Welcome to this episode of the Toy Business Unboxed Podcast, where we talk with Steve Porcaro, founder of Dizzy Hill Games. Steve never planned to start a toy company. He and his two young daughters drew a board game on scratch paper during a stressful stretch at his advertising job, just to have something fun to do together. Nine months later, a reaction at his daughter’s school show and tell convinced him other families might want to play it too. In this conversation, Steve talks about building Dizzy Hill Games one game at a time, and what it actually takes to grow past being a one person shop.
#195: Turning a Kids' Game Into a Real Company – Toy Business Unboxed
Episode Highlight
- 00:42 Meet Steve Porcaro
- 01:23 How the game started
- 04:03 The nine month turning point
- 05:31 What branding taught him
- 09:47 His brother joins the team
- 11:59 Launching Rainbow Unicorn Rescue
- 12:56 Designing Dinosaur Rally’s characters
- 15:44 Why Swooble demos faster
- 20:02 Advice for new entrepreneurs
A Board Game Drawn on Scratch Paper and Markers
Steve Porcaro’s toy business did not start with a business plan. It started with his two daughters, then four and seven years old, drawing a game on a long roll of scratch paper while he worked through a stressful stretch at his job. When he sat down to play it with them, he realized the game held its own against the classics his family already owned. They kept playing it for months, even after the family dog rolled around on the paper board and tore it up. That staying power is what told Steve there might be something real here.
Nine Months Before He Called It a Business
Even after the game proved itself at home, Steve was not eager to turn it into a company. He worried about looking like a parent trying to cash in on his kids’ idea, so the family kept it as a one off keepsake for months. The turning point came when his youngest daughter brought the game to show and tell. The excited response from her teacher, her classmates, and their parents made Steve rethink whether other families might want to play it too. That nine month gap between having the idea and deciding to act on it became the real starting line for Dizzy Hill Games.
How a Career in Branding Prepared Him to Design Games
Steve spent over 20 years in advertising and branding before he ever designed a game, working on accounts that ranged from car companies to underwear brands to a major electronics retailer. He expected that background to be useless in the toy industry, but it turned out to be exactly what he needed. Game design, he found, is mostly problem solving, since an idea rarely works perfectly the first time, so the job becomes figuring out what to cut and what to keep. Jason, drawing on his own path from running Toy Launch solo in 2016 to leading a team of twenty today, pointed out how familiar that same grow as you go process feels from the agency side. The parts Steve had not dealt with before, like overseas manufacturing and customs, are still the areas he is actively learning.
Turning a Three Foot Roll of Paper Into a Real Board Game
The original game his daughters made was roughly three feet long, so Steve’s first real design task was shrinking it down to a standard board game size without losing what made it fun. He was careful to keep his daughters’ original ideas intact, focusing his own contribution on pace instead of concept. Most kids’ games, he noticed, dragged on too long, so he playtested the game repeatedly to keep it short. The goal was simple: leave kids wanting to play again, and keep parents from wanting to throw the box away. That first game became Rainbow Unicorn Rescue, and it found a positive reception on Amazon and with independent retailers from the start.
Building a Second Game Around a Character, Not Just a Theme
Rainbow Unicorn Rescue took about two and a half years to turn into a second release, a stretch Steve describes as figuring out whether this was a real business or just a hobby. That second game, Dinosaur Rally, paired dinosaur characters with race cars to cover interests he saw across most four to six year olds: dinosaurs, monster trucks, and racing all at once. Steve designed it with an eye toward building a character driven brand, similar to a craft beer brand he had built earlier in his career. The artwork and characters got attention quickly, and the game sold into Barnes & Noble at the trade show where it launched. He still sees a bigger opportunity in the Dinosaur Rally characters, but he is holding off on expanding the brand until the core game business is consistently profitable.
Bringing Family on Board as the Business Grows
As Dizzy Hill Games gained traction, Steve realized he could not keep running every part of it alone, from design to manufacturing to social media. His brother, who spent his career in marketing at the CMO level, joined the business in the last month to take over branding and social strategy. A close family member with a career in supply chain for major CPG food brands is also consulting now, with the possibility of joining full time if the business keeps growing. Steve is candid that he does not want his job to become managing a large team, so he is being selective about who he brings in and what he keeps for himself. The goal, as he puts it, is addition by subtraction: the more the right people take off his plate, the better the business runs.
Why Swooble Is Easier to Sell Than a Kids’ Game
Dizzy Hill’s newest release, Swooble, is a fast, dice matching game for ages eight and up, built after Steve noticed how much his extended family enjoyed simple dice games together. He introduced it at a board game industry trade show and says the response caught him off guard. Unlike his kids’ games, Swooble demos in seconds: hand someone a pair of dice, flip a card, and they are playing. That simplicity is a real advantage, because selling a kids’ game usually means convincing a parent, not the child who will actually play it. Steve sees Swooble as the product most likely to move Dizzy Hill Games into its next stage of growth.
What’s Ahead for Dizzy Hill Games
With his brother now focused on branding and marketing, Steve is shifting Swooble’s growth strategy toward experiential marketing: tournaments, events, and partnerships with local board game cafes and libraries near his home in Fort Collins. For the kids’ games, he is still working out the right playbook, since reaching parents takes a different approach than reaching the kids who play. He plans to keep leaning on video content to reach the Dinosaur Rally audience directly, though he is pacing that investment until the budget allows for higher quality animation. Longer term, he wants to build Dinosaur Rally into a bigger character brand, but only once the core games business is generating enough profit to fund it. For now, the plan is to get Swooble and the current game lineup running well before taking on anything new.
Advice for Newcomers in the Toy and Game Industry
Steve’s advice to anyone starting out is to accept that you need a little delusion to get through the early years. Most new products fail, and the validation that you are on the right track, whether that is a retail placement or real sales, can take a long time to arrive. He says the real requirement is not confidence but curiosity: a willingness to keep learning and keep trying even after getting told no. Steve also points to regret as the bigger risk. He would rather find out if the idea could work than spend the rest of his life wondering what if he had never tried.
Conclusion
Dizzy Hill Games is proof that a real toy business can start with nothing more than scratch paper, some markers, and a couple of kids who do not know they are inventing anything. Steve Porcaro’s path from advertising executive to game publisher shows how transferable business skills like problem solving and brand building really are. Five years in, the company is still small, but it is growing with intention: bringing on family, finding the right game to lead with, and building toward a bigger character brand at its own pace. His story is a reminder that a business does not need to start with a plan, just a willingness to keep going after the first spark.
Connect with Steve Porcaro
If you’re interested in learning more about Dizzy Hill Games or connecting with Steve Porcaro you can reach out through the following channels:
- Website: Visit Dizzy Hill Games’ official website for the latest news, game updates, and more
- Instagram: Follow Dizzy Hill Games on Instagram for visual updates, game previews, and more links to their socials.
- Facebook: Follow Dizzy Hill Games on Facebook for updates, discussions, and behind-the-scenes content.
Transcript
Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Welcome back to another episode of toy business Unboxed podcast. I’m your host Jason Hsieh Today’s guest is Steve, founder of Dizzy Hill Games. Steve has spent over 20 years in branding advertising before he and his daughter build a board game out of scratch paper and markers. And that’s where it lead to the publishing company that eventually started. And thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today, sharing your journey with our audience.
Steve Porcaro (01:08)
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Jason Hsieh (01:10)
So first, Steve, let’s take us back to the very beginning. In the pre-recording, you mentioned about how your daughter kind of inspired your ideas, but kind of just share the story from your perspective. How does it all really happen for you?
Steve Porcaro (01:23)
Yeah, so it my two daughters. They were four and seven at the time and.
Jason Hsieh (01:25)
Okay. Okay.
Steve Porcaro (01:27)
You know, I was going through some stuff at work. It was getting pretty stressful. The company I was working for was not doing well and
Jason Hsieh (01:34)
Okay, yeah.
Steve Porcaro (01:35)
Came home from work one day and my daughters, you know, were all excited to show me this game that they had made.
Jason Hsieh (01:41)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (01:42)
Didn’t think much of it other than just indulging him. So we sat down and played it and.
Jason Hsieh (01:46)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (01:48)
And like you said, was scratch paper. Had gotten a big roll of, you know, art supply easel thing for Christmas. And so was
Drawn on that tape to back of a delivery box. And,
Jason Hsieh (01:58)
Yes.
Steve Porcaro (01:59)
You know, as we were playing it, I wasn’t raised as a big game player. Our family wasn’t big game players growing up. But we were playing some, you know, the standards with our kids. And
Jason Hsieh (02:08)
Yes.
Steve Porcaro (02:09)
As we were playing this.
It was clear pretty quickly that this was just as good, if not better than all those games. You know, if you’ve got kids, you’ve played them, right? Whether it’s the old classics or some of the newer cooperative games. This one actually, seemed different enough and, unique enough that it kept our attentions, kept their attention. And,
Jason Hsieh (02:28)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (02:29)
So that was kind of the first moment we played,
After that, because it was on scratch paper, our dog would come in and lay in the middle and roll around and the thing would eventually ripped up after playing it for a couple of weeks.
Jason Hsieh (02:39)
Okay
Steve Porcaro (02:41)
But we weren’t really done playing. We were playing it every day. We really enjoyed it. And so, like
Jason Hsieh (02:45)
Yeah, I see.
Steve Porcaro (02:46)
I said, work was kind of not going in the right direction, job at the time.
Jason Hsieh (02:50)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (02:50)
And
This just felt like a great creative outlet, something I could do with my kids and
Somewhere just to put some energy so I wasn’t going crazy with you know, the realities of where I was at the time. Yeah,
Jason Hsieh (03:02)
I see, I see, I see.
Steve Porcaro (03:04)
And so that’s where I decided to, I’d never, self-taught designer.
My background is copywriting, working for ad agencies and then working building branding departments for companies.
So yeah, I kind of tried to figure out how to take their kind of scroll of paper and put it into more of a standard board game size and.
Yeah, that was kind of the idea originally never even thought about it being a business. I was actually kind of opposed
Jason Hsieh (03:30)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (03:30)
To it because I didn’t want to be someone that was trying to, you know, whatever, be a parent that was taking their kids idea and you know, it can get a little slimy, you know, if it’s like you’re trying to profit off your kids ideas. But once we turned it into that kind of one off keepsake.
We played that for probably another four or five, six months
Before my daughter, my youngest one took it to show and tell. And the response we got from that, from the teacher, from the kids, from the kids, parents that kind of started this idea of like, well, maybe it’s not just us. Maybe there is something here that other families would enjoy as well. So that whole process was probably about a nine month process of.
Jason Hsieh (04:03)
Nine
Nine months, okay.
Steve Porcaro (04:06)
Before we even thought of this maybe being a real game sold to people. Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (04:10)
I see. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s definitely a lot of work behind the scenes that people didn’t realize to create your own product out from scratch.
Steve Porcaro (04:19)
Yeah, you know, their idea
Was, like I said, it was, I mean, it was on this long, I mean, it’s probably three feet long, their board, you know, that they created. I had to,
Jason Hsieh (04:26)
Oh woah, okay.
Steve Porcaro (04:27)
You know, yeah. And so I had to turn it into more of a standard board game size. And so
Jason Hsieh (04:32)
Board game version.
Steve Porcaro (04:33)
As I was prototyping, you know, a lot of it was keeping their magic. And so everything from our original board game, that’s part of that game now is everything they created. What I did was just make sure that once it was
Being printed, it moved fast. For us, a lot of
Jason Hsieh (04:49)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (04:49)
The kids games just felt like they dragged on for way too long. So the idea with this was playtesting the hell out of it just to make sure, leave them wanting more, leave kids wanting to play another game, leave parents not wanting to snap the game over their knee and throw it away because it takes too long to play. So that was really my contribution
Jason Hsieh (05:05)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (05:08)
Making sure that it was easy and fast.
Jason Hsieh (05:11)
So you just mentioned one thing that’s interesting because you came in with a branding and advertising background. Obviously nothing related to the industry itself. What surprised you the most once you get into the industry starting your own publishing companies? Like how different is this to work from what you have learned from your previous career?
Steve Porcaro (05:31)
Yeah, you know, surprisingly, I would say the thing that surprised me the most was how much a career in advertising and branding prepared me for this.
Jason Hsieh (05:40)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (05:41)
You know,
When I was working at ad agencies, you know, it wasn’t uncommon to be working on three, four, five different brands at one time. And they might be everything
Jason Hsieh (05:48)
Yes.
Steve Porcaro (05:48)
From a car company to a consumer packaged good food company to underwear to a, you know, I was working, the account I led was a big electronics retailer that we all know, right?
And so I would be working on all these different things and you’d have to become an expert pretty quickly in the different strategies, the problems we were trying to solve, understanding the brand tone,
Jason Hsieh (06:11)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (06:13)
Working on a underwear company and a big mass retailer, two totally different objectives, two different
Jason Hsieh (06:19)
And
Steve Porcaro (06:23)
Sets of problems, different tones.
Jason Hsieh (06:25)
For sure.
Steve Porcaro (06:25)
And so
It was really interesting. I looked at it really as, you know, when you’re creating games,
Jason Hsieh (06:30)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (06:31)
It really starts with an idea and then it just becomes problem solving because the original idea usually isn’t 100% perfect right off the bat, right? So it’s like,
Jason Hsieh (06:39)
Perfect, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Porcaro (06:40)
Okay, there’s an idea here. And then how do you get from A to B in the most efficient way and really understanding how to, as we used to call it, kill your darlings, right? It’s like you’d have ideas you like.
Jason Hsieh (06:51)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (06:53)
But as you go through it, you’re like, well, I like the idea, but it’s not the right idea for this right now. Right. So being able to identify those things and move it to the side. And so, yeah, that was really the biggest shock was how much it really prepared me
To kind of problem solve and get there. You know, there’s obviously like I never dealt with manufacturing overseas, never dealt with.
Jason Hsieh (07:14)
Hmm.
Steve Porcaro (07:15)
You know, trying to figure out how to get it from one country to, you know, the United States. And so those
Jason Hsieh (07:18)
Yeah
Steve Porcaro (07:21)
Things were obviously challenging and still learning on those. I can’t say that’s, you know, it’s certainly not my expertise. So always
Jason Hsieh (07:28)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (07:29)
Kind of growing on that. But yeah, I really, really felt that my background really prepared me for being able to take this on.
Jason Hsieh (07:38)
I see. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know you’re still kind of in the starting line of the business and right now you’re doing most of it still by yourself, including design, manufacturing, retail, social media, pretty much every single
Steve Porcaro (07:51)
Right, yes.
Jason Hsieh (07:51)
Aspect. In your current version, like what is the hardest part to stay on top of, of running this business?
Steve Porcaro (07:58)
Yeah, I mean time management always right? You kind of become a jack of all trades master of none even with the branding and advertising. I just don’t have the
Jason Hsieh (08:06)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (08:07)
Bandwidth to go too deep on stuff even if I want to.
Jason Hsieh (08:10)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (08:11)
And the other truth is, it’s just not scalable. Like I can’t do this all myself, right? And so
Jason Hsieh (08:13)
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (08:16)
We are growing. You know, we’ve got a new game that I think we’ll talk about in a bit that’s starting to get a lot of traction. And so part
Jason Hsieh (08:22)
Okay. Okay.
Steve Porcaro (08:23)
Of it is understanding that I need to bring people on and I need to identify the things I want to do and the things that I want to hold on to and then things I’m willing to let go. So luckily my
Jason Hsieh (08:35)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (08:36)
Brother also
Spent his career in marketing, CMO level. And so he’s
Jason Hsieh (08:39)
Okay. I see.
Steve Porcaro (08:41)
Just come on in the last month and really been able to help focus on that branding aspect that,
Jason Hsieh (08:47)
That’s probably it.
Steve Porcaro (08:48)
You know, that I just, again, haven’t been able to spend time on and, really working on putting the attention into social media, working with, you know, identifying the right people to talk to, to get the games in front of.
Jason Hsieh (09:00)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (09:00)
You know, between the two of us, we’ve got a pretty good network of people. So finding the opportunities that can get us, you know, some kind of coveted airtime on things. And so that’s
Jason Hsieh (09:09)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (09:09)
Been really helpful. And as we grow supply chain, you know, going back to the, you know, sourcing things overseas, getting them over here, getting them through customs,
I have a close family member that’s spent their career as a supply chain.
You know, leading supply chain for large CPG food products, brands
Jason Hsieh (09:28)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (09:28)
We all know and have heard about. And so having her at my disposal to help consult now, but
Jason Hsieh (09:34)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (09:35)
Then eventually, if we hit the kind of stride we’re hoping to hit, having her come on to be able to, you know, help manage all that stuff. So I’m definitely at a place of kind of changing and growing and bringing other people on.
Jason Hsieh (09:47)
Yeah, that’s
A very exciting transition because, thinking back myself, I also started with Person of One back in 2016, but now I have like team of 20 actually. But it takes me many, many years to get to like team of 20, obviously. It didn’t start out with that big of a team.
Steve Porcaro (10:06)
Yeah, yeah.
And that’s kind of where I’m at. It’s exciting. You know, I think we just celebrated five years in March. So just, you know, within the last month.
Jason Hsieh (10:14)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (10:15)
And as you know, starting your own products is expensive. And so you kind of have to do it all yourself, right? At first, unless you’ve got really deep pockets. So,
Jason Hsieh (10:18)
Yes. True. Yes. Before you make enough profit to yourself. Yes. Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (10:25)
You know, so being able to design stuff using my background to kind of
Save money in the areas that you know if you had to hire a designer to design your game for you or to do all the graphics that could cost
Jason Hsieh (10:35)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (10:36)
You tens of thousands of dollars and so yeah
Jason Hsieh (10:38)
Yes, yeah.
Steve Porcaro (10:40)
It’s just getting to that place where you know i know it’s going to be addition by subtraction you know like the more people i add and the less the more i take off my plate the better it’s going to be for everything
You know, for me personally, having kind of grown my career through the corporate ranks. I also have an aversion to, I don’t want my job to become managing a bunch of people, right? Like that’s just me personally. So how do I find
Jason Hsieh (10:59)
Yes, yeah, yeah,
Steve Porcaro (11:02)
The people I can trust where we can grow together, but also
Jason Hsieh (11:05)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (11:07)
Still entrust them to wear multiple hats as well, right? Like my brother coming on, he’s going to have to do stuff that maybe he’s not.
As experienced in, but
Jason Hsieh (11:15)
Hmm.
Steve Porcaro (11:16)
You know, he’ll figure it out and you know, yeah.
Jason Hsieh (11:18)
It’ll be a good tag team for you guys because that’s also how me
And my sister run the business right now. So my sister is also our kind of a marketing director. She handle
Steve Porcaro (11:27)
Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (11:28)
A marketing team currently have seven people in the marketing team. So she handled that team while I do the other teams. It’s always good
Steve Porcaro (11:35)
Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (11:36)
To have like, know, it’s like a small family business, you know?
Steve Porcaro (11:40)
Yeah, yeah. So it’s an exciting time for sure. Yeah, getting back to it, I think the reality is you kind of have to do a lot of things yourself until it’s time to hand that off. Because yeah, you’re not going to scale doing it all yourself.
But yeah, the first game was a rainbow unicorn rescue my daughter’s created It’s rainbows and unicorns, you know, it’s a pretty straightforward kids
Game That one from the start kind of
Has gotten a really positive reception both on Amazon and with, you know, like independent retailers.
Jason Hsieh (12:13)
You
Steve Porcaro (12:14)
And you know, going back to this idea of some of the hardest parts of doing this one is just sanity check, making sure I’m not delusional, making sure I’m not, you know, doing something that people are like, boy, good luck on that one. Right. And so
Jason Hsieh (12:22)
Okay. Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (12:28)
I think that first game got us enough pats on the back and enough, I would say, critical attention in a good way that helped me feel that even though velocity wasn’t high and profitability was not there, we were on the right track. It took a couple years. Want to say, so that was, we launched that about five years ago. It took us…
I want to say two and a half years to launch our second game. Know, the first two and a half years were really just like, am I a hobbyist? is this a real business? You know, what do I need to do? How do I understand what’s going on? and then so we launched our second game. I want to say, yeah, about two and a half years ago, I think it’ll be three years coming up in August.
And that was, jeez that long ago or was it two years ago? Either way, that one was called Dinosaur Rally. And so other end of the spectrum of rainbows and unicorns, dinosaurs and race cars, right? we were kind of, my thought was, how do we kind of just…
Cover every interest of every four to six year old, right? Unicorns, dinosaurs, race cars, monster trucks. There’s something for everyone, you know, for at least a wide blanket of children. And then Dinosaur Rally one is, you know, the kind of the idea of these characters came to me. And after doing research, nothing like this existed where it was just kind of fun, cool dinosaur characters.
Driving cars. There’s different, you know, there’s
Jason Hsieh (13:53)
We.
Steve Porcaro (13:53)
Toys of dinosaur heads as
Jason Hsieh (13:55)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (13:56)
The car, but there was nothing with this kind of, you know, character base. You know, if you look at like a Paw Patrol or, you know, some Bluey or something where they’re really character heavy, that was
Jason Hsieh (14:06)
Yes.
Steve Porcaro (14:07)
Kind of the original idea from the very start. And the board game was just the vehicle to get that brand out there because I had started this other,
You know, Rainbow Unicorn board game. And so, you know, the Dinosaur Rally pretty quickly got a lot of attention just based on the artwork, on the characters. We sold into Barnes and Noble at the trade show we launched at. And so the attention was pretty quick. So yeah, it would be two years that we launched Dinosaur Rally. And so…
That one’s been really good at retail. There’s been a lot of conversations with people about expanding that brand. And that’s kind of, again, going back to my background of building brands out. I developed a very successful craft beer brand that’s character based. And so using a lot of that experience and
Jason Hsieh (14:48)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (14:49)
Knowledge that I had, that this is always bigger than just a board game. So we’re still working on that. But in order to build
An even bigger brand, you got to figure out a way to make money because that’s only going to cost more money, right? So, so the
Jason Hsieh (14:59)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, for sure.
Steve Porcaro (15:03)
Kind of the approach was as we build traction in games, let’s get this part of the business running on all cylinders, get it profitable, get it to a place where we can actually invest in other things.
Jason Hsieh (15:14)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (15:14)
So more to come on the dinosaur rally brands. This just kind of on the back burner right now.
As the board game continues to grow and as we continue to grow this part of our business.
People can go on Amazon. People can go on our website dizzyhillgames.com.
Jason Hsieh (15:28)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (15:29)
And
They’ll find all our games. Have Rainbow Unicorn Rescue, Dinosaur Rally, and the newest one breaking out of the kid game arena is Swoobble, which is more family friendly, kind of ages eight and up. And that one’s getting a ton of attention. So you know, that one
Jason Hsieh (15:44)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (15:44)
Feels like it’s the product that can kind of get us to the next phase of kind of growth.
Jason Hsieh (15:50)
What are some of the strategy you’re trying right now to get more attention for your product?
Steve Porcaro (15:56)
Good question. The one thing I’ve learned is through this process is kid games are inherently harder. You know, you’ve only got a small, you know, we’re trying to get every four to six year old. Unless your Hasbro or Mattel and you’ve got the deep pockets to get all of those. It’s just
Jason Hsieh (16:10)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (16:11)
A much slower, you know.
Hill to climb. So this new game, Swooble, you know, now that my kids are kind of out of that four to six kid age range, or four to eight, I wanted something that we could all enjoy. And when I would get together with my brother and our extended family, we were playing a lot of dice games. So that was kind of the genesis of Swooble. It’s a super simple game.
Everyone gets their own dice. There’s 50 cards. All the cards have different dice combinations on them anywhere from two dice to five dice. And it’s just a battle royale. Everyone goes head to head, rolling their dice, trying to match their dice to what’s on the card. You match a dice, you pull it to the side, keep rolling the other ones. First one to match and slap the card keeps the card.
Jason Hsieh (16:50)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (16:50)
Super simple. We introduced it at Gamma, which is, where we met and
It just kind of broke my brain with the response it got. You know, the conversations that have come out of that and the conversations I’m having now, this one’s a real kind of lightweight, easy game for everyone to play. And so that one, from a marketing standpoint, is a lot easier. It demos a lot faster. Demoing kids games is a lot more explanation. Like, well, you do this and then you do this. Swooble.
Get a pair of dice, let’s flip a card and play it and you’ll figure it out like that. So
Jason Hsieh (17:22)
Okay.
Steve Porcaro (17:23)
Now that my brother’s come on in the last couple of weeks, the last month, we’re building out those strategies now. So looking at doing more experiential stuff, getting out to events, putting on tournaments, working with local board game cafes or local, here in Fort Collins, we’ve got a local.
Board game library. And so we’re in talks of putting on events there. And
Jason Hsieh (17:44)
Hmm.
Steve Porcaro (17:44)
So that really becomes the focus when it comes to some of these strategies is demo, demo, demo. What are ways that we can disguise selling and demoing into fun, right? And the best way to
Jason Hsieh (17:54)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Porcaro (17:55)
Do that is just play the game and get people out there to play it with us. So that’s really the strategy for that.
Kids games, I’m still trying to figure out the strategy. It is a lot harder because really you’re trying to talk to parents to
Jason Hsieh (18:03)
The
Steve Porcaro (18:08)
Get them to buy it for their kids.
Jason Hsieh (18:09)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (18:11)
Swooble, it’s one-on-one conversation, you know?
Jason Hsieh (18:14)
Or you can try to publish a lot of YouTube videos that kids hopefully will watch.
Steve Porcaro (18:19)
That’s right, for the kids games.
Jason Hsieh (18:21)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (18:21)
You know, like the dinosaur rally stuff with the characters that was a little more inherently lends itself to some more social media content. But, you know, you start getting into animated characters that again, everything has a dollar value, you know, assigned to it. And if you want to start making animated videos.
I don’t have that type of money, you know, so you got to kind of incrementally work towards it. And so that’s kind of the fun thing about being an entrepreneur, right? Is like for the dinosaur rally brand, I’ve got a vision for it, but I might have to zigzag to get to where
Jason Hsieh (18:49)
Yeah,
Steve Porcaro (18:50)
I want to go, right?
Jason Hsieh (18:51)
For sure. Sure. For sure. So as
As we’re kind of, wrapping up today’s interview here. If you have to share just one piece of advice with someone else who’s getting started in the toys and game industry,
What would that be?
Steve Porcaro (19:04)
Yeah, going back, you got to be somewhat delusional. You got to believe in yourself even if you’re feeling like other people might not believe in A lot of that is just kind of not caring what other people think. But I think the number one thing for any entrepreneur is just curiosity. Wanting to…
Do something and being curious enough to figure out how to do it because you’re going to get knocked down. You’re going to get beat up. You’re going to get told no right all the stories that every entrepreneur tells you. It happens and it might take awhile for you to get that validation in the form of either.
Getting on the shelf somewhere or getting the sales to come into the financial validation that this is actually something that’s viable and real. And so I think to anyone that wants to do it, your feelings. The last thing I wanted to do was ignore it and then have regret the rest of my life. Why should, what if, what if? And so I think you got to honor that.
You got to be a little delusional and understand that the success rate is very small and that
Jason Hsieh (20:02)
Yeah.
Steve Porcaro (20:02)
More people are gonna fail than are gonna succeed. But if you’re curious enough, you’ll figure out the way to succeed and you’ll figure out the avenues to keep turning over those stones
Jason Hsieh (20:12)
Very good, piece of advice. So, and thank you so much for being on our show
Today and sharing your opinions and also your experiences with our audience today.
Steve Porcaro (20:22)
Today.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Hopefully it helps some people understand the journey. Yeah, like I said, if anyone wants to check out what we’re doing, dizzyhillgames.com, searching up our products on Amazon, we’re there. And we’re in talks to get more and more distribution. So hopefully people will just be seeing ourselves on shelves in their local independent stores or on the big box stores.
Jason Hsieh (20:46)
Of course, we’ll make sure to put that in the show note. And thank
You for our audience for tuning into this episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. I hope today’s conversation gave you practical insight, fresh inspiration for growing your own toys for game brands. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Jason Hsieh, a leading marketing and growth partner for toys and game companies. At Jason Hsieh, we help brands scale on Amazon and beyond through full service account management, advertising, SEO, creative.
Catalog optimization, influencer marketing, and more. If you are looking for a proven team that really understand the toys and game industry and e-commerce marketing, we are here to help. If you’d like a personal breakdown of your brand, your opportunity, and your best next step, you can schedule a free consultation session with us. Just visit toy-launch.com for more information. If you want to connect with other toys and game funders, feel free to join our free communities, a toys and game launch pad. You can also find more information on our website about that.
For more resource update and industry insight, visit us anytime at our homepage. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joy to 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.
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