We recently connected with Kris VanBogelen and have shared our conversation below.

Kris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Sly Game Design was started with generosity in mind. Though we are officially listed as a for-profit company, we exist to create games that will generate funds for non-profit entities. Each game is only printed once and is used as a unique fundraiser for one or more charities. In order to maximize the amount of money that can be donated, co-owners Kris and Jordan volunteer all of their time and effort for the business.

It all began with the idea to design a board game that could be sold in a small summer camp store. The family-friendly, camp-themed game ended up going through several iterations over the course of multiple years. After the finalized prototype was completed, we began to explore the possibility of crowdfunding in order to manufacture a larger quantity and offer the game to a larger audience. That first game, Bivouac, lead us through a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2021 and turned Sly Game Design into an official game publisher. In turn, sales of that game also provided some monies for us to donate to a local summer camp scholarship program that helps underprivileged kids afford a week of summer camp.

It is our desire for this process to repeat itself over and over again with future games in what we are calling our Games for Good Series. In order to be successful, we must manage our costs well and rely heavily on networking in order to spread the word. Spending less on overhead costs like marketing means that more of our income can be donated. We are extremely grateful for everyone that made our first campaign a success.

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?

My name is Kris VanBogelen. I am one half of Sly Game Design and my responsibilities include game design, business management, and social media accounts. I designed my first board game in 7th grade as a school project and have enjoyed playing and designing games ever since. I am married and have two children who are growing to love games as well. Aside from games, I enjoy disc golf, singing, and being outdoors. I am originally from Michigan, but have also lived in Indiana, Ohio, and Texas for a time. I have a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Masters in Wildlife Management. My work history also includes a hardware store, a coffee shop, a university, a camp, a church, and a disc golf business.

I have had a lot of people invest in me over the years and I am happy to be able to return the favor to others through this business because we could all use a little more generosity and compassion in our lives. We hope to encourage others to join our efforts to make the world a better place, no matter how small our contribution might be. Together we can make Games for Good.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

When I had the idea to create Bivouac I was working as the business manager for a year-round camp and retreat center in Southwest Michigan. Every summer I met 30-40 college-aged students that arrived to help us run our summer programs. One of those summers I met Jordan. He was hired as the summer videographer and also had some skill in graphic design and woodworking. I was good at game design and strategy, but I knew nothing about graphic design, so I asked if he would be interested in helping me design the artwork for Bivouac. He expressed interest and we began talking more about my aspirations for the business and all that I wanted to accomplish with it. He was excited about the possibilities and I immediately knew he was going to be an integral part of pushing this type of business to the next level. I asked if he would like to be even more involved as a co-owner of the business and when he agreed we came up with the name Sly Game Design together. It became a legal, Michigan-registered entity in 2019 and we have been working together since.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The idea of running a crowdfunding campaign sounds like a dream at first. You think everyone will love your idea, start throwing money at it, and it will be funded in no time. It can be deceptive when you see new games acquiring tens of thousands of dollars of pledges in the first several hours of a 30-day campaign. Rightly or wrongly, large companies have taken advantage of crowdfunding platforms and skewed our perception of how easy it is to fund a boardgame idea. As a new small business, it certainly wasn’t easy for us. We had no previous experience running a campaign and we had no capital outside of our two, personal savings accounts to throw into marketing, prototypes, website creation, or any other overhead expenses.

We did some research and built some momentum, but in the end we failed. Whether it was the unfortunate timing of a launch date just before a world-wide pandemic or insufficient planning we will never know. What is important is that we didn’t give up. We went back to the drawing board, waited out the pandemic and launched again. This time it worked. Bivouac was fully funded and the first step was complete. Little did we know, that was the easiest part.

Next we moved on to manufacturing and fulfillment. Did we want to use a cheaper manufacturer in China or a more expensive one in Europe? Eventually, we made the choice to go with an eco-friendly, Europe-based manufacturer that we could trust to treat its employees fairly. We were happy to pay a little more for that type of service. But that is not where our profit took the biggest hit. We lost thousand of dollars during fulfillment due to unforeseen circumstances regarding shipping, customs, and extra fees around the world. Some of that was post-pandemic fallout, some was Brexit, and some was a lack of experience in the international shipping game. Once again, we didn’t give up. We completed fulfillment in good time and continued plowing ahead.

Was crowdfunding easy? No. Was it worth navigating in order to come out the other side armed with more experience and know-how? It was for us. We have learned valuable lessons from our mistakes and we plan to continue making Games for Good as long as the world lets us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://slygamedesign.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sly.game.design/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/SlyGameDesign