We were lucky to catch up with Jason Garvin recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jason, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
The education system we have now is good at teaching students the facts, the basic knowledge in their field of study, but rarely how to use it or what to expect in the real world.
This leaves a lot of students lost when they graduate. Many students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree don’t find a job in their field, and even when they do, the work can be wildly different from their time in school.
It’s overwhelming, and confusing, and we could be preparing students better.
I went through this myself when I graduated.
In my third year of college, I started to have doubts about my major. Psychology was interesting, but I didn’t think I wanted to pursue graduate school or work in a lab, and there was little else I could do with my degree. This realization had only recently dawned on me. On top of that, it was too late to change my major without staying in school for another 1-2 years past my expected graduation date, and I’d be out of financial aid by then.
So, I graduated in Psychology anyway, and then I was off to the job market.
I had no idea what jobs even really existed in my field, let alone where they were or how to find them. I floundered around on Indeed and other job boards before lucking out when a friend mentioned his mom was a practicing Neuropsychologist and needed an office assistant. Sweet.
I spent about a year working for her before quitting to do, I don’t know, literally anything else.
It wasn’t that she was mean, or bad, or anything else. In fact, I really liked working for her overall. But I didn’t like the work itself. I mean, I was an office assistant. I scanned documents, faxed records, took phone calls, and checked in clients. Sometimes, if I was especially unlucky, I’d be disrespected by lawyers and pushed aside when they came to consult with her on a case in which she was an expert witness.
She was understanding of me and, really, the job was comfortable. But I hated the work. It wasn’t Psychology at all, least of all the parts I’d gone into my degree hoping to use. I wanted to help people, and scanning in hundreds of pages of research papers wasn’t it.
It took me years and several other jobs to really find a use for my degree, and even then I don’t come close to working in my field of study these days.
Instead, I apply what I know about Psychology and how to do empirical research to better understand our customers at the store I own. Then, in my part-time work, I do usability research and help guide our small software team towards more user-centric design so that the people who use our app can enjoy the experience and get what they want out of it.
Never in school was I taught how to apply my degree or what I learned. I wasn’t shown where to look for jobs, or what jobs existed for recent graduates. I remember being warned in class once that we’d all need at least a Master’s degree to do anything clinical, and the heaviness in the room after that. My peers weren’t optimistic either, and most of them still don’t work in Psychology.
Had I received real career counseling in college, and had that be a mandatory part of my curriculum, I likely could’ve saved years in my journey, or even ended up with a different degree altogether.
Especially with the rising cost of tuition, I think we owe it to aspiring graduates to give them the resources and understanding of what’s waiting for them on the other side of college, and better prepare them to face those challenges so they can make educated decisions about what they’d like to do.
Jason, 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?
In my career, I sort of straddle two different worlds.
On one side, I own Total Escape Games, a local game store (LGS). We sell all sorts of tabletop games: card games, board games, RPGs, miniatures, collectibles, paints, toys, and more. We’re a full-line hobby store so really, we carry everything we can. In addition, we run gaming events and meetups every day of the week.
On the other side, I work in software. I’m a product designer for a local startup creating a preregistration app to make attending in-person events a more painless and smooth experience.
Both happened by accident.
I started working at Total Escape Games when I was 23, after turning down a corporate job because the management felt soulless and nobody seemed happy. I wanted something else, even if I had no idea what would come next or how I’d survive. I’d been helping out and getting to know the staff for a while, so when a job opened up the manager walked over to me as I was sitting at the back of the store and told me I was hired.
Three weeks later, we were traveling to a work conference so he could throw me into a room full of game publishers to teach me how to network and make friends in the industry.
About 7 years later, my business partners and I bought the store so the previous owners could retire. It’s an amazing and humbling experience to finally own the store I’ve been helping to grow all this time.
It’s one thing to run a successful business. To sell the games people want and to run cool events. But a LGS is more than just a store. We’re a community hub, where people with similar interests and hobbies can meet up with one another, have a fun time, make lifelong friends, and feel like they belong to something.
Having a community is so important–people were never been meant to exist alone. Being able to bring people together, and host all sorts of fun events that make people happy in the process, is a dream.
That’s what really sets us apart: our atmosphere, our inclusiveness, and the quality of our store overall.
The gaming industry hasn’t always been a super inclusive place. It’s gotten a lot better, but there’s still work to do. So it makes me really happy to know that we’re leading the charge–when you’re in the store, you’re a part of our community. You’re treated with kindness and consideration, and you’re included by the people around you, regardless of your background.
