The Board Game Billionaire: From a $10k Kickstarter to $100M/Year Business

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Board Game Billionaire: From a $10k Kickstarter to $100M/Year Business"

Introduction

In this episode of My First Million, hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri delve into the fascinating journey of Elan Lee, the mastermind behind the wildly successful board game company Exploding Kittens. Released on April 21, 2025, the episode explores how Lee transformed a modest Kickstarter campaign into a thriving business generating over $100 million annually. Through engaging discussions and insightful anecdotes, Lee shares his strategies for creativity, marketing, and sustaining long-term success in the competitive board game industry.

Origin Story of Exploding Kittens

Elan Lee’s adventure into the board game world began with a profound realization about the nature of games and social interactions. Previously serving as the Chief Design Officer at Xbox, Lee witnessed firsthand how his games, designed for digital platforms, failed to foster meaningful social connections when played by his family. As he recounts:

"Within two weeks, I resigned from Xbox and thought, whatever I do next, it has to capture what I remember in my childhood." (08:07)

Determined to create a game that emphasized relationships and interpersonal fun, Lee embarked on designing a simple card game. The initial idea, titled Bomb Squad, aimed to engage players in avoiding “bomb” cards. However, a pivotal conversation with Matthew Edmond, creator of The Oatmeal, led to a transformative rebranding:

"What if instead, the thing that you were most scared of were cute, adorable, fuzzy little kittens? And we'll call the game Exploding Kittens instead." (10:59)

Kickstarter Campaign Success

With Exploding Kittens born out of creative collaboration, Lee and his team launched their Kickstarter campaign with a modest goal of $10,000. Thanks to Edmond’s influential endorsement, the campaign skyrocketed:

"We hit our $10,000 goal in seven minutes. And in the first 48 hours, we had $2 million." (00:00)

Buoyed by this early success, Lee and Edmond decided to pivot their approach from funding-centric to crowd-centric. Instead of traditional stretch goals based on monetary milestones, they introduced engaging community-driven goals, encouraging backers to contribute creative content and participate actively in enhancing the game. This innovative strategy propelled the campaign to a staggering $8.5 million, attracting over 219,000 backers and setting a record in Kickstarter’s game category.

Unique Marketing Tactics

Lee’s unconventional marketing tactics played a crucial role in Exploding Kittens' phenomenal growth. At conventions like PAX, where competing companies invested heavily in extravagant booths, Lee opted for creative stunts to draw attention without breaking the bank. Notable strategies include:

1. Urinal Advertising: Lee placed kitten-themed decorations with "fuses" in restroom urinals, prompting humorous interactions.

   "We put these adorable kittens holding bombs in every urinal. You had to pee on them to extinguish the bomb." (32:02)

2. Vending Machine Extravaganza: Transforming a simple folding table into an 8-foot fur-covered cat vending machine, Lee and his team manually dispensed random items, creating a spectacle that drew massive crowds.

   "The line for our silly little fur-covered vending machine was longer than the line to get into the convention itself." (35:58)

3. Creative Constraints: By defining specific constraints such as creating the most entertaining vending machine experience, Lee focused the team’s creativity towards achievable and impactful goals.

   "I am going to build a vending machine that must attract 10,000 people." (46:20)

These inventive approaches not only garnered attention but also fostered a strong community around the brand, ensuring sustained interest and loyalty.

Philosophy on Game Design

At the heart of Exploding Kittens’ success lies Lee’s unique philosophy on game design. He posits that:

"Games should not be entertaining. Games should make the people you're playing with entertaining." (22:11)

This principle shifts the focus from the game’s inherent entertainment value to its ability to amplify the fun and creativity of its players. By designing games that serve as a catalyst for player interaction and creativity, Lee ensures that each gameplay experience is unique and engaging. This approach fosters replayability and word-of-mouth promotion, essential factors for long-term success.

Creativity and Problem Solving

Lee emphasizes the importance of creativity within constraints, drawing parallels to renowned problem solvers like Richard Feynman. His approach involves:

1. Defining Clear Constraints: Starting with specific, achievable parameters to channel creative efforts.

   "Creativity loves constraints. You use the constraint to get yourself to think a little bit differently." (47:39)

2. Identifying and Solving Problems: Focusing on problem identification rather than generic brainstorming to generate actionable ideas.

   "I'm teaching problem identification, and then creative people will be able to solve those problems." (56:23)

3. Persistent Innovation: Encouraging a mindset that views obstacles as opportunities to innovate rather than dead ends.

   "When someone tells you no, instead of assuming that that's the answer, assume you ask the wrong question." (41:55)

These strategies not only drive product innovation but also empower the team to navigate challenges effectively, ensuring the company’s resilience and adaptability.

Leadership and Company Culture

Lee’s leadership style is characterized by a blend of perfectionism and fostering a creative environment. While his exacting standards sometimes strain relationships with external partners, internally, Lee cultivates a passionate and dedicated team:

"Very few people ever quit. But our printers despise working with me because I'm absolutely a perfectionist." (27:46)

He prioritizes hiring creative individuals and providing them with clear parameters to explore innovative solutions. Lee believes in leading by example, actively participating in the creative process and encouraging his team to push boundaries.

Additionally, Lee’s focus on community-building and customer engagement ensures that the company remains aligned with its audience’s desires, maintaining relevance and enthusiasm for its products.

Conclusion

Elan Lee’s journey with Exploding Kittens exemplifies how creative problem-solving, innovative marketing, and a player-centric design philosophy can transform a simple card game into a billion-dollar enterprise. By prioritizing community engagement over mere funding, and focusing on making players the source of entertainment, Lee has carved out a unique niche in the board game industry. His insights on leadership, creativity, and resilience offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and creatives alike, demonstrating that success lies not just in the product itself but in the experience it fosters among its users.

Notable Quotes:

• "Games should not be entertaining. Games should make the people you're playing with entertaining." — Elan Lee (22:11)
• "Creativity loves constraints. You use the constraint to get yourself to think a little bit differently." — Elan Lee (47:39)
• "When someone tells you no, instead of assuming that that's the answer, assume you ask the wrong question." — Elan Lee (41:55)
• "The funding was a really nice side effect, though." — Elan Lee (14:36)

Follow Elan Lee:

• YouTube: Search for Elan Lee for long-form content.
• TikTok & Instagram: @elanlee for short-form tips and game design insights.

Transcript

[Elan Lee]

We launched this thing saying, all right, let's aim for $10,000. We hit our $10,000 goal in seven minutes. And in the first 48 hours, we had $2 million. After that is when the story gets really interesting.

[Sam Parr]

I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on a road.

[Elan Lee]

Let's travel.

[Sam Parr]

Never.

[Sean Evans]

Okay, well, good. Sam, do you want me to kick it off?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. Wait. Well, yeah, I do. First of all, Sean, how did you guys even come in the same world?

[Sean Evans]

Craig. So we invited Craig to the event because Craig's one of my favorite people, even though he doesn't play basketball. We were like, craig, you got to be there. You're the. The. The exemption. You know, you're not the basketball guy, but we just want you there for sure. And we told him what it was. He got excited, and he goes, I have somebody who I think should come. And we were like, okay, great. Who's the plus one? And he was, I guess. How long have you guys been friends?

[Elan Lee]

It's gotta be a decade now. It's so funny. Cause he called me up and he's like, okay, I have the weirdest invitation ever. It's a basketball event, but I'm not going to be playing basketball. And I was like, okay, that's as weird as it gets. And then we started talking, and I'm so glad I went. It was amazing.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah, that's actually a big leap of faith for you, because, you know, we know Craig, so obviously, you know, there's a personal connection there. What did he say that made you get off the couch for that?

[Elan Lee]

I mean, he didn't. He honestly didn't give me many details. But in general, Craig is one of those people on this list I have where if he says to try something, I just try it and don't ask questions. There's only, like, four people on that list, but he's on there, so I'm so glad I did it.

[Sean Evans]

Exactly. And ever since we met you at that event, I was like, okay, we have to have you on, because you blew us away. Just to give people context. All right, so there's a room full of people. Imagine 25. We tried to invite the 25 most interesting, ambitious people that we could find who also love to play basketball in this case. And the room is like. I mean, it's basically like 30% billionaire. And so there's a lot of successful people in that room. And I would say you blew us away. The Most you gave this talk that really kind of inspired us. And I would say you blew away for three reasons. Number one, your business is like a giant dragon, but it looks like a playful, cute dragon. And so, you know, people don't look at it and think, wow, this is a juggernaut. You have a board games company. If anybody's ever seen the games, like exploding kittens, that's your game. And not only is that your game, you were telling us, we were like so like of the top games, like, you know, is yours number one. And you, I don't know, I want to paraphrase you exactly, but you go, we have number one, two, four and five of the top five sold games in the world. And I just thought that was incredible. So you have this huge business, but you have this artist spirit where you're the nicest guy and you're creatively driven. It didn't seem like you got into this for the money. You got into this to have fun and you gave this talk at night, this little presentation, a little 10 minute presentation that blew us all away. So that's why I wanted you to be here. You can respond to that. And then, Sam, I want to hear your impressions too, before we jump in.

[Elan Lee]

Well, first of all, even before, like, I would just love to say that is so flattering. Like, I showed up to that event, like about as fish out of water as it gets and imposter syndrome, like you know, dripping out my ears, it was just this, this room is filled with incredible people. And Sean, I think it was you. I think, I think the very first few minutes I remember I asked you like, why are we here? Like, what is this thing? And you had to best answer ever. You said, everyone in this room is smarter than I am. I'm going to spend the next three days learning as much as I can. I hope you're here for the same reasons. And I was just like, holy crap, I have found my tribe. Here's where I want to be. This is so great.

[Sam Parr]

There was one moment when I was with you in the sauna and you asked me and maybe Austin Reif or someone like that. You're like, can I get your guys opinion on something? And you like express like, you know, opinions on an investor conversation, something. You're like, can you just give me your take on this? And we gave you our opinions and you asked the question in a way where I thought I was helping you. And then I was like, how big is your business? And then you said the numbers and my reply was, why Are you asking me this question like you are you. It's so funny. You win the award for most humble person because you're acting like you are in this room of big shots when like, of all the people there, you were the big shot. Are you able to give any numbers? Whatever you're comfortable with to give the audience a sense of how big exploding kittens is? Like if it's valuation, games sold, revenue, anything you want, I have to be.

[Elan Lee]

A little careful because we have investors who, who like to keep it under wraps. But I'll tell you this, we sell. We did this math. This was so ridiculous. We sell a game every 6.4 seconds round the clock. And our first, like we started our company on Kickstarter in 30 days. We were trying to raise $10,000. We raised almost 9 million instead. Our first print run was 700,000 units. And that was mind blowing. Like, how the hell do you print 700,000 games? And for scale, I'll tell you, that is today, like so such a tiny print order for us. Like I wouldn't even consider printing that many because they'd sell out so fast it wouldn't even be worth our while.

[Sean Evans]

One of the coolest things was when you took us, we went to Target and Walmart and we were walking around the store and you took us to the games aisle of a Target and you were just kind of breaking it down. Like this shelf, a shelf that I've walked by hundreds of times, don't really pay much. You know, I don't even think about it. I just, I either buy something or I don't, I don't think about the business of the shelf. And you talked about this sort of like, you know, this sort of six foot, six foot space. And it was like, this shelf is like, I mean, I won't use your numbers, but I'll just give a generic idea of like this shelf is like hundreds of millions of dollars and every inch of this shelf for Target the way they think is like sales per square inch or something like that. And you were describing how that works and then you were like, yeah, you know, I'm trying to figure out our Walmart sale, so I'm going to go work as a Walmart associate for the next few weeks just to get kind of an on the ground look and not like a marketing stunt. You were like, no, I genuinely want to know. So. And you said you were going to do that right after our event. Did you end up doing it?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, they postpone it. This, honestly, this, this tariff thing Right now has turned everything into quite turmoil. But it looks like it's going to now be scheduled for September. So I'll be going to Arkansas to work at Walmart for a bit. But the whole reason it's. You're right, it's not a stunt. Like, my goal isn't like, hey, I want to tell the world about this and get publicity. Like in order to sell products at any retail location, you have to understand the customer and you have to understand when they're walking into a space, what are they looking for and what turns them off and what turns them on. And if they pick up a game and then put it back, why did they put it back? And it's not. So much of it is contextual. It's not necessarily the game. Right? It's not necessarily. I looked at this game and it wasn't for me. It's. I looked at this game and then something else caught my eye. So I put this down and I picked it up and those are the stories I need to hear in order to be as successful as possible. And I just figured finally, like, the only way I'm going to get this is by living there and spending as long as it takes to talk to people and figure out like, why'd you put that game down? Why'd you pick that one up? Why'd you walk in here to begin with? And yeah, I just think I have so much to learn. I'm really excited to do it.

[Sam Parr]

How big is the company in terms of employees and how old is it company is.

[Elan Lee]

We just had our 10 year anniversary, so we just turned 10. We got about 100 employees, a little less. And yeah, we're, we're based out of Los Angeles, although we've got offices in Canada and in Europe and kind of all over the place. Everywhere. We have a distribution center. We also have an office.

[Sean Evans]

So give us the origin story. So how do you, how did you do this? Why did you, why did you decide to create a board game and then how did you do this? Kickstarter that blew everybody's socks off. You set out to raise 10k and said you raised 9 million or something like that.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Evans]

And then now it's this company that's making, you know, I don't know exactly how much makeup you don't have to confirm or deny, but I'll just put it out there. I think you've built a billion dollar games company and in a space that I think most people, the cool part is most people think you either are going to choose something for the money. I got to go do this sweaty B2B, you know, business, HR, tech, whatever. Or I'm going to have fun. I'm going to build something cool that's fun, that will give people delight and joy. You got both. You did both. You did the fun thing, and you ended up with the money prize, too. That's why I love about your story. And so how the heck did this happen? Can you just tell us the kind of origins?

[Elan Lee]

Sure, yeah. It's a bizarre story. So I used to work. I've been designing games my whole life, but the most notable place I worked was at the Xbox. I was the chief design officer there, building games for the Xbox forever. And. And I remember one day. So one day, my brother, he's got two kids, and I love them. My niece and nephew, they're the best. And Zeke and Kiki and I walked over to their house. I was so excited to see them, and they were playing Xbox when I walked in, and I was like, hey, how's everybody doing? And they didn't even look up. Like, didn't even acknowledge my existence. And to add insult to injury, they were playing a game that I designed, and I was like, oh, I've broken something so fundamental here. Like, this just feels wrong. And within two weeks, I resigned from Xbox and thought, whatever I do next, it has to capture what I remember in my childhood. Right? Like, when I think about playing games, you know, other than the nes, there really weren't any consoles at all. So we were playing around a table, and we were cheating and kicking each other under the table and throwing food and making all those, like, alignments and betraying each other and all this fun stuff. I don't even remember what the games were. I remember the relationships. And it's because we, like, looked each other in the eye and we could lie right to each other's faces or secretly conspire to make my younger brother lose. That was a favorite activity. But I remember all these really fun things that were, I think, very formative for me. And so when I resigned, I thought, I want to return to that. And certainly the first step is really simple. I'm just going to design this very simple card game and see, like, Kickstarter exists. I'll put this thing up on Kickstarter. I'll try to raise just a little tiny bit of money.

[Sam Parr]

What's a little bit? Like, $10,000?

[Elan Lee]

You thought $10,000 and $10,000 wasn't an arbitrary number. I, like, I called up a printer and I Said, look, I want to do this thing. What's the minimum print run? And he said, you got to print out. You know, I think it was, like, 400 units. And I was like, okay, well, how much does that cost? And it came out to just about $10,000. And I was like, cool. There.

[Sam Parr]

We really, all, because of you, felt some type of guilt about your. Your family being using screens?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, I felt like I was on the wrong path. I felt like I was part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

[Sam Parr]

Was that a big thing? Like, were you getting wealthy from that? I mean, chief Design Officer sounds like you're. You're. That's a big deal.

[Elan Lee]

If you had asked me, then, the answer would have been yes. Now, my scale is a little bit different.

[Sean Evans]

And so when you. When you do this, you've never made a card game before, right? You've never. This is not something you grew up doing. You can use your skill. You're a beginner at this stage.

[Elan Lee]

Totally. Literally my first try. But the stakes are so low, right? Like, if I'm just going to be making a few hundred units, even if the thing is totally broken, that's okay. People, you know, they're going to pay 20 bucks for this thing. They know. This is my first time ever trying this. Like, this will be easy, right? And I showed the game to a bunch of friends, and one of those friends was Matthew Edmond, and he is the creator of the Oatmeal, the online comic. He's, like, the funniest guy I know. And he's like. He's the audience whisperer. He knows how to command a crowd, and he knows how to get their attention, and he knows how to keep them engaged, and just this incredible, brilliant mind. And I showed him this game, and he said, what's it called? And I said, it's called Bomb Squad because we got a deck of cards and there's a few bombs in the deck, and those are the bad ones. We try to avoid the bombs, and all you're trying to do is get through the deck and not draw a bomb. And he said a few things. He said, one, this is the best game I've ever played. I would really, really like to work on this with you. Will you please let me work on this with you? And I was like, yes. Like, hell, yes. If the Omiel ever asks you if he can work on a game with you, your answer is yes. Like, holy crap, what an opportunity. And he said, cool. The second thing is, we can't call it Bomb Squad because It's too obvious. Like, bombs are bad. Of course you're scared of the bomb. There's bombs in the deck. You're scared of the bombs. It's called Bomb Squad. Who cares? You're going to forget that in five seconds. What if instead, the thing that you were most scared of were cute, adorable, fuzzy little kittens? And we'll call the game Exploding Kittens instead. And that's really the origin story. Like that one simple conversation. Happened to meet the right person at the right time, and we decided to collaborate on this thing. And then we had the discussion with the distributor and he's like, matt said, we're going to do more than 400 units. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. This is totally risky. Neither of us ever made a game before. And so a friend of mine, a guy named Dan Shapiro, he runs glowforge, he gave me this incredible advice when I was talking to him about what number to set our Kickstarter campaign. He said, look, when this campaign runs, you have no control. Like, there's going to be, hopefully, stories written about your campaign, but you don't control any of them. They get to set the narrative and you just sort of hold on. But what you can control are the stories that are like, tried to raise X, instead raised Y, hit their goal in X minutes, right? All of these statistic data driven stories, you control those by setting that one number that you have control over, setting that at the appropriate place. And he was totally right. And so we set it at 10,000, knowing this is probably a little low, but it is the truthful minimum that we need for our order. Minimum. And now we can control those stories.

[Sam Parr]

Were any of you guys, like, famous back then? I know what the oatmeal is, but is that, like, big enough where you're like, where? He's like, dude, I'll blow this up. Just like, tell me when it turns.

[Elan Lee]

Out the answer is yes. But none of us really knew it at the time. So we launched this thing saying, all right, let's aim for $10,000 because of Matt. Matt made a single post saying, hey, oatmeal fans, for the first time ever, I made a game. I'm really proud of it. I hope you like it. Here it is. And we hit our $10,000 goal in seven minutes. And it's because of Matt, 100% of Matt. He made one post, hit $10,000, and then within the first 12 hours, maybe it was closer to 24. It's 10 years ago. We raised a million dollars 100% because of Matt. And in the first 48 hours, we had $2 million, 100% because of Matt. After that is when the story gets really interesting, because 48 hours in all, the oatmeal fans that are going to back this thing have backed it, right? They've seen this post. They know they're interested in this thing, or they decide they're not interested in this thing, and they've either purchased it or not, and that's it. The sales price ON that is $2 million. Amazing. Like, we are off to the races. We can do anything now. We've raised $2 million. And Matt and I sat down and we're like, okay, we now have a choice. Either we can say we have raised $2 million. That is one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in history in the games category. And we can just kind of ride this thing out knowing that we're not going to raise much more than that. Maybe we'll get to 2.5 and we'll declare that a huge victory. Or we can bet it all. Like, what if we just went absolutely crazy and deployed every marketing strategy either of us have ever heard of, and we shook hands and said, let's do it. Let's try as big and as bold as this thing can possibly be. And on Kickstarter, they've got these things called stretch goals, right? We've met our game, but if we get. I don't know, we've raised $10,000. If instead we raise $20,000, everybody gets a free carrying case, $50,000, we're going to add 10 more cards into the game. Stretch goals, right? They're trying to motivate people to back the project. I sat down and I thought, this whole thing is crowdfunding and all of those stretch goals. Every strategy I've read, every YouTube video I've watched, everything is based on funding. Like, they ignore the crowd part, and they're just like, laser, focus on funding, funding, funding, funding. And I was like, I think that's backwards. I think instead we're going to ignore the funding because we've already got 2 million bucks. And let's just focus on the crowd part. And instead of doing traditional stretch goals, all of our stretch goals were based on the crowd. So we're like, look, we don't care about money anymore. Don't give us any more money. We don't want any more money. Nothing we talk about from now on is going to be about money, because the funding doesn't matter. Let's have a party and everyone is invited. So we're like, look, we're going to do those same things. We're also going to give you a carrying case and 10 extra cards and all that fun stuff. But it's not based on how much money you give us. It's based on how much fun you have. So show us a picture of 10 Batmans in a hot tub, whatever the hell that means. Show us a picture of that. Or show us a picture of 100 people dressed up as cats. Or show us the craziest, most interesting things you can come up with. And every time you do that, we're going to make the game better and you're not going to pay us more. We're just going to make the game better because this is fun and we've already raised enough money. Let's have a party. And we did that for the next 28 days and we watched our numbers just skyrocket. I'm going to focus on the crowd part here. Right. Like, we had, I don't know, let's say we had 1,000 backers at that point. By the end of this thing, we had 219,000 backers for this campaign that is so far in first place of any Kickstarter campaign in history. To date. It's been 10 years and no one's even come close to that record. And it's because we said the funding is completely irrelevant. All that matters is the crowd. The funding was a really nice side effect, though.

[Sam Parr]

But it was eight and a half million dollars that you got.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, there was that, too.

[Sean Evans]

So wait, give us an example. So you said 10 Batman in a bathtub. What were the other things that you did to get the crowd to do?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, we said, so one of our characters in our game is called Tacocat, which is my favorite character. Right. Taco Cat is a palindrome. Spell Taco Cat backwards and you've still got Tacocat. So we had this adorable character and we said, look, we don't actually know what Tacocat is, But show us 25 pictures of real Taco cats and we'll make the game better.

[Sam Parr]

When you say show us, do you mean like, post in the comments section?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, post it in the comments.

[Sam Parr]

So it was basically just like an online message board that you were using.

[Elan Lee]

And whatever social media platform you wanted, we just said, you know, tag us on it and that's all we care about.

[Sean Evans]

And so that was the virality. They were posting an image that didn't make any Sense in the feed and they tag you guys. That got people curious to go check you out.

[Elan Lee]

Is that what the hell is. Have you stuffed your cat into a burrito? What is happening here? And on and on Those pictures went 1. We had this veterinarian who worked at an animal shelter and she showed us. All she did was she had a picture of her holding this adorable cat and a piece of paper. And the piece of paper showed that she had legally changed the cat's name to Taco Cat for real. And we're like, all right, that's about as real a taco cat as it gets. So we gave credit for that one as well. And it just, it went on and on and on like that for 30 days. Every time we thought, here's a challenge way too hard, they absolutely smashed them. And then we would just. Our challenge was every day, how do we come up with five new challenges that's gonna keep everyone entertained.

[Sam Parr]

New York City founders. If you've listened to my first million before, you know I've got this company called Hampton and Hampton is a community for founders and CEOs. But a lot of the stories and ideas that I get for this podcast, I actually got it from people who I met in Hampton. We have this big community of a thousand plus people and it's amazing. But the main part is this eight person core group that becomes your board of advisors for your life and for your business. And it's life changing. Now to the folks in New York City, I'm building a in real life core group in New York City. And so if you meet one of the following criteria, your business either does 3 million in revenue or you've raised 3 million in funding, or you've started and sold a company for at least $10 million, then you are eligible to apply. So, so go to joinhampton.com and apply. I'm going to be reviewing all of the applications myself. So put that you heard about this on mfm so I know to give you a little extra love. Now back to the show.

[Sean Evans]

You have these little one liners that are like, what if instead of the funding, we focused on the crowd? It's like this like simple idea that then you. And then you run with them. So it's like that. If I was going to describe you, I'd say he takes silly ideas very seriously. There's old Charlie Munger. Take a simple idea and take it seriously. I think yours is take a silly idea and take it seriously. You do that with your games, you do that with your, with your Marketing campaigns. And you did this. When we were at the event, we do this thing where we put everybody on the hot seat and let's say somebody's like a real estate mogul. We'll just, instead of saying, hey, tell us about your business. We'll just say, all right, so how do you make a billion dollars in real estate? What's the secret? And like in your case, like, what's the secret? How do you make hit game after hit game after hit game in a hits business that normally sounds like something that's just a game of chance, but you're doing it again and again and again. You must know something. And you said a great line. Can you describe your philosophy around games? Because you said it in a one liner that just stuck with me.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. Oh, I love that you focused on this one. So the line is games should not be entertaining. Games should make the people you're playing with entertaining. And that simple line, which is a very silly line, Like, I remember the first time we pitched it to our investors, we're like, we're not going to make entertaining games. And they're like, never say that again. Like, never put that in any piece of writing ever. And instead we put it as the first line on our webpage. Because games should not be entertaining. If you're making an entertaining game, you're trying way too hard and it's you versus the audience, which means when you're done entertaining them, they're going to go away and never come back. If instead your goal is, I'm just making a tool set, My tool set is going to make the people that you are playing with the entertainment. Suddenly you've got an engine. Suddenly every time they play it's different. Suddenly they constantly want to come back. They want to play it over and over again. They want to take it to new friend's house. You make a piece of cardboard, right? A deck of cards. You've turned that into a viral engine. And that's the secret to success in the board game industry.

[Sam Parr]

But that sort of is like going to the Met and seeing a Picasso and being like, dude. It's just like scribbly lines. Like, this is unimpressive. You dismissing it as just a. It doesn't explain why your company is potentially worth billions of dollars and makes potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue. What is actually happening? Because we've had all these rich and successful billionaires on the pod and I'll meet them and I'm like, oh, you're really nice. And then I Start thinking like, well, no, this guy's a shark. Like, you must be a shark to be this successful. So, like, what else are you not. What are you not telling us that has allowed this company to become a potentially allegedly multibillion dollar company?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, well, one is you have to do it consistently, which is hard, right? But how do you tell if your game is a tool set to make people entertaining? And, like, unless you have the. The litmus test, right, unless you can quantify the data that you're putting in those boxes, like, then it's just a theory. And I remember we started taking submissions from external inventors and I just eventually started rubber stamping them with, here's why we're rejecting you, because you're trying too hard to be entertaining. And it was incredible. Like, hundreds of these submissions. And every game designer was making the same mistake where they're like, I am building an entertaining thing. And I kept having to remind them, we're not buying entertaining things. And eventually we found like one or two inventors we could work with. And then I had to design all the others, which is totally cool because I know what I'm looking for. But how do you test it? How do I know that I'm hitting that mark way before the thing hits the market? Because by then we could have already screwed it up. So I figured out one bit of quantifiable data that lets me back up that claim. When I say a game is not entertaining, it makes the players entertaining. I can back that up. And the way I can back it up is in our testing procedure. We have this group of 400 families called the Kitty Test pilots. And all we do is we send them games all day long and we ask for feedback. And it used to be we would send them this crazy Google form. We're like, how long did you play? How many players? How old are they? What was your favorite part? What was the part you hated? What part needs work on and on and on, like 30, 40 questions. And I realized, like, nobody's reading these. Like, I don't even care about what this is. And by the time I finish reading their answers to this questionnaire, I haven't actually learned anything about whether or not this game has made the players entertaining. And so we now send out a questionnaire. And it has one question on it, just one start to finish, one question. And that question is, do you want to play again? And I have found that that question is the most direct heat seeking missile. To answer the question, have you made the players entertaining? Because if a game is entertaining. You have extracted almost all the entertainment from it on your first time through. But if the players are entertaining, you want to play again. And we only now ship games where 100% of that question's answer is yes. We get even a single no. We dive into that person and we watch the videos and we figure out what happened there because they should want to play again. And if they don't, we've got something to fix.

[Sam Parr]

I think the most successful people. Sean, have you ever studied like personality tests and like, and read about disagree agreeableness and how the people who are most successful rank very low on agreeableness? Right.

[Sean Evans]

Disagreeable is a positive trait for founders.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, because like the very simple example is you just are on you. You don't accept how things are done. You disagree with that, therefore you want to go make your own. Oftentimes, people who rank high on disagreeableness are jerks. You alon do not. You are not a jerk. You are objectively a sweet person. But you seem like you are hiding this disagreeableness because, like, for example, you have incredibly high standards or you just made a survey where a lot of staff might be like, well, we have to ask 10 questions. We can't just ask one question. But you're like, no, no, no. You see, this makes sense. For this reason, do people enjoy working with you? Because, like, I guess I'm fascinated on how your ability to be disagreeable but also polite and it seems very effective.

[Elan Lee]

It depends on who you ask. So I think, I think my team likes working with me at the very least. Very few people ever quit. But if you were to ask our printers, if you were to ask our distribution partners, I think they hate working with me. Like, despise it. And the reason is because I am absolutely a perfectionist. What I do for a living is make little boxes of joy. And if you open a box and there's something obvious wrong with it or the card quality is not where it should be, or like in exploding kittens. You don't know which card is an exploding kitten. It has to be a surprise, right? And that means the backs of every card have to be identical. And if I can detect one degree off in the Pantone registry of this card versus this one, I'm sending the entire. I don't care how many millions are in that shipment. I'm sending every single one of them back and I'm not paying a penny. And you are going to reprint them for me. So they hate me. And I get it. But also, I don't think the company would be where it is today if I said, yeah, we'll just ship it that way and the next run will be better.

[Sean Evans]

I love that you also have a approach to marketing that I think is very different than most founders. It was really inspiring to me when I started to hear these stories. Can you talk about some of the unconventional hustle things? Because if I'm listening to this right now, I'm like, okay, cool. So he was like, Had a. Cool, like, a sick job at xbox. He quit. First game. First hit Wonder hit Exploding Kittens, which is like, the number one game in the world for I don't know how many years now. Oh, his buddy happened to be the oatmeal guy, so he had instant distribution. Must be nice, right? I'll just be YouTube comment guy for a second. Yo. Must be nice to be, you know, to have. Have connected, powerful friends. Ah, that's why I'm not successful.

[Elan Lee]

Right?

[Sean Evans]

That's, I think, where most people land and stuff like that. What they don't know is that first there's all this. That person's not just your friend. There's actually, like, luck that you create along the way to create those types of opportunities. So either you could talk about that, or you could talk about some of the hustle tactics you guys did. Like the vending machine, like, other stuff. You guys have done that where you were not just, like, handed the keys to the castle, but you actually scraped your way there.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, the company you've just described is a company that would disappear in eight months, right? Like, there's no longevity to that at all. So once you have a hit game, which requires a lot of luck, but also a lot of skill, once you've gotten that, now the skill really has to kick in because now you have to make sure that thing doesn't disappear. Now you have to make sure your next 10 games are also successful. You need to make sure your profit margin on each game is where it should be. You need to make sure you build a community on and on and on. So I'll give you a few examples, and they're all kind of marketing. Once you have a company, once you have any degree of success, you have to be able to double down on that and get your audience to care passionately. So we used to go to this convention in Seattle called PAX Penny Arcade Expo. And we're a tiny company. We got no money for marketing. Right. We've had this one successful Kickstarter campaign. We spent literally every penny Actually producing the product and building the company. And now our bank account is empty and we show up to this thing and we've got like, no ability to get people's attention. And advertising is expensive and they literally rent out like every square inch of the walls in there. And so anything you want to do costs money, which we don't have. So I had this idea, and this.

[Sam Parr]

Convention is to impress other game makers or vendors to carry your game.

[Elan Lee]

Exactly. All of the above. Right? So you're getting, you're building a fan base, you're building other relationships, you're trying to get distribution, you're trying to get into retail stores. The only thing we had ever sold is a single product on Kickstarter. And now we got nothing left.

[Sean Evans]

By the way, people know what we do. These exhibits. If you go to one of these, you become an exhibitor. Your booth, like the big games, they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just on the booth. And you're like, you also sign up to be a booth, but you're just a fold out picnic table in section F over, you know, past the bathrooms. And you're just sitting there hoping somebody walks by your shitty table. And you're like, how am I supposed to compete with that?

[Sam Parr]

It's like Michael Scott in the job fair episode where he's like, you literally just have a table and you're trying to convince people to do. To come to you.

[Elan Lee]

I got the crappy sign that I printed on my little inkjet printer, and that's in the folding table, and that's it. And so the very first year, I was very proud of this. I knew we had to have marketing space and I couldn't find any that we could afford. So I made, I made these little kittens. I cut them out. Adorable, cute little kittens with our logo on it. And the kitten was holding a bomb and it said exploding kittens. And there was a fuse. And I secretly put one of those inside every urinal in the convention center. So you had to pee on them to extinguish the bomb. And it like, mobbed our booth. Like, everyone wanted to see who made these things. So much so that the organizers came to us and they said, you can't do this. And I was like, well, show me the part of my contract where it says, I can't do this. I understand you don't want me to do this, but show me where I can't. And they said, all right, well, we're not going to prohibit you from doing this because you're Right. You found a space that is just nowhere in our guidelines. But we'll tell you this, next year we're going to start charging for that space. So I think. I haven't checked because we haven't been back to pax, but I think they now charge for urinal advertising space, thanks to this little stunt weasel.

[Sean Evans]

Do you want to go get them out of there or are you expecting.

[Elan Lee]

Me to do not extract a single one of those.

[Sam Parr]

Actually, genius, the second years when you did the vending machine thing. This vending machine thing is insane.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, okay, so the vending machine was trying to solve the problem on a more permanent basis because, like I do this urinal thing and they shut it down and it honestly, it just wasn't big enough. Like that got us a few hundred people every day. But how do I get thousand? How do I get tens of thousands of people every day? So I looked at our little folding table and thought, you know, people come up to this thing and they give us money, they give us 20 bucks, they get a box and they walk away. And they have no memory of that transaction because all that really is is a vending machine. Right? You go, you put money in the vending machine, you push a button, you get your soft drink and you walk away. And you have no lasting memory of the interaction you just had because there's nothing remarkable about it. So I thought, all right, if we're going to be a vending machine, what if we were the world's coolest vending machine? Like the most spectacular vending machine the world has ever seen. And so I took an old refrigerator box I had in my garage, so this big 8 foot tall cardboard box and we cut some holes in it and we built. Sorry. We covered it with fur and these giant googly eyes so it looked like a cat. We built an 8 foot tall, fur covered cat. And it had a cut out a hole for a screen where we could like put a display. And it had little buttons and it had a little credit card reader. It had everything a vending machine should have. And the experience was you walk up to this thing, you put in your money, you push a button and a game comes out. Very, very simple. We're not talking anything crazy expensive or really anything that remarkable yet other than, okay, it's fur covered, it looks like a cat. That's kind of adorable. Nobody's ever seen a vending machine like this before. And that attracted a crowd, but then we had to push it over the top. So I put in an extra button and the extra button said random item, $1. Way cheaper than a game. What the hell does that mean? And so enough people were willing to try this experiment. What happens if I put a dollar in this and push random item? And so they'd put a dollar in and push random and out comes a pineapple from the vending machine, or a hot burrito or a bag of rocks, or a plumber's.

[Sean Evans]

And it's just you behind it, just sticking your hand out with a pineapple or whatever.

[Elan Lee]

So this was the thing. This is what we didn't tell any. Everyone assumed this is the world's most sophisticated vending machine because it can deliver 2,000 different objects. And people literally brought up chairs and they built little bleachers around this thing just to watch it for hour after hour after hour to see what the hell is going to come out of this thing.

[Sam Parr]

And basically for the listener, it looks like just a box, but the box backed up to like a curtain. And behind the curtain, I would imagine you had a whole team of people.

[Elan Lee]

Like, so there's the punchline. Instead of it being a vending machine, it was just a vending machine costume. There was no robotics in there. There's. There's no computers. There's nothing. There's eight of us sweating our asses off for 10 hours a day backstage. And every time someone pushes that random item button, we are literally pulling a random item and throwing it out the front of the machine. And we had. Our line got so long that it blocked our aisle, it blocked all the other super expensive, you know, million dollar booths. Nobody could walk up to those anymore. Cause our line was so long, it went out the door, it went out of the convention center, it went down the street. And the line for a silly little fur covered vending machine was longer than the line to get into the convention itself. And all of that's just because, like, we had no money and we had to think creatively about, like, what does it mean to build a community around a transaction. And that's what we came up with.

[Sam Parr]

Sean, have you ever read about Dr. Feynman?

[Sean Evans]

Richard Feynman?

[Sam Parr]

Richard Feynman, yeah, sorry. Have you read about him?

[Sean Evans]

So, yeah, a little bit. Why? What comes to mind here?

[Sam Parr]

He would like get super hands on with a problem and not. And question everything. And he would start at the very foundation of that question and basically not accept any truth before him. He would have to question each one in order to solve a problem. And one big example of this is he helped create the atomic bomb. And so they questioned all these previously thought rules that he broke. And Alon kind of has that same thing. And I admire this because I work really hard to have this, but I still don't have it entirely. This doesn't come naturally to me and I don't excel at it. But I think that for everyone listening, this skill set is really important, which is how do you be really creative? And the framework being you question everything at the very beginning and don't assume anything that you've ever been told is true. Is that right?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's accurate. And also, never take no for an answer. It makes no sense to ever have someone shut you down for any reason. So the vending machine is a great example. It's one of my favorites of. So we install this thing in a convention center, and we're handing out pineapples and watermelons and ridiculous objects, and we're putting googly eyes on them and giving them mohawks and all kinds of fun stuff. And we got to a convention in Indianapolis and they said, you can't do this because we cannot let you ship the produce backstage to your space on the convention floor. And I said, why? And they said, because you've exceeded what they called like a casual purchase. And now you have to. The only way that we can accept that much produce is to a registered grocer. And you're not a registered grocer, so you can't do this anymore. And I remember thinking like my whole team was like, okay, well, here's a dead end. We need to think through, like, what objects can we do instead? And I got so frustrated. I was like, you're just accepting a dead end here. And I don't think we need to. And it turns out it's easy trivial to become a registered grocer. I went to a website and you fill out a form, you pay like 100 bucks. And today Exploding Kittens is a registered grocer in Indiana. You know where else we're a registered grocer? 14 other states, because it's that easy as well. And so every convention we go to, we can now accept the shipments backstage. Because Exploding Kittens is also a grocery store.

[Sean Evans]

I love that. You know, when we were doing our event, Mr. Beast is there, Jimmy Donaldson and he. His production document. So like his training document for his team, like an older one, but had leaked online. And it's really fascinating to read this because here you have a guy who wrote this probably when he was 22, 23, 24 years old. Right. So it's kind of like, he's an expert at 24, but he's. He is an expert in YouTube. He'd actually been doing it for over a decade. He's the most successful YouTuber on the planet. And he's like, I know how to make videos that people watch. And one of the things that he talks about in there, he goes, push past the no. Just because you receive an initial no from somebody absolutely does not mean that it's a no forever. That it's a no under any circumstance, that there's a no without some caveats. And if you come back and you just say, I asked. You know, they said no. That's not an acceptable answer in our. In our.

[Elan Lee]

Org.

[Sean Evans]

Right? So he's like, you know, I wanted the pyramids for a video. The. The Egyptian pyramids. And they were like, his team told him no. And he goes, what do you mean? Like, who told you no? Egypt told you no. Who'd you call? What did they say? Why'd they say no? Did you call the other guy? Who's the other guy? Give me the number. Let's call him. Do they have kids? Let's FaceTime their kids. Let's see if that works. What are the different ways that we could do this just to accept an initial no? It's basically out of the. Is it culturally unacceptable at the company?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. I think that trait more than anything is what I've seen in successful business owners. And I don't know if it can be taught. It's more just that when you hear the word no, there are two possible reactions. One is, damn it. And the other is, I didn't hear that properly. Let me dig deeper. And it has to be instinctual. Like, every time you hear the word no, you have to think, okay, I didn't hear that properly. Let me dig deeper. Over and over and over again. I love that it's not just being.

[Sean Evans]

A jerk and saying. Just pushing on them, but being curious or being clever or being playful and trying to figure out if I had a trillion dollars, maybe you'd say yes. Okay, so, like, let's just agree it's not physically impossible to do this, right? Okay. Once it's not physically impossible, that means now there is a way. Let's just see what that way might look like.

[Elan Lee]

It's so good. Maybe the better way to phrase it is when someone tells you no. Instead of assuming that that's the answer, assume you ask the wrong question.

[Sam Parr]

Hey, Sean, we did this thing. I was talking to David, the guy who hosted the podcast founders the other day, and we did a show called the Anti Business Billionaires. And there's like a handful of people out there who are these billionaires who they shockingly don't care about revenue and profit. And they're like, very passionate about whatever it is they're making. The guy who started Patagonia is one of them where, like, he just doesn't seem like he cares about money. Or the guy who started Dyson, James Dyson, he's another guy where he oddly, he's obsessed with making vacuums. Do you care at all about revenue and profit or do you just see it as a, like, do you care about business?

[Elan Lee]

I didn't originally. Now, once I figured out how to look at business as another game that can be won, I suddenly started caring passionately about business. I used to think, all right, I don't actually want to be CEO of this company. What I want to be is lead designer. I'm going to hire a CEO. And we tried that for a while, and what I realized is everyone we hired into that spot was playing the game the wrong way and I want to play instead. And so now I actually love strategy meetings. I love business meetings. I love when we go in and talk about the next 10 years or how we're going to solve this very particular problem about this convention or this next game launch or this next partnership, because that is such a fun game. And I was like, in high school, I loved physics. Physics was my favorite topic until I realized I need to switch to computer science. And the reason I needed to switch was because for physics, everything they were teaching us, the answer was in the back of the book. If you had a problem, you could just flip to the back of the book. And I realized that computer science was very different because computer science was like the cutting edge. Like, there were no answers in the back of the book at all. You had to figure everything out as you go. And that was really exciting for me. That was like a life changing moment when I was 16. That's what business is to me. There are no answers at the back of the book. And if you want to win this game, you got to figure out what the rules are. Invent your own where you need to and get to that finish line before anybody else.

[Sam Parr]

Look at Sean's hands and look at. I just realized that whenever we do.

[Sean Evans]

This.

[Sam Parr]

You got us.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, you got us.

[Sean Evans]

Like, you know when you're talking to a girl and she puts her hair behind her ear, there's like some indicator of. Of like of attraction. When you're talking about this, I'm like, ah, this is beautiful. I mean, just the way you're describing this, like, there's no answers in the back of the book. Like, dude, that's inspiring. I, I, I love that. I love that stuff. I also think there's other things we could learn from you. So, you know, I've learned from you on, on the marketing side, and maybe we'll just close the loop on the marketing idea, which is it's one thing to hear the idea of the vending machine and be like, oh, wow, that's a great idea. I'm interested in what is the mindset that creates that idea? What are the questions that you ask? How do you brainstorm? What are you doing differently that's leading you to crazy answers like that that actually work? So, like, I don't know if you can describe it or if this is like asking, you know, Steph Curry how to shoot a jump shot. He's like, I don't know. I just kind of flick my wrist. It just goes in when actually a thousand little things are happening that he's not even attuned to. But, like, you know, for example, you said something like, what if? And I know what if. Questions are just a great tool in the tool belt for a creative thinker. It's very different than we should. It's just like, the language changes everything. What are some other things you do when you brainstorm?

[Elan Lee]

I love parameters. I hate blue sky brainstorming. The idea that, hey, let's sit down and create a game is the most terrifying experience in the world for me. Or, let's sit down and brainstorm anything and we don't know what it is.

[Sam Parr]

So what are the parameters for the last handful of meetings that you've had?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. So, okay, let me back up and say, like, you asked about marketing for a convention, right? I told you the story about the vending machine, but I also told you the parameters are baked into there. Like, we didn't start by saying, what's the coolest experience we can have at a convention, Right. We started by saying, this is a vending machine transaction. There's our parameters. What is the coolest vending machine experience we can craft?

[Sam Parr]

But you also said, how do we get tens of thousands of people to come without spending money instead of 300?

[Sean Evans]

Sort of an unreasonable target.

[Elan Lee]

Unreasonable is totally reasonable. Like, it's fine to set your goals that high as long as you understand the parameters of the problem. If I were to sit down and say, how do we get 10,000 people to come to our booth? I'm not going to get anywhere. I just have no chance of success there. But if I sit down and say, I am going to build a vending machine that must attract 10,000 people, now I'm running. Now I'm busy for the next 10 months building that thing because I know what that is.

[Sam Parr]

That's shockingly a useful tip, because I do the other thing, right? Just say, how do I get.

[Sean Evans]

How do I get the 10,000?

[Sam Parr]

How do I get 10,000 people to come?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, yeah. No, I. There are people who are great at it. Like, you know, you mentioned Mr. Beast, Jimmy. He is exceptional at that. Like, if you were to tell him, just like, I listened to your interview with him, right. And you're spitting out random nouns, and he's coming up with incredible ideas. He is exceptionally talented at that thing. I suck at it. I need to know exactly the shape of the box, and I will build you the coolest contents for that box in history. But unless I understand what that box is capable of holding, I just. I have no chance of success.

[Sean Evans]

So it sounds like. One way to put it is creativity loves constraints. And you use the constraint. You start with the constraint rather than starting with the. Just the desired outcome. Right. The desired outcome is there. It's part of the goal. It's the parameters. But you actually start with a constraint in order to get yourself to think a little bit differently. Do you have any other examples of kind of like this constraint style of thinking?

[Elan Lee]

We're asked to build a board game for a few different NFL teams. And what does that mean? How do you get an NFL audience to play with a board game? And if you were to just leave it there, you kind of don't have a chance. You're basically saying, build a good game. Go. And me personally, I'm going to suck at that task. But what we started to do was.

[Sean Evans]

And you're, like, the best in the world at doing this.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

So if you're going to suck at it, we're all going to suck at that.

[Elan Lee]

There's no chance of success. I promise you, zero chance of success. So instead we sat down and we said, okay, what is football like? What are the best moments? And I started writing this list. And my list was the magical moment where a player catches the ball against all odds. Everyone's covering them. It's impossible. It's impossible. Somehow it was a perfect throw, a perfect catch, and off they went to score. And I personally really focused on that.

[Sam Parr]

Do you Even care about football.

[Elan Lee]

Football matters very little to me, but only because it is very hard for me to watch people having fun without wanting to do that same thing myself.

[Sam Parr]

Well, that's pretty funny. But the reason I'm asking is because this is your perspective as a total outsider, where you just created the rules and.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's watching other people, right? Like, my family is obsessed with it. So I watch them watch football and I'm like, oh, that moment there. Okay, that moment there. And so we eventually built this game. It's called Catchables. And all it is, we made these cute little foam figures and we had an increasing series of challenges defined by the other players because the other players have to provide the entertainment where you have to throw an object, this little character in the air, and just catch it. So simple. Throw it, catch it. Really easy. But now players are going to start throwing cards at you. You have to do it blindfolded. You have to spin around before you catch it. You can only use one hand. You can only use two fingers. And like, what if I give you 10 of those cards at the same time? Now that very simple throw and catch has become really, really entertaining for everyone to watch. You defy the odds and at the last moment pull it off despite everyone's expectation. And the crowd goes wild.

[Sam Parr]

This sounds so trivial. This is actually pretty groundbreaking. So let's give a very. A specific example that's not related to you. So Sean works in the e commerce industry. Let's just say that Sean sells shoes. Sean owns a shoe company. And let's say growth has stagnated. And they. And he comes to a meeting and he goes, I, we need to. We need to. Our company needs to improve. We have to be better. What would like, be interesting constraints in order to make Sean's company better and make the meeting productive?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. What you'd want to do with a shoe company. I've never worked in shoes before, so bear with me. But I will. Anything you throw at me, I'm going to try to tie it back to a community. I'm going to try to tie it back to. How do I, by wearing these things, form more lasting, reasonable, exciting connections with other people? So what if you started printing out beautiful, incredible shoes that you'd be proud to wear? You love every single shoe that you make, but everyone has half a secret message on it and somebody else has the other half of that. Get your shoe next to them to read it, right? Like suddenly you have a reason to go. Not only tell your friends to Buy some or buy more yourself. But suddenly you have a reason to go seek them out in the world. You're walking through a crowded airport and you see someone with those shoes. Walk right over to them, Put your next chest to theirs. Let's check if we're the match. Yeah, exactly right. So now there's a very low percentage hit there. And so you'd have to probably redesign it to have a much higher percentage hit. And that's very achievable. But again, the first thing I'm going to do is define a constraint and say a successful shoe equals a reason to look for more of those shoes out in the world, because then more of those shoes are going to sell.

[Sam Parr]

That's pretty great.

[Sean Evans]

Wow. Just yesterday I was with my wife and we're walking out somewhere and this woman had a little Trader Joe's bag. And she goes, hey, sorry to bother you, but is that that bag that everyone's going crazy about online? In my mind, I'm like, people are going crazy about Trader Joe's bags nowadays. Like, what. What's going on? And I guess there's a little. I guess there's a certain design of a Trader Joe's bag. And it's not even like limited edition or luxury. I don't know what the full story is, but you're. It kind of highlighted to me. It's like, man, you could take any moment. It's like the moments in between the moments. And if you, if you do something interesting there, you give people a reason to feel special, a reason to connect, a reason to collect, a reason to. To. To. To do one of those things. It's like, damn, how much wasted surface area is there in my businesses where we're not just. Just by applying creativity, we create magic. We create. It's alchemy, right? We create value for people. If we just were a little more intentional versus just going on autopilot. And I think 99% of the time I'm just on autopilot in my businesses.

[Elan Lee]

I totally get it and I've been there as well. Can I tell you a story about. I'm so proud of particular solve for that problem. Okay, go. So my daughter Exploding Kittens is not the number one selling game in the world. It's number two, best selling game in the world. Number one is a game called Hurry Up Chicken Bite. Hurry Up Chicken Bite. I designed with my daughter. And when she turned 4, I was so excited because most of the games are like ages 4 and up. And when she turned 4, we went out and we bought all the games, right? We got Candyland and we got Zingo, all the games and took them home and we started playing. And I immediately noticed a problem, which was, I am having a miserable time. She's happy, she's playing with her dad. She's getting to see bright, flashy colors. Like all the stuff is designed for kids. But I am bored out of my mind. And what that results in is when we're done playing the game. One, I've let her win because I gotta let her win because if I try at all, I'm going to crush this poor four year old. And two is when we're done, she says, hey, daddy, can we play again? And all I'm thinking is, oh God, no. Like, I am so miserable. The last I did it, I did my time. We played the game. I'm gonna go do some. Go do something fun now. And I remember having that reaction and it must have shown on my face. And my daughter said, what's wrong? And I said, I think this game is broken. And she said something brilliant. She said, let's fix it. And like fireworks started going off in my head. Cause I was like, yeah, let's fix it. Like, why are we not fixing this? And I spent the next month, we split the work. My daughter started drawing pictures, like all the fun games, everything fun that she wanted in a game. And I started writing this list of what success looks like. And for me, it was, my daughter has to beat me without me letting her win, and I have to look forward to playing again. The game cannot be luck based. I have to watch my daughter get better at this game. Every time we play, I have to feel like she's learning something and there cannot be any losers. She can win, but nobody can lose.

[Sam Parr]

So those are your constraints?

[Elan Lee]

Those are my five.

[Sean Evans]

And by the way, did you start with just things you hated?

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying this like, oh, overnight I came up with these five things, but the list was like 25 things long. And I narrowed it down to those five which were the most important.

[Sean Evans]

I'm writing this book on creativity right now. And Jerry Seinfeld has this great quote. He says irritation is, is what causes innovation. And he's basically, he created Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee because he just hated going. He was so sick of going on late night talk shows and doing the same thing every time. He's like, all right, a talk show that has none of those things. In fact, my irritation is going to be my source of innovation. It sounds like, all of those things you talked about were sources of personal irritation for you.

[Elan Lee]

Every one of them, for sure. Everyone. They were the things that everybody was doing wrong and was the industry standard. Nobody had raised their hand and said, this is broken. Like, this is not fun for half the players who play this game, that half being the adults.

[Sam Parr]

Did you. Well, did you present those five things to your daughter? Or did you.

[Elan Lee]

Were you the one? She didn't care about those things.

[Sam Parr]

So you were the one. You were the one who. What I'm trying to get at is, can you present those five things to people at your company and they be just as creative and effective? Like, could they make hit games? Like, is this a. Is this a transformation transferable skill, a teachable skill?

[Elan Lee]

Absolutely, yes. Again, you're not teaching problem solving. You're teaching problem identification. And then creative people will be able to solve those problems. But if you try to solve. If you try to teach how to be creative, you never get anywhere. All you're really teaching is how to identify a problem, how to know what success looks like. And then you just hire creative people to work within those constraints.

[Sam Parr]

But then do you, as the leader, define if you have a hit?

[Elan Lee]

Yes. Well, well, hurry up. Chicken butt is an easy way. It's an easy definition because again, as soon as it went out to testing party, this was one of those games where when we sent it out to testing, not only was it 100%, yes, I want to play again. Nobody sent the games back. This is a huge problem for us. Like, we send them out. We want you to send them back so we can tweak them and then send them back out again. Nobody would send that game back to us. It was ridiculous. We lost so many copies of that game.

[Sean Evans]

So bridge the gap there. Because I play this game, I play it literally with my daughter, who's 5. I bought it after we met and I was like, hurry up, chicken butt. And we play it at home with my son and my daughter. It's a great time. But I've seen the end output. And now you've described your initial conditions. Is there anything else interesting in how you kind of figured out how you bridge that gap?

[Elan Lee]

So we go through tons and tons and tons of versions. And I sit with my daughter. I'm like, look, I know we want a game. And she's like, I want to run around. Cool. That's going to be part of the game, running around. I want to act silly. Cool. That's going to be part of the game, acting silly. And then in the back of my mind I'm like, I need tension, right? Like a game without any form of tension is a broken game because you need something to push you forward. In most games it's competition with the other players, but here that's not going to be present. So I need something else to insert the tension, the pulse of the game. And we did that with an electric timer. It's essentially hot. The way the game works is it's hot potato. You've got this adorable, cute little chicken that clucks and eventually screams. And you pass the chicken around and if you're holding the chicken when it screams, you have lost a point and everybody else proceeds. But the tricky part, it actually works where the person before you wins the whole game. Again, no users, only winners.

[Sam Parr]

Are you like Pixar, where you have like your five or eight trustworthy people in a room and you're just banging this out?

[Elan Lee]

Absolutely, yes.

[Sam Parr]

And how long are the meetings and how many meetings were there between idea to iteration one to final iteration?

[Elan Lee]

Okay, so we sit down, we'll meet for like two hours and we'll just discuss parameters, what success looks like. Let's brainstorm in that space and we'll usually come up with like, I don't know, let's say five or six interesting things to explore. Then everybody goes off and does their own thing. Everyone's got an assignment, play with this one. And we're going to come back and we're going to try all these games. And in this case we actually had like, I don't know, 15 or 16 different ideas that we were playing around with. And they all sucked. Like they all, everything fell apart in one regard or another. Except for this one. That's not true. Except for four games. Four games made it out the door. Two were almost immediate failures. And two of them, one was hurry up chicken butt and the other is called the best worst ice cream, which is like, I think it's ranked number eight in the world right now. So it's up there. I only look at the top five because that's the scoreboard I like to keep, but it's doing great.

[Sam Parr]

Could this apply? Let's say I owned a B2B SaaS software. Could I use this process in my company?

[Elan Lee]

I'm tempted to say yes. Look, I don't know definitively the answer, but I believe that the best ideas come out of constraint and defining success. And I can't imagine there'd be many creative based endeavors that would not benefit from that approach.

[Sean Evans]

You just did a Game with Tim Ferriss, and I think he was a part of creating it. I'm just curious, what was that like? And what were the main things you taught Tim? And then did Tim teach you anything? Or did you sort of modify any of your process? Because Tim is such an interesting guy that maybe, maybe he could bring a little bit of a different approach to what you were doing.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah. So I went on Tim's podcast, like, two years ago. He just wanted to know, what's the game industry like? What is it that you do for a living? And so we talked for a while, and at the end of it, after we finished recording, he said, I've always wanted to make a game. Can we talk about making a game? And I was like, absolutely. It's like when Matt asks you if he can be your partner, the answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes, let's do it. And so we started talking, and he is obsessed with one of my games called Poetry for Neanderthals. And it's a really simple, really fun game. It's in the top five. And he just loves, loves, loves that game. He plays it with all his friends. He plays it all the time. He's constantly sending me pictures of him playing that game with his group of friends. And he keeps saying, I need a game at least this good. And so the first few meetings were me just going over to his place with suitcases full of games, like, all my favorites. But they all tried to scratch that same itch. Like, I know what's great about poetry for Neanderthals. There's a creativity component. It's heavily players entertaining other players, and it's fast, funny. You can learn it in one minute and you play it in 10 minutes. Right? Like, I knew that was his version of what success looks like. And so we started playing a bunch of games like that, and we started honing in on what things he liked the most, what games he liked the most, which ones he didn't. And it fast became clear, okay, none of these are right. Like, not a single. I must have shown him 100 different games. And the answer was, yeah, none of these. At one point, we were on this walk. We'd been walking for like six hours. And at one point I was like, okay, let's start as basic as it gets. What if we started with rock paper scissors? Tim happens to like rock paper scissors. And I was like, okay, rock, paper scissors is actually no fun at all until you play it a bunch of times. Playing rock paper scissors once is stupid, but playing it again now we're playing a game. Because now I'm thinking, what did he do last time? What am I going to do this time? But he knows that I know that he knows that I know, right? Like, all that stuff starts to kick in at game two, and it's not present at all in game number one. So I was like, what if we start there really, really basic. And instead of three activities, rock, paper, scissors, what if we had 25? And what if there was a hierarchy between all of those things? And what if we're all playing at the exact same time? And we just started with crazy statements like that. Like, I don't know what that game is. I don't know how those things make sense. But his eyes lit up, and my eyes lit up, and it was like something, okay, what if. Also, we made it rhythm based. And we rhythm ran to the house, and we just started scribbling on cards fast as we could. My buddy Ken Gruel was there too. He's an incredibly talented designer. And between the three of us, we just started crafting cards as fast as we could. And the first version of the game, of course, sucked, but it was at least something. It was at least like, hey, we are playing a game where every single person playing this game has a task. You have to do this symbol. You have to do a peace sign. You have to pretend you're a ballerina, and you have one second to do the right thing. And we started playing around with, all right, that's a little too easy. What if we made that harder? What if we had to switch roles? What if every role had a color and now we have to skip all the red ones? What if we had to go twice as fast? What if we had to whisper? What if we had to shout, what if, what if, what if, what if? And we started writing all these cards fast and furious until we eventually got to this thing where we had been playing for, like, four hours. And I looked around the room and I was like, okay, anybody want to play again? And both of them were like, hell, yes. And so we kept doing that. And then we started to invite other friends over, and they started playing. And we said, do you want to play again? And they said, yes. And so we just kept doing this thing. Rinse and repeat, remove a card, write a new card. I use these blank cards where I can create them super fast. I buy these like by the truckload on Amazon.

[Sam Parr]

We did that when we were at Sean's event. You were literally on your hands and knees, like, dealing out cards. And then you Were like, you know, I don't like this one. And you pulled out like a blank card and you had a pen and you like wrote new rules.

[Elan Lee]

I live and breathe those cards. Because you know what's beautiful about those cards? They're not just cards. Like, obviously you can use them to make any game you want. But like, let's say you need a six sided die, right? And you don't have a six sided die. You've got six cards, right? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on the cards and shuffle them up and draw one. Now you got a six sided die, right? Like if you need a board, you can make it out of a grid of cards. If you need a spinner, you can make that out of cards. Like, I walk around, my backpack is so much heavier than it should be because it's loaded with blank cards. Because I never know when the next idea is coming.

[Sam Parr]

You have this great quote you said. I took a week long skydiving course and at the end of it I asked the instructor, do you ever get bored of this? And the guy said, do you ever get bored of having sex? And I thought, that's exactly it. This is how I feel about games. That's how I feel about this job. It's not the thing with an expiration. It's a little dopamine factory for me and the people who get to have these experiences. I don't know how you can get bored of that. And it's just eternal. So that was a quote that you had and I read that. It's like, I want to feel that way about just anything in my life.

[Elan Lee]

I know, right? I know.

[Sam Parr]

Like, you know, like, you see kids play with bubbles and you're like, I wish I felt anyway about this kid how this feels about bubbles. And I see this and I'm like, Eli's, he found his bubbles. He's got the answer. This guy has. This is the answer to life. Go ahead.

[Elan Lee]

I was at, I was at an airport and our flight had just been canceled. It was so terrible because everyone was miserable. Last flight out, they're starting to hand out hotels, but they're like, hey, the flight might come back. So everyone's got to stay in the terminal for hours and hours and hours. And every hour they delayed us again. And it was awful. And everyone is miserable. Everyone is miserable and they're frowning and they're grumpy and they're screaming at the poor gate agent. And it's awful except for this group of six kids sitting in the corner giggling and laughing And I could not help myself. I had to walk up and see what they were doing, and of course, they're playing exploding kittens. And I remember thinking, like, this is it. All the chemicals going through my body right now, like, this is why I have this job. This is the greatest feeling in the world. And I just want to keep delivering this every opportunity I have.

[Sam Parr]

That's so good.

[Sean Evans]

I was gonna say, you know, my. I have these kind of people I admire for different reasons. So it's like, you know, you can admire a great athlete for how they. How disciplined they are, how they train the body, how they just. They just never give up, right? Or you can admire Elon for, you know, thinking big and sort of defying the odds and really going all in on his bets and being like, you know what? I. I need to have that all in mode. And you're to me on this, like, on that very short list of people, because you build things for the joy and from a. Like, from a place of joy, like a more pure artist, I think, as your career, I see you as. You know, you're not like a CEO who's got a ballpoint pen. You're an artist with a brush. And then. And then the second part of it is like, the limitless thinking in terms of there's kind of nothing out of bounds. Like, yeah, okay, I can register myself as a grocer. Or we can. We could create this vending machine that. What if it distributed any item? Right? Like, I would be scared to go there, because how. And what if. What if things go wrong? And I think you just think about things a little bit differently. That inspires me. And then the last bit is, like, the simplicity, like, figuring out when you look at something like, oh, the game is fun. Not because the game itself is fun, because it makes the players fun. It's like, oh, that explains charades and Pictionary and all the games I grew up playing thousands of times and not just once or twice. It's because of that core insight. Or, you know, instead of doing focus groups and surveys, you're like, one question. You want to play the game again?

[Elan Lee]

That.

[Sean Evans]

That simplicity. So, like, to me, those are the three big things that you do that I'm like, I would. If I can get, you know, 10% of what you're doing there, I level up if I do that.

[Elan Lee]

I love to hear that. And. But I'll also say it doesn't just have to apply to games like we. I remember during COVID all of our plants shut down and Once, once we. Once stuff comes in from China, we have to. It goes into these giant warehouses and it has to be unboxed and then repackaged with all the correct labeling. And then off it goes to all the retailers. And during COVID no one could go into those facilities. Like, they just wouldn't allow anybody in. And that was gonna tank our business. We were, there's no way for us to survive. Zero sales for six or 12 or two years. No way to do it. And so most games companies shut down for at least a little while there. And I remember thinking, this is a no. Absolutely. People are telling me no. So to use the earlier quote, so I must be asking the wrong question. And instead of calling these warehouse owners over and over again saying, when are you opening your doors? When are you opening your doors? I finally asked a different question. It was, what are you doing with your parking lots? And the answer was nothing, because nobody's at work. So our parking lots are empty. And I was like, cool, can I park three 18 wheeler trucks in your parking lot? And they said, sure, why not? And so I brought the games over in these 18 wheeler trucks and I had one person per truck go inside and repackage our games because all I needed was the space. It occurred to me I didn't need the warehouse, I just need the square footage. And they've got that in their parking lot. And there's no restrictions there. There's only restrictions inside the facility. And the reason I bring that up is because that's just a game, right? Like, that's just somebody saying, here's a roadblock. Everybody else is saying, ah, a roadblock. I can't get through this roadblock. It's time to shut down my business. When the reality is just ask a different question. There's a different way through this roadblock if you're willing to play the game.

[Sam Parr]

I used to have this high school cross country coach that was like, I'm going to teach you all about running and everything, but I'm really trying to teach you about this other pastime that we have called life. And that's sort of how I feel about you. And this podcast is you came to talk a little bit about business, a little bit about creativity, but we're really learning, like a good way to live.

[Elan Lee]

You know, that makes me so happy. Yes.

[Sam Parr]

To be passionate, to be passionate about what we. About certain things we're doing, to find the positive, to look positively and things that could potentially be negative, and to solve problems in creative ways. You're awesome. We appreciate you.

[Elan Lee]

Oh, thank you so much for saying that.

[Sean Evans]

Hey, where should people follow you? Because I'm following you on TikTok where you're doing like, it's amazing. I don't understand. Have you seen his TikToks?

[Sam Parr]

No, I'm not 12 so I don't use TikTok.

[Elan Lee]

This is.

[Sean Evans]

Well you should because I need to.

[Sam Parr]

Live more like him and be positive thinking.

[Sean Evans]

Here's what's happening. Basically the world's best game Designer is on TikTok teaching people how to design games, little simple tricks and tips in like 30 second nuggets. And it'll get like two views because TikTok's algorithm doesn't know yet who they're, who they're messing with. And I can't believe it's like you couldn't pay. I could not pay you for this type of information.

[Sam Parr]

Dude, you only have 177 followers.

[Elan Lee]

I know, I just started doing this. Here's what I realized. I teach these classes at my company once a week and we'll tackle whatever topic. Here's how we write instructions, here's what we put on the front of the box, here's what we put on the back of the box. Here's game design like all over and over and over again. And we don't record any of them. And I kind of realized I, this is all gonna just disappear like nobody's recording it. I have no motivation to record it. So I hired a social media team and all they are, they, it's like, it's like hiring a trainer at a gym. They come over once a week and they force me to have a camera on me and give the same class that I gave at the company just for free online. And so we've been recording them and posting them and the, it's. Yeah, like you said, nobody knows they're there yet. But if you've ever wanted to learn how to make a game or more importantly how to apply those lessons to anything in the whole wide world because it's all applicable. I'm going to just keep posting these things because are you going to give.

[Sam Parr]

Your team some constraint like you know, without any money and only teaching creativity.

[Sean Evans]

Lessons, figure out making me dance on TikTok.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, like get this to 500,000 views per video.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, I should absolutely do that.

[Sam Parr]

Is that what the constraints would be?

[Elan Lee]

That basically that's what the constraints would be. It would be, yeah, it would be how to stay like true to what I want to deliver. Right. Without dancing. But yeah, how to increase the viewership on this. And to be fair, nobody has been tasked with that yet. My goal for the last. I don't know, it's been probably like two months has just been. Let me just create the content, put it in a place, and then once it's there, then it's probably worth promoting because now there's enough there to make it worthwhile.

[Sam Parr]

You're badass. You're awesome. You got the googly eyes from us.

[Elan Lee]

All right, shout out.

[Sean Evans]

Where should people follow you? Just shout out your handles.

[Elan Lee]

Yeah, if you just search for the kind of hub of everything is just Elan Lee on YouTube. That's where I'm putting the long form stuff. And then from there it links out to all of the TikToks and Instagrams and everything else where you can find it in shorter form.

[Sean Evans]

Awesome. Thanks for coming on, dude.

[Elan Lee]

It's such a pleasure. Thanks for having me. And, yeah, just a huge fan. I'm so grateful that you wanted to chat with me. What a thrill.

[Sean Evans]

Of course. By the way, look at how many games are behind them. Just within sight right there.

[Elan Lee]

Isn't that ridiculous? Yeah, that's one of two shelves. There's another one over there that's equally packed. We've got 90 games now. 60. Sorry, we have 60 games, but 90 total because there's weird expansions and variations and stuff. Yeah, it's stupid. It doesn't make any sense to me anymore.

[Sam Parr]

All right, thank you, man. That's it. That's a pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

[Sean Evans]

Hey, Sean here. I want to take a minute to tell you a David Ogilvy story. One of the great ad men, he said, remember, the consumer is not a moron. She's your wife. You wouldn't lie to your own wife, so don't lie to mine. And I love that. You guys, you're my family. You're like my wife. And I won't lie to you either. So I'll tell you the truth. For every company I own right now, six companies, I use Mercury for all of them. So I'm proud to partner with Mercury because I use it for all of my banking needs across my personal account, my business accounts, and anytime I start a new company, it's my first move. I go open up a Mercury account. I'm very confident in recommending it because I actually use it. I've used it for years. It is the best product on the market. So if you want to be like me, and 200,000 other ambitious founders. Go to mercury.com and apply in minutes. And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve bank and Trust Members fdic All right, back to the episode.