Chris, what are we talking about today? PAX West, the reflections and experience we had there just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, we spoke to a bunch of different Nerdpreneurs at their booths, and we got five minute interviews with them, and we're going to be releasing that content bit by bit. It's really good stuff, and I kind of want us to just dive into it. What would be your number one takeaway from those interviews?
One of the consistent things I heard from each and every one of them was, you really need to understand the business side. Nerd passion isn't just enough. You know, one of the things that they all said was they figured out, you know, their passion. They loved this hobby, they loved this thing that was nerdy.
But then when they got into it, they realized it was all the business stuff that was holding them back from success as a business, and they had to go to work on that, not only on that problem, but also themselves to be those entrepreneurs that actually could succeed in business. And so it was a lot more than just passion and being a nerd that allowed them to be successful. That was the biggest takeaway, I thought, from the whole event. Who is someone that said that?
Who's someone that stands out to you as really championing that point? Well, you know who it is. Chris. Like, it was Chris from. And that's not me, by the way. I know my name is Chris, but we met another Chris from Tinkerhouse, who, on his video, he definitely talked a little bit about that. But then it was like he took us back behind their booth and we chatted with him for another 20 or 30 minutes about his entrepreneurial journey from, like,
years of back selling. Like various. Like, he was in liquor sales for a while, he was in other import business type stuff, and he was. He recommended to not get into the liquor business. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. So there was a lot of things that he had in terms of experience around business before he wound up in Tinkerhouse doing the thing that he does now, which is create terrain for tabletop war games and now Tabletop RPG's as well. So I think he was the one who exemplified it the most.
Cause we got to spend the most time with him, and he really talked a lot about it. I could tell he just had a passion, a serious passion for business, not just nerdy tabletop stuff. Yeah. Chris was a wonderful person to speak with, and he also. One of the common themes I noticed from everybody we spoke to was everyone was kind of tired. I mean, it was the second day of Pax, day two of four. And these kind of conventions, for people who go to conventions, they know, like, it's exhausting.
Even just being at a booth, especially, you're there constantly talking to people, saying a lot of the same things. And even though these people that we spoke to were tired, they were still very passionate about what they were doing, and they were really happy to talk about it, even if you could see on their face, like, sometimes it seemed, you know, we spoke to many worlds, many worlds tavern founder Andrew, and he was, he was, he was a little worn out. He had a big team with him.
He had a lot going on, but he still even gave good advice about, if you're going to start something, just be aware of what you're doing. And this point you're talking about with Chris, you know, even though he was tired, he still was just so happy to help and talk about it. Everybody was really nice. Everybody was very warm and inviting and excited to talk about the idea of nerdy business.
And I think that they were also surprised that we're kind of the first people to really take interest in, like, how do you be successful in this nerdy business? So I want to know, like, what was your number one takeaway from this pax event and the interviews we did? Frank Ooh. Along the same lines of what you said about knowing the business side, except it's more so knowing your capacity, knowing your fortitude, like, what are you capable of? And knowing that you
need to be capable of a lot. And Patrick, from lethal shadows, minis, he elaborated on it really nicely, but you need to be prepared for what it's going to take. It's going, he, he laid out for himself. He said, we've been at this for five, six years, going really strong. I haven't had a vacation in that time. My family knows that.
If you're going to want to hang out with me, you either come to a convention, you come to the shop, that's where you find me, that's where you spend time with me, because I'm working so hard on this. And people who want to start their nerdy business need to be ready to spend that kind of commitment. And it's an extreme example in some ways, because there is, you know, this is, I think there's a spectrum here of how much you want to commit to your nerdy business.
But he is bringing this all in or nothing mentality. And I think it's good to hear that, because there are some nerdpreneurs that are nerdy, believe it or not. And nerds can get very committed. They go all in on this thing. I want to push back on something here because I think it's interesting what you said around, or maybe just have a discussion around it, because what you said there was that people have to really know their capacity or they have to know what it's going to take.
And I think, yes, in some capacity you do. I agree. However, I want to push back on the idea of knowing what you can take because I think vastly, people underestimate what they're capable of most of the time. And I think also that when they jump into something like this with real passion, they should expect to have to sacrifice certain things for sure time. And sometimes they might have less time with family or loved ones or to play the game that they actually love. Right.
How many times have we heard from people who are nerdpreneurs who are like, I don't play much d and D anymore, or I don't really do a lot of video gaming any more products. For it, but I don't play very much. Yeah. So I think that is something that people should be aware of, is that you do and you should expect to sacrifice, but that's not why they're doing it.
And I don't want people to listen to what you just said there and think, well, then, man, I'm better off being a nerd instead of a nerdpreneur. Because I think that when they hear that, that can be very, that can be jarring to people who are thinking about actually doing this. Like, and I don't think that that's why you're listening to this. You want to hear, oh, it's going to be hard. It's going to be like, it is going to be hard, sure.
But everything is hard. So, you know, things that are worthwhile are hard and challenging. And I want to say that there's a lot of reasons why people who are there are doing it. And, yeah, some of them were tired at the con, but also they weren't, like, collapsing and terrible. Like that guy we met with. At the end of the day, he was tired because it was literally end of a twelve hour day. That was the only time we could get him. Yeah. And I weren't disheartened.
They were just, their energy levels were low. They were still very passionate. Yeah. And the other thing, too, is like, they're sacrificing because of their passion for the hobby. And, you know, it was Patrick. Right, you were talking about. Mm hmm. And Patrick is so passionate about bringing great models to his game. And the way he talks about it is that we deserve this in our hobby.
So there's a reason that's driving him at that level to go that deep and do what he's doing because, and also he's doing very well. I want to put that in there, too, that you might say, wow, it's going to be a lot of work. And like that he's not just scraping by a little bit. I think he's probably really crushing it right now as a nerdy entrepreneur, and he sees the vast and important opportunity in front of him that he has an opportunity
to seize and he's going after it. So, yeah, it might be hard, but it's a sacrifice he knows he's making. I think he would agree with me is that he's making so that he can have that freedom and that positioning and that incredible part in the market down the road. Yeah, there is some of that. I will push back that they are saying to don't get into this if you're not willing for the sacrifice, if you're not willing to make the sacrifices, if you're not willing to
really go in it for the long haul. Now, a couple things on that, going back to Randall at Catalyst game Labs. He was saying when you asked him about what would you tell people who are looking to work for their dream company? He said, I would say don't run as far as you can as quickly as you can, was his response. And then he followed up with, but if you don't run away and you really want to do it, then I will help you. I will do my best to help you, but
it is a lot of hard work. And I think, I mean, he said he's been doing it since the nineties, so we're talking 20 years. Uh, 20 plus years, actually, 25 ish and 25 plus. And he was very supportive, but he'd seen a lot, I think. I think he'd seen a lot of people. He's been on a small team, small company, and they have probably seen a lot of people come and go. It's a bit of a revolving door.
And I think that also Patrick, in the same vein, has seen the same thing, because he was talking about what's really important. What's really important is for people to stick to their word. Don't go into this nerdy business idea and think that, oh, I can treat this nerdy business like I treat my nerdy hobby. That's the same genre.
If you play any tabletop role playing games, dear listener, you know that sometimes people just flake on showing up, and it's like last minute and it's super frustrating, and they don't take it very seriously. But that's what Patrick was warning. He was saying, if there are people who want to start a business, they can't treat it with the same mentality that they treat that nerdy passion. They need to be reliable,
they need to be helpful. And furthermore, he was saying, when you get into it, you really got to know your goal. Why are you starting? Why are you starting this business and plan to get there? One of the reasons we're doing what we're doing is so that those of you who are looking to do this don't have as hard a time as these
pioneers in the nerdpreneur industry. Yeah, I've seen it in other business that the people who are in business for five years know more than people who are just starting off, and people who are in business for ten years know more than those people who are five years in. There are these people who.
There are people that you learn from, who become mentors, or that you hear what they've done, or you model their success and it shrinks the amount of time you need to get to that next level or to have the success they had. They're not any different in terms of anything but their capacity or their strategy. You know, if you're not getting where you want to be, there's something wrong with your strategy. Right. Or there's something wrong with your methodology.
And so when people decide to look deep into what it is they're going after and look at, well, it's working for them over there, right? There's two tea companies here that were successful, right? So it's like, if it's working for them, something they're doing is working. I bet I can go do that same thing, too, if I wanted to get my own nerdy tea company, right, or nerdy coffee company, somehow they figured it out. Now, the one thing he did say was, don't ever start a coffee shop.
And I think there's something to that in post Covid retail. Right, like that. There's a lot of people who are like, don't do this because of the really, really hard last few years that brick and mortar has had. So I can absolutely appreciate where, you know, many worlds tavern was coming from in that moment. Yeah. I think there's a common thread of, if you're going to have a brick and mortar location, make sure that you have a good online presence to support that.
And not a lot of people really talked about having a brick and mortar presence. No, most of them do not. Right. There was candles who did? But, you know, and there was many worlds who also did. But most of these people were con heavy. And what I really liked about it was when I asked everybody, you know, how many cons they did, there were so many people who were like, oh, I've done, like, ten cons, 20 cons.
There was even geekify who they did 30 cons in a year, and they've been doing it for years. So you start thinking about, you know, what is the importance of cons to certain businesses? There are many of them that were just focused on doing cons. They put it into their schedule, and that was how they ran their business, was they go there, they have three or four, five days, whatever it is, for the con, and they just crush it for those four or five days.
And then they go out to. They come back, they make more product, and they go out to the next con. And it's just like that, their business cycle. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. It's a lot of work in certain times, but they're really serving their nerdy hobby and helping them out. Yeah, that reminds me, on a not at PAx was this brought up, but with Sienna Art Studios, who we have yet. Have not released yet.
But we, when we spoke to her, one of the things that was brought up was cons and how she at, for a one, at one point, Washington going to all of these events, and it was just back to back to back. Just enough time for her. She said she didn't even have enough time to make the product in between the events. She just had enough time beforehand to make all the product and then put it into batches in preparation for when
she would go to these events. She'd fly back, get everything she needed, go to the event, fly back, get more stuff. And you got to think about it like that when you have all these products. But I'm glad you went this direction, because all the people we spoke to were selling a physical product. Everybody had a physical product, and everyone said, these cons are so important for them. And Tinker House really. I think Tinkerhouse games
really drove this point. Sorry, the terrain, Tinkerhouse terrain, they really drove the point home of this is huge for us because our shipping costs are kind of expensive because our product is kind of heavy. You know, it's. It's compact, but it's pretty heavy stuff. It's dense cardboard. And so shipping, it creates this barrier, this of a price point for consumers, for customers.
So if they can see it, feel it, and look at the quality, it's much easier for them to buy it, especially because they're not having to pay for shipping. They're at the con. All they do is pay for it and take it. So I think cons are really good for people who have physical products, especially if your product heavily relies on touching, feeling, or even smelling. In the case of tea and coffee.
There was a lot of con tips that we got, too, and I don't know if I can run through all of them that we got, but I thought it was interesting that for a lot of people, their advice was, yeah, try a con. It's a great way to test your market and confront your market, you know?
So the idea of a first step for a nerdpreneur might be going to a con or picking a local small convention where, you know, your ideal client is, and just go, you know, you don't have to commit to a comic con or a pax west for your first con. Those are a little more expensive.
But every city, you know, usually wherever you are, will be having some form of nerdy or anime or whatever type of convention where you can go and be, as an independent business owner, access your nerdy culture and confront it firsthand. So many of them said, yeah, just give it a shot and iterate. You know, when I was talking to the candle people, Dragon's den candlest, that's how they started. They just sort of did a very small con in their local area, New England.
And this was actually the first time they'd ever been outside of New England for their cons. And so it was, this was a cool thing for them to be able to be in a place that wasn't their, their home. But they started with just a few candles. And then as they confronted and talked with their market, they gave them ideas of other things that would actually be something they want. And then they went to the workshop, built those out, and didn't move too fast. So I think there's a lot of.
There's a lot of wisdom in that for a lot for newer entrepreneurs that are thinking like, well, should I? How would I even get started? How do I know if this is going to be a good thing or not? Like, you might have to risk a little bit of money to join a local con and just get enough product
to go out there and do it. But like you, it's a great first step to get into your nerdy niche is go to a local con as a business owner and try to sell your stuff so you can confront, right face to face with people, what you do, how you want, how you can serve that community, and what kind of transformation you can make for them. Yeah, I'm so glad we spoke to them. Aaron and Corey, husband and wife duo, partners in crime.
I'm so glad we spoke to them because they were one of the few people to really hammer that point. Home of engage with your audience and your community, show some early prototypes and products, get some feedback, and iterate from there. Erin even said that at one point she was, she was saying, she used the word iterate, I'm pretty sure. And that feels like a very startup kind of term to use of like, test, you know, prototype, iterate, you know, and then repeat. So I'm glad that we spoke to them.
Another aspect along these lines, when we spoke to Diane at Arkon Games, she talked about the value of conventions, being the community, engaging with your community. And she had a unique perspective because she said that she was less of the business side of things. You know, she dabbled. Everyone wears many hats. But she said she started out as the. As like a graphic designer or a visual artist of some kind. I forget exactly what, but she started out as that.
And she said, you know, it's important to get a business person to work with you. And a lot of the people on their team are artists. But she was saying that being able to engage with your community is really valuable at a convention. And they had a table in their booth area for people to test out the game, one of their board games. And I thought like, yeah, that's a really good point. You know, it's not, it's not the first time I think we've heard this.
We heard this at Emerald City Comic Con, too. Just the value of being there to engage with your audience is a really great way to improve and to also just talk to humans face to face because you're going to get so much more from that interaction than behind a. Screen you just touched on. Something I thought was interesting as well is that she talked about her strengths in the business and weaknesses and knowing what those were and then partnering up with people
that were strong in those areas. She was weak. And we heard that also from dragons, then candles with the husband and wife pair, because they also had strengths and weaknesses. We also heard that from Tinker House, and there was strengths and weaknesses there because they were a partnership. And so, and I don't know about you, Frank, but I feel like we also are a partnership where both of us have strengths and weaknesses and we try to aim to be working that way.
