TL;DR
I’ve started a board game publishing company, I have no idea what I’m doing, and you’re all coming with me.
Seamonkey Business
The Seahorse & The Hummingbird. It’s a company in every technical sense. I’ve filed all of the paperwork, it is an entity. And now I have it. Much like a dog that chases a car, what am I gonna do with it once I have it?
My overarching goals are rather straightforward: design games, publish games, sell games. I am fully cognizant that there is a lot of nuance filling the spaces in between, and that it’s much easier said than done. I’ve been listening, I’ve heard the cries. The margins are razor-thin. There’s no money in board games. The competition is too fierce. Customers will tear your throat out for the sport of it. The market is oversaturated. The burnout is real. It’s just too difficult.
On top of it being a tough biz, there is no good or sane reason for me to even try. While I have a career’s-worth of boots-on-the-ground experience with graphic design, print production and web development that will help me competently develop the infrastructure, I have no idea how to operate a business and I couldn’t sell cold beer at a hot baseball game. These are non-trivial problems.
So… Why, Then?
Because it’s all extremely interesting—fascinating, even. I am a voracious learner with insatiable curiosity, and something like learning, say, the ins and outs of Chinese manufacturing or double-entry bookkeeping has me positively riveted. I’m a born maker, always have been, and spinning up a business is another thing to make. I could’ve taken up pottery, I guess, but it didn’t swing that way.
Because I have the resources to give it a shot without destroying my life. I’m not risking it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss. I’m not putting it all on black. In the false dichotomy of going big or going home, I choose home. What you see today is six months into a ten-year experiment. For the next 0.95 decades, I plan to fail sustainably until I wobble into a stable flight pattern. If I still haven’t figured it out by 2035, then I guess it’s time to pack it in.
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!
— Stuart Smalley
Because… why not me? Yes, I know… that’s not a business plan. The fact is, there are lots of legitimate problems working against me. Against me, against everybody. But every one of those problems is surmountable. Every knowledge gap is fillable. So long as I accept the challenges for what they are, assume nothing as given, and avoid any fatally stupid maneuvers, I can achieve this.
Make it ‘Til You Fake it
I have to resist the urge to paint The Seahorse & The Hummingbird in the palette of empty corporate-speak and jargonese. The impulse to cast an image of a perfectly manicured brand is strong. It’s a language we all know. That style of lingo is shoved down our throats day in, day out from every conceivable angle. It’s nearly instinctive to assume that if I want to play in the same sandbox, I’m obliged to ape the behavior of the big kids.
You may have heard this sentiment from me before. I’ve repeated it in various places as a sort of preemptive apology. It’s a little scary to present oneself as an actual human person along with all of the gross, sloppy chaos that results from being one. It feels like a betrayal of American commerce to walk around saying things like, “I don’t know,” or, “This might not work,” or, “I’m doing my best.”
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
— Jean Giraudoux
I’m aware that acting like a nervous dog piddling on the floor does not engender trust. Perhaps I’m shooting myself in the foot by choosing the path of raw honesty, causing some to squirm uncomfortably. Maybe I’ll see the error of my ways and convert everything over to good ol’ fashioned corporate horseshit.
But this is the way I’ve chosen to do things, in a way that is genuine to myself and honest to everybody I might encounter along this path. I can hear how twee that sounds, but that’s what being genuine is like sometimes.
You’re All Coming With Me
When I first started designing board games, I took to social media and let it all hang out. I logged (and still do) all of my excitement, all of my progress, and all of my fears, doubts and frustrations. All of it, the full journey, warts and all. For the most part, it’s for my own benefit. For the personality that inhabits my brain, there is something remarkably empowering in publicly admitting that I’m scared.
I’m a scared person. It’s what I’m like.
I was scared to go to a local board game club to play games. I was scared to go to my first board game convention. I was scared to even try to design a game, for fear of failure. I was scared to bother people by asking them to playtest my games, and then—once I got over that—I was terrified to put my games in front of people. I was scared to pitch my games to publishers. I was scared to attend my first pitch meeting. I cowered in the corner at my first board game design convention.
Talking openly about my fears—even in the impersonal (and sometimes dangerous) realm of public digital discourse—helped me to work through them. More importantly, though… my hope is that by sharing my fears, other people can see that it’s okay to be scared and vulnerable and genuine. To see that being scared is not the opposite of being successful. In a modern world coated in corporate gloss, populated with online personas of impenetrable cosmic certitude, it’s difficult for anybody to feel comfortable in their stupid, clumsy, squishy, sweaty self. It’s mortifying to try, to put yourself out there, to expose yourself, to dream out loud.
I’m scared to start this company. So I’m going to do what I always do and overshare my way through it, right here, tucked in the back pages of this website. It’s therapeutic for me. And maybe… maybe… if I dance like nobody’s watching, I can encourage you to do the same.
Stay tuned for more thrilling piddling adventures.