52

about payment terms and maybe the contract wasn't clear enough

15:54

so am I going to have to deal with all

15:56

this other fallout as well working with it so you

15:58

know I think there's something else to be for just

16:00

like take a step back and

16:02

just assess. Is this worth it? You

16:05

know, is it worth all the extra?

16:07

If I can step up onto

16:09

the soapbox next to you

16:11

too, it's not just the people

16:13

you work with to see these

16:15

things, it's your customers. And

16:17

it doesn't matter what you

16:19

think on any topic, more than

16:21

half of people, because it's

16:23

more complex than just a

16:26

left and right, you know. yin

16:28

and yang kind of thing. There are

16:30

many different perspectives on this stuff. Will

16:32

not agree with whatever you are ranting

16:34

about online. And that will cost you sales.

16:36

And I can't remember who it was. I'll say

16:38

it out. Maybe it was Liberace. I don't know.

16:40

Maybe it was Liberace. I don't know. This

16:42

was a while ago. This was 30 years

16:44

ago, 40 years ago. Somebody asked him. They're

16:47

like, how can we don't make a

16:49

political statement? How can we don't get

16:51

involved in this stuff. Because we don't

16:53

get involved in this stuff. Even if it

16:55

wasn't him, it was definitely a singer. I'm

16:57

doing a terrible job of telling this story.

16:59

I want to say Michael Jordan said, you

17:01

know, Republicans buy sneakers too. You don't want

17:03

to like undercut, I mean, you're costing yourself

17:05

money, first off, if you want to make

17:07

it real personal. But second off, you know,

17:10

these people are just people that want to

17:12

play board games. And things are bigger than

17:14

just the statement of the day. And if

17:16

you, I mean, I'm sure we could, if

17:18

we worked real hard at it, we could

17:20

find a few examples of a very major

17:22

company that keeps waiting into politics. And no

17:24

matter whether you agree with them or not,

17:27

the financial statements that are releasing at

17:29

the end of every year are telling

17:31

you that they have lost half their customers,

17:34

right? So for us, our customers have no

17:36

idea what we think. I mean, none. Other

17:38

than the fact that we like flowers and

17:40

I like flowers and I like warhammer, they

17:42

don't have a clue. I want to play a board

17:44

game with them and I want to have fun. Would

17:47

you like to play a board game for me? Let's

17:49

play. Right. And speaking from a, just a sheer customer

17:51

place, let's pretend for a moment, I don't know y'all,

17:53

I don't know anything about you. All I know is

17:55

that you make pretty board games that are fun to

17:57

play with my family. That's all I know. That's all

17:59

I care. know. I don't care about the risk.

18:01

I don't want to. I just want the

18:04

interesting part. Yeah, I want you to provide

18:06

a great gaming experience at a good price

18:08

at a decent shipping rate that my family

18:10

and I can enjoy together. That's it.

18:13

Like, you know, and as you want to take

18:15

us from us, guaranteed 100% of the time. Right.

18:17

Because that's just good business. You

18:19

know what I mean? And I know something's

18:21

come along and there's like a moral

18:24

imperative like people might get into an

18:26

ethical. deal and there's a whole gray

18:28

area complexity that goes into that but

18:30

as a publisher I'm just trying to

18:32

create great gaming experiences that

18:34

I can put on other people's tables

18:36

and what I believe about whatever the political

18:39

topic of the day is does not factor

18:41

into that if you want to have a

18:43

conversation one on one you want to ask

18:45

me my thoughts on this they're cool let's

18:47

sit down let's talk but in general I

18:50

just want to make great games and sell

18:52

them to people that want to play them.

18:54

to the topic that got us on this

18:56

tangent in the first place, when you come

18:58

to terms with the fact that you

19:01

are providing a service and you are

19:03

serving everybody, regardless of

19:05

whatever they may think, and

19:07

you're just in it to make,

19:09

that also makes the other problems

19:11

easier, because you can look at

19:13

them rationally and you can go

19:15

10% tariff. Okay. That means my cogs

19:17

is this, I will do this math,

19:19

and oh, I do have to raise

19:21

my price by $5. I will implement

19:23

that on this time. The one time

19:26

that that actually gets, like the one

19:28

danger for most people is if you

19:30

sell a Kickstarter at a certain price,

19:32

not having had the tariffs in

19:34

place. And then you don't deliver for

19:36

three years. And then three years late,

19:38

and my gosh, what can happen in

19:40

three years, right? You can go. You can

19:43

go from not World War II to World

19:45

War II if you study history in less

19:47

than three years, right? Three years is an

19:49

incredibly long time. And so the more

19:51

time you have there, the more you open

19:53

yourself to that risk. Well, that gets dangerous.

19:55

And that's again, where you need to make

19:57

sure that you have that, like I keep

19:59

going back. to the math. If you have a healthy

20:01

margin, you do pad against the amount of

20:03

time it takes you to deliver. For us,

20:05

we're in the position where we don't launch

20:08

a Kickstarter until the game is done. And

20:10

so like, Artistry is going to be printing

20:12

the moment the Kickstarter ends. Well, and Gabe's

20:14

like every month. Yeah, and we got that

20:16

idea from Gabe specifically, and Gabe makes us

20:19

look like chunks with a four-month turnaround. Well,

20:21

and I like that because I fell in

20:23

a big old fat hole called Robomine. that

20:25

is taking me forever to finish just

20:27

because it's a really pretty gigantic game.

20:30

It is a good looking hole to

20:32

be good. But I have so many

20:34

scars from Robomine that have informed everything

20:36

else I do. And so because of

20:38

Robomine, that because of Robomine, that because

20:40

of Robomine, that because of Robomine,

20:42

that because of everything else I

20:45

do. And so because of Robomine,

20:47

that's why because of extra editing

20:49

and whatever right before print. But

20:51

for the most part, 99% done. 99% done. where

20:53

I'm just sitting on G waiting on

20:55

O for a long time. But it's

20:57

also why I haven't opened the Brobomon

21:00

Pledge Manager. Because I didn't want to

21:02

open it prematurely when I wasn't for

21:04

sure what the shipping rates were going

21:06

to be. And now I'm not for

21:09

sure what the extra tariffs and

21:11

costs and duties and bats and all

21:13

this kind of stuff really. It's like,

21:15

I'll just wait. And people get annoyed.

21:17

They get frustrated. They post angry

21:20

comments. If you have a big

21:22

campaign. and you'll have 1% of like lunatics,

21:24

that's still going to turn into like a

21:26

decent number of people if you have multiple

21:28

thousands of backers. Look at the number of

21:31

people who have said negative things about you

21:33

and then go look at the number of

21:35

backers you have and then do the math on

21:37

how many people haven't said anything about you

21:39

and then go look at the number of

21:42

backers you have and then do the math

21:44

on how many people haven't said anything about

21:46

you and then do the math on how

21:48

many people haven't said anything like my hand

21:51

across it. I actually saw the other day

21:53

we were going to advertise on board

21:55

game geek, right? And they have

21:57

like a warning, like you need

21:59

a tougher skin because people are when you

22:02

go to sign up for advertising they're

22:04

like you will get negative comments for

22:06

doing this don't respond negatively. That's like

22:08

what? Well that's also we'll come back

22:10

to board game you get a minute

22:12

but like the board game geek audience

22:14

is so different than like the normal

22:16

gaming audience but like the normal gaming

22:18

audience but lot of times the board

22:20

game geek ain't gonna like it. That's

22:22

not their kind of game. highly controversial

22:24

apparently i mean it's just kind of

22:26

crazy but at the same time botany

22:28

has sold how many thousands of copies

22:30

at this point 35 we're just doing

22:32

our next program for 10 so in

22:34

a year we've done 35,000 copies and

22:36

what's funny is they're liking the floor

22:38

better yeah that's what we can understand

22:40

is it for us we look at

22:42

La Flora and botany and it's both

22:44

like pretty fun yay let's go and

22:46

and uh and Borg game because rating

22:48

rating rating rating rating rating rating rating

22:50

rating rating rating rating rating rating rating

22:52

rating rating rating 8 on board game

22:54

beat might as well be like a

22:56

9.8 because nothing ever scores a 10

22:59

for whatever reason. Even though I have

23:01

some games here that I would absolutely

23:03

slap a 10 on no problem. And

23:05

because there's a lot of people put

23:07

ones just because they don't think a

23:09

game is worth a 10. Like they

23:11

haven't even played it. Like they haven't

23:13

even played it. Like they haven't even

23:15

played it. They just want to give

23:17

you 1. I was just like, I

23:19

don't get how you can rate a

23:21

game without actually playing? Yeah, yeah, so.

23:23

You probably shouldn't, but you know, it

23:25

doesn't stop people. Yeah. But thinking from

23:27

a number standpoint, I think you and

23:29

I talked about this you know, they

23:31

just on the phone, where I was

23:33

curious about what are the bottom number,

23:35

like what are the bottom ranked games,

23:37

right? On board game geek, they have

23:39

the top, you know, you can rank

23:41

them one to I think 26, 26,000

23:43

or something. Well, you can flip that

23:45

and you can look at it from

23:47

bottom to top. And in that bottom

23:49

20 is... Monopoly, connect four I think

23:51

is in there, shoots and ladders, the

23:53

game of life, twister. It's battleship, I

23:55

think. It's like games that have sold

23:57

hundreds of millions of copies, like games

24:00

that have built empires of board game

24:02

publishing companies. I think I would rather

24:04

have a really low-ranked game that sells

24:06

a million copies. They have a really

24:08

high-rank game. It sells sometimes. And not

24:10

just that. Yeah, not just that. But

24:12

if you think about it. There are

24:14

games like chess and... Checkers and you

24:16

know a few other things they have

24:18

been around for centuries that you know

24:20

people you go to the Wikipedia entry

24:22

for the thing and it's and it's

24:24

like a history lesson right games like

24:26

Monopoly and shoots and ladders those will

24:28

be studied by cultural cultural anthropologists 200

24:30

years from now will any game on

24:32

the top of Borgame geek be studied

24:34

by an anthropologist centuries from now if

24:36

I had to bet a kidney I

24:38

would put that kidney on Monopoly you

24:40

know and not Brass Birmingham. Brass Birmingham

24:42

is a great game. But when you're,

24:44

when you're, when you walk by and

24:46

you're just casually saying monopolies a piece

24:48

of garbage, the sales numbers do not

24:50

agree with that. Right. And so, you

24:52

know, speaking from a business perspective, I

24:54

actually had a really good conversation the

24:56

other day. I was doing a coaching

24:59

call with a father's son team. They're

25:01

doing their first game. It's like this

25:03

card game that's very general public type

25:05

of game. It's about underwear and like

25:07

a silly underwear themed game and very

25:09

much for like families with you know

25:11

11 year old kids and they were

25:13

they had asked a question or something

25:15

on board game geek and they were

25:17

just like we got really negative feedback

25:19

I was like oh of course you

25:21

did I would have known that before

25:23

I asked that question like you were

25:25

gonna get some bad feedback and that

25:27

is not the group of people you're

25:29

trying to sell this to and we

25:31

were talking about Kickstarter I was like

25:33

look Kickstarter is not Even the market

25:35

for your game either you're gonna have

25:37

a hard time making a lot of

25:39

money on Kickstarter because people aren't going

25:41

to Kickstarter for underwear games They're going

25:43

there for miniatures games that cost $200

25:45

But I tell you what, Amazon is

25:47

going to be really good to you

25:49

because that's where normal gamers, quote unquote,

25:51

that are just like, you know, they

25:53

buy a couple games a year that

25:55

they want to learn in two minutes

25:58

and play in five minutes just as

26:00

a fun little after dinner. You're going

26:02

to do really well on Amazon, I

26:04

think. But you're not going to do

26:06

great on Kickstarter and you're not going

26:08

to be ranked highly on board game.

26:10

Just know that going in. They're like,

26:12

oh, that makes a lot of sense.

26:14

So I think there's a lot of

26:16

Just because your game doesn't do well

26:18

on board game geek, just because it

26:20

doesn't do well on Kickstarter or Game

26:22

Found or Backer Kit, wherever, it doesn't

26:24

necessarily mean anything. Because you can sell

26:26

a lot of copies in retail, in

26:28

distribution, on Amazon, just because it's that

26:30

type of game. So, you know, understanding

26:32

your audience. And let's talk about that.

26:34

On the last episode is figuring out

26:36

who... that customer avatar is. But talk

26:38

to me, maybe some things you've learned

26:40

a sense about me about how to

26:42

hone in and really focus on that

26:44

core buyer, that core customer, and just

26:46

make sure you're delivering for them the

26:48

best experience possible, even if more game

26:50

gig is like, oh, this is terrible.

26:52

So when we had, when we started

26:54

botany, by the way, for anybody out

26:57

there that hasn't listened to us before,

26:59

you will know that I fill air

27:01

with noise continuously and then Amy says

27:03

the smart stuff. When we started with

27:05

Botany, we just made a game that

27:07

Amy liked that we thought would be

27:09

fun, that we were kind of like,

27:11

oh, this will be neat, like people

27:13

will enjoy this. But we didn't really

27:15

understand the target audience, and it was

27:17

Orient Kagan productions that we first had

27:19

a meeting with, and he's like, who

27:21

are you selling this to? And he's

27:23

like, well, let's come up with who

27:25

you're selling it to. We went and

27:27

we defined her, her name is Mary.

27:29

We know everything about her, where she

27:31

knew everything about her, where she shop,

27:33

where she shop, where does she shop,

27:35

where she shop, where does she shop,

27:37

where she shop, where she shop, where

27:39

she shop, what does she do she

27:41

do she do she do she do

27:43

she do, what does she do, what

27:45

does she do, what does, what does,

27:47

everything she's basically Amy it was pretty

27:49

easy avatar yeah we were making it

27:51

for me yeah we're making the game

27:53

for Amy once we learned that And

27:56

we really started to settle in during

27:58

botany's Kickstarter. I began to realize it

28:00

informs everything. It's how I handle emails.

28:02

It's the next game and the next

28:04

games. And somebody was like, I can't

28:06

believe you're already making your next game

28:08

for artistry. There's three new games on

28:10

artistry campaign. We put war of the

28:12

posies and little artistry on there. We're

28:14

making decisions while we're doing game design

28:16

and I'll be like. Mary will like

28:18

more dresses. And I'm like, you know

28:20

what, you're actually right. We need to

28:22

figure out how to get 50 more

28:24

dresses into this game. It's stuff like

28:26

that. Once you understand that, we know

28:28

how to lay out the website. We

28:30

know how to handle our shipping policy.

28:32

We know how to handle our shipping

28:34

policy. We know where to market, how

28:36

to market, how to market, where to

28:38

market, how to market, when you realize

28:40

who you're selling to, and how to

28:42

sell to them. whose target audiences board

28:44

game beak who do very well because

28:46

they understand that Mary would never buy

28:48

their game but that's okay because they're

28:50

not making a game from Mary just

28:52

like board game beak it's okay that

28:55

you don't like botany because we're selling

28:57

thousands of copies to people who do

28:59

like it and I saw somebody put

29:01

a quote up the other day that

29:03

was like if there's a game that

29:05

selling a whole bunch and you don't

29:07

understand why there's a lesson to be

29:09

learned there right like and so just

29:11

knowing who Amy Yeah, well we know

29:13

that everyone likes like the quality components.

29:15

Like they don't want cheap. We got

29:17

so many fights about foil on botany

29:19

and now Amy's like I want foil

29:21

on the box. I'm like, do we

29:23

even need to say that at this

29:25

point? Of course every game is going

29:27

to have foil on the box. Yeah,

29:29

shiny. Yeah, pretty. Amy's like, well, I

29:31

like this and I'm like, what do

29:33

you think? And I don't feel like

29:35

I'm qualified to answer that, but I

29:37

know you like it. Instead of like

29:39

doing a traditional deluxe game or super

29:41

deluxe more trays more more trays, yeah.

29:43

More trays, miniatures. Well, we do have

29:45

little, like, metal bust in the jewelry

29:47

box. But they are, but they're 3D

29:49

scanned from actual Art Nouveau bust that

29:51

we have here at the house and

29:53

they're being made in metal and they're

29:56

all like in golds and silver and

29:58

stuff. And so yeah, the jewelry box

30:00

edition, I mean, that was actually funny

30:02

because Amy's like, I want to do

30:04

that. And I was just like, okay,

30:06

sounds like an interesting science experiment. Let's

30:08

do it. acrylic player boards. acrylic player

30:10

boards on metal legs. And she's like,

30:12

I want all this stuff. And we,

30:14

the funny thing was we went to

30:16

our vendors and we're like, hey guys,

30:18

here's what we're thinking. They're like, you

30:20

want to do what now? Like, I've

30:22

never seen anything like this in my

30:24

life. And Amy, and we've sold to

30:26

date. Our. is their demand for it.

30:28

Yeah. So we kind of test waters

30:30

too. But I shouldn't know and of

30:32

course there's demand for it because Amy

30:34

knows her audience. Right and that's and

30:36

that just comes with time. That's something

30:38

I think I've been able to hone

30:40

in on with the solo gaming community

30:42

that the backers and customers I have

30:44

on a regular basis where hopefully to

30:46

a point where when I put a

30:48

game on, you know, the next campaign,

30:50

they know it's it's going to be

30:52

good for them. Like they know they're

30:55

going to enjoy it. because it's coming

30:57

from my company. And I'm, you know,

30:59

I am the gatekeeper now to say,

31:01

hey, if I'm putting it out there,

31:03

it's because I enjoyed, it's fun for

31:05

me. If you have enjoyed the games

31:07

previously, you're probably going to enjoy this

31:09

one too. And really being able to

31:11

hone in on that community, it just

31:13

takes time. It takes trial and error.

31:15

It takes doing some things. You're like,

31:17

that didn't quite hit the way I

31:19

thought it would. And then looking at

31:21

games that games that did really, it

31:23

did really, it did really really really

31:25

really really really really really well, really

31:27

well. you know looking at your audience

31:29

and going hey we want to do

31:31

a nice jewelry box like super deluxe

31:33

addition that's going to be kind of

31:35

crazy expensive but it's also going to

31:37

be like an heirloom if people can

31:39

pass down, you know, to their grandkids,

31:41

it's going to last that long. It's

31:43

made a metal. It makes sense. And

31:45

that thing is, you know, it's like

31:47

250 bucks, I think, right? 199 is

31:49

what we're selling it for, but the

31:51

MSRP after is going to be 300.

31:54

Like, yeah, it's not cheap to make

31:56

it. Right. At the same time, you've

31:58

sold kind of a lot of them.

32:00

You know, not. So obviously you were

32:02

on the right path with that. And

32:04

let's kind of. bridge that gap and

32:06

talk about ads. I know y'all been

32:08

doing a lot of Facebook ads, a

32:10

lot of just kind of online marketing,

32:12

figuring things out, targeting your, you know,

32:14

customer avatar. Tell me what you've learned

32:16

from the ad side, the marketing side

32:18

that kind of brings all this stuff

32:20

together to get people to buy after

32:22

the campaign. And we'll talk about post-kickstarter

32:24

life in a minute. That's a big

32:26

topic that's gonna come up. But when

32:28

it comes to ads, what have you

32:30

been learning? What have you been learning,

32:32

what have been learning, what have been

32:34

learning, what have been learning, what have

32:36

been learning, what have been seeing? But

32:38

the fact that it's not working is

32:40

actually one of the benefits of turning

32:42

the thing on. I was talking to

32:44

somebody the other day and ads actually

32:46

like they're like I don't know what

32:48

to do and I'm like run a

32:50

bunch of ads and the ads will

32:53

tell you what to do. That's the

32:55

thing. When you so first off if

32:57

you know who you're selling to you

32:59

know where to look you know and

33:01

like we're talking you know we do

33:03

a lot of meta advertising. My favorite

33:05

comment my absolute favorite comment from botany's

33:07

campaign. effectively, they must be advertising. Well,

33:09

of course we're advertising. Well, of course

33:11

we're advertising, always. It is a business.

33:13

Let me, you know what? Okay, if

33:15

you look outside my house, you can

33:17

drive out our front door and it's

33:19

40 miles to the next road if

33:21

you go straight, right? We are pointed

33:23

at wilderness. If I walk out my

33:25

front door and I'm like, who wants

33:27

to buy a game? I will be

33:29

there for, my dogs will be wanting

33:31

attention. They won't, if I give them,

33:33

if I give them the game, they'll,

33:35

they'll, they'll, they'll give them the game,

33:37

they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll,

33:39

they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll,

33:41

they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll,

33:43

they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll,

33:45

they Well, if you know who you're

33:47

selling to, that makes it easier to

33:49

figure out who you're advertising to. You

33:52

go in, you make custom groups or

33:54

custom audiences, you bring in the people

33:56

who have bought, you use that. to

33:58

make audiences based on their interest too.

34:00

And so, and then you know what

34:02

to show them. But you don't ever

34:04

know exactly what to show them. So

34:06

Amy usually takes like 12 pictures. And

34:08

we look at them and we're like,

34:10

oh hey, let's try these four. And

34:12

we put them, and this is, and

34:14

I'm intentionally not saying this in any

34:16

scientific manner, because you talk to somebody

34:18

who does advertising, it sounds very scientific,

34:20

but it's not. It's easy to understand

34:22

layman's terms. You put up four pictures.

34:24

You put up four pictures, and you

34:26

put up four pictures, and you put

34:28

up four pictures, and you know. And

34:30

now it's gotten even easier. You don't

34:32

even have to make audiences. You can

34:34

tell Facebook to try and find out

34:36

audiences, which is also pretty smart. So

34:38

we do that too. And you say

34:40

Facebook, go. And Facebook will be like,

34:42

these two are doing great. And you're

34:44

like, cool, turn the ones that aren't

34:46

doing great. Put two new pictures in,

34:48

see if those do great. And the

34:51

ads, we'll actually, like, guide you through

34:53

the process of figuring out. that based

34:55

on which ads are working and which

34:57

ones aren't and which audiences you will

34:59

start to learn if you don't have

35:01

a real solid fix on like who

35:03

am I selling this game to the

35:05

ads will also begin to tell you

35:07

this is who you're selling the game

35:09

to like we didn't know I mean

35:11

you know knowing that our avatar is

35:13

Amy we should have known but we

35:15

did not know that 75% of our

35:17

customers were going to be women but

35:19

they are in an industry that is

35:21

85% men. And so the

35:23

ads also helped us figure that out

35:25

out. You know, you start to learn

35:27

like, okay, you know, when you see

35:29

the interactions, you see people engage on

35:31

your ads, you know, the, eventually we

35:33

have a VIP group for everybody that

35:35

signs up for our pre-campaign stuff, you

35:37

start to see the things they're talking

35:40

about, the things that they latch on

35:42

to, their favorite parts of your games.