So when you are, and no one was there alone, by the way, either, like, there was no solo people at a con doing this on their own because it's just too much for one person to handle, but understanding that there was a lot of people working in pairs or with a small groups, and they were working together, complementing each other. So when
you go into business for your. For yourself, you're probably going to need to bring a few people along with you as employees or as volunteers even, who can be paid in product or something like that. A few people were doing that for, for people over the course of their, their weekend at Pax. But the idea is you know where your strengths are and try to focus on those.
But if you know, one of your weaknesses is, for example, some of this business stuff, like you're not good at selling stuff or interacting with people at the booth, you want to bring people who are good at that because you need to have someone who's up and talking and interesting and engaging with people. And if you're hanging back and not doing that, it's going to be much harder for you to sell a
lot of your product at the booth. For example, it could also be, you know, in my case, like, the forms you need to fill out the like. We heard about this from, from Chris as well, about how many various requisition type legal forms they had to do for 50 different
states when they were selling liquor. Now, I know that's not a nerdy business, but it is something that's important to remember, is that if they didn't get that together, they wouldn't have been able to be successful their liquor business. And he had someone on his side that was really good at that and was willing to do all that work that he paired up with because he was a logistics guy on how to get the products, like, manufactured, made and scaled up to the point
where they could serve 52 states. But it was. He needed all that paperwork done. So knowing where your strengths are and weaknesses are, and you might learn this through experience, by the way. You don't have to know them perfectly before jumping into business, but knowing if you're weak in an area, you either got to work on getting better at that area or you need to get somebody who is good at that area to do it for you. Yeah, going in at a business in co op mode is really helpful.
I'll say you know, not only from our experience, but from these people that we spoke to. And I kind of like this idea of co op mode business, you know, playing the game of business, but co op mode. Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that on a slight tangent, but related very much to what you said, a tangent from the Pac side of things. Chris, do you think it's more important for people to bolster their weaknesses or to bolster their strengths?
Well, I think that they need to concentrate their time on things they're good at. Otherwise they'll burn out. So I don't know that what you mean by bolster exactly, but like, yes, you should improve. I mean, if you're good at something to begin with, it should be natural that you'll already be working on it. Most of the time. If people are good at chess, it's because they liked chess. Right. But they like chess because they were good at it.
So they continue to practice and get better at it because they like it and are good at it. Right. So we generally, our strengths tend to get take care of themselves. However, if you're taking a lot of time away from doing the thing you're good at, to do all these things that you're bad at and suck your energy out, then it becomes much harder for you to continue to do the
most important things in your business. Now, that doesn't mean you never make those, like, you know, everyone's got to answer some emails sometimes. You know what I mean? Like, both of us answer emails sometimes, right? It's just part of business. Some of us are writing the emails and some of us are responding to them. You know, it's just we have things that have to happen. And if you're an army of one or an army of two or you're playing co op business, you both have to get those things.
You can't always be the guy getting headshots, you know, but, but here's the thing.
If the fact that you're, that you're doing all these emails is now, you know, you're getting so many emails that it's sucking the life out of you and that you can't have do the thing you're actually really good at or do the thing and spend the time on what's going to really grow the business, which might be getting new clients or engaging with your people or building out a new email campaign or whatever, or building more product, it might be that you really need
to spend your time doing whatever it is. If these other things are costing you your energy to be able to do those really important things you're good at, you got to look at what's your strategy now? And are you going to delegate that or, you know, find a better strategy to be able to get those things executed? I bring this up also because I don't feel like we've spoken even in our interviews to people that just
solely focused on one or the other. They knew that there were areas they weren't strong, and so they had to do some of it. Chris Tinkerhouse had mentioned the side of expenses and knowing that, well, it's not my strong suit, not the expensive side. He said manufacturing was something he liked and they had envisioned keeping it in house, but the demand eventually blew up and they couldn't do that, so they had to outsource to a manufacturer.
And it's that idea of, okay, these are things that we want to do that may not be our, like, competitive advantage, our strengths. So we need assistance. We need somebody else to come in here and bolster our, or, like, what is it where I used bolster again, but to fulfill, to support us in areas that might be our weak spots.
So the idea of if you have a weak spot and you tackle it, say, in the example of doing legal forms or fulfilling documents for various states, if that's not your strength, but it's got to be done, you got to do it. So that's a weakness, maybe for you, but you know that you got to do it versus the thing that you love to do of making whatever your product is, that's your strength. Sometimes you have to do those things.
