How Transforming Family Traditions into Business Ventures Revives Game Night

Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Hi, welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. Game time has always been a tradition for generations, but in today’s fast-paced world, they seem sometimes to take a back seat. Our guest today is on a mission to change that. Linda and Sue, co-founder of Spot On Games, turned their shared passion from playing into a business is all about bringing people together. Susan even left her 30 years career in software development, and Linda has been inventing games since their childhood.

So thank you so much for both of you to be on our podcast today and sharing with us your journey in the toys and game industry so far.

Linda Pelnik (01:17)
Thanks for having us.

Jason Hsieh (01:19)
So for our what inspired both of you to team up and launch the game company that you have today.

Linda Pelnik (01:25)
I’ll start, you know, I tell everybody, don’t get your kids a stocking, a Christmas stocking that’s too big, unless you want to start a game company, because my son, a giant stocking, and every year it was always a challenge to find things to stuff it with. And one year I was walking through one of those big black stores and looking for things to put in Charlie’s stocking, and I came across a game called Liar’s Dice, which has been around.

since the 14th century, the Incas started Liar’s Dice. And it came in a tube, so it was perfect thing to fit in his stocking. And so of course on Christmas Day, we play Liar’s Dice as a family. And for those who’ve played Liar’s Dice before, they know there’s a problem with Liar’s Dice. You can raise the bid, you can challenge the bid, but what if the bid is spot on? nothing to do for that. So I fixed that, my family, we play Liar’s Dice.

We call it Spot On. And for years and years, I told all my friends and everybody I met, I was gonna invent this game called Spot On and it was gonna market it and tell everybody, everybody’s, you’re so funny. You’re gonna do a game, you know? It kind of made fun of me. I said, okay, yes, I’m gonna do it someday. And when I told Sue about it, she didn’t make fun of me. And you know, it’s probably 10 years later, 10 years of talking about it. And when I told Sue about it, she didn’t make fun of me. She said, that sounds great.

let’s do it, let’s do this business that you’re talking about. Which made me feel great, of course. And when we got together, she helped and we got together and made it even better than that. We had more things to it. And we came up with that spot on. And that’s how it started. Our families knew each other, right? So you can tell about that, but our families knew each other. Our girls are good friends.

Susan Dohm (03:04)
Yeah, I mean, I met Linda probably 16 years ago, our daughters went to middle school together. But for me, playing games, it’s been such an important part of my life from when I was growing up through raising my kids. And game nights were especially important. We had game nights all the time. I was not familiar with Liar’s Dice.

Jason Hsieh (03:09)
wow.

Susan Dohm (03:25)
But it was interesting because my son actually did want to create a game with me a few years prior and we had gotten together in Houston with my daughter and we played about 15 games over the course of three days. The games that we liked, we didn’t like, we took all kinds of And then our lives just got busy and so we kind of put

Jason Hsieh (03:38)
Just…

Susan Dohm (03:46)
the whole thing on the back burner. But when Linda brought up this idea, the timing was perfect. I had just left my corporate job. And I knew that Linda and I together would make a great partnership. And so I didn’t hesitate. And that’s how it started.

Jason Hsieh (04:01)
I see. Yeah, thank you for sharing.

Linda Pelnik (04:03)
We have very different personalities which complement each other. mean, you know, very different. which is great partnership for

Jason Hsieh (04:10)
Yeah, I also run my business with my sister. I’m like a super extrovert. I love to talk to people. My, my sister is kind of the opposite. She’s more like an introvert. She liked to stay behind her laptop and do all the digital marketing stuff behind the scene. But I’m like the person I love to talk to people. That’s why I do the podcast and also do the speaking engagement and all that. So it’s definitely for any kind of business, it’s always good to have a balance like that.

Linda Pelnik (04:36)
Absolutely

Jason Hsieh (04:36)
I know the company’s mission is to bring the game night back. Why do you think it’s so important in today’s society nowadays?

Susan Dohm (04:45)
You know, so I’ll go ahead and start. I think game nights have always been important. They’re great at just bringing family and friends together. And they do create lasting memories. They’ve always been very important. I think they’ve become more difficult to have, of course, during the pandemic. People’s lives have just gotten busier. People are on their phones a lot.