35:44

And over time, if you're paying a

35:46

lot of people out there who. are

35:48

doing their first game. They don't have

35:50

the budget for advertised paid advertising. Paid

35:52

advertising is the method that we understand.

35:54

and no, but you can do this

35:56

on online. You create an Instagram account,

35:58

you do it for free. You see

36:00

what people are interacting with. Maybe it's

36:02

only 10 people. Somebody once said to

36:04

us, a long time ago for our

36:06

photography, people get so hung up on

36:08

the quantity of people that are reacting

36:10

to what you're doing. And they failed

36:12

to notice that when one person says,

36:14

this looks amazing, that one, imagine somebody

36:16

walked up to your face and said

36:19

that. You'd be so happy. Well, that's

36:21

what's happening happening on online. Okay, well

36:23

now, okay, 10 people have reacted to

36:25

this. What are those 10 people like?

36:27

What do they like? You know, even

36:29

in little quantities, you can begin to

36:31

understand your super fan this way through

36:33

your advertising, through everything you do, because

36:35

it all builds in on itself, and

36:37

then the next time you do, you're

36:39

advertising, because it all builds in on

36:41

itself, and then the next time you

36:43

do advertising, you're all builds in on

36:45

itself, and then the next time you

36:47

do advertising, you do advertising, and then

36:49

the next time you do advertising, you

36:51

do advertising, you do, you know, audience

36:53

and we do like people who like

36:55

Jane Austin books or people who like

36:58

art history art history or cottages. One

37:00

of the big ones for botany we

37:02

created botanical gardens around the world. We

37:04

had an audience for better homes and

37:06

gardens. Yeah the magazine right and it

37:08

did incredibly well. And so if you're

37:10

working on a theme. If you're working

37:12

on a cake-based theme, don't try and

37:14

advertise just to board gamers and say,

37:16

hey, look, it's the same game you've

37:18

already played a bunch of times, and

37:20

it's not. I know that it's something

37:22

unique about your cake-based game. But don't

37:24

just be like, it's another board game,

37:26

and you have 5,000. Go find people

37:28

who are like, I love cake, I

37:30

bake all the time, and you're like,

37:32

have you ever played a board game

37:34

about cake? And they're like, how do

37:36

I buy this, how do I buy

37:39

this, right? That's what you're looking for.

37:41

Yeah, and that recently happened with a

37:43

game from Kurt covert who's been on

37:45

the show I think is company of

37:47

Smirk and Laughter games, but they have

37:49

this like really cozy book or game

37:51

about books. Yes, and they did. Yeah,

37:53

and it did over a million dollars.

37:55

And I'm pretty sure Kurt was using

37:57

ads targeted. at book lovers, people who

37:59

are reading, not just, you know, not

38:01

necessarily people who are gamers, and you

38:03

don't get, you don't get to that

38:05

level on a game like that without

38:07

reaching out to other audiences. You just

38:09

don't. And so, yeah, figuring out what

38:11

the theme of your game is, you

38:13

just don't. And so, yeah, figuring out

38:15

what the theme of your game is,

38:18

you know, is complexity, level, appropriate for

38:20

those people, so you don't want to

38:22

have like a, you, you know, you

38:24

know, you know, You got to think

38:26

long-term vision as far as building a

38:28

company. That's nothing I see is a

38:30

lot of people they want to sell

38:32

a game. That's very different than so,

38:34

you know, they're building a company. That's

38:36

two different things you're trying to do,

38:38

short-term versus long-term. And so, you know,

38:40

just things to be aware of. All

38:42

right, so ads and marketing and let's

38:44

get into post-kick. Because I feel like

38:46

ads play a huge role in that.

38:48

outside of a crowdfunding campaign. There's no

38:50

urgency. And you found that, and that's

38:52

it, right? There's no time limit. Even

38:54

though there's the pledge manager, even though

38:57

you can lay back, even though it's

38:59

kind of superficial, like there's gonna be

39:01

time, you know, you're probably gonna have

39:03

several months, or you can back this

39:05

game. But that little countdown, man, that

39:07

little timer pushes people to act. And

39:09

so tell me what y'all are doing

39:11

to sell on your website. And we'll

39:13

get into distribution retail stuff in a

39:15

minute, but like just in general selling

39:17

direct to customers. What are you finding?

39:19

It was Jamie Stegmire specifically, and I

39:21

don't remember the exact quote, but I

39:23

read the thing from him that said

39:25

he likes to make sure that his

39:27

game is available anywhere that somebody is

39:29

looking to buy it, right? It's business

39:31

101. A person has need, thing is

39:33

available where a person is, right? And

39:35

so that's that's what we try to

39:38

do. First, I mean, created a Shopify

39:40

account. Put things on Shopify began advertising

39:42

so people know things we have on

39:44

shop Again, advertising sounds, some people, some

39:46

people, especially on YouTube, like spit on

39:48

that word when YouTube is an advertising

39:50

driven algorithm, right? Absolutely. And so we

39:52

start advertising, hey people, we have this

39:54

thing on Shopify, would you like to

39:56

buy it? And it turns out people,

39:58

and it turns out people would. Okay,

40:00

great. Okay, step two. Then we put

40:02

our stuff on Amazon. We listed on

40:04

Amazon ourselves, so we have control over

40:06

it. Now, you know, all these people

40:08

are fighting to get into a limited

40:10

number of slots for 60 dollar games.

40:12

Online they have a few more, but

40:14

in the store, there's like, there's like,

40:17

there's like, there's like four feet a

40:19

shelf, and that's it, $60 games. You

40:21

get on Amazon, you set yourself up

40:23

and you list on Amazon, you're nationwide

40:25

tomorrow. Well, I mean, it takes a

40:27

few, it takes like a week to

40:29

get your stuff into FBA, but you're

40:31

basically nationwide very quickly, right? On Amazon,

40:33

okay, cool, step two. Okay, now that

40:35

I have that foundation of control of

40:37

control, maybe it's not the highest volume,

40:39

maybe it's not the highest volume, it's

40:41

not the highest volume, it's not the

40:43

highest volume, it's low to highest volume,

40:45

it's low to medium volume, it's low

40:47

to medium volume, it's low to medium

40:49

volume, it's low to medium volume, it's

40:51

low to medium, it's low to medium,

40:53

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Now I

40:56

need to find a way to get

40:58

into distribution because the distributors are also

41:00

going out and selling stuff for you.

41:02

You have very low control over that.

41:04

Like we have a placement in Barnes

41:06

and Noble and we think that is

41:08

super cool that we're in Barnes and

41:10

Noble. What if Barnes and Noble, what

41:12

if Barnes and Noble, what if Barnes

41:14

and Noble, what if Barnes and Noble

41:16

decides to stop selling, completely, not just

41:18

like our game, but like games. Or

41:20

what if they only sell games that

41:22

start with the letter A. Amazon and

41:24

Shopify. You add on distribution, distribution is

41:26

hard though because you got, there's a

41:28

lot of games and you got to

41:30

fight for attention. Well, the easiest thing

41:32

to do is go find a partner

41:34

who helps you. We use Golden Goose,

41:37

Golden Goose knows a lot of the

41:39

buyers, they have pitches, they go out,

41:41

they do stuff for us. And so

41:43

that adds another pillar to our business.

41:45

And then the fourth one is just

41:47

local game stores. And again, this is

41:49

very different from, you know, distributors do

41:51

sell to local game stores. But if

41:53

you call a local game store. And

41:55

you're like, hey, I saw you were

41:57

interested in botany. Let me tell you

41:59

about it. Let me tell you how

42:01

to sell it. You know, let me

42:03

tell you the key points we think

42:05

so that when people walk in the

42:07

store and they're like, I'm looking for

42:09

something interesting in light that my mother

42:11

would. with me or something like that,

42:13

right? We also have lots of like

42:16

florist and botanical gardens. And we're the

42:18

only game in their stores. I mean,

42:20

you want to talk about a lack

42:22

of competition. Somebody walks into the store,

42:24

they see flowers, they see flowers wall

42:26

to wall, and they only gonna pick

42:28

one, they see flowers wall to wall,

42:30

and they only gonna pick like one

42:32

or two flowers, but they see flowers

42:34

wall to wall, and they only gonna

42:36

pick like one or two. Those are

42:38

the four things you need to do.

42:40

And Shopify, you can have a Shopify

42:42

site in a half hour, right? You

42:44

can be a business in a half

42:46

hour. And if you don't know how

42:48

to advertise on Facebook, Shopify even has

42:50

a button that says, let us advertise

42:52

this on Facebook. They says, let us

42:55

advertise this on Facebook. And you say,

42:57

let us advertise this on Facebook. And

42:59

you click it. And you click it.

43:01

You're on the way. Is it that

43:03

as efficient the success begins to follow.

43:05

as you build on top of that.

43:07

We also advertise on Amazon too. Yeah,

43:09

but yeah, sponsored ads on Amazon, but

43:11

even that, that's, you know, okay, but

43:13

then, oh boy, we're rolling back to

43:15

math again, you gotta be careful about

43:17

the percentage you spend of your, you

43:19

know, because you're always making sure you

43:21

have that margin, right? And so like

43:23

when we're, when we're, when we're advertising

43:25

for Shopify sales, we're looking at a

43:27

blended row as of like two to

43:29

four to four. 20x, right? And so,

43:31

again, it's all about that budgeting, making

43:34

sure you're not spending too much. If

43:36

you spend any time on board game

43:38

wire or ICV2 or, you know, any

43:40

other of the board game news sites,

43:42

once a month, you're gonna see this

43:44

business is going under, this business is

43:46

going under these problems. That's happening because

43:48

they got ahead of their skis and

43:50

they're spending more money than they're making.

43:52

So if you take away one thing

43:54

from this whole podcast today. Spend less

43:56

than $10. Yes, there you go. Dusty's

43:58

wisdom on your nutshell. you say all

44:00

the time, and it's just, I don't

44:02

know if it's like tattooed on your,

44:04

your shoulder blades or if it's like

44:06

in a big mural on your house

44:08

wall there, but it's, you're not allowed

44:10

to lose money. Yeah, if I blink

44:12

fast enough, it's on the back of

44:15

my eyelids. Yeah, that's it. You're not

44:17

allowed to lose money. You know, yeah,

44:19

if I blink fast enough, it's on

44:21

the back of my eyelids. Yeah, yeah,

44:23

you're not have permission to lose money,

44:25

period. No, you have five dollars in

44:27

cash, we'll give you five dollars of

44:29

gas. That's how it works. But unfortunately,

44:31

with crowdfunding, you get so much money

44:33

up front that it's easy to get

44:35

ahead of yourself and not understand the

44:37

math, not even do the math, and

44:39

lose sight of how much you're spending,

44:41

and lose sight of how much you're

44:43

spending. And then all of a sudden,

44:45

you can't pay their taxes. When you

44:47

cannot pay your fulfillment company, that makes

44:49

more game wire and it makes a

44:51

lot of noise and it hurts your

44:54

business. When you cannot pay your taxes,

44:56

the government does worse things than complain

44:58

about you on Reddit. Right. Yeah, no

45:00

reason to your bank account, man. Yeah.