But I still think it's really important that the people we spoke to, my, my rambling is getting to the point here of I think it's important for people to understand what their strengths are and really continue in them. You know, outsource those other things, because that was one of the other things we heard a lot of was be ready, be prepared to outsource. We heard that from many world taverns. I mean,
he had a big team there with him. He, I think at least had eight people working in the booth with him. You know, they're restocking. They're, they're working the point of sales. They're doing marketing at the same time. You know, his, I don't remember her name, but she was their marketing person and she was doing everything. And now that I know who it is, I see her in their content and I'm like, this woman is a one person army on the marketing front.
So having people that you can rely on having people whose strengths are your weaknesses is fantastic. And it goes back to that co op business mode idea. So, Frank, I want to know, like, who did you find impressed you the most in terms of how they work together as a team?
I would say Aaron and Corey at Dragons den Candles, they both, not only were they taking the time to be a couple, when we were recording and talking with them and even not recording, you know, they were affectionate towards one another while they were wheeling and dealing, they were very busy. Even when we were there first thing in the morning, they were very busy, but they were still happy to complement each other's strengths. She, I believe, was a bit more of the. What was it?
She was a bit more of like the spreadsheet, structured mind. She was the frank of the. Yeah, and, and Corey was more of the sales. Sales and creative. And he talked about like, the candle sense. I'd always been really driven by this and when I, the one that I was drew, drawn towards of the candles was the frozen something I'm forgetting. Oh, it's right here. Frozen tundra, frozen north.
Oh, almost, almost. I know, I knew it wasn't tundra, but the frozen north candle, I was drawn to it and he did the perfect salesman thing where he gave me the story and it really convinced me. He said, yeah. Reason that one came up was it's like you're out in the cold and you get a stuffy nose and you're just like freezing inside. Well, this has eucalyptus in it and some other like mint related botanicals in it and it just really clears up your sinuses. And I thought, God, that's really good.
And it does kind of give this feeling of the cold space, the cold environment that you might be in. And I thought, man, okay, I was on the fence, but now I'm getting this. And so anyway, their strengths were really nice, I thought, and they complemented each other quite well as a couple too. Who do you think was having the most fun? That's a tough question because I think a lot of them were having fun in different ways because they were nerdy about what they're making.
But I would say the most, like energy, the most enthusiasm I saw would probably be Chris at Tinkerhouse or Dragon's Den candles. However, I actually really think Randall from Catalyst game Labs has a lot of fun dealing in Battletech and talking about it. And I think he's still very passionate about that ip, even though he's been in it for like 30 years now. Yeah, I thought the couple, the other couple that we had at Hexwood Forge seemed
like they were having a blast as well. And they also said that a con had been going well, which I imagine helps with having a good time is when you're selling lots of stuff and making money and, you know, working, working well with your, with your person. But I thought they were having, they were in great spirits. They did a great interview and also were working together really well, having fun while they were selling all their stuff. So as much as we've said, oh, man, it's hard.
I never saw anyone there that was like, seemed like they didn't want to be there except for that podcast. Don't go there and promote your podcast. Not exactly. Very. They didn't have a lot of physical products to sell. And I thought, you know, everyone else here is selling a physical product. Yeah, yeah. And they're also all masked up and kind of like standoffish,
if I felt. And, yeah, I don't know, I just felt like they weren't really following the model for how to be successful at a place like Pax in the same way as many of the other people were. They also, you know, didn't have time for an interview right away, so it was like. But I get it because they were probably stressed out and a little bit, you know, concerned about how things were going and the investment they made and all that sort of thing. So I don't know. I don't know.
This is the case and I want to just say that, and I'm not going to name them either, but I want to say, just before you could jump in, there are people there that were not having, not having the best time. And it was an example of where your passion might have got ahead of you in your business, and you were like, I am so excited and I just need to follow this passion and I'm going to make this financial commitment and
it's all going to just work out. And actually, that might been a, might have not been the best move for them. So it is possible to make the wrong move like that and not, and just follow your passion too far and not get to the place where you want to go. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows if you don't have the right plan or strategies in place. Speaking of plans and strategies and that interesting example you brought up of a podcast at a convention, a podcast behind a booth.
I thought that was odd. And I think it's worth pointing out to somebody who maybe doesn't have a physical product to really show off. Sure. This podcast has a physical product of their podcast. And I think that it's fantastic that they're doing this and they're pursuing it, and they have some claim to fame for part of their show.
But they went there, it sounded like, for outreach and awareness, but they were measuring their success based on getting net positive or even just like, paying for the expenses, which is, it doesn't align. It doesn't align. And also, they weren't selling anything that was really going to make a buck. They were selling stickers. They were selling patches and really low price point items that aren't going to easily give them quick kicks of revenue.
It's only really going to be appealing to people who are already passionate about their show, which is not. Which also isn't aligning with your marketing efforts. So if you're like, if you. So I say this as if you are a brand that doesn't have a physical product or you do have a physical product and you're not bringing it, just don't. Don't get a booth. Don't incur the big expense of a booth because you're already traveling.
