Card Game Business: From Quarantine Idea to Retail Success

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to The Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses, but first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

[00:00:21] On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey. These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

[00:00:54] Today's guest is Britt Row, co-founder of Awkward Games, a card game company born during the quarantine in New York City. Since then, the brand has grown to be sold in major retailers like Walmart, Target, and Urban Outfitters, and Britt and her team even landed a deal on Shark Tank. Britt, welcome to the show.

[00:01:15] Brittane Rowe: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:17] Sanjay Parekh: So I'm excited to have you on because man, there are so many different aspects of your story that I think are gonna be so fun to talk about. But before we get into that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:28] Brittane Rowe: Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to be here.

[00:01:31] Thanks for having me again. So I am originally from Michigan. I moved to New York City in about 2011, was pursuing theater, worked off Broadway for a number of years, and during COVID all of that was shut down. So I'm here in New York at home quarantine by myself and would FaceTime my brother and my sister-in-law who are also based in Brooklyn.

[00:01:54] And we would just have amazing conversations about a bunch of different topics, our relationships, our families, our backgrounds, and thought I wonder if we started to categorize some of these questions and send them to friends and maybe it'll help them also have better relationships and connections of all sorts. And so we did that and we thought, okay, we have to make something with this. People are really enjoying it. And so. That birthed Awkward Games and our first flagship game, Hella Awkward, came to fruition during COVID. So it was a very exciting time.

[00:02:25] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, that's awesome. So you didn't do the thing like a lot of other actors did and try to do like Zoom plays and things like that. Did, were like, no. 

[00:02:33] Brittane Rowe: Oh, I did. 

[00:02:34] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, you did?

[00:02:35] Brittane Rowe: Oh yeah.

[00:02:38] Sanjay Parekh: How did that go? 

[00:02:39] Brittane Rowe: Oh yeah. We definitely, especially at the very beginning of quarantine. Yeah. A lot of people were trying a billion different things, you know, and so I, I was in a few of those Zoom plays. I did some Zoom readings. And it just, it's a little weird, right? Like we, we were trying to adapt based on the circumstances, trying to connect with each other and still feel creative and fun.

[00:03:04] But it's always like, okay, after you do a few of those, it's like, all right guys, I think we'll just come back later when the world reopens up and we'll do it for real.

[00:03:14] Sanjay Parekh: You know, it's, it's gonna be funny in like, I don't know, a hundred, 200 years when anthropologists like analyzed what happened during that timeframe and look at these weirdos and seriously things that they tried. Just crazy. I know. So is this the first time you've ever done anything entrepreneurial? Were there entrepreneurs in the family? What's your experience in terms of that?

[00:03:37] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, I mean, for me, this is definitely my first time. I definitely have experience. My dad is entrepreneurial. He's always kind of been a hustler. He's always worked in arts and entertainment basically as like a concert promoter back in Grand Rapids. So he would work with different venues to put on shows and he's just one of those people that can like sell anything and I would, he would always be on the phone, you know, trying to connect people and connect the dots.

[00:04:01] So that was really fun to watch him do that growing up. And then my brother, who's my co-founder, he has a background in business. So he actually went to business school for his undergrad at Michigan and then has worked in like that corporate structure his whole career. So it was great to also learn a lot from him because I have had no real experience being in, like, even in corporate background, you know, like as an actor you typically have to have side hustles, but it was always usually in like restaurants and catering gigs and you know, little singing gigs here and there. So I had a lot to learn, but I'm glad I had folks around me who were able to give me the tips and the tricks.

[00:04:38] Sanjay Parekh: You know, what's interesting is a lot of times that background where you don't know what you don't know ends up being a lot more powerful and useful because you don't know things aren't possible. Have you found that to be true? Like where, which way do you land? Do you feel like it's been more of a holdback that because you didn't know things or more of a superpower because you didn't know things and then you went ahead and tried them.