45:02

I had a friend. He wasn't, he

45:04

was behind on his student loan payments

45:06

or something. And. He went and did

45:08

his taxation or block and they're like,

45:10

oh yeah, you're going to get $2,000

45:12

back for your taxes. He's like, cool,

45:14

and got so excited. And then whenever

45:16

the tax money came in, the government

45:18

was like, thank you very much. And

45:20

they just took that tax check right

45:22

into their system. They said, that's going

45:24

to go towards the loans that you

45:26

owe us. It's like, I didn't know

45:28

the government could do that. I'm like,

45:30

I'm not surprised. We do not spend

45:33

any of that Kickstarter money that is

45:35

not related to making the game. Like

45:37

completed, yeah, completed and delivered to backers.

45:39

Once it's delivered to backers, that free

45:41

you can go buy all the war

45:43

hammer you want I mean okay let's

45:45

let me play devil's advocate here and

45:47

say if you have a great kickstarter

45:49

campaign you may go and buy yourself

45:51

one two hundred dollar box of war

45:53

hammer okay you can do that you

45:55

did a good job you treat yourself

45:57

and you did a good job and

45:59

and some ice cream you know get

46:01

Amy some ice cream okay we're good

46:03

let Amy buy something some nice jewelry

46:05

or something like a fun little book

46:07

or something yeah good but then don't

46:09

touch it the rest of it does

46:11

not get touched Until it's filled like

46:14

super wanted a swimming pool after botany

46:16

and we're like that's not happening Yeah,

46:18

we do not have a pool right

46:20

Because because the ship has to go

46:22

around Africa because I was off by

46:24

50 cents on Shipping rates for 15,000

46:26

people that's $7,500 all those little things

46:28

are where people get in trouble. We

46:30

didn't you know, we do not have

46:32

any employees. We're about to bring Amy

46:34

sister on part-time right at the at

46:36

the size we're operating We use contractors.

46:38

The burn rate is low. If next

46:40

month I find out that all of

46:42

my games spontaneously combusted and I have

46:44

nothing to sell, I email my contractors,

46:46

hey guys, we're in the pause for

46:48

a few months. I don't have anything

46:50

to sell, right? And we also have

46:53

to save money for the next print

46:55

run. We don't want to be on

46:57

the Kickstarter treadmill. Yeah, don't run that

46:59

next Kickstarter to. fund your last Kickstarter

47:01

or to fund the next, you know,

47:03

print run. We're actually using Kickstarter now

47:05

more as like a forecasting. How well

47:07

does this product sell? How many should

47:09

we print next time? Yeah. All the

47:11

problems are the same. All the problems

47:13

about like where does food come from?

47:15

Like you got it, you still got

47:17

to have money to buy food. Don't

47:19

spend all your money. Until once the

47:21

products in the consumer's hands, then you're

47:23

safe. Because you know you did it.

47:25

Right. And going back to the whole,

47:27

you know, if it takes you a

47:29

long, long time to deliver and you

47:32

start increasing your overhead, you know, that's

47:34

what happened to a lot of these

47:36

companies have gone under that they rented,

47:38

they started renting office space and they

47:40

started hiring all these other people and

47:42

they bought. Right, they did all sorts

47:44

of stuff and you're like, wait a

47:46

minute, are you really doing the math?

47:48

And are you doing the math with

47:50

some buffer in there in case you

47:52

do have to go around Africa in

47:54

case you did make a mistake that

47:56

50 cents per backer? Like is that

47:58

buffer zone big enough to cover the

48:00

potential losses? Anyway, you start having some

48:02

interesting math problems there. And because it

48:04

took you a long time to deliver,

48:06

you didn't, the failure is a lagging

48:08

indicator, right? Like you actually failed six

48:10

months ago. But you don't realize it

48:13

until, oh crap, we can't pay the

48:15

fulfillment company and now they're just holding

48:17

on to our games and our backers

48:19

are giving us, you know, negative comments

48:21

on a daily basis about where's my

48:23

stuff and now what do we do?

48:25

For 20, 26 and 27, and we

48:27

are paying our taxes for botany and

48:29

23 next month. Because of the deferred...

48:31

Yeah, because of a cruel-based accounting and

48:33

deferred revenue and expenditure, and because we

48:35

didn't deliver until the next calendar year,

48:37

yeah. Danger Zone for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

48:39

Absolutely. And especially, you know, if that's

48:41

a big number, a million dollars, you

48:43

know, you didn't make a full minute.

48:45

You know, it's not like you get

48:47

all of that money. Kickstarter takes their,

48:49

like, there's lots of cuts that come

48:52

out of that percentage. Yeah, yeah. We

48:54

have to produce the games. Yeah. Right.

48:56

There's still a large number that the

48:58

government's looking at. And they're like, hey,

49:00

you owe us a big chunk of

49:02

that. are creative types and not necessarily

49:04

business types. They don't necessarily have the

49:06

math wizardry and they gotta work a

49:08

little harder or hire it out or

49:10

talk to their friend Dusty. And that's

49:12

okay. If you have a friend who

49:14

does do math, pay him 20 bucks

49:16

an hour. Take him, you know, to

49:18

get some pizza. Find somebody. I can't

49:20

remember if we talked about this last

49:22

time we run or not, but we

49:24

ascribe to this theory of what's called

49:26

wealth dynamics. And it's know what you're

49:28

good at. You do that. Find everybody

49:31

else to do other things for you.

49:33

Amy's good at creating. I'm good at

49:35

running this giant system, this engine, right?

49:37

Not good at sales. We find people

49:39

to help us do sales. Not good

49:41

at marketing. We find people to help

49:43

us do marketing. And but number one

49:45

is, are you good at math? If

49:47

you are not good at math, find

49:49

a way to find someone who is

49:51

good at math. Because like I know

49:53

I couldn't run the business. She could

49:55

do it. I make the pretty thing.

49:57

No, I make the pretty things. Dusty

49:59

runs the business. Yeah. Right. Which is

50:01

such a amazing thing to have in

50:03

the same house. a salary for something

50:05

like, it's great to be in that

50:07

together, but if you don't have, you

50:09

know, if you haven't married as well,

50:12

we'll say, then you're going to have

50:14

to go out and find somebody else.

50:16

And that's okay too. And just kind

50:18

of work your way into that. And

50:20

unfortunately, a lot of times companies get

50:22

too much too fast and it's the

50:24

kiss of death. It is catastrophic success

50:26

where, you know, they didn't, they really

50:28

didn't need to make a million. Like

50:30

that. Uh-oh, that's not good. Because they

50:32

didn't have the foundation and understanding. And

50:34

now they, and now instead of failing

50:36

on a campaign with five hundred backers,

50:38

they're going to make mistakes and fail

50:40

on a campaign with 15,000 backers. Oh,

50:42

that's a different thing. Now luckily you

50:44

had a lot of business understanding from

50:46

previously running businesses and being an entrepreneur

50:48

and making mistakes in other businesses and

50:51

other industries that you were able to

50:53

take all that knowledge forward into the

50:55

board game space. and hopefully not make

50:57

nearly as many as you'd made in

50:59

the past as you're kind of, you

51:01

know, falling in those holes. So I

51:03

think it's another thing is people just

51:05

don't necessarily realize the foundation that somebody

51:07

has going into something. Yeah, and you

51:09

make a really good point there that

51:11

so one thing we do is our

51:13

plans are scalable, 100% scalable. Somebody asked

51:15

me that day, what's my goal for

51:17

artistry? I said my goal is $18,

51:19

$18,000. They're like, but you already made

51:21

$150 thousand dollars. This was yesterday. And

51:23

I said, yes, my goal is $18,000.

51:25

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised at the

51:27

end of this campaign, right? The plan

51:30

is the same. And I think one

51:32

place that people get into trouble is

51:34

they see they made a ton of

51:36

money, but they don't treat it like.

51:38

It's because the math is more or

51:40

less the same. Now you got MOUs,

51:42

you got, you know, your total investment

51:44

as a percentage of the revenue begins

51:46

to decrease if you spent $10,000 on

51:48

art and you made $10,000 or if

51:50

you made $100,000, but effectively the math

51:52

does not change because a lot of

51:54

it is must deliver product, must freight

51:56

product, must ship to backer. And that

51:58

stuff is the same whether you have

52:00

100 backers backers. I mean, again, there's

52:02

some levels of efficiency here. But effectively,

52:04

it is the same whether you have

52:06

100 backers or 15,000 backers. And so,

52:09

luckily, we had already been thinking that

52:11

way for botany. And if Artistry has,

52:13

if Artistry stops today, we're golden, if

52:15

Artistry stops today, we're golden. If Artistry

52:17

does, if Artistry stops today, we're golden.

52:19

The argument is still the same that

52:21

the scale the math the way I

52:23

treat the math You know the The

52:25

this might be a hot take but

52:27

rich people have the same problems as

52:29

poor people Now food whatever okay. Yes

52:31

that I understand that but when it

52:33

comes to budgeting the budgets are the

52:35

same it takes you know Ford has

52:37

the same problem that your local store

52:39

your local grocery store has You just

52:41

add a bunch of zeros, but the

52:43

zeros are added to everything, and so

52:45

the scale stays the same. And the

52:47

reason that Ford is still in business

52:50

is because they don't spend more than

52:52

they make, and your local grocery store

52:54

doesn't spend more than it makes. And

52:56

if you walk downtown in your local

52:58

town, and there's somebody with a small

53:00

business there selling purses and shoes, they

53:02

do not spend more money than they

53:04

make. And it's the same for us,

53:06

even though we're kind of in this

53:08

crazy industry where it's a bunch of

53:10

small businesses romping around target and playing

53:12

big business. If you think about pro

53:14

athletes and how many of them have

53:16

made multi, multi, multi, millions of dollars.