You're already going to have to pay for food and other things at being at a convention. So don't add the booth expense. Yeah, do what we did, which is go there as a person who's going there, and then make content to bring awareness to your podcast. That's basically what we did. We went there knowing, like, at least this was my thinking, is that we would go there and meet directly with our market, which is nerdy entrepreneurs.
And those nerdy entrepreneurs, they basically were everywhere around us, and we could go talk to them directly and ask them cool, awesome questions about how they got to be successful, and we could create content that brings more. Not only do they now know about us, which many of them were like, this is so cool. We love what you're doing. Oh, my God.
And we've got more followers and more listeners out of it, but we've also now got content to be able to share with other people, to let them know that there is this cool niche called nerd business that we're excavating for the world right now, to be able to find the diamonds and nuggets of wisdom that are going to help people build their nerdy business faster, better, and more effectively. Did you just become a dwarf?
These analogies of, like, digging and gems, pretty soon you're gonna bring up mithril. Yes, we're going to find the mithril. Deep within the dark, dark caverns of Pax west. We mine. We mine. This is exactly how we do it. We're nerds. Yes. We mine for nerdy gems. I think that's good. That's exactly what we're doing, and we're. The nuggets of wisdom. The gems of wisdom. Exactly. Exactly. I want to ask, what was the most fun for you over the weekend? I think you know the answer.
It was playing that Artemis game up in the up. It was. So Pax has, you know, those various games that you can play, and I do have other nerdy, business related answers, but this one came. No, no, no. Go into this. This is exactly what I wanted you to go into. Fun story tangent for a little bit. But we were going up and down the escalators at Pax. There's, like, four floors, and we see this booth and assigned to a room, and it says Artemis bridge simulator.
And I thought, bridge simulator? Like, why do you want to simulate walking on a bridge? We did not see this. Frank saw this. Okay. And immediately. No, no. I was. I feel like I looked at it and was like, what's a bridge simulator? And you're like, oh, I want to do that. You looked at me, you were like, you were so much more excited about this. Pretty soon, and this is early in the day, you're like, I want to do this. And I'm like, okay, let's do some work.
Stuff that we got to do first, and then we'll come do that eventually. And you're like, eventually, like, hey, can we go do that? All right, let's go. Yeah. So it was like five or 06:00 at this point, and the floor had closed. And we went in here, and I kind of realized, you know, you were telling the part where I realized what it was, and it was essentially like star track bridge commander sort of a thing. But we get in there, each person gets a different position on the ship,
and everyone has to communicate. Well, I was the science officer. You were the weapons officer. There was someone else who was helm, another person that was engineering, someone that was communication. And then one of the organizers would be the captain. Captain, this was the nerdiest thing I have ever done in my life. I am just going to say. And, I mean, the stench of sweat and people who had not left, it was hilarious. But we're all sitting around, and here's the thing. Like,
I'm all for it if you're. If you're like. But. But what we were looking at was literally, like, radar signals on screen. Like, there was sometimes you could see, you could see like the whole ship kind of moving around in like, what you would call a space. There was some graphics and stuff, but like, in each and of our individual consoles, to me was just like radar symbols that I didn't, and dots and that were red and green, and I really didn't know what was going on at all.
It was very foreign in terms of how to access this as a so and so quotes game. And I remember I needed like, every single step of the thing. I was needing help, every single person, I was like, what do I do? What is this? Where is the game? I don't know what this is. And you fell into it seamlessly.
I thought I knew what to do, because they gave these for the listener, they gave these index cards, not index cards, they gave full eight and a half by eleven cards that had everything explained for your position. And I started, at first it didn't make sense, but I feel pretty good about picking up games nowadays. And so I looked at it, I was like,
what is my role? Understanding how abridged simulator could work, I thought, because I play Star Trek adventures, and that's very much like what this was, except instead of a TTRPG, this was a video game. And I start to pick up what I'm supposed to do, and I'm like, I'm really curious. It says, this interacts with the weapons team. I have to feed them the frequencies that their weapons should target, so that they can break through the shields. That's interesting. We'll have to try it.
And we start it, and we're going at it. And I take on this character of, uh, pretty much just, hmm, captain. I see, I was trying to be spock, and it kind of veered into Kirk a little bit of interesting. I see that their frequency a is their weak point, weapons fire, and I was taking the spock tone, but I. And everybody started around me, started doing similar things, and I felt very out of place. I was all of a sudden not able to, like, I was, I was like, oh, man, I'm not, I'm not,
I'm not in Kansas anymore. This is that. We're now on a starship. And the guy next to me, who is communications, he joined later, but he, he would every now and then ask me like, oh, what do you think I should say? And I said, tell him to go kiss their ass goodbye. And it was very fun. I had a lot of fun. Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there being like, do I want to send a nuke at that space station? That we're going to, because I know y'all, like, everyone there, was so excited to play the game
the way it's supposed to be played. And that just made me wanna, out of hilarity, like, nuke the actual space station, which I didn't know if I was allowed to do or not. But then also there's. There's like, three other people around. Three. Sorry, three other ships around of people that are in the same game as us. And I just felt like if I do this, I'm gonna ruin, like, the permanency of the game, and I. I won't do that. Yeah. Which would have been cool.
Maybe we'll just have to put you in the brig. Yeah. Wow. It was the nerdiest thing. I was probably the nerdiest ten minutes that I have ever spent in my life doing anything. But I'm glad I got to do it with you. Yeah, it was very fun. I'm glad that they let us play a second time because there was no line. I wanted to ask you. There's a concept around when people want to jump into starting a business, how to do that, right?
Do people sort of burn the boats and quit their day job and, like, dive in, or do they come up with a couple ways of doing it and test and kind of like, slowly ease in and iterate their way towards this goal of, say, leaving their job and jumping into their nerdy business full time, but really getting it up and started part time? And I'm curious, what did you notice from the people we interviewed? Was the way. Was the right way to do it?
Yeah, I like this question a lot because it touches on what we talk about in our interviews on the show. But Randall at Catalyst Game Labs stood out to me because his story was that he started out just providing value to the community of BattleTech with volunteering to run these games and events. And eventually people noticed him, and I think he was dipping his toes in.
I don't even know if it was intentional at the time, because he was a. I think he was a teenager at least when he started doing this. I don't know how old he was when he was brought onto the team permanently, but he starts out just volunteering and offering his time and providing that value and being helpful and reliable, and eventually it became a full time thing. And, you know, asterisk here, it's a little different in his case because he was hired.
He didn't start a business, but I thought it was a good example still of you try to bring some value in whatever capacity you have at the time. And then if you are actually bringing value into the world, other people will see that and it will be noticed and appreciated, and success will take shape in various ways, I think. Well, I think definitely people that we talked to generally didn't burn the boats. I think most of them started off with an idea, and they went out and tried it.
Then they created various iterations to get closer and closer to the mark of what they want to do. So, like the candle people, they, you know, start with a couple cons, and then it became their full time thing once they got busy enough to actually do it. And it was similarly, I mean, we were talking with tinker toys. They're very successful, but they still had day jobs, actually. They were just, you know, doing this because, and creating this big business of terrain.
Because why not, like, why not do it, right? They love the hobby, and it's making them great money. Right? So why not do this, you know? And I think that there was a lot of people that, that I think are afraid of, say, starting their own business because they think it means burning the boats, that they have to go off and quit their job and just do full time and go all in on this idea that may or may not work out. And the thing about Tinker toys that was interesting was that they had originally
started with wanting to create a war game. And the war game was their own version of rules. And it's kind of like what anybody who goes into these games, it's like, oh, what if we created a war game that was just as good as, say, warhammer or just as good as necromunda or just as good as whatever d and d. What if. What if we created that kind of game? And that happens, right?
So many people go in with that intention, and then what they found out was like, oh, well, here's what we'll do for our game. We'll create this really cool terrain that'll actually, you know, make us a little more distinct and people will love it. And then they realized that so many people who were playing Warhammer and Necroman and these other, like, war games were like, this terrain. Terrain is awesome. Can we buy it from you?
And they just wanted to buy the terrain. They didn't have any interest in the actual game, and they realized that's where the market was, that's where the money was. That's where they could actually serve their community. And what you just talked about there, where it was like, you need to add value. And I think so many people will go
in and have be committed to their idea. It's like the DM or the dungeon master who goes in, who's so committed to their plan that they don't shift it, and they railroad their people into, like, their idea, and it ruins the game. That's like those same people who go into business and are unwilling to adapt to what the market needs and
find where can they be adding value. And so this is something that I pulled out of it, and I've made a few memes about it since then, but it's like, you really shouldn't start a nerdy business because you want to make money in your nerd market. You should start a nerdy business because you want to serve that community and add value to it at a whole different level. That's what being a successful nerdy entrepreneur requires, is where's the gaps? Where are the holes in value
and how can you do it better? I mean, we talked to Patrick about that, the minis guy, and he's like, there was a huge gap in the market. No one was making good minis at a good price. I came in and crushed it. That's what we did. Same with the tinker toys. We already talked about that. But then, you know, you have people who were doing this for all of these different nerdy businesses at the event.
They were all finding little niches where they could bring in value, and people were excited to buy from them. The products that are being brought in reminded me of how Hexwood also stood out in this way, because we've seen at ECC and at PaxNow and many other cons are, probably have even more options of different tabletop role playing game accessories, dice towers, dice trays, dice holders, dice themselves in many different forms, mystery dice bags, just anything you can think of.