[00:05:02] Brittane Rowe: I think at the beginning of our business journey, I definitely felt less confident because I knew there was so much, I did know even like the language of business, you know, if you're talking to a business person and they're talking about the a RR and the, and what are your cogs? And I'm like, I have no clue what you're talking about. Like what are all these acronym?

[00:05:22] What language are we speaking here? What is this going on? So there was some of that where, you know, you have that imposter syndrome kind of going on. But I think as the years have progressed, I definitely have found that it's a superpower that I have this theater background. I can feel super comfortable taking the lead, you know, being on the stage, doing those big pitch moments. You know, being, you know, being the person that can be the face and all of the, you know, the language of business. You can learn all of that. You know that's something you can practice and learn. And so now I'm like, oh. This is great. I'm glad that I, you know, I've learned in the doing. Yeah. And now I, my mind is, it's open in a different way, I would say.

[00:06:05] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So let's talk about the start of the business. So the Zoom calls, that's kind of where you thought of the idea. How did you actually get going? Like what did it take to start the business? Did you get any outside funding in the initial days? Did you fund yourself? Like tell me the mechanics of that.

[00:06:22] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, so we basically would write questions that came up in our conversations when we were FaceTiming or on Zoom, and we would just put it all in Google, in a Google Doc, which was what we still use. We still use Google Docs and we keep all of our things there. And we would send questions out to friends to kind of do our user testing and we would have like zoom game nights with our family to, to test things out because, you know, we couldn't all get together to do a proper game night. So that was our game night, which was great. It was super fun. And then we basically put in our own savings. So we put in about $10,000 of my brother and Jane's savings because I had $0. I was on unemployment, so they were willing to put up $10,000. And then we found a manufacturer. I was searching on Alibaba to find a factory in China because I heard, oh, that's where you get stuff made.

[00:07:14] So I was on Alibaba searching for factories, sending messages like, Hey, can you make a card game? What is, how does this work? You know, just asking a bunch of folks questions. And found someone who was able to make us a sample. We got a sample made. It took forever because obviously COVID was happening. So there was that. Jane is a product designer, so she was able to put a beautiful design together, which we absolutely love. And eventually we got our samples. We put an order in. I think our first order was maybe a thousand units. And we set up our website ourselves on Shopify. We did everything ourselves. I was I'm the researcher girl who's like, I'm gonna figure out how to do this, and I'm like so excited to figure it all out. And yeah we put together a website and we did our soft launch February of 2021. So. Pretty quick.

[00:08:09] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Wow. So then how did you promote, like how did you get sales? When, how long did it take for the first sale to happen once you launched the site?

[00:08:17] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, so we launched the site, we did a pre-order and it was essentially our network of folks. So we did a New York delivery campaign. So we would go to our friend's place who ordered it from us, and we would take our game and we would be like, woo, yay. You're hella awkward, so excited. Like, thanks for being one of our first customers. And that kind of turned into a social media campaign where they would post it, they would repost, and we were able to kind of build some momentum that way, which was really great.

[00:08:48] And within a few months, one of those people that posted, you know, this exciting delivery moment. They were friends with a buyer from Macy's and they reached out to us and said, Hey, we'd love to get this in some of our Macy's stores. We're like, wow.

[00:09:04] Sanjay Parekh: Hopeful. Hopefully they weren't expecting that kind of delivery service from you for Macy's sales. Like you show up at the store and do a whole dance.

[00:09:11] Brittane Rowe: I mean, I would've been down to do it. So Macy's calling me up, I'm down to do a dance at Harold Square.

[00:09:18] Sanjay Parekh: Too funny. So then, okay. That's a big deal. Then moving from a thousand units that you. I'm assuming had in your apartment or your place there?

[00:09:28] Brittane Rowe: That, in my brother's studio apartment in Brooklyn.