53:18

And then I think on average, I

53:20

think it's in the NFL, on average,

53:22

the NFL player is bankrupt in seven

53:24

years. Yes, that's just insane. Right. Well,

53:26

to your point, this because people are

53:29

people. And if someone comes out of

53:31

a poor background, like me personally, I

53:33

came out of, you know, my parents

53:35

were divorced and it was my mom

53:37

and I and, you know, we were

53:39

on food stamps and like, I didn't

53:41

learn how to budget. Like we were

53:43

living paycheck to paycheck and I was

53:45

working. part-time and like all the money

53:47

I was making went right into rent

53:49

and groceries and so like I never

53:51

learned how to save how to invest

53:53

how to budget I didn't learn any

53:55

of that because my parents didn't have

53:57

that information either nobody taught them and

53:59

their parents didn't know everybody was just

54:01

kind of living paycheck to paycheck because

54:03

that's what you did and so if

54:05

you were to give me a million

54:08

dollars you know back then it would

54:10

have been gone in a fairly short

54:12

amount of time because I couldn't handle

54:14

it. Right, I couldn't handle $100. So

54:16

what in the world makes me think

54:18

I could have handled a million? Like,

54:20

it would just, it maybe would have

54:22

taken me a little longer to go

54:24

broke, but it still would have happened

54:26

just because I didn't have that skill

54:28

set. And it wasn't until I was

54:30

working at a church and that we

54:32

had this church and that we had,

54:34

I was working at a church and

54:36

that we had this guy that had

54:38

this guy that, and we had this

54:40

guy that had retired from, I was

54:42

working at a church and that had

54:44

this guy that, and that, and that

54:46

church and that, and that, and that,

54:49

I was working at a church and

54:51

that, and that, I was working at

54:53

this guy, I was working at a

54:55

church and that, I was working at

54:57

this guy, I was working at this

54:59

guy, I was working at a church

55:01

and that, I was working at this

55:03

guy, I was working at this guy,

55:05

that, I was working at a church,

55:07

I was working at a church, I

55:09

was working at this guy because now

55:11

I had somebody to kind of show

55:13

me the way and thank God for

55:15

him because who knows you know it

55:17

would it take I like to think

55:19

YouTube and I would be able to

55:21

learn it and kind of read some

55:23

books and figure it out but it

55:25

was having somebody come alongside me and

55:28

go here's a here's B here's C

55:30

here's D here's how to go from

55:32

A to D and it's not sexy

55:34

it's a lot of small stuff and

55:36

it's a lot of really basic add

55:38

like addition of subtraction you know with

55:40

my kids my son came to me

55:42

But it's like $29 on Amazon. He's

55:44

like, I want to buy this. I

55:46

was like, that's great, man. How much

55:48

money you got? He goes, well, none.

55:50

I was like, well, that's a problem.

55:52

So if you have none, that's not

55:54

29. And he's like, yeah, but I

55:56

want it. I go, I understand that.

55:58

And we're going to have to work

56:00

out a plan for you to go

56:02

out here and pick some weeds and

56:04

do some work around the house. And

56:07

you know, we can earn $3 here

56:09

and $5 there. And you know, maybe

56:11

here in a week or two, you'll

56:13

have 29. And then you can go

56:15

on Amazon and we can buy it.

56:17

He's like, oh man. And we're going

56:19

to see how much he wants that

56:21

football. I got on Amazon and I

56:23

bought like a whole spindle of carnival

56:25

tickets. And whenever you do something like

56:27

good, like a chore or you know,

56:29

hold still while when he was that

56:31

young, it was like a fight to

56:33

get him to brush his teeth, right?

56:35

He would earn a ticket. And then

56:37

he comes to mommy and daddy and

56:39

we in the store is open and

56:41

we have a few things that we

56:43

maybe snagged on Amazon when they're on

56:45

sale and he buys them. And the

56:48

kids buy them and today I bought

56:50

the educational toy, it's snap circuits that

56:52

we have, I bought some of those,

56:54

they're not expensive. And he's coming to

56:56

me, he's like, hey, so I've saved

56:58

up 300 tickets. Well, 300 tickets is

57:00

like 150 dollars, well, 300 tickets is

57:02

like 150 dollars, and I'm like, well,

57:04

300 tickets is like 150 dollars this

57:06

kid has saved up, and I'm like,

57:08

well, $150, $150 is like, like, $150,

57:10

$100, $1, $100, $1, $1, $1, $1,

57:12

$1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1,

57:14

$1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1,

57:16

$1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1,

57:18

$1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1,

57:20

$1, $1, $1, How many tickets are

57:22

they? And he knows what he did

57:24

to earn those tickets. Poppy is, Poppy's

57:27

five, she knows what she did to

57:29

earn those tickets. And I'm like, if

57:31

nothing else, I mean, we have no

57:33

cash, like hardly any cash in this

57:35

house in the world of credit cards

57:37

and digital whatever. They understand the act

57:39

of, I did thing, I got thing,

57:41

I trade thing for thing, right? Right.

57:43

And that's all I have. I can't

57:45

pay more than I have. Well, there's

57:47

no loans. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's closed.

57:49

Yeah, I know credit cards, you know,

57:51

around here. Come on now. I'm like,

57:53

go pick some more weeds outside. Yeah,

57:55

yeah, there's too much weeds in the

57:57

gravel. Go pick them out. When I

57:59

was. I think I was 13. I

58:01

really want to be a skater, like

58:03

so bad. Well, the problem with that

58:06

is I live in the country. There

58:08

is nowhere. It's chip sealed roads at

58:10

best and gravel for most of them.

58:12

There's nowhere to skate within six miles

58:14

of my house. And so I bought

58:16

a skateboard and I sort of rode

58:18

it around the inside of the barn,

58:20

which is not an easy thing to

58:22

do when barns full hay. And I

58:24

was like, huh. And then one of

58:26

my friends who did live in town

58:28

was like, I really want to buy

58:30

a skateboard. And I'm like, well, I

58:32

have one for sale. And he goes,

58:34

how much? And I had paid $99

58:36

for the skateboard, and I sold it

58:38

to him for 110. And from that

58:40

moment on, I was like, I get

58:42

this. I understand how this works. You

58:44

provide a product or a service, and

58:47

you sell it for more than you

58:49

paid for it. And now you're in

58:51

business. Right. So this is a quote

58:53

from Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey runs his

58:55

business and he does all kinds of

58:57

stuff about finance and getting out of

58:59

debt. But be humble and afraid, right?

59:01

So I'm looking at the numbers and

59:03

I'm like, okay, artistry is at 220,000.

59:05

Great. My goal was 18,000. Great. I

59:07

have X amount of dollars to work

59:09

with. I will do X number of

59:11

things. Okay, I'm looking far into the

59:13

future. How do I reprint this again

59:15

when it sells out? Right? And it's

59:17

going to sell out because I'm going

59:19

to make it sell out. I'm going

59:21

to find the people who want to

59:23

buy it and make it. And so

59:26

everything I do, it's never like, oh,

59:28

yeah, it's like, okay, where can this

59:30

go wrong today? Like, where can this

59:32

go wrong a month from now, a

59:34

year from now? Where, you know, how

59:36

do I make sure we have enough

59:38

money to handle whatever comes next? So

59:40

I'm reminded, like, people talk about Murphy's

59:42

Law, anything that can go wrong, will

59:44

go wrong, will go wrong, but they

59:46

missed the other half of that. Yes,

59:48

he was saying. He's not saying, oh,

59:50

bad things are going to happen, be

59:52

depressed about it. He's saying, bad things

59:54

are probably going to happen, so make

59:56

sure you plan ahead and are prepared

59:58

for what it does and with shipping

1:00:00

international. with political craziness with 2020. Just

1:00:02

I don't know if you know this,

1:00:05

John Sina just became a bad guy

1:00:07

in 24 years later, right? He turns

1:00:09

he'll, no. Yeah, he didn't, he denounced

1:00:11

Make a Wish, you know, Kathleen Kennedy

1:00:13

also just resigned at Star Wars. So

1:00:15

like 2025 is just like wild right

1:00:17

now, where things are happening. And so,

1:00:19

you know, playing ahead, playing accordingly. be

1:00:21

prepared for what could happen? Don't doom

1:00:23

and gloom it. You don't, don't be

1:00:25

like, oh, life sucks and, like, no,

1:00:27

have a plan and have ideas in

1:00:29

place. Oh, I was going to say,

1:00:31

I have a very short story that

1:00:33

is probably not relatable to most people

1:00:35

listening, but Amy and I wouldn't, you

1:00:37

wouldn't know it, you wouldn't know it,

1:00:39

given our story, you wouldn't, you wouldn't,

1:00:41

you wouldn't know it, given our story

1:00:44

about, giving our story about the, And

1:00:46

like a week later, we're driving up

1:00:48

the highway to my dad's house and

1:00:50

the truck breaks. And I look at

1:00:52

Amy and I go, the obstacle is

1:00:54

the only way. And it was the

1:00:56

most zen moment in my entire life

1:00:58

when I realized, you know, I could

1:01:00

be really angry and screaming and have

1:01:02

the hood open and there's smoke and

1:01:04

I'm like really angry that my truck

1:01:06

is broken. Or I can call my

1:01:08

dad, have him come pick me up,

1:01:10

get a tow truck, and go eat

1:01:12

dinner at my dad's house and move

1:01:14

on with my dad's house and move

1:01:16

on with my You know, you can

1:01:18

kick and scream, but the thing that

1:01:20

is happening to you is going to

1:01:22

happen to you no matter how much

1:01:25

you kick and scream. Right. Everybody is

1:01:27

going to have a certain amount of

1:01:29

bad luck happen to them every single

1:01:31

year. And you can just talk it

1:01:33

up and be like, hey, there's one

1:01:35

of my bad luck opportunities for this

1:01:37

year. And look at it as a

1:01:39

problem to be solved as opposed to

1:01:41

something to lose your mind about. Like,

1:01:43

no, this is just a problem that

1:01:45

has a solution. It is a solution.

1:01:47

It is solvable. It is solvable. It

1:01:49

is solvable. But we're going to figure

1:01:51

it out. We're going to get through

1:01:53

it. And yeah, that's just a better

1:01:55

way to go. But let's keep talking

1:01:57

about the whole like planning ahead. You

1:01:59

mentioned forecasting earlier. Tell me your formula.

1:02:01

Tell me your process for kind of.

1:02:04

figuring out how many games to print,

1:02:06

how many, like which are run rate,

1:02:08

how many were selling per month, and

1:02:10

when do I need to do a

1:02:12

reprint, give me your whole like system

1:02:14

for knowing the forecast of any given

1:02:16

title. Okay, so this is going to

1:02:18

be, this is some, this is deep

1:02:20

math. Also it's hard to forecast when

1:02:22

you don't have, when you have no

1:02:24

sales, that's also really tough. Yeah. How

1:02:26

do I distill this easily? Okay, whoever's

1:02:28

listening, I'm just going to start rambling

1:02:30

to start rambling math. and just know

1:02:32

that you might have, you know, don't

1:02:34

be afraid of email me. Infuit Duxomium.com,

1:02:36

I'm happy to write these formulas down

1:02:38

for you. It's D-U-X. D-U-C-S-D-U-X. Yeah. Quack.

1:02:40

There's an outtake from Good Time Society

1:02:43

where they're working on the game and

1:02:45

they're like, the new is from Ducks.

1:02:47

Ducks, quack. Okay. So, forecasting is like

1:02:49

looking in a crystal ball. And the

1:02:51

lady that's running the terro shop down

1:02:53

the road is going to be just

1:02:55

as good at it as you are.

1:02:57

And so it's more about looking at

1:02:59

everything that happened before and trying to

1:03:01

come up with as many ways to

1:03:03

use that to guess what might happen

1:03:05

in the future. And you're creating a

1:03:07

projection cone for yourself when you do.

1:03:09

And so we, you can do this

1:03:11

in spreadsheets, you can do this on

1:03:13

a napkin. I have one of our

1:03:15

other businesses actually writes like a whole.

