We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tom and Garrett. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tom and Garrett below.
Hi Tom and Garrett, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
We’re two friends who’ve known each other since high school who just wanted to make fun board games for people who love to have fun around the gaming table.
We pride ourselves on our sense of humor and our dedication to creating the best experiences for board game lovers. That’s what we kept in mind while making out Courtroom Party Game All Rise (available at roughdraftgames.com) and with our upcoming game Bouquet.
At the end of the day, our customers can count on us to make games and to possibly make them laugh…
But considering the horrendous business deals we’ve engaged in and how many times we keep getting hit with ransomware attacks, I don’t know if we’ll be around much longer. We’re gonna need people to buy a lot of games if we’re gonna make it out of this.
Tom and Garrett, thanks for joining us today. If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment
Running a board game business certainly isn’t easy. We try to run a tight ship around here with what we choose to invest our time and money in, but I gotta tell ya we’ve definitely messed up big time before.
One time we we’re in the middle of a meeting, and I (Tom) realized Garrett hadn’t spoken for the last 20 minutes. He was sweating profusely. He kept wiping his hands down his face and blinking in disbelief.
I asked him if there was anything that was troubling him and he gave a heavy sigh before telling me that our recent investment in water soluble meeple components had met with catastrophe.
You see, Garrett and I invested quite heavily into the idea that the board game community and the home gardening community had significant overlap. We spent thousands of dollars on research. More than we could afford, but we were convinced that we were onto something big. Imagine providing board game components to legacy games that when you were finished playing with through a campaign (and you couldn’t reuse them), you could toss them in your garden as compost for your tomato plants.
It was brilliant and we were feverish to begin our lucrative financial journey into this brave new frontier. But as it turns out, our first shipment of 50’ooo pieces was stored in a faulty shipping container that wasn’t properly sealed against the elements.
It rained. And that rain destroyed everything we worked for.
I don’t know if we’ll ever financially recover in all honesty.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I can’t speak for other people, but for Garrett and I, credit cards and cash advances were integral to initial growth.
It’s also important to put a lot of pressure on your friends and family for money at the very beginning stages of your business. Try to bring up these sorts of conversations / straight up beg when people can’t easily walk away. Think family gatherings/weddings/funerals/holidays.
When Garrett cried at his Thanksgiving dinner we scored some extra startup capital. Easy as pumpkin pie.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Filling out questionnaire interviews for sites that are dedicated to shining a light on small businesses like ours has had a colossal impact on our audience size. I recommend everyone do this.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://roughdraftgames.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roughdraftgames/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoughDraftGames/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoughDraftGames