April 21, 2025

The Board Game Billionaire: From a $10k Kickstarter to $100M/Year Business

The Board Game Billionaire: From a $10k Kickstarter to $100M/Year Business

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Episode 699: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Elan Lee ( https://x.com/elanlee ) about growing Exploding Kittens from a $10K Kickstarter campaign to $100M dollar company. 

Show Notes: 

(0:00) Humble Success: Exploding Kittens Insights

(8:07) The origin story - From 10k to $9M on kickstarter

(16:17) Focus on the crowd, not the funding

(20:41) Games should not be entertaining

(23:52) The Kitty Test pilots

(27:57) $0 marketing hacks

(38:49) Pushing past the ‘no’

(41:07) Business as a game

(45:32) Creativity loves constraints

(54:28) Irritation is the source of innovation

(59:13) Designing a game with Tim Ferriss

(01:04:08) Do what never makes you bored


Links:

• Exploding Kittens - https://www.explodingkittens.com/ 

• Paxsite - https://www.paxsite.com 

• Elan on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@mrelanlee 


Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd