How Lost Boy Entertainment Built a Seven-Figure Game Brand

Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh. Today, our guest is Cameron from Lost Boy Entertainment, a fast growing tabletop game company creating fun, memorable games for families and friends. What started out as a passion project between a bunch of game lover turn into a real business after their first title Plunder gained strong attractions and opened doors for bigger opportunity.

Since then, Lost Boy Entertainment has expanded his lineup and build momentum with games like Piles and find enormous amount of success using TikTok to reach new hype for the business. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Cameron Ring (01:20)
Thank you for having me, Jason. Good to be here.

Jason Hsieh (01:22)
Yeah, so first, take us back to the start. How did Lost Boy Entertainment begin?

Cameron Ring (01:27)
Yeah, Lost Boy had a fun journey. We started at the beginning of 2020 with the launch

Jason Hsieh (01:33)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (01:33)
Of our very first game, Plunder: A Pirate’s Life, which was

Jason Hsieh (01:37)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (01:38)
A side project, passion project

Jason Hsieh (01:40)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (01:41)
Idea that we did not…

Think at the time would become kind of our full-time gig. It was this idea of wanting

Jason Hsieh (01:46)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (01:49)
To make a board game that combined a lot of the up-and-coming Euro game elements, things like

Jason Hsieh (01:54)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (01:54)
How in Settlers of Catan, the map is always different and resource management wanted to combine

Jason Hsieh (01:58)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (02:00)
That with the American elements, namely interaction, combat,

Jason Hsieh (02:02)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (02:04)
Affecting one another, and we added the pirate theme, which felt very natural.

Jason Hsieh (02:09)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (02:09)
And to this day, Plunder

Continues to be one of our best selling games. And it is

Jason Hsieh (02:13)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (02:13)
Our most, you might call it hardcore board game in our lineup. After that, we pivoted to family card games and

Jason Hsieh (02:21)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (02:21)
More mass market retail appeal.

Jason Hsieh (02:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Cameron Ring (02:23)
And

Our card game piles really blew up and has become our best selling game and has inspired

Jason Hsieh (02:29)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (02:30)
The release of a few other fast no turn dexterity type card games that are really a big hit and a type

Of game

Jason Hsieh (02:37)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (02:38)
That can be played by anybody young and old.

Jason Hsieh (02:40)
Yeah. And I think you got so much traction on TikTok. One of the best video you got 14 million view that got it right. That’s a lot of view. So.

Cameron Ring (02:48)
Yeah, Piles! has become a TikTok staple in that when we started posting TikToks, we were very,

Jason Hsieh (02:55)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (02:56)
It felt like YouTube. Were describing how to play. There was a lot

Jason Hsieh (02:59)
Yeah, yeah,

Cameron Ring (02:59)
Of effort put into the editing and nothing was really sticking for our game Piles! And then one

Jason Hsieh (03:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (03:06)
Day we started just filming POV videos. We would have someone over our shoulder or we would actually wear a neck brace to hold the phone.

And we would play a full game of piles.

Jason Hsieh (03:15)
Ohhhh

Cameron Ring (03:17)
Piles is two to eight players. So we would play one on one and film the entire video. Be a 90 second match and we

Jason Hsieh (03:25)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (03:25)
Unedited, we would post the whole video and people really liked it. Cause what we learned

Jason Hsieh (03:28)
That’s pretty smart, raw. Yeah, I see, I see.

Cameron Ring (03:31)
Is the game is devoid of language and you can

Jason Hsieh (03:33)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (03:33)
Learn how to play just by watching. And that is exactly what happened.

Jason Hsieh (03:36)
Watching. Plus he

Create kind of sense of curiosity. He’s like, what the heck is going on? It’s great. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (03:40)
Yeah, we didn’t bother. Exactly. We wouldn’t

Say how to play in the video. People would just boom, the game has begun. You scrolled onto a video and suddenly two guys are speeding to match six piles of four and and people loved

It. People really the retention people would watch 45 seconds worth of the video and

Jason Hsieh (03:59)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (03:59)
That allowed it to really kickstart momentum and it’s been a

Jason Hsieh (04:03)
Yeah,

Cameron Ring (04:04)
Bestseller ever since.

Jason Hsieh (04:05)
I see. See. Well, I think you just need to try a lot of angles to figure out what it were. But I want to take a moment a little bit earlier. So obviously when you first started, just like you say, you didn’t expect it to go full time so quickly. What was the moment you realized this is more than just a passion project. You want to make it into your full time career and full time business.

Cameron Ring (04:24)
Absolutely. After we released our very first game, we didn’t know what would come next because our ideas

Jason Hsieh (04:29)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (04:31)
Were not for other big board games. And we didn’t

Jason Hsieh (04:33)
I see.

Cameron Ring (04:34)
Know if the next thing we wanted to make was a drinking game or a family party card game, how did those

Jason Hsieh (04:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (04:40)
Both work under the same umbrella? And the answer became, it doesn’t

Jason Hsieh (04:42)
Okay, yes.

Cameron Ring (04:43)
Matter because people don’t know the brand yet, just release what you want to release. And so we were able to…

Jason Hsieh (04:46)
Yes, True, okay.

Cameron Ring (04:49)
Enter different markets right away because our first three games were the big board game, a drinking game, and then piles, the card game. Exactly. So when we

Jason Hsieh (04:56)
Yeah. Totally different. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (05:00)
Found at least moderate success in all three, we quickly realized

Jason Hsieh (05:04)
Mm.

Cameron Ring (05:04)
We kind of had a knack for this. We grew

Jason Hsieh (05:07)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (05:07)
Up, we’re family and me and my two business partners are my cousins. And we

Jason Hsieh (05:11)
Okay. Okay.

Cameron Ring (05:12)
Quickly realized that we understand the

Maybe not, you know, no one understands it fully, but we, had an eye

Jason Hsieh (05:18)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (05:18)
For what would do well in a modern game.

And when we were

Jason Hsieh (05:21)
Hmm, okay, okay

Cameron Ring (05:23)
Doing our third game and it started to get this massive momentum on TikTok, we realized,

Jason Hsieh (05:28)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (05:29)
You know, we needed to stop what we were doing otherwise and focus fully on this. So around 2023, we all.

Jason Hsieh (05:33)
On this, yeah. Three, one year

Later, okay.

Cameron Ring (05:37)
Yeah,

Yeah. The, cause piles launched around that time. And that’s

Jason Hsieh (05:40)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (05:41)
When we all started full-timing it because we realized there was really a lot of potential for this to grow into something

Jason Hsieh (05:46)
Well.

Cameron Ring (05:47)
Bigger than the sum of its parts. And so we were, we were really, really energized. So, yeah, 2023, we started full-timing it and it’s been a good journey since.

Jason Hsieh (05:54)
Yeah, I don’t know

If you’re willing to share some number because a lot of our like listener that also beginning their journey were like in the middle of their journey. I think based on our previous conversation, you were able to grow to multiple seven figure extremely quickly. You say that’s like mostly because of TikTok or what other strategy is working

Cameron Ring (06:12)
Yeah, yeah,

Jason Hsieh (06:14)
Well?

Cameron Ring (06:14)
Definitely. I would say…

At this current state, really owe it all to short form social

Jason Hsieh (06:19)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (06:19)
Media content, namely TikTok. TikTok allowed for a game that would have had a slow snowball and slowly built momentum

Jason Hsieh (06:26)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (06:26)
And slowly. It allowed it to peak really early and not peak, but spike, I should say, to the top of the charts. And it basically

Jason Hsieh (06:30)
Hmm. Spike. Yes. I see.

Cameron Ring (06:35)
Allowed us to run what you might call an ad for free.

Jason Hsieh (06:38)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (06:39)
Instead of having to pay all this money for ad spots, the magic of TikTok and its algorithms

Jason Hsieh (06:39)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Tick tock. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (06:45)
Allowed it to be in front of a lot of people’s eyeballs. And that

Jason Hsieh (06:48)
A lot of people. Yes, yes, yes.

Cameron Ring (06:50)
Allowed us to start climbing the Amazon rankings, which got more eyes on us. People were like, what the heck is this piles laundry game that has suddenly

Jason Hsieh (06:52)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:00)
Been top five on Amazon’s dedicated deck card games. So yeah, we really

Jason Hsieh (07:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:04)
Owe a lot of it to, TikTok. Then when TikTok shop,

Launched.

Jason Hsieh (07:08)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (07:09)
We weren’t like one of the first people there, but we were still pretty early adopters of TikTok Shop and having a

Jason Hsieh (07:14)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:15)
New e-commerce platform just rode that wave right as it started. We’re still on TikTok Shop and

Jason Hsieh (07:20)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:20)
Yeah, that short form content really allowed us to skyrocket.

Jason Hsieh (07:23)
Yeah.

And if you don’t mind sharing, just a little bit curious about the revenue growth because you grow extremely fast compared to other company I have interviewed it. I think you mentioned you started in 2022. What was the revenue look like in 2022 and

Like what does that projectory look like on ’23 to ’24

Cameron Ring (07:39)
Definitely.

Jason Hsieh (07:39)
To ’25, so on and so forth.

Cameron Ring (07:41)
Yeah, so all we had in like 2020 when Plunder launched, it was like a thousand copy print run made just

Jason Hsieh (07:45)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:49)
Enough to get the next print run going. And then in 2021,

Jason Hsieh (07:51)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:52)
We had our drinking game and you know, all well and good. But in 2023, when we had three games and they’re all doing well on

Jason Hsieh (07:58)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (07:58)
Social media, we suddenly were able to be like, we can really scale this. And suddenly,

Yeah, you’re looking at…

Jason Hsieh (08:02)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (08:03)
You know, a lump sum that you need to reinvest essentially back into the business

Jason Hsieh (08:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (08:08)
And you need to balance what you want to expand in your existing lineup with adding new products.

Jason Hsieh (08:11)
So I guess, I

Guess my question, this is actually a magic number. Lot of people are shooting for as a business owner. It’s like, how much time or how much energy do I need to pull into my business to get to seven figure, which you get to seven figure extremely quickly. So how long does that took you like two years to get to seven figure?

Cameron Ring (08:28)
It

Took us about three years, maybe, yeah,

Jason Hsieh (08:32)
Three years to get a seven figure, okay.

Cameron Ring (08:34)
Because that was only just had the larger lineup. And then having more games just helped because a game can do really well, but having two games do really well, pretty obvious statement. Yeah,

Jason Hsieh (08:38)
Yeah, true, true, true, Yeah. Yeah, of course, of course.

Cameron Ring (08:45)
Just having a more robust kind of like set of games. They weren’t competing with one another because our games were such different markets, but it took about three years. And then from there to

Jason Hsieh (08:48)
Kind of lined up. Yes. Hmm. It’s all different too. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Okay.