It shows in how we treat our customers and how we run our events. We want to be inclusive of everyone interested in tabletop games, whether you’ve never played before or play every day. Because of that, we run free open-play events nearly every day of the week, so there’s always a way to get involved in a game you want to try.
We also run big tournaments, and have some amazingly skilled players in the local community. But even there, players are courteous and have great sportsmanship. It’s about the love of the game, and respect for one another, even when the stakes are high and players are competing for an invitation to a national-level tournament.
I actually used to be our event manager–that’s probably part of why I’m so passionate about well-run events and everything it takes to pull them off.
Back then I’d been looking for a better way to handle event registration, because the worst feeling as a player was to show up to an event that didn’t have enough players, and to then drive back home in disappointment because the event didn’t happen. I figured if we could solve that problem, it would improve event attendance and make our players happy at the same time. it was win-win.
Around the same time, I was approached by a local player who’d encountered the same problem, and had figured out a solution: an event preregistration app.
He asked if we’d pilot it for an event. We did. It broke gloriously, but we had a player walk in who had never been to the store before. He’d seen the event listing and wanted to play.
It was a funny moment, because on the one hand our manager was mad at me for letting us use an app that didn’t work well, but on the other hand we’d managed to reach a new player who might otherwise not have found us.
I gave the app’s founder our feedback. His team made changes, and asked if we’d try it again. I was curious, and despite some hesitations, I agreed.
It worked much better the second time. And the third time. And the fourth.
Somewhere along the way, I started attending product meetings with the founder. I was invited to join the team. I started by providing my viewpoint as a store that runs events, but I soon found a passion in software design.
It turns out, I really like solving challenging problems and improving the experience of the people around me, and it doesn’t totally matter to me whether that’s by running a retail store and event space, or by developing an app. It’s our experiences in life that matter, and I’m dedicated to creating the best ones possible.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Sometimes I feel like my whole life has been a series of pivots.
Leaving high school, I wanted nothing to do with business. Both my parents had been entrepreneurs, and it looked hard, and I wasn’t interested. So I went to school for Psychology. I wanted to help people.
When Psychology didn’t work out, I thought I’d become an artist. But I didn’t have the talent, or the discipline.
Family advised me to look into software, but I was intimidated by the idea of writing code, so I avoided that, too.
Now, seven years later, I’m a business owner and work in software. I kind of ended up in the exact place I’d been resisting all along. The funny thing is, I couldn’t be happier.
What all those people had been seeing was true: I love building things and thinking analytically. That’s true both in business and in software. By letting go of my idealized vision of the future, I ended up finding something I loved in a career I’d never expected, instead of continuing to stubbornly pursue something I didn’t have the skills to achieve.
It’s freeing in a way. I can do art for fun now without worrying about making money or improving enough to “go pro,” and at the same time build all sorts of cool things as my own boss.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Yes, absolutely! I love books. I think reading is a great way to learn new skills, and it’s amazing how many smart people there are out there writing books so we can absorb all that knowledge in just a few hours.
I have two different categories of books that have really shaped my perspective: books on personal growth and books on design.
For personal growth, the ones that really struck a chord are:
– Ikigai: the Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles
– The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
Ikigai is a beautiful book exploring the meaning of life and of work, and changed me by introducing me to the idea that I don’t have to work for retirement, but instead can find meaning in the work I do that fulfills me long into my old age.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is an interesting one. The title kind of threw me off, and I avoided it at first. But it’s actually great. I struggle a lot with what others think of me, and whether I’m making the right choice. It sometimes undermines my confidence. I think I’ve lived a lot of my life in avoidance of being wrong or making mistakes, and it’s pretty much only been a negative experience. So reading this book kind of opened my mind to letting go, making mistakes, and not worrying so much.
For design, I really love:
– Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
– Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Both are conventionally about software design and creating intuitive products that delight people, but I think it goes farther than that. They’re about how we all think, what we want from a product or business, and how to clear the way for us to have the best possible experience.
It’s shaped my approach to design of all sorts, from the store layout to event graphics to software, itself.
Designing things with the intended audience in mind changes the way I think about the project, and the problems I intend to solve. It guides me to ask, “what’s the biggest problem my customers are having right now?” and then work towards addressing it. Most of all, it leads me towards the desire to create delightful experiences that have a lasting positive impact on my customers and community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jasongarvin.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonagarvin/
- Other: The store’s website:
https://totalescapegames.com
