How to Turn Passion into Profit: Insights from Ryan Wallace’s Game Journey

EP064_11-04-24_Ryan Wallace

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert in the field. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “60 percent of all toys last year were sold on Amazon.”

“Be passionate about it. Because it’s a road. It’s a journey.” “Like when you have an idea that you think is gonna somewhat change the world, make things better, I’d say go for it.“

Jason Hsieh: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode, toy Business Unbox. Today we’re thrilled to interview Ryan, the creator of What Is the Point? The Cactus For the last four years, Ryan have dedicated himself to bring his idea for a family friendly car game to life. Doing everything from designing the artwork, to fine tuning [00:01:00] the gameplay. And also with a background in it and problem solving. He really combined his technical skill and create a vision to create the game that family of all ages can enjoy together. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today, Ryan.

Ryan Wallace: Thank you for having me.

Jason Hsieh: can you tell us, how this idea of your card game first come to you years ago?

Ryan Wallace: So what’s the point was a passion project of mine. I developed it when I was in college when I wasn’t out partying and studying. I was working on what’s the point. And for me, actually what sparked the whole kind of I want to create a game is while I was in school, I got diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and I was hospitalized for about a month. And when I was in the hospital, I played about every game there was that I could get my hands on. I was playing every game I could.

Jason Hsieh: Okay.

Ryan Wallace: And when I got outta the hospital and I got back to school, I was bored of the selection of games that I had. And I was really inspired by how [00:02:00] much joy those games gave me while I was lying in a bed for a month. And I was like, you know what? I wanna do something like that. I just started creating ideas. Started with flashcards and little scribbles and rules, and I wasn’t sure what the game was gonna be. I just knew I wanted to make a game.

Jason Hsieh: Okay. Okay. Okay. And this is your first time creating the game too, right?

Ryan Wallace: Yes I’ve only made the One game. One game, what’s the point? It’s just super family friendly. I don’t know if you want to talk about that now, or we’re gonna go into

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. You can also introduce the mechanism for the game as well.

Ryan Wallace: Yeah. For those who love games, the closest game I could compare it to is Exploding Kittens. If you haven’t played that game, it’s a, there’s like action cards. It’s very fast paced and I like that. So I was inspired by that. In my game, what’s the point? The goal is to collect character cards. So there’s three sets of character cards and you’re collecting three of a kind to build points to collect points. Hence the player with the most [00:03:00] points at the end of the game wins. And you’re using action cards to steal from other players, take advantage of them, strategize, and it’s a very fast paced, great game. It takes about 20 minutes to play, so you get a couple of games in an hour. And yeah, it was just a huge passion project of mine. I would take it to clubs on campuses to get their feedback. I would take it to bars and to restaurants where I would meet people and I would say, Hey, would you like to play my game? Gimme some feedback. I would take their feedback and I would make it happen. For me, feedback was the most important aspect of the game because you can have a game with terrible instructions, terrible rules, and no one’s gonna love it. No one’s gonna fall in love with it. And I wanted a game that was easy to understand that my younger cousins and my grandparents could just sit down and learn and be able to just play. So for me, a lot of it was like, I want something I’m proud of that everyone of any age can play, easy to [00:04:00] understand. I’m really excited actually. So we launched in December of 2020, was when I launched the game.

Jason Hsieh: Okay. Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: So we’ve been at it for about four years and I’m really excited. This last week I actually hit a big milestone. I’m celebrating 17,000 copies sold.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, congratulations.

Ryan Wallace: Yeah, so I really exciting. I am in a bunch of stores all throughout Arizona. I’m in 270 stores nationwide. And yeah it’s just been a lot of trial and error and a lot of pushing and marketing to try to get into those stores. I’ve had a lot of help from my parents who my dad has helped a lot with the marketing side and helping me, ’cause this is what would happen is I would go into a store. And I’d be like, here’s my pride and joy. Would you like to carry it on the shelf? And they’d be like, sure, we’ll give it a try. And what will happen is they’ll come back to me and they’ll say, oh, it didn’t sell all that great. And I’m not a salesperson, so I curl up in a ball or they’ll be like, we didn’t like the game I get defensive. My dad is the other way around. He’ll be like did you have it on the right part of the [00:05:00] shelf? Did you even play it? out of kids reach that it’s not gonna sell. They’re helping me out and it’s been great ever since my dad

Jason Hsieh: And also I think one of the reason you mentioned about Arizona, hence the design of cash. I assume, right?

Ryan Wallace: Yes. A lot, of people always ask me Ryan, why did you choose to draw a cacti? And it was really a really easy answer actually, when I’m first did this, the theme could have been anything, right? The gameplay worked. The theme could be anything and I started reaching out to artists and I was like, how much would you charge to do my game? So for those who don’t know, the game has 120 cards in the game. And each one needed a unique drawing because it’s a game of matching.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: And you can’t, so for me, I had, I needed like 90 different drawings. So I would reach out to artists and they would quote me insane numbers, and at the time I didn’t have any money. I’m a broke college student living off ramen. So them saying, oh, it’s like a hundred dollars a drawing. I was like, get out here. I can’t afford that. Now in today’s world [00:06:00] after I’ve had some. And you should probably pay an artist to do your artwork. But for me, I couldn’t afford it, so I did it myself. I did all the artwork myself. I chose cacti because they’re easy to draw. You can’t really, they just, if they have an imperfection, then that’s just part of the plant. So for me, it was just, I did my own artwork. It’s a unique style. It’s not gonna show up great here on the video. But if you have a chance to look it up the art style, I would sketch out the drawings. I would bring them onto the computer and I would highlight I would outline them with an outline and then I would print them out and I would watercolor paint each drawing. And then I re-scanned it into the computer and then cropped it and made sure it looked good in the card. But yeah, every drawing is watercolor, painted and hand drawn by me. A lot of ’em are inspired by some of my favorite movies and some just like funny scenes that I think would happen. Like I, I have a cactus that looks like a dinosaur. And I just thought that was funny. That’s not a thing, but I wanted it to be a thing. I’ve got like cacti being lifted up by UFOs [00:07:00] being abducted. I’ve got pirate cacti, I’ve got all sorts of stuff, explosions. And I just, for me, when I was making the artwork, it was just like, what came to mind? What was funny. So like a giant explosion with stop signs flying out. That looks fun.

Jason Hsieh: How long does that took you to hand draw the design?

Ryan Wallace: It took a while, so just the gameplay? Just to get the gameplay down. Took me about a year and a half of,

Jason Hsieh: whoa. Okay.

Ryan Wallace: Brainstorming, troubleshooting, figuring out why the gameplay was, ’cause it some sometimes removing or adding to the game will drastically change how it plays. Once I had it down and I knew what I wanted and how the game was playing, I started working on the artwork. The artwork took a long time. I would do about a card, or two every weekend. It took a while, so it, for me, the entire process from start to finish took about three and a half years. When COVID hit I actually had a lot more time to sit down and buckle down and start working [00:08:00] on more drawings. For me, the start of COVID was a little helpful because I was able to have the time to do the artwork. And I was very fortunate to be able to launch my game during COVID. I launched on Kickstarter. I had never really heard of Kickstarter, but people said that was the place to start. And I tried it and I had great success. I was asking originally for about, I don’t quite remember. I think like $3,000 and I ended up raising close to 10.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, whoa. Not bad.

Ryan Wallace: I was able to use that money to buy my initial product, get it to the people who pre-ordered, ’cause I used Kickstarter as a pre-order. If you pledged $25. I would give you the game. And I started off with 500 games, and then I ordered a thousand, and then 2000, 5000 and now I’m ordering in quantities of 10,000. So it’s definitely filling up my garage. I don’t have a warehouse. All of this is shifting to my garage. And then my poor parents I roped them into this. So now I’ve consumed their garage. So [00:09:00] for the better part of two and a half years, my parents have not been able to park inside because I filled up their garage with things

Jason Hsieh: ’cause it’s got a warehouse.

Ryan Wallace: They’re fortunate. They live in a place that doesn’t have snow and I live in a place that has snow, I utilize that. They can park outside, they’re fine.

Jason Hsieh: And I think I want to go back to you mentioned about how your dad has been very instrumental when it come to marketing your product. Yes. And also you’re getting some success on the retail side as well. Can you also share your experience working with Amazon as well for your card game?

Ryan Wallace: Yeah. Amazon at the moment is the number one income source for me. I didn’t think that at first. I actually was skeptical of Amazon when I first started working with them, and for me it was just it’s a, like I’m not doing any marketing. It seems expensive to get into it. It seems complicated, but then once I did, once I started working on Amazon and working with you, I saw crazy numbers. So now like as much as I love my [00:10:00] brick and mortar stores and selling to those customers, and I will still do that, Amazon is a great platform where I am doing. I shouldn’t say I, you are doing a lot of the work, but it is phenomenal. The numbers that we’re seeing. It’s my primary income for the company right now is on Amazon.

Jason Hsieh: What would you say are the biggest challenge when you try to do it? You know yourself before do you decide to partner with our team?

Ryan Wallace: My biggest issue with Amazon when I, ’cause I was first just trying to like, I was like, oh, I could figure it out. And I figured out I would say a good 60% of it I, had it held together with bandaid and tape. Amazon’s environment is not user friendly. They, I don’t know why, and maybe it’s just me or I’m tech savvy. I literally fix computers. I do IT. It’s not like I’m not tech savvy. They’re just environment, it’s so confusing and it’s hard to sometimes get the answers you want answered. And then their support [00:11:00] team is terrible. You could have the same problem and you just keep. You just have to keep prying at Amazon until eventually just magically it works. So I really struggled with that, and then I really struggled with the advertising. So when I first went on, I would turn on advertising and I would spend $300 in a day.And the $300 would be spent within the first hour of the day.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: And I would get no sales. So I was like, okay, that’s strange. Let’s refine this. And I thought I was refining it, I was using their automated tools and whatnot. But I would get the same results. I would just spend less money, but I would get the same results. And I got, I was frustrated with that. I felt like it was a waste of time, a waste of money. And I felt like I was being scammed, honestly. I felt like Amazon’s ads were scamming me. Until your team stepped forward and you’ve been perfecting it. I’ve been working with you for, I don’t know, about four or five months now, and you’ve been perfecting [00:12:00] it and tweaking it and I’ve been seeing great results finally from ads, and that’s great because I’ve been, I was on Amazon for two and a half years before I started working with you and I wouldn’t do any ads. And now all of a sudden it’s doing phenomenal. So thank you again for that.

Jason Hsieh: Thank you. Yeah, and I think Amazon AD is very tricky because it always changes and it’s really hard for busy business owner like yourself to keep up with the changes. You have to have a, that’s like a full-time job already just to keep up with the changes with Amazon.

Ryan Wallace: It seriously is, Yeah, I agree.

Jason Hsieh: So that’s very difficult as well. Thank you so much for sharing some of your experience working with our team with the Amazon side, also your product is very unique and our team could be doing all the right work, but if the product is not unique enough, it’s still going to fall short. So I think your product is also very unique in the marketplace. Also help with the advertising effort as well.

One of my other question is, were they any other major challenges that you [00:13:00] faced while you are developing the game, and how do you overcome some of them?

Ryan Wallace: For me starting a business in general from the ground up was a challenge. I’ve never done anything in business ever before, and I didn’t consult anyone when I was creating my business. So a lot of it was late nights doing research. For me because of my age and I was in school. The biggest challenge was money. I wanted to do all of these things, but it was just so expensive. So I had to figure it out myself, I had to learn. When you’re working with companies and manufacturing any product. There’s a lot of testing and you want to see what your product looks like, and getting demos of products is not cheap. Just to get one box manufactured in the colors and the card stock that I wanted, it was like 400, $500 a box and that was a lot of money for me, and I struggled with that.