Cameron Ring (08:56)
Get to…

Like it becomes easier to grow once you are bigger because we did start running paid ads. We did start hiring influencers. We did pay for nicer content, more content, entered affiliate programs,

Jason Hsieh (08:59)
Grow yeah yeah influencer content okay okay yeah

Cameron Ring (09:11)
Started sending out samples like nobody’s business. You have to be ready to give away a thousand copies for free. You just have to play the game. No pun intended. And so, yeah, I about

Jason Hsieh (09:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of coffee for free. Yeah. It’s a numbers game. Yes. It is a number. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (09:22)
Three years.

Jason Hsieh (09:22)
Two years. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because I think this is applied to almost all the toys and game company I talked to a lot of people struggle in the six figure or low six figure mark for years, sometimes decades and never really go beyond that. Because I think

Cameron Ring (09:35)
Yeah.

Jason Hsieh (09:37)
Just the industry, well, the type of like industry we are in.

I would say it’s a low margin, high volume business, agree? So in order

Cameron Ring (09:44)
Yes.

Jason Hsieh (09:44)
For it to work, it just needs to sell a lot of games. So yeah.

Cameron Ring (09:47)
Yeah, exactly. Especially because

A lot of our newer games are $10. They go on sale, you know, they’re $8.50 and you really need to push some product if you… Exactly. Our very first game, our very

Jason Hsieh (09:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot. Yeah, because the margin per unit is not that high, you need to sell a lot of units.

Cameron Ring (10:01)
First game Plunder was and is a $50 board game and through all of, you know, the time that has passed and the tariffs and whatnot, we’ve never raised the price of Plunder.

Jason Hsieh (10:12)
Really? Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah.

Cameron Ring (10:13)
But

$50 Is pretty hefty and having

Jason Hsieh (10:16)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (10:17)
A higher priced item like that when it does well is really nice because so many of our games are $20, $15. And

Jason Hsieh (10:20)
Yeah. True. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (10:25)
Just also having a robust catalog because where you really can make your money is if people are buying two of your games. You save so much on the fulfillment. So…

Jason Hsieh (10:32)
Yes, yes, yes, 100%. 100%,

Cameron Ring (10:35)
Finally having

Jason Hsieh (10:36)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (10:36)
What we now have now which is you might call a line of card games four or five very similar games

Jason Hsieh (10:40)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (10:42)
A lot of people and these $10 ones a lot of those end up as impulse buys

People come looking for piles and they end up buying Piles! and our other game Detonate, you know that kind of thing

Jason Hsieh (10:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And otherwise. Oh,

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think that’s kind of the, pattern I see for successful company in the toys and games space. Start with like one or two hero product. Then you really, really try to expand your product line. And also what you did really smart is you have product at different price point too. So you not only have

Cameron Ring (11:10)
Exactly.

Jason Hsieh (11:11)
$10, Also have $50, you also have

I believe one of your products is like $80 as well. And you also have an 80. Yeah, that’s $80 too. So yeah.

Cameron Ring (11:15)
We do have an outdoor game that is, yeah, and talk about a new

Market to be in. We took a stab at the outdoor market, which essentially

Jason Hsieh (11:22)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (11:23)
We have to treat kind of as a different business because it’s so different, but it’s so much

Jason Hsieh (11:25)
This is very different. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (11:27)
Fun to be in that world as well.

Jason Hsieh (11:29)
I see. See. See. And like as the company grow, what, like, what really helped you to go from one game to have the full line out that you have? Do you do all the design and coming up with all the idea in-house or do you partner with other designer? What is your process on that?

Cameron Ring (11:42)
So all design from Lost Boy Entertainment is in-house. We

Jason Hsieh (11:46)
It’s in-house, okay.

Cameron Ring (11:47)
Do not take outside ideas, we just do not have the infrastructure, our pipeline is very, very packed right now.

Jason Hsieh (11:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Yeah. Okay.

Cameron Ring (11:54)
We do actually

Offer on our website, we have guides that can assist people in how to do it themselves because that’s how they’ll

Jason Hsieh (12:00)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (12:01)
Get more control and they’ll make more money and they’ll enjoy it more. We believe if you do it yourself, but yeah, so all design

Jason Hsieh (12:04)
So, so it’s just fun.

Cameron Ring (12:06)
Is in house right now and it’s a, it’s a balance. Have days that are business days and we have days that are creative days, but as we got busier and busier,

Jason Hsieh (12:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (12:14)
We had to really make an effort to for the creative. Today we put our laptops away

Jason Hsieh (12:18)
Creative

Cameron Ring (12:19)
And we’re

Jason Hsieh (12:20)
Hmm i see i see i see yeah

Cameron Ring (12:20)
Pitching ideas, we’re playing other people’s games, we’re testing stuff out. And that balance can be tough because

When you have a product that kind of is outselling the rest, there’s this desire

Jason Hsieh (12:29)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (12:30)
To re-put all the money, reinvest it back into this one product and really

Jason Hsieh (12:33)
Into one. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (12:35)
Put all your eggs in one basket. And while that is obviously valuable, there is value in…

Emphasizing your best product. You don’t want to leave ideas on the table. You want to just make it exist, put it out there, because you never

Jason Hsieh (12:41)
Hmm

Cameron Ring (12:48)
Know when you’ll have another one of those products take off. And then you’ll have, then you have a line and then you’re a brand and then you’re

Jason Hsieh (12:50)
True,

Cameron Ring (12:54)
A, you know, force to be reckoned with. You’re not a one hit wonder.