[00:09:31] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. That's a, that's very different than trying to do logistics and delivery for Macy's. Exactly. So how did you make that jump then for yourself? Because I mean, there's a lot of capital that has to go into that as well. And what was the deal then with somebody like Macy's? Were they willing to pay beforehand? Like how did that work?

[00:09:51] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, no we really did it all ourselves. So we ended up at, I believe, 30 Macy's store. So they have like a section that's for gifting. So we were in the Harald Square and then a few others around the us. We ordered our units, we put more of our own cash into the company, maybe another 5,000 or so dollars plus we had the money from doing our pre-order in those early sales, which was really helpful. So we reinvested that into more inventory. And again, shift it all to my brother's apartment studio in Brooklyn. I had no clue how to do all of these mass shipping to, you know, distribution centers all across America. And I was on YouTube trying to figure out how do you case packs, what does this mean?

[00:10:38] Like how do you case something out? How do I print out these labels like. They had very specific rules on how things are packed. So I had to order all of these supplies and we were just in my brother's studio packing games. We had to sticker each game because they require stickering, so I had to buy a sticker gun, like all of these things.

[00:10:58] But we did all of it ourselves, the three of us and a few friends that would come and help out along the way, and we would, you know, buy them lunch or dinner or something. We'd be stickering thousands of games, putting them into boxes, taping it up, walking it, you know, we'd use my brother's cart for his, in his apartment building and we would stack it up and we'd walk it to FedEx and be like, all right, that one's gone. That one's off. Woo. Got that checked off Next. Next distribution center.

[00:11:28] Sanjay Parekh: Well, I mean, you're fortunate that you didn't have to like put these on a pallet or something. Yeah. because I don't know how that would've worked for you.

[00:11:34] Brittane Rowe: Seriously.

[00:11:35] Sanjay Parekh: A pallet jack and a studio apartment and all.

[00:11:38] Brittane Rowe: No, that would've been crazy.

[00:11:41] Sanjay Parekh: I think your brother probably would've been looking for a new apartment because they would've kicked him outta that place at that point. Yeah. Seriously.

[00:11:47] Brittane Rowe: We had to be a little sneaky, to be honest. Thankfully, they like him there, so.

[00:11:53] Sanjay Parekh: Well that's good. Hopefully they still like them there. So was there anything that made you nervous in all of this? Like in, in starting it and getting the Macy's, like any of this stuff. And if so, like how did you get over that? You talked about imposter syndrome. Yeah. And that just took time. Was there, were there other things as well?

[00:12:10] Brittane Rowe: For sure. I mean, just, I mean, the whole process was all so new. Even with, you know, my brother's background being in business, we had never, you know, launched a product ourselves from front to end and then partnering with a huge store like Macy's.

[00:12:24] It was wild. Like even being on their backend to then say, great, this is the shipment that's coming in. Making those pos, accepting those, putting in the payment system, all of that was all so new. But I think because it was just, we were in the doing of it, that it just had to get done. That we didn't have a chance to really freak out.

[00:12:46] We really just were like, okay, it's happening. We're gonna get it done, and this is this exciting, cool moment for us. So we're gonna figure it out. And so that's just kind of what we had to do. I think after I'm like, I never wanna do that again. I need to find a distributor. So that was our next step after that. I was like, I can't keep doing this. Like, we gotta find someone who knows what they're doing. Yeah.

[00:13:12] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:13:12] Brittane Rowe: I can handle this.

[00:13:13] Sanjay Parekh: Was there ever a point in time where the three of you and I'm assuming it's still the three of you, kind of involved this It is. Yeah. Were like, this is too much. We can't keep doing this. And you were ready to throw in the towel.

[00:13:25] Brittane Rowe: No, there really wasn't. Yeah, because ultimately it was really fun.

[00:13:28] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:13:29] Brittane Rowe: Even though it was crazy, it was like a really exciting thing that we got to do as a family. And even like with my sister-in-law, I got to get to know her so much more in this process and just learn, you know, their backgrounds and their career paths. Like she's a product designer. I never really had a product designer that was so close to me in my life, so it was also cool to watch her process and how she's creative and how she builds things and get to know each other in that way. So it was really just fun, you know, it still is, it's still just a good time to like do something together.

[00:14:00] And I think when you have that familial support, it doesn't feel as overwhelming, right? because we're all in it and we're all freaking out, but it's like, well, we're gonna get it done. We're in Macy's. Like, that was actually my first job in high school was at Macy's in Michigan.

[00:14:14] Sanjay Parekh: Oh really? Yeah. So I was like, wow, what a full circle moment.

[00:14:19] Sanjay Parekh: You're like I know how to do this. I used to work here. It's all good. Yeah.

[00:14:23] Brittane Rowe: Like I used to do that. Stickering, I remember how to do it.

[00:14:28] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox business insurance experts.

[00:14:48] Sanjay Parekh: Let's change a little bit Brit and shift to something that I think probably everybody wants to know about is Shark Tank, right? Totally. All entrepreneurs, I feel like are like, oh, one day I'm gonna be on that. So how did that come about for you guys and how was the experience? And you ended up getting a deal as well. So let's talk about the whole change. Let's start about. You know, how did you actually land on Shark Tank? What was that process like?

[00:15:12] Brittane Rowe: Yeah. Such a wild process. So I'm a part of an organization called New Voices, which basically helps support women of color who are in entrepreneurial life and they have a lot of amazing webinars or people that come in and do talks and things of that nature, and like educational tools, etcetera. So they had someone who worked in casting for Shark Tank do like a special webinar and just kind of talked about what it takes to get on the show and how to kind of do your initial pitch for your audition, et cetera. Went to that. I immediately found him on LinkedIn and messaged him like, Hey, thank you so much for this great talk.

[00:15:52] You know, he, the talk is still going on and I'm messaging him like, thanks for this talk. I was like, great. He immediately after the talk was over, said, oh, amazing. Like, please apply and let me know if you do. And I will, you know, I think you have, you know, he looked at my LinkedIn, he looked up the company, he is like, I think you would have a good shot. I was like, great. I will. So I go on the website, I send in my application.

[00:16:19] It's a really simple application, the first one on the website, super fast, and I let him know like, great, I just applied, you know, so excited. Can't wait to hear more, whatever. And I get a call from casting that they wanna chat and I was like, okay, cool. Exciting. So we have an initial call and..

[00:16:38] Sanjay Parekh: You're like, I know casting, I'm an actor. I understand that. You know how it works.

[00:16:43] Brittane Rowe: And we have just a quick maybe 10, 15 minute chat just about my story and my background, and they're like, okay, cool. We think you're really great. We're gonna put you onto the next step. And then the next step is when you do the like, intensive applications that take a year and they wanna know everything about your, since the day you were born until now.

[00:17:02] Basically it's like, it's very intensive. And then basically from applying until I went and filmed, it was about six months of just like going through the audition process, like building the pitch, working with the producers. Then I filmed last June, and it's exactly really like what you see on the show. I'm sure they, you know, they edit down a bit, but it's really like you walk out, they say, you know, when we tell you to go, that's when you start your pitch. You get no do overs. If you mess up. You just start over. If you faint. You know, like that has happened to people. If you freak out, then that's it, you know?

[00:17:42] So it's like, all right, I'm ready. Like I am prepared. They open the door, I walk out, I'm smiling at everyone. Everyone's like smiling back. Mr. Wonderful is just staring crazily at me and I'm just like, I'm gonna win you over. Like I know I'm gonna win you over Mr. Wonderful. And then, yeah, I did the pitch and I was able to get a deal.

[00:18:03] I got three offers, and then I made a deal with Robert and our deal is still pending. I, it takes a while basically after. Yeah. The show to go through all of the separate diligence with his folks, right? But it was such a cool experience. It was thrilling. I mean my, I wish I was able to wear my, you know, my, my Garmin watch to see what my heart rate was. That would've been fun.

[00:18:29] Sanjay Parekh: I'm sure you could feel it. Yeah. Feel it beating everywhere. Exactly. How long between when you film and when it actually aired, what was the gap there?

[00:18:36] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, so my episode aired mid-March, and then I filmed mid-June, so long time, almost a year. Oh, wow. Yeah, and they, oh wow. That's a long time. They don't know if you air until three weeks prior to your air date. So you're just kind of waiting on pins and needles, hoping with your fingers crossed and trying to understand if you should prepare or not. Right.

[00:18:59] Sanjay Parekh: You know, so let's, let's talk about that part of it because you know, especially in the early days of Shark Tank, I remember right now, you know, it's been on for a long time.

[00:19:08] I remember when a lot of people would go on that show, and their sites would crash because they were not prepared. Right. For the onslaught of traffic that would end up happening. Yeah. Right now there's definitely infrastructure. There's things that you can do, you can host on places like Shopify. Which can handle all that traffic, but that still doesn't fix the backend fulfillment side of it. And you know the money that you need to be able to spend on that to be ready for all that. So when you heard about this. How did you guys prepare and what actually ended up happening in terms of orders and all that? How much did it spike?

[00:19:44] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, so. When I originally filmed, they told me I would likely be a part of the holiday episode, so that would've been in December. So I was basically preparing as if we were going to air in December, right? So I knew our website. We wanted to kind of refresh it, revamp it a little bit, make it tighter, make it cleaner, make sure all of our customer policies, shipping policies, privacy policies, all of that just was much clean, cleaner. And then I looked for a three PL because I knew I had the experience.

[00:20:15] Sanjay Parekh: I can't keep up with this no more, this apartment shipping business.

[00:20:18] Brittane Rowe: Because that's what we were doing, you know, all of our orders that happened through our Shopify site, we, I would still ship those. I was like, we've gotta move on.

[00:20:26] So I went on the search of a three PL and found a great partner that's based in upstate New York. And they were super excited because they had worked with someone who did Good Morning America. So they had good experience with like a big spike and were able to handle that. So that was great. That was super helpful.

[00:20:44] And then it was inventory. It's like, okay, how much inventory do you prepare for? And, you know, how do I basically just guess a number? There's not really a ton of information on. How much you're gonna spike. I reached out to some founders from previous seasons to kind of get an understanding and it seemed to be about a 400% spike was kind of the average.

[00:21:10] So I was kind of thinking of that as a range. And just prepped a lot of inventory for both our retail partners because I figured we would spike across all channels. You know, we're in retail, we're on Amazon, our Shopify, and knew that I needed to kind of. Divvy up product everywhere. So it was basically just informing all of our partners, this is what's happening.

[00:21:33] I'm assuming it will be around the holiday time, but I will have to confirm three weeks in advance. In the meantime, let's make sure we're inventory planning for that, because I would rather be overly prepared, right, than to have that opportunity and miss it and not, you know, and sell out. Not do as well as we could have, you know?

[00:21:52] So that was the thing. Now December didn't happen. So at that point I was like, oh no, are we not gonna be aired? Like, are they cutting me? Like what happened? And they give you no information. They're just we'll see. So I'm just kind of sitting, waiting, hoping, praying, hoping, praying, watching the season, go watching people that pitched on the same day that I pitched that were on that the holiday episode, thinking, oh my gosh.

[00:22:17] Maybe I'm getting cut. Thankfully, we aired in March. At that point, we were so prepared because we had been preparing for December. So by March we were ready to go. So all of the kinks were already worked out and we had a great spike all across all of our channels. So it was very exciting just to like see.

[00:22:41] All of that traffic, all of the, you know, the customers coming in. So many people email just to give well wishes and just to be excited. I got so many dms on Instagram with people that, you know, just were excited and happy for us. Right. Yeah. So that was really cool to get like all of that great feedback from folks and.

[00:22:59] People also had like ideas for games that were like, Hey, I have an idea. Maybe you can do something with this. I'm like, oh, maybe one day. You know, you never know. I'll let you know.

[00:23:08] Sanjay Parekh: And at this point, did you have, you just had the one game or did you have both games at that?

[00:23:14] Brittane Rowe: We had both. Yeah. We had just launched like that week, that same week. We basically were like, we gotta get this out now.

[00:23:20] Sanjay Parekh: So that, I mean, that makes like inventory planning a lot harder because now you've got multiple SKUs, right? You've gotta manage all that. So interesting. And so the other part of me is like how I can't imagine why an episode like yours or a take like yours would not make it to air if you actually got a deal like that, but maybe they do that. I Maybe that's a thing depending on Yeah. Who that is.

[00:23:45] Brittane Rowe: Who knows? I mean, it's, casting is such a tricky process. You know, sometimes there's just not the right mix of businesses that they want represented in that season, and so maybe they cut, you know, a certain person. To keep something else that was maybe a juicier, crazier moment that would be viral, you know, who knows, you know? So I was thinking unlikely, but you never know. So I was trying to mentally prepare.

[00:24:09] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So let's talk about the product itself. You kind of touched on this a little bit, I wanna dig into it. You talked about how people have sent you questions and things like that, and ideas for games. Like how much has that actually influenced.

[00:24:23] The roadmap and have you thought like, oh, you know, maybe we wanna do more than just card games. Maybe there's other kinds of games. Like how do you think about that in terms of the development of the company?

[00:24:33] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, I mean, when we were first starting out we took feedback very seriously. And it was primarily our network and our community of folks who were giving us lots of ideas of certain questions or. Things that worked well as they were playing the game and testing the game out with their friends and family and things that didn't. So we kind of shifted the game quite a bit in that, those early stages as we were developing it based on feedback.

[00:24:58] Now we love getting feedback and it's usually through reviews or we're looking at competition to say, okay, these are what people are saying in their reviews. So we can kind of keep that in mind as we're developing. But it always comes down to what we. Think is fun. You know, what we like to play. What is exciting for us, because that's kind of the ethos of how we got started, is it was something that we needed as the founder, the founding team.

[00:25:23] And then we love to share that with other folks. So that's always kind of like the basis of it. And then we love getting feedback from folks to see how things shift and change. We actually just partnered with a mobile game, and so this is our first time ever. Diving into the mobile experience and we're still testing things out and trying to figure out how hella awkward translates into the mobile experience. But it's a game called celebrity and it's essentially like a, a heads up. Okay. And we added hella awkward questions and clues to their games. So it's very exciting. So that's like a new thing. because people always would say, Hey, we want a mobile experience. And we're like, okay, this could be a good way for us to test that out and try.

[00:26:04] Before we dive into our own dedicated mobile app. So that's been really fun. And then just thinking of the future games, like for us, it's when people email, Hey, I need something to play with my kids. Hey, I'm a teacher, and this would be really helpful as like, young students are coming in, they're for the first time, you know, in these new classrooms.

[00:26:23] So it's like, okay, we have like a running list of, yeah. Ideas that people send to us that we can do as additions to hella awkward. So it's new questions that fit new scenarios for different groups of folks, which is super helpful. So please send us more. We need all the ideas.

[00:26:40] Sanjay Parekh: There you go. Okay, let's change gears a little bit and talk about how do you balance all of this stuff and I mean, it's a full-time business, right? It's the three of you. Is everybody on the team full-time or do people have other jobs? And then like, how do you think about like, because the blending is so easy to do because it's family members and you're gonna see them at Thanksgiving, you're gonna see them Totally. Right. So it's easy to talk about business and slide into that.

[00:27:07] Brittane Rowe: Yeah.

[00:27:08] Sanjay Parekh: Do you guys try to delineate that stuff and make sure that you're not at certain points?

[00:27:11] Brittane Rowe: Yeah, so I'm the only full-time member, and then my brother and Jane are part-time. They have other full-time jobs. So it, it does get tricky. Like it is hard. Legitimately. I try to work you know, traditional hours of business. And then. They will typically after work say, oh, I have this idea. Oh, we need to work on this. You know, and then I'm like wait. I'm done for the day guys. I'll get that tomorrow.

[00:27:40] Sanjay Parekh: I'm going, it's the starting your day, but it's the end of mine. Yeah. Great.

[00:27:43] Brittane Rowe: I'm glad you're working on that. I'll get that tomorrow. So that's funny. But we have, you know, separate group chats. We have our Awkward Games group chat where we keep all business, you know, discussions. And then we have a separate family group chat that we can talk. You know, familial things and funny things, et cetera. So that helps.

[00:28:02] But it is always gonna be a challenge because there are times when, you know, we're all together and something will come up and, oh, we should think of that for how awkward, oh, we should do an addition of that. And then, oh, that's a great question. Let's write that question out. Write that question down.

[00:28:15] You know there's always gonna be things like that come up, but I do think overall we've done a really good job of making sure when we have like family dinner time, it's just. Family discussions, family talk for the most part. Of course, our game is all about connection, so sometimes there will be little things that happen or come up, but. I do think we've gotten pretty good at finding a decent balance at this point.

[00:28:39] Sanjay Parekh: Few years. Well, fortunately you can have Google Docs on your phone, right. So at any time you can, you know, just type in whatever question you've got there and save it to your big giant document.

[00:28:48] Brittane Rowe: Exactly. So, you know, let's talk about like doing this in New York City.

[00:28:55] Sanjay Parekh: You know, so you've stayed there even though now you're not at theater, you're doing this full time. How has it been running this business in New York? Is there. Benefits. Is there downsides? Like how do you feel about it now?

[00:29:08] Brittane Rowe: New York is such a great place to be operating a business. I mean, I work from home, but there's so many resources, events, networking, opportunities, like there's just a ton of things going on and it's super cool to be able to be a part of those really quickly, like I was.

[00:29:27] I think two years ago we did a huge like wholesale marketplace and a lot of people flew in, you know, to come to this because it's huge. Yeah. And we were like, oh, we're just, we'll take a taxi and bring our inventory and go and set up and it's super easy, you know, like we can do that. But people are flying from all over the world to come and attend this event, you know, or for example, we're doing an event with Shopify next month. They have a location in New York City and I've gone to a bunch of their events and just built a rapport with their team, and then they're like, Hey, do you wanna do a game night with us? I'm like, yeah, easy. I'm here in New York. So we can easily make that happen. So it's great to have, you know, the ability to.

[00:30:08] Just meet folks and go out and network with people and just be in the city. because there's so many cool folks who are doing amazing things all the time and also like my friends who help me a lot with our company, our friends have been models for me. You know, for our photos, for our website, you know, when we do social media, we can go in to crazy parks and. Take videos with people and you've got so many crazy characters who are always willing and able to do social media videos. So it's great. I love being in New York City and it's a such a good place for small business for sure.

[00:30:44] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Do you ever, I mean, this feels like such a fun business to be running.

[00:30:49] Yeah. Just because of what you're making and everything and obviously your personality as well. Do you ever feel like people are trying to. Horn in or like, Hey, can I become a part of a company? Or, you know, like, actually become a part of it and you're like, yeah, I don't really need any more help right now. Has that ever happened? Have you ever had to deal with that?

[00:31:09] Brittane Rowe: Not in serious, you don't have to name names serious way. I wouldn't say in a super serious way. Like, there are people who maybe like, oh, if you need an investor or if you need a, you know, so kind of in a more jokey way, but. Nothing that I've felt like overwhelmed by. So I don't think it's been like super serious. Maybe I'm just really good at like shutting it down. I don't know, maybe they were very serious and I was like, ah, good one. Okay we'll be in touch. You know?

[00:31:36] Sanjay Parekh: It's definitely not taking this seriously. So I guess that's a no. Okay. Last couple of questions here for you.

[00:31:44] You know, you've been doing this now for a while. I think I might know the answer to this, but if you could go back in time and do something differently what is that and why? We might have already said it.

[00:31:56] Brittane Rowe: Well, yeah, I mean, theater is always gonna be like a huge passion for me. I still love it.

[00:32:01] I've done like little things here and there. I think eventually I would love to kind of go back to doing more of that. You know, ideally we sell our company in, you know, five years or so, and then I can go back and do theater more full time and be in a whole different place where I'm not struggling in my twenties trying to do theater.

[00:32:20] That would be so fun. But I really love running this business. It's super cool. It's such a fun thing. I mean, we're making games and getting to watch people play and have a good time. And so I think the timing of. Of how life kind of unfolded. It worked out really well.

[00:32:37] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So that's a really interesting answer to me because you're saying you wanna go back to the thing that you left to do this.

[00:32:44] Whereas a lot of people that fall into this. They just get bitten by the bug, right? And they're like, oh, there's another company I'm gonna do after this. Ah, and another one. And another one. Right. Well, why do you think that's not true for you? Or maybe it's not true yet and it will be five years down the line.

[00:33:02] Brittane Rowe: Yeah. You never know, right? I think for me, I've had people ask me before like, oh, you're gonna be a serial entrepreneur, and I'm like, I don't think so. I think for me, I'm really passionate about this company because of. What we're doing, we're trying to bring joy to people's lives, right? We're trying to connect people, help people be vulnerable by telling their stories, and that already ties into my personal values, which.

[00:33:29] Was evident in theater. You know, in theater I wanna help people connect, I wanna help people share space and be vulnerable and find joy and all of that. So it's really the same core values. I'm just now doing that in a different forum. Yeah. But that's why, for me, it's connected in that way. It's not really about.

[00:33:47] You know, finding the winning product and getting it into store and iterates so fast like that for me is fun, but it's not about that for me. So that's why this company right now makes a lot of sense and I'm really enjoying this. Yeah. But I don't really see myself. Just wanting to start five other companies down the line. Yeah. But who knows?

[00:34:07] Sanjay Parekh: Who knows? Okay. Britt, last question for you. If you were talking to somebody that's thinking about doing like you did, maybe not necessarily a card game company, but taking that leap and launching a side hustle or turning that side hustle into a full-time business like you did, what advice would you give them?

[00:34:23] Brittane Rowe: My advice is start small, start today. That's always my advice. People always ask, what do I do first? I'm like, you just gotta get started. I think a lot of times people get in their own way or they have like a billion ideas and they don't know where to start, and I'm like, just start right now. Like go literally pull up your computer, write it all down, start testing out some sort of semblance of a product and get it into someone's hands who can give you some feedback so you can start to really iterate on that.

[00:34:55] That's always my advice. So for us, our first. Sections of the game were on the internet. It was a Google Doc that we sent out, and then we turned that into a, basically a deck that we could send out, and then we put that into scrap pieces of paper that we could, you know, play with and be tangible with ourselves.

[00:35:12] So you have to just make it with whatever you have available to you. Now, you don't need to spend a bunch of money. We still use Google Docs. It's fine. It works. But start literally right now. Get started.

[00:35:28] Sanjay Parekh: I love it. I love it. Britt, where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:35:33] Brittane Rowe: Yes, so I am on social. I actually just changed my handle to Awkwardly Britt, so please find me on Instagram and TikTok. And then of course you can find Awkward Games at Awkward Games on social and then awkwardgames.com. And they were also available at Target. Walmart, Amazon online. You can find us.

[00:35:53] Sanjay Parekh: I love it. Thanks so much for being on today, Britt.

[00:35:55] Brittane Rowe: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:35:59] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.