So my biggest thing was learning everything on my own. If I could go back and do it again with the knowledge [00:14:00] that I have, I would probably reach out to professionals to help me, guide me through the process. ’cause maybe it wouldn’t have taken me four years to build this business. Maybe it would’ve only taken me half amount of time. But I definitely learned a lot doing it my myself. And I think that I’ve grown a lot as a person for doing this myself. So yeah, I think just overall though, it’s good to get help, even if it seems expensive maybe that’s okay. And maybe if you believe in your product enough, maybe I should have taken out loans or something. But I don’t know, I just, I didn’t know. I think I didn’t believe in it enough. I was like, oh, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be a great game. But I didn’t ever think I was gonna sell 17,000 of them. I thought like I’d sell I dunno, 800 and call it a weekend or something. I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d get this far if you had told me four years ago or eight years ago that I would be still selling this product. I wouldn’t believe you.

Jason Hsieh: Okay. That’s an interesting perspective. So you spend all this time, [00:15:00] what keep you going, what keep you motivated over all this time?

Ryan Wallace: Oh, that is a million dollar question, Jason. I don’t know if I have the knowledge to know what motivates someone. For me just personally, I was really driven by creating something that other people could enjoy. That’s like my whole personality, i’m the kind of person who has hosted, have you ever seen the show Survivor?

Jason Hsieh: Survivor? Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: Yeah. So I’m someone who frequently has hosted a survivor party at my house. A ton of money. I invite people over and they compete in challenges at Game.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, really? Okay.

Ryan Wallace: The title of Soul Survivor. And I go all out, like I get buffs I get obstacle courses.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, whoa.

Ryan Wallace: I just do that because I want to create enjoyment in others. I enjoy seeing people happy. I enjoy seeing people excited about stuff. So for me to be able to create something that creates a game night for your [00:16:00] family, for your friends, that can create that excitement, that energy I, live for that. I wanna create more game nights for people. I want people to smile. I don’t know. That sounds cheesy, but that’s true, I live for that.

Jason Hsieh: I see, that’s important that you have a bigger vision of the company and the game, so you don’t give up easily like some other people would do. And was your background in IT, does it help with your processes, you think?

Ryan Wallace: It’s funny you mentioned that I go to these trade shows, so for people who are looking to get their foot in the door. I highly recommend trade shows. Find a trade show that your product would fit in. Buy the booth. It seems expensive, but it pays off. It’s worth it. You gotta go to those trade shows. When I’m at those shows, a lot of people ask me like, oh my gosh, your game’s so cute. You might were you in graphics design or, and I’m like, no, computer science. It’s like the opposite. It’s totally not even in the same wheelhouse.

I would [00:17:00] say, that computer science, if anything, when you’re in the IT industry, you have to problem solve. That is the only thing you need to be good at is I have given a problem and how do I fix it?

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: And when you’re creating a game, in my case you’re gonna run into a lot of problems. You have to think about how all the mechanics will work with one another. You’ve gotta be able to put yourself into other people’s shoes. When I was play testing, a lot of the time I was play testing by myself sometimes. I would be at a table with six of me and I would have to pretend I was someone else every time I got the cards and how I would strategize and pretend I didn’t know what the other hands were. So problem solving is, probably the biggest takeaway from computer science and how it helped me develop my game.

Jason Hsieh: Since you mentioned about play testing, I think that’s very important in any kind of toys and games development cycle. What kind of feedback have you received initially when you are designing the gameplay and the rule?

Ryan Wallace: The [00:18:00] best feedback is honest feedback, and I would ask people like, I would literally go to clubs. Clubs. And I would bring pizza and I would be like, Hey, I know I’m coming here unannounced. Would you play my game and gimme some honest feedback? And you can have some of this pizza. And feedback just helped create the game. It helped mold it into what I wanted it to be. And I would take it seriously. I would go and I would get 200. Everyone’s got feedback on a product. In fact, if I was to take this today still to a place and ask for feedback, I would get more. It would never end, but I would take it and I would try every single one of their suggestions, and I would see, okay, did this make the game better or worse in my opinion. A lot of the times it was better. There was some bad ideas and you scrap those or you say, thanks, here’s your pizza. But most of the time they were great ideas and it helped mold the [00:19:00] game into what it is. So yeah, if you’re absolutely a young startup trying to create a game or any product really, play testing or product testing is the huge. It’s key. It’s a good indicator too of whether your product is gonna be successful and whether you should dump your heart and soul and wallet into making it a reality.

Jason Hsieh: That’s true.

Ryan Wallace: ’cause If you, go play test it and you’re watching it and you’re like, they’re not really loving it.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: Then that’s probably a good indicator that they’re not

Jason Hsieh: indicator Yeah.

Ryan Wallace: Other consumers are not gonna love it. But for me I would have them play test it, and people would ask me can we keep this? I’m sorry this, demo cost me 500. For me, it was it was crucial. A big thing too for games. I need to be able to hand this product to you, and without me giving you any information about it, you need to figure it out.

Jason Hsieh: How to play.

Ryan Wallace: Yeah. So, instructions were hard. Getting it so that I could hand this to a stranger. They would play it the exact way I intended [00:20:00] was difficult.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, that’s a tricky part.

Ryan Wallace: I wrote these instructions before the chat GPT era, so it was even more difficult.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. Because sometimes I would like board game for my kids and I would be reading the menu for 30 minutes. Still couldn’t quite figure out how to play it. Sounded like over complicated.

Ryan Wallace: So in my instructions, I have a video too. It has a link to a video, so if people don’t wanna read the instructions, they can just watch a quick six minute video explaining how to play. And I think that’s also super crucial for any card or board game. You need to have a video. So many people are visual learners and seeing you explain it for six minutes on a screen rather than trying to figure it out in the instructions for 30 minutes is a deal breaker for a lot of people.

Jason Hsieh: I agree. Yeah. Sometimes it is a little bit easier to understand when you see the card game being play in action and change hands instead of maybe do a paragraph of what you’re supposed to do when you receive this card. A little bit harder to understand for [00:21:00] sure.

As well, wrapping up today’s interview, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started in the toy and game industry, what would that be?

Ryan Wallace: Create something that you’re proud of. Make something that you yourself would want to use or utilize, whether it’s a board game, make something you wanna play. Don’t just make something that to fill up a shelf, because especially in the card game and board game industry, there are so many competitors and games out there. What stands out my game from others is that I’m passionate about it. And I am proud of it, and I will play it anytime, anywhere, regardless of who’s with me. It’s my go-to game. And I’m not just trying to say that because it’s my pride and joy, but I made something that I genuinely wanted to play. Because I had played all the other options out there.

I would encourage you to make something you’re proud of, something that. 50 years [00:22:00] even if you didn’t sell any games, you will still pull it out and still wanna play it because if you wanna play it, others will.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. That’s a very good piece of advice. You have to love it yourself as a creator.

Ryan Wallace: You have to. You have to. You cannot be in it for the money. I know that’s why people wanna do it. But you gotta be in it for creating something that you are passionate about. For sure. Otherwise, it’s not gonna go anywhere.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And where can people find you online?

Ryan Wallace: I’m on Amazon. You can search the cactus card game, what’s the point? Or you can go to http://www.thecactuscardgame.com. Or you can find it there as well.

I’m also on Instagram. You just search the cactus card game, Facebook, all the social medias, but I’m not I don’t do a lot of marketing on there. It’s mostly just pictures of me and people playing it.

Jason Hsieh: For our listeners, thank you for tuning into this episode of Toy Business Unbox podcast. We hope you have enjoyed the conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you have heard be sure to subscribe [00:23:00] to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode.

We’ll really appreciate your support and we’ll love it. If you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend or colleague. For more resource tips and the latest update within the toys and game industry. Visit our website@toylaunch.com. Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using hashtag #ToyBusinessUnboxed.

We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestion for future episode. Until next time, keep innovating. Keep creating, keep bringing joy to toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off from the Toy Business Unbox podcast. I’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you everyone.