Jason Hsieh (12:58)
Yes, yes, Yeah.

Cameron Ring (12:59)
We could have put it all back into our piles game, but

We kept swinging. Made our game, Words are Hard and piles of Words are Hard together. Now we’re kind of this great like pair. And so if

Jason Hsieh (13:06)
Yeah. Okay. Pairs, okay.

Cameron Ring (13:09)
You’ve got new ideas, say, make them don’t force yourself into a box of just one game. Even if it’s a great selling game,

Jason Hsieh (13:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. True.

Cameron Ring (13:16)
Leave room on the table for new ideas. And that’s what keeps it fun. That’s what keeps it fresh is those

Jason Hsieh (13:21)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (13:21)
New games and those new ideas.

Jason Hsieh (13:23)
So currently, how many more games do you have in the development pipeline?

Cameron Ring (13:27)
So we have 10 products out right now,

Jason Hsieh (13:30)
Yeah, okay.

Cameron Ring (13:31)
Between the outdoor game and everything like that. And we have

Jason Hsieh (13:34)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (13:34)
In the total pipeline, there’s probably 10, 15, releasing

This year.

Jason Hsieh (13:38)
Okay. Still have a lot. Okay.

Cameron Ring (13:39)
This year hoping to release five new ones. Have, yeah.

Jason Hsieh (13:42)
That’s a lot to launch

In a year. Yeah. Okay.

Cameron Ring (13:46)
Exactly. We have a couple brand new ones. We have an expansion or two. We have

A redoing of one of our older games. Not to say every

Jason Hsieh (13:54)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (13:54)
Game we sold is always a success. We have a couple games that we

Jason Hsieh (13:57)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (13:58)
Figured out ways why they didn’t do so well at first but we’re not going to

Jason Hsieh (14:00)
With her.

Cameron Ring (14:01)
Give up on them. We have ways that we’re going to redo the look, the price, the style of advertising. We’re going to redo and relaunch a couple older games. So a relaunch.

Jason Hsieh (14:10)
Move.

Cameron Ring (14:11)
A couple new releases and a couple new expansions.

Jason Hsieh (14:14)
I see, I see, I see. And I want to kind of go to the TikTok side for a little bit, because I think a lot of your success is because of all the effort that your team put into TikTok. And this is such a new platform for a lot of the tabletop companies I’m interviewing. They just don’t know where to start. So like, what is your advice for those like, publishers that’s

Cameron Ring (14:30)
Yeah. Yes.

Jason Hsieh (14:34)
Trying to get into and try to leverage the TikTok platform? What will you do if you go back and do it again?

Cameron Ring (14:39)
My best advice in regards to TikTok is just start posting. TikTok is

Jason Hsieh (14:43)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (14:44)
A unique platform and it’s changed all the other platforms to adopt to its style.

TikTok is

Jason Hsieh (14:49)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (14:49)
A unique platform because it rewards consistency and it rewards originality and authenticity. Lot of

Jason Hsieh (14:56)
I see.

Cameron Ring (14:57)
Platforms, namely like a YouTube or kind

Jason Hsieh (14:59)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (14:59)
Of the older world of Instagram is adopting this, but

Jason Hsieh (15:02)
Sure.

Cameron Ring (15:02)
You had to be really back in the day. You had to be really polished. You needed really good, you know, editing and actors

Jason Hsieh (15:05)
Yeah, yeah, anyway.

Cameron Ring (15:08)
And lighting and all these things. And the magic

Jason Hsieh (15:11)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (15:11)
Of the short form aspect of TikTok is

None of that matters. All that matters

Jason Hsieh (15:16)
Okay, okay.

Cameron Ring (15:17)
Is you’re giving people something they enjoy watching, ultimately leading

Jason Hsieh (15:21)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (15:21)
Them to a product they might enjoy playing. So for example,

Jason Hsieh (15:24)
I see.

Cameron Ring (15:24)
When we first dropped our game, Piles, we

Jason Hsieh (15:26)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (15:27)
Started with unboxings. Hey guys, this is Piles.

Jason Hsieh (15:29)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (15:30)
Piles is a two to eight player card game.

Check it out. We’d have all these people and we’d

Jason Hsieh (15:35)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (15:35)
One guy’s got a camera while everyone plays and it was so over the top and it was such a production and we would, you know, you know, we yeah, we wanted horizontal content. We wanted thumbnails. And as

Jason Hsieh (15:40)
Okay. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. And it doesn’t work when it’s over to put up with. Yeah. I see.

Cameron Ring (15:50)
I mentioned earlier, reason piles blew up is because we took 50 second, 60 second videos of

No dialogue, no music, no nothing, just playing the game. And that blew up. And then

Jason Hsieh (15:57)
Raw play, yes, it’s raw, raw play. Playing the games,

Cameron Ring (16:03)
Even with verbal games, with our Words are Hard game. It’s a game where you blurt out words and you slap cards. POV

Jason Hsieh (16:09)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (16:09)
Doing that worked and

Jason Hsieh (16:11)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (16:11)
Using that style, we connected it to even more complex games. So some of our best,

Jason Hsieh (16:16)
I see.