There are people who double down on one batch of just, say, dice trays or just dice towers or just dice. And I thought that Hexwood Forge did a super good job of having a wonderful array of things, and they were. I don't know what their process for making these things are, so I can't speak to that, but I just thought it was really impressive, the array of selection they had. They had spell templates. That's one of the gifts, actually. That is the gift they gave you.
And I were these like spell diagrams to help players understand what is a cone, what is a square, what's a circle on, on the, on the battle grid. And very practical geometry. Yeah. And it was very practical. And I thought, oh, my God, this is gonna be great for my beginning players. And they had that. They had dice trays, they had other just nerdy pretty things on leather. And I thought, wow, they're really providing an aesthetic value and a practical value, and that was really special.
And I thought that that's the kind of value that's going to help them continue to succeed. Like, if you're in the dice market, you're competing with everyone else who's got trays and dice. But then they had all of these other things that weren't dice. Like the templates, like the tower things. What was it? Oh, yeah, I was. What were those called? I forget, but they're used for, like, when your minis are flying and you need to have them suspended. So they're transparent acrylic stands.
Yeah. So they had stands like that. They had all these sort of things that were just sort of supplementary to your game, but you wouldn't have seen it. A typical dice thing. Sure, they had some dice there, but it wasn't their main thing. And we also got to talking to people about what their main sellers were at each of these booths. So I think that'll be really interesting content for people to see as well as they, as they go.
Check out our insta and doing all that, because as you go to various cons, every con has slightly different groups and people. And what we found by talking to these people was that you learn what kind of things sell at certain cons, right, as you do more of them. And so there's probably some wisdom that people can garner from just paying attention to what other people are selling and what works at Pax west, for example.
And I can't wait to go to more cons to be able to explore what are some of these other experiences that people are finding, and what is the wisdom that we can garner for other people in the future who might want to go to those cons, what kind of products are selling big there. So it was a consistent, we heard from people was that like, you know, you get to know these cons, take a risk on them, but, like, pay attention.
Some of these cons might not work out as well, and some of them, you might sell something you didn't expect and run out of things, right. So it's like, wow, you know, we really ran out of these templates really quick, so we should bring more of them to packs. And whereas we had tons of stuffed animals and no one wanted them here, whatever it is you're selling. Right?
Yeah. There's a lot of wisdom that we've touched on over the last few months, ever since we went to Emerald City Comic Con and in our interviews, our long form interviews on the show about cons and. And how people
can be better prepared for them. So, listener, if you want more wisdom about how to be better prepared for a con, we have some content in the past, and we will have more content around how to be better prepared because cons are a really lucrative, rewarding opportunity if you are well prepared. And that's what we saw solidified at PAX. The people there were veterans. Yeah, I had a blast doing the interviews with you.
I know I was the one on camera for a lot of it, but that was something that I had a blast doing and was the main thing I wanted to get done. And I appreciate you being the person who was filming and getting all the angles and everything. Right. And allowing me to be in the moment that I'm good at, which was interviewing those people and getting. And pulling out some of those great answers. Yeah, you did great. Hearing that you liked this so much.
What was your favorite part about doing these five minute interviews? You know, when I thought about doing these interviews, I had a series of questions I wanted to ask people. Some of it was around how many cons they had done and what are some keys to success at cons. I knew I wanted to ask that. I wanted to ask people around what are the big lessons they learned in their first year or two of business. Right. Some things to really pull
those nuggets out of for people. But I also, while I was doing these interviews, saw the joy that was coming out of the people we were interviewing. And I got to asking them, what do you love about your life now as a nerdy entrepreneur who's successful? And I'll tell you, even though some of them were tired and, you know, they were going after it for three or four days, I'm telling you, every single one of them came back with an answer that was like, I love my life now.
I am so happy that I, you know, yeah, I'm busier than I've ever been, but I love what I'm doing. You know, I remember one of them, Corey, was saying, he's like, I can take a nap in the middle of the day if I want to. It's on my terms. You know, I don't have to go into an office or deal with TPS reports or go and, you know, be on some building someone else's dream, someone else's vision. It's my vision, my business, and my. My will to succeed that's getting me further.
So I get to build it at the pace that I want to as well. And so many of them linked that to freedom even though they're busy and they work really hard. Almost every single one of the people said they love the freedom of it and that's the nerdpreneur spirit. That's the other side of taking that leap into a nerdy business. And I think that we really got confronted with that when we interviewed these people face to face at an event like PAX west.
And to me that's why we're doing what we're doing is to inspire people that they can go out and make this happen for themselves and get on the other side of that leap it takes to start your nerdy business and pursue that freedom. So for our dear listeners, if you would like to see those interviews, we'll be releasing them on our social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram threads, even X. And as always, Chris, keep it nerdy.