1:03:17

marketing system for travel organizations. I took

1:03:19

that and started sort of cutting into

1:03:21

pieces for my own use. But basically

1:03:24

what you do is you look at

1:03:26

what happened and guess what's going to

1:03:28

happen. So the ways to do that

1:03:30

that we use are we look at

1:03:32

our sales for the last four months

1:03:34

and we look at them just in

1:03:36

general and we look at them by

1:03:38

product and we look at them across

1:03:40

all products, big old spreadsheet. And we

1:03:42

say and so the simple version is

1:03:44

I sold 100 units a month for

1:03:46

the last four months. So 400 units

1:03:48

cross the force full month. Let's say

1:03:50

that you sold 200 of the first

1:03:52

month, 50 the next month, 50 the

1:03:54

month after that, and 100. What did

1:03:56

I just get to? I got to

1:03:58

400. Okay, good. I'm doing math. live,

1:04:00

not a great plan. Yeah, it's dangerous.

1:04:03

But it averages out to 400

1:04:05

over the last four months, a

1:04:07

hundred a month. And you say to

1:04:09

yourself, okay, what's it gonna look like

1:04:12

if everything stays the same

1:04:14

over the last four months? Now,

1:04:16

was the last four months,

1:04:18

did it include February? You

1:04:20

know, things are gonna change, but

1:04:22

just what if? And you say, well,

1:04:24

then if I sell 100 units,

1:04:27

in the next 12 months, I'll sell 1,200.

1:04:29

then you can use that model to say

1:04:31

I'm going to run out in 10 months.

1:04:33

Okay, how long does it take you to get

1:04:35

stock? Well, it takes about four and a half

1:04:37

to six months to get my stock. Well, then

1:04:39

you should probably think about placing a

1:04:41

reorder at your manufacturer in the next three

1:04:43

months. Okay, model one. We do the exact same

1:04:46

thing, but on a 12 month basis. How do

1:04:48

I do this over 12 months? Now, like Amy

1:04:50

said, this is hard if you're two

1:04:52

months out of a Kickstarter, if you're

1:04:54

out of kickstarter, and you're. It's an

1:04:56

exact science anyway, so it might seem

1:04:58

like it's bad, but it's, you know,

1:05:00

it's not any better with years of

1:05:02

data. Because you never know. You do

1:05:04

the same thing for 12 months. Okay. For

1:05:07

the sake of simplicity of the example, I sold 1,200 units

1:05:09

over the last 12 months. Again, 100 units of months. Let's say

1:05:11

that over the last 12 months, I only sold 600 units. So

1:05:13

my four-month cell rate is 100 units a month, and my 12-month

1:05:15

cell rate is 50 units a month. Well, now I have a

1:05:17

projection cone. Because now I have a projection cone. Because I have

1:05:19

a projection cone. Because now I have a projection. Well, now I

1:05:21

have a projection cone. Well, now I have a projection, and I

1:05:23

have a. 50 units a. 50 units a month. 50 units a

1:05:25

month. 50 units a month. 50 units a month. Well, a well

1:05:27

now I have a. 50 units of. 50 units of. 50 units of. 50 units

1:05:29

a. Well, a. 50 units a. Well, a. 50 units a. Well, a. Well, a.

1:05:31

Well, a. Well, a. Well, a. 50 units. Well, a. Well, a. 50 units. Well,

1:05:33

because two wasn't enough, those two were

1:05:35

simple. The third one I look

1:05:37

at what have lifetime our average sales

1:05:39

been in January and what percentage

1:05:42

of our total sales is that, let's

1:05:44

say that's 10% of my total sales,

1:05:46

and I do the same for every

1:05:48

other month and I see that my

1:05:50

total sales are only 5% in February.

1:05:52

I'm totally making these numbers up by

1:05:55

the way. And that for November and

1:05:57

October in October, it's 20% of my

1:05:59

total sales. And then I say, okay, cool.

1:06:01

What did I do last month? Well, last

1:06:03

month with January, you sold 100

1:06:05

units. Those 100 units are 10%

1:06:07

of your sales. And I can

1:06:09

extrapolate forward. Okay, in the next

1:06:11

year, I'm going to sell a

1:06:13

thousand units. And 400, and 400,

1:06:15

in the next year, I'm going

1:06:17

to sell a thousand units. And

1:06:19

400, and 400, and 400, and 400,

1:06:22

and 400 of those units, are going

1:06:24

to be in November and November, and

1:06:26

then you can say we're going to run

1:06:28

out of 20. is slightly less murky than

1:06:30

it was before. And that in a nutshell

1:06:33

is what we're doing. Right, and similar

1:06:35

with weather forecasting, you're using models to

1:06:37

make your best guess. You're going to

1:06:40

be off one way or another, like

1:06:42

the odds of you being exact,

1:06:44

basically zero percent. And so I think

1:06:46

that's another thing is people get too

1:06:48

caught up with wanting to know and

1:06:50

you're guessing. It is an educated guess,

1:06:53

hopefully. But you're still making a guess

1:06:55

making a projection. And then

1:06:57

just go with it. You know. Big

1:06:59

companies make mistakes. Jamie

1:07:01

Stegmire printed 10,000 copies

1:07:03

of wingspan. The first, 10,000. And then

1:07:05

he sold out in about 42 seconds

1:07:08

to the point where people were bashing

1:07:10

him online, saying he did it on

1:07:12

purpose. He's like, you did this just

1:07:14

to create, you know, a FOMO type

1:07:16

deal and to kind of up the, it's

1:07:19

like, yes, yes, the publisher

1:07:21

intentionally only printed 10,000

1:07:23

even though there was demand for 100,000.

1:07:25

because he didn't want to sell 90,000

1:07:27

more games like that. I've never got

1:07:30

a person in my life that intentionally

1:07:32

didn't sell the exact right number of

1:07:34

copies that they could have sold. Well, and

1:07:36

it's also, it's better to have too few

1:07:38

than more like stock is dangerous. Yeah,

1:07:41

stock is dangerous. So if Jamie had two

1:07:43

scenarios there that would possibly, because you're never,

1:07:45

Andre, our friend from Golden Goose, always likes

1:07:47

to say. You're never just right. You're always

1:07:50

too hot or too cold. Which do you

1:07:52

want to be? Well, if I had a

1:07:54

choice between B and Jamie Stegmire with an

1:07:56

extra 100,000 copies of unsellable wingspan or Jamie

1:07:59

Stegmire with 10,000. that sold instantly,

1:08:01

I know which scenario I want.

1:08:03

I want the one where I

1:08:05

didn't waste 100,000 copies, right? You

1:08:08

can always, like if your game's

1:08:10

going hot, you can always place

1:08:13

another reorder. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

1:08:15

we reorder two, three times

1:08:17

a year for botany, no problem.

1:08:19

And so, yes, the thing, you can

1:08:22

always reprint, you can't unprint. No. You

1:08:24

can, you can throw them in a

1:08:26

landfill, a landfill, so you don't. destroy

1:08:29

the value of it. Don't go with

1:08:31

those pops like just throw them in

1:08:33

the landfill? Yeah, there's a landfill out

1:08:35

there with the most amazing funco collection

1:08:38

you've ever seen in your entire life. Because the

1:08:40

way business is so silly it was more cost

1:08:42

effective for them to take it as a loss

1:08:44

and throw it all away as opposed to liquidate

1:08:46

it and try to sell it for a dollar

1:08:48

or $5 or whatever. 90% off. It was and there's

1:08:50

something to be said for our interesting

1:08:53

structure as far as far as our

1:08:55

financial financial system there where. that made more

1:08:57

sense to create a million pounds of trash

1:08:59

than to try to sell everything in a

1:09:02

huge disk. Yeah, that's not for us to

1:09:04

solve. But yeah, I mean, you're just, you're

1:09:06

just guessing. And the good thing about crowdfunding

1:09:08

is it gives you at least a jumping off

1:09:11

point to say, okay, I sold 5,000 copies or

1:09:13

500 copies in crowdfunding and therefore I'm

1:09:15

only going to print X. Now, let

1:09:17

me get your thoughts on this. I

1:09:19

am one of those weird publishers that

1:09:21

doesn't concern myself with retail distribution.

1:09:23

I don't really care at

1:09:25

the moment, although you and

1:09:27

I have had long conversations

1:09:29

about how I need to start

1:09:32

figuring out how to get it,

1:09:34

you know, Amazon and retail and

1:09:36

whatnot. I'm working on that for

1:09:38

later this year, hopefully. But I

1:09:40

only print effectively what I sell. So

1:09:43

if I have a thousand backers, I'm

1:09:45

going to print roughly 11 to 1,200

1:09:47

copies. So if I have a thousand

1:09:49

backers, I'm going to print roughly

1:09:52

11 to 1,000 copies. Can we

1:09:54

do like 50%? Yeah. For base

1:09:56

games, we do like 50% more

1:09:58

and for expansions as a. It's

1:10:00

like 20. So there's a couple

1:10:02

things here. Kickstarter is not a

1:10:04

representative audience for regular

1:10:06

retail. It is an audience and it

1:10:09

is a crystal ball to look into.

1:10:11

But I have met people that they're

1:10:13

like, hey, how many do you think

1:10:15

I should order? I sold a thousand

1:10:17

copies on Kickstarter. I think I'm gonna

1:10:19

order 10,000 copies. And I'm like, whoa, whoa,

1:10:21

whoa, whoa, whoa, who, who. That's not

1:10:23

bad that they only sold a

1:10:25

thousand. That's a thousand people that

1:10:27

wanted their game. That's amazing. If

1:10:29

one person wants one of my games,

1:10:31

I am thrilled, right? But if only a

1:10:33

thousand wanted it, either you didn't find

1:10:36

your market yet, or it's telling

1:10:38

you that your market niche is

1:10:40

not Kickstarter, or your market niche

1:10:42

is smaller than you anticipated, right?

1:10:44

And that's okay. There are a very

1:10:47

limited number of people on the planet

1:10:49

who play Insectet Glave in Monster

1:10:51

Hunter. I'm one of them, right?

1:10:53

But that doesn't mean everybody does,

1:10:55

and that doesn't mean it's bad. Okay?

1:10:57

Now, what you, what we do is we look

1:10:59

at Kickstarter and we say, and we

1:11:01

have a very good example of this, we

1:11:03

say, we're going to order 50% more than

1:11:06

what we made as a rule of thumb. And the

1:11:08

other thing to understand is that people

1:11:10

look at. When you look at expansions,

1:11:12

you need to be even

1:11:14

more conservative when it comes

1:11:16

to stock risk. Because Kickstarter

1:11:18

also buys a disproportionately high

1:11:20

number of expansions. And deluxees.

1:11:22

And deluxees. And deluxees. Both very

1:11:25

dangerous. So what you do is you look at

1:11:27

it and you look at the attach rate. The

1:11:29

attach rate is what percentage of people

1:11:31

who own the base game will buy

1:11:33

the expansion. And mathematically speaking, it will

1:11:36

never be 100%. Take it to ride. Has

1:11:38

expansions. People love ticket to ride

1:11:40

is sold what 18 million? I can't remember

1:11:42

the number millions of copies, right? And you

1:11:44

give one of their expansions has not sold

1:11:46

that many because only a percentage of

1:11:48

people are going to buy it. So with our

1:11:51

expansions, depending on where the break point is, maybe

1:11:53

we'll order 20, 30% more, something like that. We'll

1:11:55

see how it goes because they sell slower than

1:11:57

the base game. If you run out of expansions.

1:12:00

you will still sell copies of your

1:12:02

base game. If you sell out of base

1:12:04

game, you will not be selling copies

1:12:06

of your expansion. And so, look

1:12:08

at Botany and LaFler. Botany,

1:12:10

we sold 16,000 copies on AM

1:12:13

or on Kickstarter, so we ordered

1:12:15

25. A little aggressive, but there

1:12:17

was a break point for us at 25,

1:12:19

so we jumped up. LaFler, we sold

1:12:21

7,000 copies. That's not 16. We

1:12:23

bought an extra 3,500 copies. We bought

1:12:25

an extra 3,500100 Now, it turns out Lafloor, it

1:12:28

looks like it's going to sell out way fast

1:12:30

and we thought, but that's a good problem as

1:12:32

opposed to it, what if we had, what if

1:12:34

we had, what if we had just decided we're

1:12:36

going to buy 25,000 copies of Lafloor because

1:12:38

we sold 25,000 copies of botany? We'd be

1:12:41

still sitting on copies of Lafloor. They'd be

1:12:43

still sitting on copies of the floor. They'd

1:12:45

be still sitting on copies of the things hit,

1:12:47

then we see how they sell, and then we see how they

1:12:49

sell, and then we can do our forecast models,

1:12:51

and then we can do our forecast models,

1:12:53

to determine like, okay, how are

1:12:55

we selling, when should we buy

1:12:57

more, how much more should we

1:12:59

buy? Because we only want like

1:13:02

10 to 12 months of stock

1:13:04

at any given time. What for

1:13:06

deluxe's are we only going to

1:13:08

do like 10, 20%? Yeah, 10

1:13:10

or 20% more for deluxe's more.

1:13:12

Yeah, 10 or 20% more for

1:13:15

deluxe's too because those are also

1:13:17

the kind like that jewelry box

1:13:19

edition. Game stores probably don't want

1:13:21

to try to sell 300 dollar

1:13:23

games. That's a lot of, yeah, that's

1:13:25

a lot of money to sink into

1:13:27

stock. Yeah, exactly. You put 150 into

1:13:29

a game that's going to sit on

1:13:32

the shelf that maybe sells, maybe

1:13:34

doesn't, like that's just, that's

1:13:36

a big ask. So, you know, more than

1:13:38

likely you're going to be selling that only

1:13:40

through your website. And you know,

1:13:42

hopefully getting ads and forecasts

1:13:44

based on all the information at

1:13:46

hand. Let's keep talking about this kind

1:13:49

of stuff as far as fulfillment.

1:13:51

You and I have run into some

1:13:53

fun challenges recently. Lots of

1:13:55

customer service opportunities, lots of

1:13:58

international fun and games. lots

1:14:00

of, oh, that company is now

1:14:02

bankrupt. What does that mean for us?

1:14:04

So tell me what you've been

1:14:06

learning fulfillment wise, kind of

1:14:08

why you're doing what you're doing

1:14:10

now, right? Maybe some of the bumps

1:14:13

along the road to get here. Just

1:14:15

kind of give me the full picture as

1:14:17

far as, you know, botany, you delivered,

1:14:19

how many games about any have

1:14:21

been delivered by you? Like you've

1:14:23

been the one that have, you

1:14:26

know, submitted the addresses and stuff

1:14:28

like that. Twenty thousand? year so 10

1:14:30

to 12,000 14,000 something like that right

1:14:32

doing the game every month all of all

1:14:34

of my games are international shipments

1:14:37

because I ship directly out of

1:14:39

China worldwide takes about two weeks to

1:14:41

get anywhere you know shipping is very

1:14:43

reasonable the games I do

1:14:45

are very small and lightweight so versus

1:14:48

botany which you're shipping you know at

1:14:50

different fulfillment hubs around you know you

1:14:52

got one in the UK I believe

1:14:54

you've got one in the UK I believe

1:14:56

you've got one We'll get to one

1:14:58

versus how many you've been using in the

1:15:01

US. Yeah, we have multiple in the US

1:15:03

now, yes. Right. And so you know, you

1:15:05

and I both have very different perspectives on

1:15:07

this. But tell me what you're doing now

1:15:09

and kind of why you ended up with

1:15:12

that model. So everything we set up to

1:15:14

this point about math and fear and forecasting,

1:15:17

all of it culminates in shipping. Shipping

1:15:19

is the, shipping is the business killer.

1:15:21

Like if I was going to pick one thing

1:15:23

that could destroy this business, the first

1:15:25

thing. You know, you live on

1:15:27

the side of Mount Vesuvius, you

1:15:29

know, the volcano is probably,

1:15:32

you know, probably, you know,

1:15:34

probably the danger point, right?

1:15:36

Shipping is the volcano. And

1:15:39

also people don't understand. Shipping

1:15:41

is expensive. Like Amazon

1:15:43

has like, Amazon has

1:15:46

ruined everybody, ruined the consumer

1:15:48

base in general. Shipping. It's ridiculous. You

1:15:50

know, it normally takes three to five

1:15:52

depending on how far away. And so

1:15:54

yeah, Amazon is there a reason is the

1:15:56

reason Jeff Bezos is like the second richest

1:15:58

man in the world. And we're not complaining

1:16:01

about it because we do a lot

1:16:03

of sales on Amazon. Like as we

1:16:05

have been talking, I know we have

1:16:07

sold stuff on Amazon. And we buy a

1:16:09

lot of stuff. We buy a lot of stuff

1:16:11

on Amazon. So we have also

1:16:13

ruined ourselves. So the key was shipping

1:16:16

is to, first off, you got to

1:16:18

find a partner that you really trust.

1:16:20

And we have had to move through

1:16:22

multiple partners where we learned, you know,

1:16:24

we learned, okay, what are the things

1:16:26

we should be asking? And that was

1:16:28

$7,500 by the time I was done

1:16:30

with 15,000 backers, right? So you find

1:16:32

somebody who will, who will, who, who you know

1:16:35

that you can email and say, here's

1:16:37

the numbers I think I'm working with,

1:16:39

am I right or am I wrong? And they

1:16:41

will tell you real fast, super duper

1:16:43

wrong. Here's where you should be.

1:16:45

They're guessing too, but at least

1:16:47

you know what they're going to

1:16:49

charge you. Yeah, mostly, unless there's

1:16:51

a fuel surcharge surcharge or all

1:16:53

kinds of stuff. This is the

1:16:56

big place. where, you know, okay,

1:16:58

you made a game. When you

1:17:00

made the game, it was going

1:17:02

to cost you $5,000 to get

1:17:04

a 40-foot container from

1:17:06

China to the Long Beach.

1:17:08

Well, now it's going to

1:17:10

cost you $12,000. And we

1:17:12

had that happen last year

1:17:15

with Botany. Our March

1:17:17

shipment was $5,000 a

1:17:19

container. And so you're dealing

1:17:22

with... variation variables there's just so much

1:17:24

danger if you read all the articles

1:17:27

about different companies have gone under 90%

1:17:29

of them like the place where it

1:17:31

all went wrong or started to was

1:17:34

shipping now the reason they have money

1:17:36

for shipping was other mistakes they made

1:17:38

but the straw that broke the camels

1:17:40

back was shipping right and so step

1:17:42

one find a partner you trust who and

1:17:45

go to them and just say here's a

1:17:47

box of botany it weighs five pounds

1:17:49

six ounces What will it cost me

1:17:51

out the door to send this to somebody in

1:17:53

California? Right? We ship from Mississippi. California

1:17:56

is a lot of people live in

1:17:58

California, so it's pretty right. representative of

1:18:00

how far away can I get in the mainland

1:18:02

United States for a large amount of my populace

1:18:04

and they will come back to you and they

1:18:06

would say that's gonna cost you $18 and you're

1:18:09

like whoa I was gonna charge $10 to my

1:18:11

backers that's fine but that's $8 that you're subsidizing

1:18:13

out of your profit so you got to

1:18:15

know that stuff in advance beforehand. Then

1:18:17

the next step is everybody wants to

1:18:19

have internet you know customs friendly shipping

1:18:21

in the UK and the EU and

1:18:23

Canada and Australia and Namibia and Antarctica

1:18:25

right and everyone of those hubs you

1:18:27

open that costs money like they're not

1:18:30

just doing this out of goodness of

1:18:32

their heart they got storage fees it

1:18:34

costs you money to get things there

1:18:36

it costs more to ship things in

1:18:38

a 20-foot container than it does in a 40-foot

1:18:40

container just by volume if you're

1:18:43

shipping Australia and you're only shipping

1:18:45

five pallets of stuff that's less

1:18:47

than container load LCL is the

1:18:49

abbreviation for that. They will. Now you're paying

1:18:51

four dollars a unit to land it instead of

1:18:53

two dollars a unit to land it. So every one

1:18:55

of these shipping locations that we open, I mean,

1:18:57

we launched artistry and I am just now like,

1:18:59

yeah, I think we've got enough backers in East

1:19:01

Asia that we're going to open in Asian Hub,

1:19:04

maybe with VFI, maybe China Division, maybe send from

1:19:06

China, you know, I got to start talking to

1:19:08

people about that. Didn't even jump into that until

1:19:10

I was sure that we were going to have

1:19:12

enough to have enough to have enough to have

1:19:14

enough to support it, to support it, to support

1:19:16

it, to support it. This is the place to

1:19:18

be afraid because it gets out of hand so

1:19:21

fast. Find someone to help you, find someone

1:19:23

to check your math, do your math 40

1:19:25

times, and the biggest advice we can give

1:19:27

on this one is charge shipping later. If

1:19:29

you ever run, if you're back a

1:19:31

Kickstarter and they sent out the pledge

1:19:33

manager a month after the campaign ends and

1:19:36

they're not planning to deliver for a year

1:19:38

and a half and you pay them, they

1:19:40

have guest at best what it's going to cost

1:19:42

and whatever they charge you will not be

1:19:44

enough. death taxes and prices will

1:19:46

increase are the only certain things

1:19:48

in life right and so that I

1:19:51

mean that's that's shipping in a nutshell

1:19:53

yes I mean that's it again

1:19:55

we're back to math we're back to

1:19:57

making the best educated guess that you

1:19:59

can There's a little bit of nuance

1:20:01

in there because, you know, people don't want

1:20:04

to pay $20 for a game and $15 for

1:20:06

shipping. Again, we can blame Amazon, but I mean,

1:20:08

that's just kind of human nature when it

1:20:10

just doesn't feel right. That's kind of like

1:20:12

when you go to a game store and

1:20:14

you pick up a box and you feel

1:20:16

how heavy it is, like, literal weight. You're

1:20:18

like, hmm, does this line up to the MSRP?

1:20:20

Is this, and it has nothing of the game or

1:20:22

the game or the game play? It's like a, like

1:20:24

a, like a, like a, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:20:27

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, cost of

1:20:29

the game. And so some of that, you know,

1:20:31

you might need to just kind of put

1:20:33

inside of the game costs, you know,

1:20:35

instead of charging 19, you charge 24

1:20:38

and you're just no going in that

1:20:40

five of that is actually just part

1:20:42

of the shipping, right? That's just you're

1:20:44

building the math all in there together. It's

1:20:47

just more of a perspective thing

1:20:49

when it comes to backwards. But

1:20:51

yeah, definitely something just to

1:20:53

again, do a lot of math on and get

1:20:55

somebody. You know, before we hit

1:20:58

somebody. that they ended up taking a massive

1:21:00

percentage of the sales that they did for you.

1:21:02

And so you sold a whole bunch of games,

1:21:04

but still lost money. So tell me kind of

1:21:06

what happened with that. You know, we didn't got

1:21:08

to mention anybody my name necessarily. I'm not trying

1:21:11

to drag anybody online or anything. But tell me

1:21:13

what happened in maybe some things that other people

1:21:15

should just be aware of when it comes to this

1:21:17

kind of thing. So they don't run into the

1:21:19

same situation. I'm going to spoil the

1:21:22

moral of the story. But again, it's

1:21:24

always the, it's in the math and

1:21:26

it's in the fine details and this

1:21:28

was, this was a, this was a missed

1:21:30

sentence on my part in an email

1:21:32

that was one of 50. And if

1:21:35

I had caught this, so shame on

1:21:37

them for not having made sure that

1:21:39

I understood this, shame on me for

1:21:41

having been busy that day and

1:21:43

shot through the email as fast

1:21:45

as I could. We had a company

1:21:48

that was handling that was.

1:21:50

It was going to have a presence

1:21:52

for botany at UKGE. I sent 100

1:21:54

copies there, and I paid the company all

1:21:56

of what I thought was going to be paid

1:21:58

to them, which was to. run the booth

1:22:01

handle the sales and run a demo

1:22:03

for me and that the rest of it

1:22:05

and that was and that was a

1:22:07

and I went through and I said

1:22:09

okay that's experts if I saw

1:22:11

all these copies a hundred copies

1:22:13

of these it'll be $6,000 and

1:22:15

the $2,400 I'm paying for this minus

1:22:18

the landed cost you know I

1:22:20

was walking away with like a like a

1:22:22

30 40% margin on the show at that.

1:22:24

And I thought, actually I think it

1:22:27

was 39% was the exact number of

1:22:29

margin I was having. We like to

1:22:31

aim for 40% margin. Shows are expensive.

1:22:33

Shows are ridiculously expensive and very few

1:22:36

people ever walk away breaking even. All

1:22:38

the rest of them lose money. If

1:22:40

you find out somebody made money on

1:22:42

a show, put them on this podcast,

1:22:44

right? Because it's just not a lucrative

1:22:46

thing to do. So we wanted a

1:22:48

presence there, we wanted to use it,

1:22:50

use it for advertising, and I was

1:22:52

gonna walk away with 40% profit. that

1:22:54

in addition to all those things in addition

1:22:56

to paying for the booth and in addition

1:22:59

to paying for the other stuff and paying

1:23:01

for the demo and paying for the

1:23:03

shipping and having paid the land it

1:23:05

costs just to get the stuff into the

1:23:07

UK they were also taking a 40%

1:23:09

consignment of the sale which now I look

1:23:12

back on it makes absolutely no sense to

1:23:14

me because I also paid them to do all

1:23:16

the other stuff to just have it there

1:23:18

and so by the time I was done I had

1:23:20

lost 90 dollars on what should have

1:23:22

been if I had just sold

1:23:24

it in regular retail, a profit

1:23:26

of $3,600. And that's a big

1:23:29

difference from one number, from

1:23:31

one little error. And I even

1:23:33

sent them, and I, you know,

1:23:35

I'm a pretty nice guy. I even

1:23:38

fired off a nasty gram with a

1:23:40

pile of math that said, that ended

1:23:42

with, why wasn't this in the contract?

1:23:45

And if I had known this, do

1:23:47

you think I would have made this

1:23:49

decision to lose $90 dollars on UK

1:23:52

GE? And what I got

1:23:54

back was, here's your invoice.

1:23:56

Okay, time for a new

1:23:59

shipping partner. Yeah, it sounds like

1:24:01

you and I were in the wrong

1:24:03

business. Like we need to be selling

1:24:05

shovels, like the California Gold

1:24:07

Rush, like the only people that

1:24:09

made money were people selling shovels

1:24:12

and buckets and buckets and like

1:24:14

that. Yeah, the bars, all this

1:24:17

saloons, yeah, all this saloons, yeah,

1:24:19

and all this saloons, yeah, and all

1:24:21

this saloons, yeah, and all this

1:24:23

saloons, yeah, and all this saloons, yeah,

1:24:26

and all the saloons, yeah, all this

1:24:28

saloons, on top, or... you're going to

1:24:30

pay all these extra costs and you're going

1:24:32

to make what you make. Like, it's almost like

1:24:34

a salesperson making a big salary and

1:24:37

commission. It's like, hold on. Like those

1:24:39

things usually kind of offset each other.

1:24:41

And not just the commission, but also

1:24:43

taking a percentage of your earnings. Yeah,

1:24:45

exactly. Yeah. It's just seems like you're

1:24:47

double triple dipping here and like maybe

1:24:49

that shouldn't be the case. And so while

1:24:51

that individual story might be. like

1:24:53

very specific to that scenario. The

1:24:55

key is that again, we're working

1:24:57

in a we're working in an

1:24:59

environment here. Most the funny thing

1:25:01

is most game companies in this industry

1:25:04

are not any different from most

1:25:06

of the companies we work within

1:25:08

the wedding industry as wedding

1:25:11

photographers. Small businesses doing

1:25:13

their small business thing. The difference

1:25:15

is if the DJ screws up the

1:25:17

wedding, there's like 100 people that know

1:25:19

about it. Right. But if you screw up.

1:25:22

your Kickstarter, there are thousands upon

1:25:24

thousands of people who know about that

1:25:26

and it will live with you all

1:25:28

the way through to the next Kickstarter

1:25:30

to the point where some people start

1:25:32

a new company name because all they did

1:25:34

was mess up shipping and their company

1:25:36

is so irreparably damaged that it cannot continue

1:25:39

on. The consequences get out of

1:25:41

hand fast. Right. But even those

1:25:43

people that come back with a different

1:25:45

company name, backers find out and they

1:25:47

post in the comments. Hey, this is just

1:25:49

that. I mean, it still follows you around. people,

1:25:51

you know, company screwed backers over. Like

1:25:53

they really did take the money. That does

1:25:56

happen. But not always. And it's just

1:25:58

kind of unfortunate sometimes. you

1:26:00

know, COVID bankrupted a lot of

1:26:02

people just because the containers went from

1:26:04

like you said, $5,000 all of a

1:26:07

sudden a 40,000 a container and like

1:26:09

they, you know, sometimes no matter

1:26:11

how much you plan and project

1:26:13

and project and forecast, sometimes, no

1:26:15

matter how much you plan and

1:26:18

project and forecast, sometimes life just

1:26:20

is what it is and there nothing you

1:26:22

could do about it like that's just

1:26:24

you're going to go down unless you

1:26:26

had reserves of substantial amounts or

1:26:29

you just. Or I can wait a little

1:26:31

while until these prices come back down and

1:26:33

I'll ship it as soon as I can. And

1:26:35

some people are annoyed about that. And

1:26:37

I don't mean this disrespectfully, I

1:26:40

didn't care because my company and

1:26:42

its existence was more important

1:26:44

than getting a game to you a

1:26:46

couple much earlier. It's just, you know, and so

1:26:48

you just have to make those decisions

1:26:50

sometimes. And something you can do in

1:26:52

those scenarios too is if you, so

1:26:55

there's a fine line to walk here because one

1:26:57

of things that drives me nuts.

1:26:59

is when, and I'm sure everybody

1:27:01

listening has back to Kickstarter that

1:27:03

has done this, where they have like

1:27:06

basically like a, like, a sit down

1:27:08

by the fire and really come clean

1:27:10

kind of moment, and they want to

1:27:12

tell you all the details of every

1:27:14

little thing that's going wrong. We don't

1:27:16

tell our, I mean, we have, I

1:27:18

mean, we have had, so with Lafour,

1:27:20

we had a lot of shipping errors, I

1:27:22

mean, a lot of shipping errors, and

1:27:25

by sheer force of customer service, we

1:27:27

have, They're a customer for life, right?

1:27:29

You provided them a subpar service and

1:27:31

they are more loyal to you because you took

1:27:33

care of them than if you had just done

1:27:36

it right the first time, right? But we

1:27:38

had some problems with our fulfillment center.

1:27:40

They got some things going on, related

1:27:42

to bankruptcy, our fulfillment center.

1:27:45

They got some things going on,

1:27:47

related to bankruptcy, related to bankruptcy,

1:27:49

you know, time, related to bankruptcy, never, right?

1:27:51

But we had some problems with our fulfillment

1:27:53

center, they got some things going on, related,

1:27:56

And he goes, are you the horse or

1:27:58

are you the kid? I am like... I'm

1:28:00

the kid, and this shipping scenario is the

1:28:02

horse in the mud, and I am pulling

1:28:04

that thing out of this mud, right? That's

1:28:07

just a thing that happens, but you

1:28:09

gotta watch out for that stuff and

1:28:11

get through it and be careful and

1:28:13

make sure, and again, if we had come

1:28:15

to a scenario, but okay, so where I

1:28:18

was going with this actually, let

1:28:20

me, I got stuck on never any story.

1:28:22

When you get into a scenario like

1:28:24

that, sometimes you just have to go to

1:28:26

go to the backer and say, and I

1:28:29

don't. We had 5,750 shippings that went fine. I

1:28:31

don't need to tell those 5,750 people that something went wrong for

1:28:33

750 other people, right? But each is 750 other people, some of

1:28:35

them I went to and I'm like, hey, here's what we're dealing

1:28:37

with. We came up short on coins in Australia, on the metal coins.

1:28:39

If you'd like to wait a few weeks, I can ship them

1:28:41

to you there, or I can ship them there, and have them shipped to

1:28:43

you, and have them shipped to you, and have them to you, and

1:28:45

have them, and have them, and have them, and have them, and have

1:28:47

them, and have them, and have them, to you, and have them, and

1:28:49

have them, and have them, and have them, and have them, and have

1:28:52

them, and have them, and have them, and have them, and have

1:28:54

them, and have them, and have them, and have them, and have

1:28:56

them, and have them, and have them, and have them, and have

1:28:58

them, You might have to sign a customs

1:29:00

document when it gets to you. Just

1:29:02

want, you know, which would you prefer?

1:29:04

I'll make either of those things happen

1:29:06

for you. And 100% of them are like,

1:29:08

oh, you can ship for the US, we'll take

1:29:11

care of it when it gets here, no big

1:29:13

deal. And I'm like, hey, if you have to

1:29:15

pay two dollars on customs or whatever,

1:29:17

let me know I'll refund that two

1:29:19

bucks to you. And they're like, like,

1:29:21

well, the good news is. Hopefully I'll

1:29:24

have enough margin to cover that if I have

1:29:26

to. But I can go to backers and say,

1:29:28

okay guys, here's the deal. Containers got

1:29:30

weird. I can air freight this to you

1:29:32

from China for X amount of dollars. Or if

1:29:34

you don't mind waiting six months, we