Cameron Ring (16:16)
Videos for our game Plunder, instead of having to be some intricate unboxing, it’s really just people playing and it’s B-roll of

Jason Hsieh (16:23)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (16:24)
People rolling the dice and having fun. And then we just talked over it. We just said, this is a round of Plunder. I’m rolling the dice. Now I’m doing this as opposed to a formal, like, this is Plunder of Pirates Life. Let’s dive in. It was just a smash cut.

Jason Hsieh (16:32)
Yeah yeah

Cameron Ring (16:38)
You’re already halfway into a game when

You get there. The confusion of what the heck you’re watching forces you to learn more. Because it’s not being spoon fed. We’re trapping you, essentially. We’re baiting you. So

Jason Hsieh (16:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, actually working your favor. Okay. Okay. For sure.

Cameron Ring (16:53)
To go back to your question, my advice is start posting. Don’t worry if your views aren’t good at first. Try different

Jason Hsieh (17:00)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (17:00)
Things. And then the minute one style works,

Hammer that style, repeat that style because TikTok has proven,

Jason Hsieh (17:04)
Hammer that style,

Cameron Ring (17:08)
TikTok has shown you that style works. You want

Jason Hsieh (17:10)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (17:10)
To make TikTok happy by repeating it. And there’s no shortage post three

Jason Hsieh (17:12)
Repeating it okay okay okay

Cameron Ring (17:14)
Times a day. Who cares? You know, who cares about the numbers of posts a day and

Jason Hsieh (17:19)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (17:19)
Have fun with it. Try new things. Don’t try not to get burnt out, but keep at it because you never know what’s going to Yeah.

Jason Hsieh (17:23)
Yeah, I think, I think burnout is the common problem. People post for a few weeks and no traction. Kind of gave up after that. And also I

Think I personally struggled with this with social media as well. Consistency. Sometimes

Cameron Ring (17:35)
Yes.

Jason Hsieh (17:36)
You post, you forgot about it. Sometimes you post, sometimes you forgot about it. Like when you first started, how consistent were you or how often were you posting?

Cameron Ring (17:39)
Exactly. Especially with… Yeah.

Now we’re a machine. Now we’re like clockwork.

Jason Hsieh (17:45)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (17:46)
Back then it was kind of like, well, I would edit a TikTok and then post it that day. And then maybe

Jason Hsieh (17:50)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (17:51)
The next day I’d take a stab at it again, different style of editing.

Jason Hsieh (17:54)
Yeah. Okay.

Cameron Ring (17:56)
Maybe I’d try, you know, different approaches, a minute long, 20 seconds.

Jason Hsieh (18:00)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (18:00)
And then at our peak, like

We’re a toy company. Q4 is obviously everything around Christmas.

Jason Hsieh (18:03)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Cameron Ring (18:05)
It’s like, okay. Four times a day. Me and my, business partner who we both are the social media guys. He’s like, all right, I got Sundays. You got Mondays. Got Tuesdays. I’ve got reminders set. I’ve got scheduled posts. You you spend an hour, you have drafts that are ready to be posted

Jason Hsieh (18:07)
Okay, four times a week. Okay, Yes. Wow, that’s a lot. Yeah, four a week. Man, four times a day. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (18:22)
And then you move those into YouTube shorts and the Instagram reels.

Jason Hsieh (18:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Cameron Ring (18:26)
That’s why we.

Finally have started hiring people, but it’s…

Jason Hsieh (18:27)
Oh, that’s the intense four

A day. That is a lot of content. That’s over 120 a month. Oh my God. That’s a lot. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (18:32)
It’s grueling when you realize, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

When you realize that you’ve spent half a day on just short form content, it can be very like depressing almost, very daunting to know that I spent most of my day on my phone editing videos and posting. But if a single one of them blows up, you’ve.

Jason Hsieh (18:42)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, but you don’t get to,

Exactly. Like what I was going to say is that you don’t get to 14 million view out of the blue. Need to test, test, test, post, post, post, and finally one

Cameron Ring (19:01)
Exactly.

Jason Hsieh (19:02)
Take off. And that is the one that you pretty much make all the money. Right. So yeah.

Cameron Ring (19:06)
Exactly.

One, there’s this idea about virality with how fast TikTok is and

How

Jason Hsieh (19:12)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (19:13)
Much content is being posted on social media. There’s this tendency

Jason Hsieh (19:16)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (19:16)
To think that a video blows up, you’ve got three, four days of incredible results and then the video dies. But what we’ve

Jason Hsieh (19:23)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (19:24)
Learned is a really massive video of 500,000 views, a million views. You can see the effect of that video for a couple months.

Jason Hsieh (19:32)
Oh

Really? Okay, okay, okay.

Cameron Ring (19:33)
The true huge

Videos, you might not even realize it, but they are giving you a slight bump in views and then sales for a really long time. And so

Jason Hsieh (19:41)
Yeah, both means at the time. Yeah, yeah,

Cameron Ring (19:44)
Those big videos are the ones you wanna move over into other platforms. If you’re running ads,

Jason Hsieh (19:48)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (19:49)
You wanna use that video as an ad, but you let it run its natural course for two months, and then you convert it into an ad, start putting money behind it to boost it.

Jason Hsieh (19:51)
Yes. Yes. I see. Okay. So you’re also running

TikTok ads right now, right? For your TikTok account. Okay. Yeah. To run TikTok ads. Okay. Affiliate network. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (20:00)
Now that we have been on TikTok for a couple of years, we finally had the budget to run some heavy TikTok ads and then do the affiliate network. That’s another thing I can’t recommend enough is once you’re on TikTok, you then want to be on the TikTok shop. And once you’re on the TikTok

Shop, you want to be in the TikTok affiliate program and you got to be ready to send lots of samples. But that will allow a network of creators to make videos for you. And those are the best

Jason Hsieh (20:26)
For you, yeah.