That’s why it’s especially important now to bring back game night because we’ve lost that connection. And you know, with my kids, they really miss the game nights that we had now that they don’t live here. And whenever they come in town, we always host a big game night. And the night isn’t just for us about playing fun games. It’s also about.

great drinks. We usually have a signature cocktail if it’s an adult game night.

Jason Hsieh (05:33)
Okay.

Susan Dohm (05:35)
We bring

in great food. We like to find new games. So usually we’ll introduce a new game, but there’s always family favorites. we have a nice mixture of different types of games, from the really fast action games to some that you have to think a little bit more. But it’s just a great way to build connection and to make memories.

Jason Hsieh (05:58)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Pelnik (05:59)
Community

I mean kids today, you know, they are talking on their phones even families, you know you call your kids for dinner by texting them they’re up in their rooms, you know, it’s dinner know so you miss that and you need to talk face to face with people once in a while and you learn skills playing games. Yes, you’re gonna throw the Monopoly board once in a while

Those are skills too. You learn from those things and those important things to grow up and learn through and figure those dynamics out with your siblings and with your friends. And we kind of hope that kids after the basketball game are going to say, you know, we’re going to Bobby’s house. We’re going to play spot on. We’ll order pizza. They’re not just going to go out and do other things. And we think they’re going to have fun doing that. So we’re going to encourage that. And it’s not going to be a

nerdy or a goofy thing to do, it’s gonna be a fun thing to do. So, and it’s all ages, you we play with our grandparents, we play with young kids, with all ages, it’s men, it’s women, it’s for ladies night, it’s for couples nights, it’s for whole families. So, you know, it’s for everybody.

Jason Hsieh (07:07)
For sure. And I want to switch direction to talk a little bit more about the business aspect of the game company that you currently have. I know play testing is a huge part of the game development. What have you learned by testing with your friends and family? I know you have an example of your game. If you can also quickly explain how does the rule for the spot on actually work.

Susan Dohm (07:29)
Okay, I’ll start. So when we did form the company and start talking about the game, we weren’t even familiar with the concept of playtesting. mean, certainly Linda had played a lot with her family, but the idea of formal playtests we weren’t familiar with until my son educated us on that. So we quickly pulled in other family members, friends, neighbors, people we hadn’t seen in years.

to play the game and to get their point of view. We brought in young people and old people. The play tests were really, really helpful. One of the first play tests we had was to see how well it worked as a six-person game because Liar’s Dice is a four-person game and here we were expanding it to a six-person game with the other rules and complexities of that spot on. And out of that first play test,

There are so every player has five dice, so there’s 30 dice altogether if you’re playing with six people. OK, and during the course of the game you lose dice, you get dice back and keeping track of the dice in a six person game is complex. So out of that first play test we realized we needed a matrix to track the dice and that’s became the dice tracker on the game board. So so that was really great.

Jason Hsieh (08:21)
Okay.

Linda Pelnik (08:42)
So this part.

Susan Dohm (08:43)
So in a six person game when there’s 30 dice, the first person that loses a die gets placed on 30. And then the next number shows how many dice are remaining. So as people lose dice, they get put on the board. And then when you get dice back, you fill in the gap. So that was a great part that came out from our very first game test.

Jason Hsieh (08:42)
Okay, okay.

Linda Pelnik (09:05)
Three people, you know, play, it’s 15, that kind of thing. Five people, 25, depending on how you start.

People are always asking how many dice are left? You know, in this way you can just glance at the board, you know exactly, kind of informs your next bid.

Susan Dohm (09:19)
Other subsequent play tests, we realized how important it was to remind people of what moves you have after the first bid. And so we were constantly reminding people. So then we put that on the game board as well. And that’s been great. So you’ve got five different options after the first bid and the reminder at the bottom is something that Linda will talk about.

Linda Pelnik (09:41)
Yeah, this is one of the most fun things about spot on. So not only can you call spot on if your bid is exactly right, which completely fixes liar’s dice, but anybody can call it at any time during the game. So if like, if there’s six people around a round table, you picture that the first person says, you know, let’s say there’s six people playing and there’s 30 dice in the first bid. Somebody says there’s 15 sixes

So everybody has a cup, everybody has five dice, shake them, turn them over. You peek under and you’re trying to guess what face value is under everybody’s cup. The ones are wild. Okay. So, so you’re trying to guess. so somebody might guess there are 15, sixes of everybody’s, including the ones under everybody’s cup. So then the next person can either raise the bid.

They can challenge the bid if they think that’s ridiculous. They can say, no, I challenge that. They can declare it spot on, meaning that it’s exactly right. They believe it’s exactly right. Or they can use a token. We have a pass token and we have a reverse token. They can send it back. They can move it to the next person. So there’s all kinds of fun things that can happen. But the one I think one of the most fun things and what Sue was talking about on the board is anybody at any time, even the person that just

did the bid, can yell out spot on, meaning the bid is exactly right. So the person can say, 15, sixes, spot on. Or a person around the table, if it’s not their turn, can yell spot on if they think it’s exactly right. And it stops the bidding cold. Everybody lifts their cup. Everybody pushes their sixes and their ones, which are wild, forward, and they count them up. Now, if it is spot on and it’s exactly right, if a player has lost one of their dice, they can get one back.

Jason Hsieh (11:21)
Okay.

Linda Pelnik (11:21)
And so that’s great, because if you lose something, it’s fun to get something back. If they’re wrong, then they lose a dice. Now, to win the game, it’s the person who has dice left at the end of the game. You’re out as soon as you lose all your five of your dice. So that’s how you win the game. it’s really fun.

And it’s fun to just yell stuff out. Everybody loves to yell stuff out. At the game fair, we won a prize. Sue can show you that. Because we try to throw up our hands when we yell Spot On and get excited about things. So it’s a very fun game.

Jason Hsieh (11:53)
Hmm, okay, got it.

Susan Dohm (11:54)
So, I mean, just one other thing on that. know, so play testing helped kind of evolve the game as well as, you know, help us tweak the rules to make sure things were as clear as possible. So play testing, yes, very important for a lot of good, a lot of good reasons.

Jason Hsieh (12:11)
Yeah, what was one of the biggest challenge that you experienced in designing and manufacturing your first game and how do you overcome some of

Susan Dohm (12:20)
So I mean, for me, I can tell you that just the overall timeline for getting it all done was much longer than we had hoped. And we worked as hard as we could to get things moved more quickly, but it just takes time. I came from a software development background in a very fast paced business. So we turned changes around. We did designs, we did coding so quickly.

But the game design and manufacturing process takes time, and that was tough. One of the things that did help, I mean, another thing I should say is this is our first game, so there was a learning curve. We had to find the graphic designer, the manufacturer, the warehouse. We had to figure out the online tools we needed, the sites we needed to be on. So, I mean, that also impacted the timeline for all of this.

But one thing that did help us was reaching out to other people in the game industry for their advice and recommendations. And even though the whole process took long, it probably would have taken much longer had we not received the great input from the mentors that we ended up finding.

Jason Hsieh (13:25)
That’s definitely a great share. Learning from other people’s experiences. And that’s actually one of the mission of this podcast is to share people’s experiences so we all learn from each other as well.

Linda Pelnik (13:36)
Wonderful of people to help. was really, I guess, surprising. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was, and nice, really nice that everyone was so great about that.

Jason Hsieh (13:45)
I see. And is there any other like surprising or unexpected lesson that you have learned along the way?

Linda Pelnik (13:50)
I mean, little things that you don’t think of, you know, you say, they say you have to have six colors of cups, right? And then they then they say, go get this.

Jason Hsieh (13:58)
That’s like 100 different colors that you can choose from. Yeah.

Linda Pelnik (14:03)
Right? And I have a blue cup. What? blue cup?

Jason Hsieh (14:06)
I mean,

Linda Pelnik (14:08)
things you just don’t think of that you don’t know. what you don’t know is a lot, right? So that, guess, was kind of surprising.

Susan Dohm (14:16)
I mean, the surprising thing to me is that Linda sees red as pink.

Jason Hsieh (14:20)
Hahaha, really?

Susan Dohm (14:22)
We have a lot of discussions on colors.

But another thing, I we were, I mean, we talked about this briefly, but we were surprised, we knew that the game industry was very competitive. So we continue to be surprised at how helpful everyone has been given that the game industry is competitive. I mean, we’ve reached out to game inventors that have been so responsive and willing to share everything with us.

So that’s been surprising. It’s been really nice.

Jason Hsieh (14:53)
Yeah, yeah, I think overall industry is everyone’s fairly friendly unless you are their direct competitor, I guess. Because there’s so many different variety of games, so we are not really in direct competition of each other.

Linda Pelnik (15:06)
But even people who are really, really successful, know, it’s really nice that they’ve taken time out to help out.

Jason Hsieh (15:13)
For sure. And I know you have, like in the pre-interview, you also discussed you have choose some grassroots marketing approach. And can you also share some of the strategy you have been trying to really get your names into people’s hands and really raise that awareness about the product?

Linda Pelnik (15:31)
Sure, I think the reason that we really chosen to do more of a grassroots approach is because of how we feel about the game itself and how we feel about our mission to get game nights going again. It all comes back to that and how we feel about the best way to tell people about Spot On is really to talk about it and to teach it. And the best way to learn is to show it.

And yeah, you know, we do believe in this box and we think that if people see it on a shelf or they see a picture of it, they’re going to say, that’s an amazing design and I want to learn more about For sure, we think that’s true. And we believe so strongly in it and it sounds kind of braggy, but we’ve never met anybody that didn’t love it when they played it.

So I really feel like the grassroots approach, the organic approach to teach it to one person, they’ll teach it to another person and to spread it that way is going to work best for us and that the longevity of it is going to be there. We’ve made a really great product we’ve worked really hard on the cups that we chose. We made a really solid box. We made great dice. You know, we picked all these things out that we know are going to last forever.

So I know that if I talk to people and sell this game, it’s gonna be worth something to them and their families. And I feel like if I talk to people about it and teach it to them, that that’s gonna be my best approach. I feel so attached to it.

And because we believe it’s a community kind of a thing, it all comes from, stems from that mission, I guess. And also when we go to local stores here, we know the owner. We brought our kids here when they were little.

They sit on the floor and they play with the toys there. You know, and we’re gonna bring our grandchildren to those same stores. So we wanna start there and kind of work our way out from there. And that’s kind of where our approach comes from.

Jason Hsieh (17:21)
Yeah, and that actually lead to my follow up question. I know you are trying to focus on the specialty toy store instead of like big box retailer. What are some of the reason that led to that decision?

Linda Pelnik (17:33)
just the feeling of local and in supporting those people that we know and grew up with and the community aspect of it. We just kind of want to start there and see how that goes and really support them.

Jason Hsieh (17:46)
Yeah, and I think you will be also attending Astra this year, correct? Yeah. Yeah, so that’s a specialty kind of focus, trade show which is very different than New York Tour Fair as well. But can you also share with our audience that haven’t, I think this is your first New York Tour Fair? can you also share, like, what was your experience attending the first New York Tour Fair?

Linda Pelnik (17:50)
Well, yeah.

Susan Dohm (18:07)
It was huge. And it was very exciting. It was overwhelming, to say the least. But it was also very rewarding. We went in with a goal to get excitement about the game. And I don’t think we’ve mentioned the game. We don’t have it in the warehouse yet. It’s going to be there Monday or Tuesday of this coming week. But we did have 12 games.

air shipped to us so we would have the games at the Toy Fair. So this was our introduction of the game to the community and we wanted to get excitement around the game. We wanted to showcase the game, show how great it is to you know everybody. So we had a great team at the Toy Fair that did an awesome job pulling absolutely anybody and everybody in to play the game.

And it went over great. mean, some people stayed for a long time and played. We had, well, Linda can talk about Mr. Spot-On, but overall, it was very successful. We made some sales too, so that was awesome. On some pre-orders, we met a lot of great people.

that have, you we’ve gone back and asked them questions since the toy fair. So we’ve established some great relationships from that toy fair. So that was great too. So Linda, you can add some things.

Linda Pelnik (19:28)
I mean, all of those things are true. And I think the things we’re gonna remember about it were the stories, you know, the personal stories and Mr. Spot on was a guy named Garrett who I think he played, I don’t even remember the time. was like 40 minutes, I think we timed.

Jason Hsieh (19:43)
whoa, okay.

Linda Pelnik (19:45)
It was a spot on record, so we called him Mr. Spot On. And he just kept pulling spot on and putting his hands up. And he drew all kinds of crowds. And we just laughed and laughed and laughed with him. And you know, it’s just fun. It just was so much fun. And one day, I think it was the first day, I’ll probably cry telling this story, but

We were walking back to our hotel it’s a long day. And it was three of us, and there was a big group in front of us. And we wanted to kind of get around them to get back to our hotel and rest up for the next day. And we tried to get past them and said, excuse us. Can we get by? And we started up a conversation with this group. And we said, what are you guys doing at the toy fair? And they told us. And they said, what are you guys? And we said, we have a game.

They said, well, what did you see at the toy fair that you liked today? And we told them, you know, we didn’t get really out too much because we were so busy at our booth. And we said, what did you guys see? And they said, well, one of our friends said they saw a dice game that was really great. yeah, what was it called? And they said, I can’t remember the name of it, but I think he sent us a picture. And so they started looking through their phone and said, here it is. It’s called That’s Spot On.

remember in tears. He said it was the best game at the whole toy fair. He took pictures. Those are the things I’m going remember about the toy fair. was a dream come true.

Jason Hsieh (21:03)
That’s a nice story.

Susan Dohm (21:11)
You know, and it also helped. I mean, we opted for the Launchpad area, which is an area of the Toy Fair for new inventors. And I think that was really, really good for us. It was a smaller space, but it brought in a lot of people that were interested in what’s new out in the market. So that ended up being really well, really great. And we did also make great relationships with the inventors around us.

So hopefully we’ll see some of them at Astra, that was really nice as well.

Jason Hsieh (21:40)
Yeah. what is next for Spot On as a company? Any exciting new project in the work?

Susan Dohm (21:46)
Well, I can tell you, I mean, what’s next with us right now is finally after being in on route from China, it’ll be in the warehouse on Monday or Tuesday, we’ve been waiting for it for over two months. So we’re going to be very busy as a company, getting it out in the marketplace, we’ve got some strategies, we’ve got a lot of pre pre orders to, to send out. Okay, so you know, the next

few weeks we’ll be very focused on doing that. Linda?

Linda Pelnik (22:17)
We’ve got huge big plans, but you we can’t tell too much because then we’d have to kill you.

Jason Hsieh (22:22)
⁓ I see, I see. Yeah, well let’s keep that a secret then.

Linda Pelnik (22:29)
Top secret. We’ve got some great new plans, some different variations of that spot on that will be really fun. And we’ve got some other games that we don’t want to tell too much about, but hopefully they’ll be out soon too.

Jason Hsieh (22:42)
got it, And 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 toys and game industry, what would that be?

Susan Dohm (22:51)
For me, I would say definitely partner up with someone because doing it together with someone makes it a lot more fun and it’s great having someone to bounce ideas off of. So having at least another partner is really ideal. And hopefully someone with complimentary skills, like we were saying. I’m quite left brain, Linda’s quite right brain.

Also, just reaching out to people for help because people are very willing to help. So think that’s what I would say.

Linda Pelnik (23:20)
I would say don’t let the naysayers get you down. My mom would say don’t let the turkeys get you down. I was a middle child and I had to be loud to be heard. And I waited a really long time to make this dream come true, but I made it come true and it’s not too late. But it’s been really fun. It’s been one of most fun things I’ve ever done.

It can happen. It can happen for anybody,

Jason Hsieh (23:47)
Thank you for sharing that. Where is the best place for people to find you online?

Susan Dohm (23:51)
We do have a website and we’ve been taking pre-orders on the website for the last several weeks. So certainly on the website, we are working to get on Amazon, but that’s taking a while. http://www.spotongames.com

⁓ Yeah, Instagram Linda?

Jason Hsieh (24:07)
We’ll put that in the show notes.

Linda Pelnik (24:10)
@spotongames

Susan Dohm (24:12)
Yep. for retailers, we’ll be up on fair shortly.

Jason Hsieh (24:15)
I see. Okay. Yeah. I’ll put some of that into our show notes as well. for our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We hope you have enjoyed today’s conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you have heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate your support and we love it if you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague. For more resource tips and the latest update we in the toys and game industry.

visit our website at toy-launch.com. Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using #oybusinessunboxed. We’ll love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joy to toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast and we’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much everyone.