Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danny Reed. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Danny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Family Game Knight started out originally as a sole proprietorship in 2020 called “Reedesign” with help from the New River Gorge Regional Development authority I (Danny) was able to obtain enough funding to waterproof my basement and purchase 4 small 3D printers to use as a starting point for this small business. Using Etsy as a platform to sell my products and services I started printing small knick knacks and offering graphic design services. Sales started to come in immediately after I began listing items online. I was not able to create enough product to keep up with the high demand the first few months. Most of our business was coming from 3d printed figurines relating to the latest trends in media. Because of the high sales volume I quickly went from 4 printers to 10 and then to 14. There was a small production factory now being ran in the basement of my house. Having years of management and retail experience I wanted to do expand my operation into something more. I began to reach out to some friends to see if they were interested in starting our own retail store, something new and exciting for people of all ages. Thats when Family Game Knight began to take form. There were some friends who joined the project and but left on good terms somewhere down the line due to personal constraints, but eventually are team was formed. Michael Brown and later Dylon McBride came unto the management team as co-owners and Family Game Knight was established as an LLP. We began to plan out what our vision was for the business. We didn’t want to be a one trick pony we wanted to have variety in what we offered to our community. The 3D printing stayed, while the graphic design portion of the business was dropped due to the large amount of time that had to be invested into creating original designs for clients. The following sections were introduced into our business model, board games, action figures, trading cards, a mini arcade, birthday parties, comics, Miniatures & paint and virtual reality. Some aspects of the business worked well and others had to be dropped, but may be revisited in the future. The only two sections that were dropped from our business models were comic books due to low sales and inventory issues and virtual reality due to strict fire safety codes. Eventually we plan to bring these things back into our business model, but for now they had to be removed in order for us to focus more on the more in demand and profitable aspects of our new business. Before we opened we launched a Kickstarter campaign to help us garner some excitement and extra funds to turn our dream into a reality. With help from local media company “Kid in the Background” we shot a commercial to show our community what Family Game Knight was going to offer them. We successfully were able to raise just over $10,000 to help us set up our store. With a location already secured we began renovating the building. Painting every wall, installing store fixtures, adding on an additional room changing out the lighting and more. Once all of the renovations were completed we started to bring in inventory to fill the shelves everything was coming together nicely. We planned to open our shop in January of 2022 but getting everything ready took a bit longer than we expected. Our grand opening was on April 4th of 2022. We had a huge turnout we couldn’t believe the number of people from the community who had shown up to see our shop. Our dream was no longer a dream, we were seeing all of the blood sweat and tears that we had put into this business turn into what we had hoped it would become. Our goal was to bring a unique, fun, innovative and social experience for young and old alike to Beckley and we had done just that. As we approach our 1 year anniversary we continue to build strong relationships with people in our community and continue to see new faces every week. We hope to expand upon what we currently have and offer even more unique services to the Beckley area in the future.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Our Business has a multitude of things for our community. We are family friendly so kids and adults alike can enjoy everything that we have to offer. We do custom 3D printing, we have a mini retro arcade with 22 machines and hundreds of games, a tabletop gaming area with over 200 board games available and the option to rent out the space for parties, We sell snacks, board games, action figures, trading cards, 3D printing supplies, miniature paints, and other related items. Family Game Knight’s goal as a business is to give our community unique products they can’t find anywhere else and a safe place to enjoy themselves and meet new people.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Facebook is where we primarily focus our attention when it comes to social media. We have amassed a following of just under 3000 people in the nine months we have been open. We make sure to post on page on a daily basis about new products, custom projects we may be working on, product recommendations, weekly events, and anything else that we see fit to make a post about. Facebook ads have also been a vital part of our social media. We usually boost one post a week to help get our posts out to more people and drive more traffic into our shop. My recommendations for starting up your own social media is to be active daily, consistently put out new and unique content, use images every chance you get when making a post, and utilize the Facebook advertisement services.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The best strategy for growing clientele is just to be sociable with the community, talk to every customer that comes through the door, give recommendations, offer assistance, and build relationships. Be willing to work out deals with your customers and if ypu offer some type of commission service such as or 3D printing keep the customer updated frequently on any type of work you may be doing for them. I do this by sending daily messages letting them know the progress we have made on their commission, attaching photos of the progress and giving them an estimated time frame of project completion.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/familygameknightshop
• Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/family-game-knight-no-title
• Other: https://familygameknight.tcgplayerpro.com/search/products?q&fbclid=IwAR2H-2btpCjOjz_Q7AnWW1FM_DAVier_qWD_QXuFTe_A2QEKmNOvBrDepEU

Image Credits
All photos of our facility at Family Game Knight