Cameron Ring (20:27)
Videos because

If

They do well, you do well. And if they don’t do well, you don’t do well, which is better

Jason Hsieh (20:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (20:32)
Than a one-off payment of some big influence. Instead of paying an influencer $500, if that influencer exactly might go nowhere. So the affiliate network’s

Jason Hsieh (20:35)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Sometimes it go nowhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay.

Cameron Ring (20:41)
So that’s the three-step process in TikTok is start posting, get on TikTok shop, get in the affiliate network.

Jason Hsieh (20:46)
I see. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I think that have really make a huge difference for the, like the trajectory of the company. Like that’s why you are able to hit seven figure like under three years. That’s not easy to do. So

Cameron Ring (20:58)
Thank you.

Jason Hsieh (20:59)
Yeah. And also looking forward, what are some of the other channel or what are your focus for the next few years as a company?

Cameron Ring (21:06)
Absolutely.

As we grew, we obviously wanted to be in retail stores. Nowadays,

E-commerce is still a major, major driving force for all of toys and games. We know

Jason Hsieh (21:16)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (21:16)
That e-commerce for us is still going to be where we sell the most, especially around the holidays. That being

Jason Hsieh (21:20)
Yes.

Cameron Ring (21:22)
Said, personally, I think it’s a good time for retail stores because a lot of the big ones, Target and Walmart, have really made an effort to

Modernize

Their toy and game aisle.

Jason Hsieh (21:34)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (21:34)
They’re leaning into this new wave of gaming that has kind of hit the scene in the post-COVID world, where

Jason Hsieh (21:40)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (21:40)
People were stuck at home, they played games, suddenly games blew up. And

Jason Hsieh (21:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (21:44)
So I think the retail side, while very difficult to enter that world, is going to be huge still. So for a newcomer like us, you know you think the

Jason Hsieh (21:50)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (21:53)
Target aisle is only filled with Hasbro and Mattel, but

If a game does well enough, the buyers at these stores are really receptive and really open to learning. So for Lost Boy, the future

Jason Hsieh (22:01)
Receptive, okay. I see.

Cameron Ring (22:04)
Hopefully is a big commitment to retail. You know,

Jason Hsieh (22:07)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (22:08)
We want to be more of a brand. For so long, our games were so different that we just let them do their thing. But now that we have a line

Jason Hsieh (22:13)
I see. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:15)
Of games and we’re, selling well, we want

Jason Hsieh (22:16)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (22:17)
Lost Boy to be

Not just one game on an aisle, but a few games, a few games, a few games on an aisle. So that is the biggest

Jason Hsieh (22:20)
Yeah, few games. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:23)
Thing for us, you know, stores like Hobby Lobby and Books A Million,

Jason Hsieh (22:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (22:26)
And then putting you know, smaller versions into Five Below and trying to get

Jason Hsieh (22:30)
Mm.

Cameron Ring (22:31)
In, you know, mom and pop shops across them for like plunder,

Jason Hsieh (22:33)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:34)
Especially getting into mom and pop stores. We,

Jason Hsieh (22:36)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (22:37)
Love the retail side of things. We love working with the vendors. And so that’s kind of our…

E-commerce we can run ourselves, but the retail

Jason Hsieh (22:44)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:44)
Side is a network of buyers and sellers and people you have to really

Jason Hsieh (22:46)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:48)
Work well with and so that’s a big push for us this year is

Jason Hsieh (22:49)
For sure. I see.

Cameron Ring (22:52)
Be more on the retail side of things. We have a couple games in Target and Walmart and We want to support them right not every video we

Jason Hsieh (22:58)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (22:58)
Post should be just about e-commerce a lot of the videos we put we post we have to

Try to drive people to those big box stores. And so that’s

Jason Hsieh (23:07)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (23:08)
Where posting a lot is even more advantageous because a viral video

Jason Hsieh (23:11)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (23:12)
Actually leads to more success on a retail side too. It’s not just e-commerce. That’s, that’s kind of our biggest thing. No, not in, we just, Q1 just finished. It’s April now, but,

Jason Hsieh (23:16)
I see. Are you still posting four times a day? Is that your current cadence? No. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (23:25)
Not, not all day every day.

Jason Hsieh (23:27)
Okay, okay.

Cameron Ring (23:27)
But

If you follow us, you’ll start to get sick of us right around end of September was when we really turn the dial up and no, two to three a day, which I know is still a lot. I would say, well, in my mind now,

Jason Hsieh (23:32)
You post up a lot. Oh, okay. What is your post frequency right now then? One a day or two? Oh, that’s still a lot. That’s still quite a bit. Still a lot more than everyone else I talk to.

Cameron Ring (23:46)
It’s probably like, you know, two on TikTok, one on Instagram,

Jason Hsieh (23:48)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (23:49)
Two on YouTube, you know, that kind of thing.

Jason Hsieh (23:50)
I

Cameron Ring (23:52)
And then as summer hits, you know, also depends on what game is going because, know, if

Jason Hsieh (23:56)
Hmm.

Cameron Ring (23:56)
A game is just launched in a store, we’re going to need to post a lot of those videos. Meanwhile, when,

Jason Hsieh (24:01)
I see.

