You Need to Finish One Thing Before Starting Another

0:01[laughter] >> Hey Alex, I'm Aaron Smith and I run a creative studio that publishes board games. >> All right. >> My first product generated about 1.3 million last year. >> Board games? >> Yeah. >> Is it digital or hard like cardboard board games? >> Cardboard. >> No [ __ ] Okay, what's the name of the game? >> It's called Sea Beasts. >> Sea Beasts? Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah, we did a Kickstarter and then I did e-commerce pre-sales right after that.

0:29>> Sick. >> Um so I I still haven't even delivered it. We're like in the final stages of production right now. So we'll be fulfilling it. >> Uh-huh. >> Um but in the meantime I've also developed four other games I'm going to be launching over the next 6 months. >> Okay. >> Um and my long-term goal is to build a multimedia entertainment company built around the original IP. >> Okay. >> Expanding into books, animation, film. >> Okay.

0:54>> But right now it's just me and a handful of contractors. >> Okay. >> So deadlines are getting harder, margins getting tighter tighter. >> Yeah. >> Um yeah, yeah. I just feel the weight of it all. And so I need I know I need to hire, but the tricky part is I reinvested all of my profits into these next launches. >> Sure. >> So yeah. So I need to uh make sure that you know the right I get the right hire first basically.

1:23Um we also found out on Sunday we're pregnant with our fourth. >> Nice. >> I have intense need moments right now. >> Yeah. >> Uh so if you were in my shoes, what would you what were your first few hires be to uh scale the company to 5 million, 10 million next couple years? >> What's your hard cost in a game? >> Hard cost the base base game would be like 12 bucks.

1:49Like the more deluxe version I have tons of like add-ons that stack onto it. Uh it goes up to about $33 for the it for? >> Uh I'm selling base game 80 bucks. Uh my biggest package is 250. Uh AOB is probably 130 to 180. >> Got it. All right.

2:17You asked what I would do. I would tell all the people who gave you that 1.3 million that if they buy one of your next games, they get a second game free. So, I could double the cash that I have. Given your cost basis, a lot of that should be gross profit. Then you'll have some pa- some some padding. Number one. >> Yeah. >> It's a BOGO offer. So, now cuz like think about it like this. Who do I think would like to buy games? People who have already bought games.

2:48And if you could tell them, "Hey, if you buy one more game, you get two more games." I think many of them will say yes. Cuz also, the money they spent was a long time ago. They don't even remember it anymore. It's gone. >> Right. >> So, them knowing that they're going to get a bigger Christmas present sounds attractive. So, that's thing number one. Thing number two, um is I have to get clear on what your constraints are, but before I do, what's the big mistake you made so that we can name it so that you don't do it again?

3:16>> I mean, I made a ton of mistakes. >> What's the big one? What's the big one? We've already gone over. What's the big one? >> Uh just me? Like not hiring people or >> No. There's a big decision mistake you made. >> Oh, boy. Uh not delivering it yet or >> Starting four more games before finishing the first one. >> Oh, [ __ ] Right?

3:39>> Yeah. That. You're like, "Bro, I'm so stressed." It's like, no [ __ ] You now have to deliver on five games. You're trying to deliver five games with the sales from one. >> Yeah. >> So, what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to get I Of course you are, but you're still working on them. >> Right. >> So, all of the time that you've dedicated to these other four games, if you just dedicated to the first game and closed the loop, you'd be done and you'd have cash and that would be it. And then you'd complete the loop, you would have done it again, you would have learned from the feedback. Cuz the thing is is you built these other games and this is I'll tell you some truth that you don't want to hear. You're going to get feedback from the first game that you're going to be like, "Fuck, I should have do I should incorporate that in game two, three, four."

4:18Right. >> Yeah. >> Your game hasn't actually encountered reality yet. Like fundamentally, you just built you built a VSL. >> [laughter] >> Like that's what you have succeeded at. You drove traffic to a video that got people to buy. That is what you've succeeded at. You actually haven't built a good game yet. You've sold a game. You've made a promise well, right? We'll find out whether you delivered on it well. Okay. >> True. >> So, big picture, I want you to erase the other games from your mind for a moment.

4:46I want you to make an offer to the existing audience for the two more games that are coming down the line so you can generate some cash. I want you to not think about anything that's not now those two other games. With this extra cash, then uh we have to look at what is the thing that is taking the majority of your time. >> Mhm. >> And that's going to be that first hire, but what's the What is that thing that's taking most of your time that that makes you the least money?

5:10>> Most of it was customer support for like the first four months. Yeah, it was intense. So, I got a contractor that could answer emails, but still like a part-time contractor. >> Okay. >> So, I think that's the lowest hanging fruit. Also, running ads, like I'm not actually not very good at running ads. >> Yeah. >> I've ran the same same >> [snorts] >> creative for a year and it still performs. >> Yeah.

5:36>> Thank god. >> Yeah. Thank god. >> So, yeah, I know. Uh so, that that's another thing that takes up a ton of my time and I'm also not the best at it, too. Like, I know that. >> Yeah. >> And then uh just other operational like trying to get the business like actually up and running as far as just all the back end operations, fulfillment, logistics. >> Dude, I think you're spending a lot of time being distracted because right now you have no employees. And you

6:04>> Yep. >> like you have added complexity to your life and I think you spent a lot of time not sure what to do and that is what's eating your time. >> That's 100% yeah. It's like a juggling act. >> Yeah, which means you need clarity. Right? Anxiety comes from a lot of different actions and no priorities. That's where anxiety comes from and so you're feeling right now. And to eliminate anxiety, you do that through subtraction.

6:30You need to take things away. >> Yep. >> All right. So, there there's two versions of this reality. I would prefer you get some cash up front, but that does increase the load because you're going to have these two other things that you're going to have to now deliver on, right? So, that's the that's the trade there. The alternative version of this, like if Leila were sitting next to me, what she would probably say is forget the other four games exist. I'll tell like I I can play both hats because Leila and I know each other's advice good enough at this point. I'm I'm a yes hinge person, she's a no hinge person, which is why we work well. She would probably say, "Hey, don't do anything with those four because they're probably going to suck because you're going to get feedback from the first one. Uh how much cash do you have of that 1 3?"

7:10>> Uh the 1 3 about 150. >> Jeez, bro. How much did you spend on these other four games? >> The other four, I'm probably about over probably about 150 as well, actually. Yeah. >> Well, then what did you I mean, can you deliver the games that you promised with the cash you have? >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Well, then bro, deliver the games.

7:37>> it. Yeah. >> Well, well, just like your entire objective of life right now is just deliver the games. >> Yep. >> All right. And so you said there's like operations like dude you have no employees. What is the operations? >> Right. >> It's like and literally the delivery for your thing is shipping which you're not probably handling. >> Yeah, I I have some fulfillment partners that I'm managing but they're also the freight too that I'm doing. >> Well yeah but that's but here's what I'm saying here. Like you you've added you added endless complexity to a business where people made a purchase you send them a cardboard box with toys in it.

8:10>> Yep. >> Right. And so you got some people in between that are asking for refunds. Great. Hire a virtual assistant they can respond to the emails. Now what? >> Yeah. Oh virtual assistant. Yeah, that's interesting. Cool. >> What else we got? >> I mean uh long term though >> I'm not worried about long term, dude. You're worried about long term and long term is killing your short term which is going to prevent your long term. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah.

8:37>> Yeah. >> You need you made a promise. You got to deliver on the promise. Once you do that you can have a full accounting how much cash you got left. Then you can spend that extra cash on these other things that you've developed which you will probably tweak based on the feedback you get from your customers. >> Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean we are going to be delivering in the next month or so. So like manufacturing is wrapping up and it's going to be on boats. So it's it's practically there. Um so I'm basically looking at the next step off.

9:05>> Yeah. >> And I'm mid Kickstarter right now for that second game. >> Yeah. >> And it is performing exactly the same as the first one. Um so that's that's also >> I think you should join a community >> All right, good. >> that uh like join something specific to Facebook ads if you want. Um so that you can learn how to run ads. Like to me that is by far the biggest lever that you are missing right now. Obviously you can look at Qualium in terms of how we do our like mass production of ads and content. Um like there's tons of stuff inside of Antage about that. Um and like that is what like when you're like I don't like you said you said as we're taking a lot of your time but you also said you only have one one one ad that's converting. So like it sounds like you're just staring at it saying like there's something that should happen here and I don't know what to do.

9:47You need to go learn and experiment. You have to try [ __ ] >> Right. Yeah. I've been doing some experimental stuff but not at mass scale that >> Give yourself Here's something tactical. Give yourself a learning budget on ads. Pick a number that you don't care about too much. So if that thousand, two thousand, ten thousand dollars a month and take that number and be willing to lose 100% of it learning how to run ads.

10:14>> Cool. >> And that means that you're going to experiment. So of that of that X dollars per month take 70% put it towards things that are almost identical to the winner, 20% is adjacent and then 10 is just wild [ __ ] ideas. >> Okay. >> All right. That's your tactical thing. Do not worry about the other four games. Make sure you complete your promises on the first thing and you as an entrepreneur you need to focus on one thing at a time, dude. Like you would like Hewlett or Packard had this quote which is businesses die from indigestion not starvation. We take on too much not too little. That is how businesses die because you get spread too thin and you can't focus on anything.

10:51That's where the anxiety comes from. You have to eliminate. >> Yeah. I like it. That's good. >> All right. Appreciate you, brother. Yep. Rock and roll. If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling road map that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you can click here and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free. And since you're business owner, I appreciate you and enjoy.