Episode Details

Launch your product in the next 90 days 🚀 Start here: https://tinyurl.com/launchboom-moc-ep74 — Episode 74: Masters of Crowdfunding — In this episode, Mark sits down with Suren Rastogi, co-founder of Laughing Sticks and co-creator of the Burnout board game, to break down how to launch a board game on Kickstarter on a planned budget of about $20K. Burnout is a satirical party game where coworkers fight for one promotion without burning out. Suren had not played a board game in twenty years when he decided a physical product was one way to protect his marketing career from AI. He and his team ran it as a business from day one: playtests at every local game meetup and in people's homes, ads aimed at the order counts that make a distributor deal likely, and a launch they pushed back six months on LaunchBoom's advice. Burnout raised S$130,283 (about US$100K) from 1,686 backers, and the company is already profitable. Links: Work with us: https://tinyurl.com/launchboom-moc-ep74 Burnout: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burnoutgame/burnout-board-game — Check out our other channels: @launchboom_official @LaunchBoom_Games What we cover: 00:00 Introduction 00:59 Why a Marketer Started a Board Game Company 02:15 Building a Business From Day One 03:29 The $20K Budget and De-Risking a First Kickstarter 05:31 From Political Satire to Burnout 08:01 The First Playtest That Proved the Idea 09:04 Designing Cards People Want to Share 11:11 Launch Day: Funded in Ten Minutes 12:22 The Pre-Launch and Ad Strategy by Market 15:27 The Surprise Ad: A Photo of the Box 16:33 The Offline Playbook: Events, Homes, and Cafes 19:27 What's Next: Profit, New Games, and Operation 67 22:36 The Best Advice: Don't Launch Yet 24:17 Outro