Cameron Ring (24:02)
Summer approaches, we’re going to really turn up the posts for our outdoor game. And then

Jason Hsieh (24:07)
Guys see

Cameron Ring (24:07)
For the first time ever, we’re going to have a Christmas version of a game coming out this holiday season. That’ll be new for us. We’re excited. So obviously we’ll have to, so it just depends like.

Jason Hsieh (24:11)
All you do all I see

Cameron Ring (24:16)
But yeah, probably two to three a day, which is still a lot. Were a team now we have more guys, so we don’t need to go crazy.

Jason Hsieh (24:19)
Yeah. Do you do batch recording then? Do you record like

10, 20 At a time? Then you schedule them out. Yeah. Okay.

Cameron Ring (24:27)
That’s exactly right. And then that

Way editing is done in batches. So, you

Jason Hsieh (24:31)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (24:31)
You sit down, you edit three days worth, maybe even a week’s worth of videos.

Jason Hsieh (24:34)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (24:37)
And then we also have scheduling tools. We also use

Jason Hsieh (24:39)
Yes, yes, yes.

Cameron Ring (24:40)
Now a tool that allows you to click post and it goes to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Jason Hsieh (24:46)
Which one do you use?

Cameron Ring (24:47)
Refunnel.

Jason Hsieh (24:48)
Refunnel. Okay. Okay. That’s a lot of similar software, guess on there. Okay. Okay. So

Cameron Ring (24:51)
Yeah, there’s a lot of those out there. That one’s been really good to us. And then meanwhile, affiliates are posting. Sorry, yeah, please.

Jason Hsieh (24:57)
You mentioned about retail expansion. How about international expansion? Is that also on the plan?

Cameron Ring (25:02)
Yes, so we are now internationally kind of managed by Asmodee. So Asmodee approached us, I think at this point, almost two years ago.

Jason Hsieh (25:10)
After the day, okay, okay, okay, okay. I see. Two years ago, okay, I see,

Nice.

Cameron Ring (25:16)
So I think

Somewhere from two between talking to you and actually being in business together, obviously some time between,

Jason Hsieh (25:22)
Yeah, yeah,

Cameron Ring (25:23)
But they have been really great. And one thing they really

Jason Hsieh (25:25)
I

Cameron Ring (25:25)
Excel at is the international market. They have this amazing network that they’ve built over years and years.

Jason Hsieh (25:28)
International market yeah yes they do yes

Yeah they do

Cameron Ring (25:33)
And so that was something

That we were so new to. Were trying to sell on Amazon EU and Amazon UK. Little bit of success, nothing crazy, not really worth it. We’re based out of Los Angeles, getting units there. It was just, it was difficult. Meanwhile,

Jason Hsieh (25:39)
You, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of work. Yes. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (25:49)
Then, you know, Asmodee steps in and are able to really slingshot us. So international

Has been a big push for us lately, just only

Jason Hsieh (25:56)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (25:57)
For a few SKUs. So, Piles.

Jason Hsieh (25:59)
Only for, not for the entire dialogue.

Cameron Ring (26:01)
No. So Plunder being

Jason Hsieh (26:01)
Okay. Okay.

Cameron Ring (26:03)
So, such a robust game, Plunder has yet to get the localization treatment or in talks.

And the piles though, being a language lists game was our first to be localized. It’s in like 12

Jason Hsieh (26:12)
Yeah. I see, I see, I see.

Cameron Ring (26:17)
Languages, 20 countries, something like that. And piles is

Jason Hsieh (26:19)
Nice, okay.

Cameron Ring (26:20)
Having a lot of success on the international market, which is amazing,

Jason Hsieh (26:23)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (26:24)
Which is such a,

Privilege to be able to sell in different places like that where we don’t even speak the language. So Piles

Jason Hsieh (26:30)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (26:31)
Is doing good and a couple other games are getting the international treatment. But that is something

Jason Hsieh (26:36)
Nice.

Cameron Ring (26:36)
That they’re much more picky, which I understand they’re not going to take every game we pick. These distributors, but that is a

Jason Hsieh (26:38)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Then I’m gonna take it again. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (26:44)
Big focus as of

Jason Hsieh (26:46)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (26:46)
Is the international market and

Jason Hsieh (26:48)
You

Cameron Ring (26:48)
Something new that we’re excited to keep diving into.

Jason Hsieh (26:51)
I see, I see. Well, congratulations on all the success. Look like you have tons of projects going on, tons of activities,

Cameron Ring (26:56)
Thank you.

Jason Hsieh (26:57)
And also new product launches. So as well, kind of toward the end of today’s interview here, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that is getting started in the toys and game industry, what would that be?

Cameron Ring (27:08)
My

Advice for anybody getting into the toys and games industry is to just create it and make it and make it exist and then go from there. If you’ve got a great

Jason Hsieh (27:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Cameron Ring (27:18)
Idea, put a prototype together, whether it’s cardboard

Jason Hsieh (27:20)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:21)
And, dice from other games, put it together,

Jason Hsieh (27:23)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:24)
Play test with your friends, get something.

Jason Hsieh (27:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (27:26)
Get make it exist, right? The first step is make it exist. The second

Jason Hsieh (27:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:30)
Step is make it fun. It has to be a game that you enjoy playing. And the third step is make it different. We made a drinking game once. We still have it. It’s called King’s Cup Extreme, right?

