You Can't Scale What You Haven't Finished Yet. — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hey, Alex. I'm Aaron Smith and I run a
2. 0:02creative studio that publishes board
3. 0:04games. My first product generated about
4. 0:071.3 million last year.
5. 0:08>> Board games?
6. 0:10>> Yeah.
7. 0:10>> Is it digital or hard like cardboard
8. 0:12board games?
9. 0:13>> Cardboard.
10. 0:14>> No [ __ ] Okay, what's the name of the
11. 0:15game?
12. 0:17>> It's called Sea Beasts.
13. 0:18>> Sea Beasts? Okay.
14. 0:20>> Yeah. Yeah. We did a Kickstarter and
15. 0:23then I did e-com pre-sales
16. 0:26right after that.
17. 0:27>> Sick.
18. 0:27>> Um so I still haven't even delivered it.
19. 0:30Like in the final stages of production
20. 0:32right now.
21. 0:33>> Yeah.
22. 0:33>> Um so we'll be fulfilling it.
23. 0:34>> Mhm.
24. 0:35>> Um but in the meantime I've also
25. 0:37developed
26. 0:38four other games that I'm going to be
27. 0:39launching over the next 6 months.
28. 0:41>> Okay.
29. 0:41>> Um and my long-term goal is to build a
30. 0:44multimedia entertainment company built
31. 0:46around the original IP.
32. 0:48>> Right.
33. 0:49>> animation, film.
34. 0:50>> Okay.
35. 0:51>> But right now it's just me and a handful
36. 0:54of contractors.
37. 0:55>> Okay.
38. 0:56>> So deadlines are getting harder, margins
39. 0:58getting tighter and tighter.
40. 0:59>> Yeah.
41. 1:00>> Um yeah, yeah. I just feel the weight
42. 1:03of it all. Um so I need I know I need to
43. 1:06hire, but the tricky part is I've
44. 1:08reinvested all of my profits into these
45. 1:10next launches.
46. 1:11So
47. 1:12yeah.
48. 1:13So I need to
49. 1:15uh
50. 1:16make sure that you know the right
51. 1:18I get the right hire first basically.
52. 1:20Um we also found out on Sunday we're
53. 1:22pregnant with our fourth.
54. 1:24>> Nice.
55. 1:26>> high intensity
56. 1:27moments right now.
57. 1:28>> Yeah.
58. 1:29>> Uh so if you were in my shoes, what
59. 1:31would you what were your first few hires
60. 1:33be to scale the company to 5 million, 10
61. 1:38million next couple years?
62. 1:40>> What's your hard cost in a game?
63. 1:43>> Hard cost the base base game would be
64. 1:45like 12 bucks.
65. 1:47Like the more deluxe version I have tons
66. 1:49of like add-ons that I stack onto it. Uh
67. 1:52goes up to about $33.
68. 1:54>> you sell it for?
69. 1:56>> Uh
70. 1:56>> I'm selling base game 80 bucks. Uh,
71. 2:00my biggest package is 250.
72. 2:03Uh, AOV is probably 130 to 180.
73. 2:06>> Got it.
74. 2:13All right.
75. 2:15You asked what I would do.
76. 2:18I would tell all the people who gave you
77. 2:20that 1.3 million
78. 2:23that if they buy one of your next games,
79. 2:26they get a second game free.
80. 2:28So, I could double the cash that I have.
81. 2:31Given your cost basis, a lot of that
82. 2:32should be gross profit.
83. 2:34Then you'll have some pat- some some
84. 2:35padding.
85. 2:37Number one.
86. 2:37>> Mhm.
87. 2:39Yeah.
88. 2:39>> It's a BOGO offer. So, now cuz like
89. 2:41think about it like this. Who do I think
90. 2:43would like to buy games? People who have
91. 2:44already bought games. And if you could
92. 2:46tell them, "Hey, if you buy one more
93. 2:48game, you get two more games." I think
94. 2:50many of them will say yes cuz also, the
95. 2:52money they spent was a long time ago.
96. 2:54They don't even remember it anymore.
97. 2:55It's gone.
98. 2:55>> Right.
99. 2:56>> So, them knowing that they're going to
100. 2:57get a bigger Christmas present sounds
101. 2:59attractive. So, that's thing number one.
102. 3:01Thing number two,
103. 3:03um, is
104. 3:04I have to get clear on what your
105. 3:05constraints are, but before I do, what's
106. 3:08the big mistake you made so that we can
107. 3:09name it so that you don't do it again?
108. 3:14>> I mean, I made a ton of mistakes.
109. 3:16>> What's the big one? What's the big one?
110. 3:17We've already gone over What's the big
111. 3:18one?
112. 3:20>> Uh,
113. 3:21just me? Like not hiring people or
114. 3:24>> No, there was a big decision mistake you
115. 3:26made.
116. 3:27>> Oh, boy.
117. 3:29Uh,
118. 3:31not delivering it yet or
119. 3:32>> Starting four more games before
120. 3:34finishing the first one.
121. 3:35>> Oh, [ __ ]
122. 3:36Right?
123. 3:37>> Yeah.
124. 3:38>> Yeah.
125. 3:38>> That. You're like, "Bro, I'm so
126. 3:40stressed." It's like, "No shit." You now
127. 3:42have to deliver on five games. You're
128. 3:44trying to deliver five games with the
129. 3:45sales from one.
130. 3:47>> Yeah.
131. 3:48>> So, what I'm doing right now is I'm
132. 3:50trying to get I'm Of course you are, but
133. 3:51you're still working on them.
134. 3:53>> Right.
135. 3:53>> So, all of the time that you've
136. 3:55dedicated to these other four games, if
137. 3:56you just dedicated to the first game and
138. 3:57closed the loop, you'd be done and you'd
139. 3:59have cash and that would be it.
140. 4:00And then you've complete the loop, you
141. 4:02would have done it again, you would have
142. 4:03learned from the feedback. The thing is
143. 4:04is you built these other games and this
144. 4:05is I'll tell you some truth that you
145. 4:06don't want to hear.
146. 4:07You're going to get feedback from the
147. 4:09first game that you're going to be like,
148. 4:11"Fuck, I should do I should incorporate
149. 4:12that in game two, three, four."
150. 4:15>> Mhm.
151. 4:16>> Right.
152. 4:17>> Yeah.
153. 4:17>> Your game hasn't actually encountered
154. 4:19reality yet.
155. 4:21Like fundamentally, you just built you
156. 4:23built a VSL.
157. 4:24>> [laughter]
158. 4:25>> Like that's what you have succeeded at.
159. 4:26You drove traffic to a video that got
160. 4:28people to buy. That is what you
161. 4:29succeeded at. You actually haven't built
162. 4:30a good game yet.
163. 4:31You've sold a game.
164. 4:33You've made a promise well. Right? We
165. 4:35will find out whether If you like this
166. 4:36video and you're business owner who
167. 4:37wants to break through your current
168. 4:38revenue ceiling, I just sold every
169. 4:39lesson from scaling 10 businesses past
170. 4:4110 million and three businesses past 100
171. 4:43million into completely free scaling
172. 4:45road map that I've used to go from zero
173. 4:47to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100
174. 4:49plus. And so you can click here and you
175. 4:50can check it out. Again, absolutely free
176. 4:52and since you're business owner, I
177. 4:53appreciate you and enjoy.