Jason Hsieh (27:32)
Hmm. Enjoy playing VSQ. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:41)
So we made it exist. We printed out cards with text on it. We made it

Jason Hsieh (27:44)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (27:45)
Fun. We added original art on every single card and we made it

Jason Hsieh (27:48)
Okay.

Cameron Ring (27:49)
Different. We made it waterproof. All of those things in a vacuum are made

Jason Hsieh (27:51)
All okay, okay, Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:53)
Maybe just, know, the art alone wasn’t going to make it survive, but the art plus

Jason Hsieh (27:58)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (27:58)
The waterproofing plus the, you know, we really tested these cards, all that together made it successful. My second step is you can do it yourself. You’re capable of it. I understand it’s not everyone’s full-time gig and pitching,

Jason Hsieh (28:10)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (28:11)
To other publishers is very valid and very lucrative in its own right. But if you’ve got

Jason Hsieh (28:15)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (28:15)
A bunch of ideas and you’re confident, you could do it yourself. You could do a Kickstarter.

Jason Hsieh (28:19)
Yeah

Cameron Ring (28:20)
And you could make it without, you know, the umbrella company helping you out. You get to control it. You get to build it from the ground up. That’s another piece of advice.

Jason Hsieh (28:26)
Yes, you got to control it,

Cameron Ring (28:29)
And then the other advice is post. I mean, the water’s warm, the water’s warm. And now’s the time too. Social media sites have a lifespan. I mean, it’s amazing

Jason Hsieh (28:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (28:40)
That like Instagram refuses to go anywhere, but we all know that social media has

Jason Hsieh (28:43)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (28:44)
Come and they go.

And I say now,

Jason Hsieh (28:45)
Yes, I know they

Cameron Ring (28:46)
I don’t see the current ones going anywhere. So get on them now while they’re

Jason Hsieh (28:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (28:49)
Hot and just start posting, you know, you never know what’s going to happen. And yes, and be authentic. You know, you

Jason Hsieh (28:51)
Yes,

Cameron Ring (28:55)
Don’t have to be in front of the camera, but don’t feel like you need a professional team of cinematographers and editors. You can, get your phone out, show your

Jason Hsieh (29:02)
Yeah.

Cameron Ring (29:03)
Rough game. And if people like it, they’ll back you up.

Jason Hsieh (29:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think that authenticity

Cameron Ring (29:05)
And that’s all that matters. Is the game fun? Does it exist?

Jason Hsieh (29:08)
Is even more important because in the age of AI, there’s so many fake video, fake AI generated stuff. You’re just being yourself, people can tell

Cameron Ring (29:14)
I know. Yeah.

Jason Hsieh (29:16)
That is, you know, a real video versus an AI generated avatar that was just speaking something randomly.

Cameron Ring (29:21)
Exactly. Yeah. Look,

AI use it as a tool, but always, always the human touch. We might use AI to like fix some grammar on some rule books, but at the end of the day, we’re writing the rule book. You know, we

Jason Hsieh (29:30)
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Cameron Ring (29:33)
Have our artist, he’s creating this game. Keep it human. Use the AI as a tool. It’s the best assistant, you know, but it’s not the final product.

Jason Hsieh (29:37)
Yeah, I agree. Yes,

Cameron Ring (29:42)
The best work comes from within.

Just start

Jason Hsieh (29:44)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (29:44)
Play testing, just make it exist

Can go from there and you can really make something incredible.

Jason Hsieh (29:49)
Agree. So for those of our audience, I would love to learn more about you, your journey and your company. Where is the place for people to find you online?

Cameron Ring (29:56)
Yeah, so we are Lost Boy Entertainment. My name is Cameron. You can find us

Jason Hsieh (30:00)
Right.

Cameron Ring (30:02)
At lost-boy-entertainment.com. That’s our website. We’re working on it. But our

Jason Hsieh (30:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Ring (30:08)
Instagram is our best place. Our Instagram is @lostboyentertain One word.

Jason Hsieh (30:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Cameron Ring (30:14)
That’s the

Way you find us best is Instagram. And then you can find

Jason Hsieh (30:17)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (30:18)
Me on LinkedIn. I’m Cameron Ring. Otherwise,

Jason Hsieh (30:20)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Ring (30:20)
Just look up Lost Boy Games and you’ll find us.

Jason Hsieh (30:23)
Yeah.

Okay. Sounds good. I’ll make sure also put that in the show note. And thank you so, so much for your time today, sharing your journey and your wisdom with the rest of our audience today.

Cameron Ring (30:32)
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening, everyone. Jason, it was great to talk to you. And I wish you the best.

Jason Hsieh (30:36)
Same here. And

Thank you. And thank you for our audience for tuning into this episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. I hope today’s conversation give you some practical insight and fresh inspiration for growing your own toys or game companies. This podcast is proudly brought to by Toy launch, a leading marketing and growth partner for toys and game companies. At Toy Launch, we help brand scale on Amazon and beyond through full service account management, advertising, SEO, creative, catalog optimization, influencer marketing, and more.

If you’re looking for a proven team that really understand the toys and game industry inside out and the e-commerce marketing, we are here to help. If you’d like a personal breakdown of your brand, opportunity, or your best next step, you can schedule a free consultation session with us. Just visit our website at toys-launch.com/schedule. If you want to connect with other toys and game founders, we recently created a free Facebook community. It’s called Toy and Game Launchpad. You can also find our free Facebook group and feel free to join.

For more resource update and industry insight, visit us at any time at toy-launch.com. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys through toys. This is Jason Hsieh, signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone.