I’m gonna sound like a broken record. Doing this has proven to be one of the toughest, but most fun learning curves Phil and I have ever come across. I’m sure there are business school degrees for this stuff, but we bravely (read mistakingly?) choose the path of trial and error. And it’s still fun.
I don’t think I could have hoped for a better partner in crime in this endeavor, we managed to feel the same way about our business choices, and we both are flexible enough to change tack where it seems fit. The best example of this has to have been our road trip these past two weeks, where we began to crystalise our marketing strategy for BaRPG.
When we left for Cologne that Thursday afternoon, we had brushed up our business plan a little, with the clear intent to sell person-to-person. That seemed obvious, it was the best way to showcase our product and engage our target audience to learn from them. What play testing and meeting people in the two weeks since then has taught us is that yes, this aspect is incredibly valuable in learning how to market for those people.
Selling to those people however is a completely different ballgame. Affiliation is a clear power ball when it comes to people making that step over into buying a copy of BaRPG. And that makes sense, it gives the validation from an established business you’re already engaging in. What do I exactly mean here? Well, think about it for a second. If you didn’t know about us at all, would you be more likely to buy a pack from two randos who wanna play a drinking game with you, or would you buy a pack if the randos said they were here on behalf of the bar, that’s working with them, and the bar believes in your product enough to buy a couple of packs, oh and by the way you can get a pack directly from them at the bar?
This applies for EVERYWHERE BaRPG is gonna be played; Hostels, Bars, Bar Crawls, Gaming Cafes and Game Shops. So this is kinda where we’re changing our tact somewhat, and approaching these places head on; firstly to see if we can tag along to any of their events, secondly to see if they’re willing to stock us in store. We’d expect that if step 1 works out, step 2 would be a natural progression for them, as we’ve proven ourselves. What we keep finding though is some places are willing to give step 2 a chance before step 1 even happens, which is great! It just makes us a little nervous if we’ve managed our packaging right. So much to learn, so much fun learning!
In the meantime we’re still going strong doing demo-plays at various locations in town. We’re also building an events agenda where we will be playing BaRPG, and after a quick meeting a Cafe 2 Klavertjes today it looks like we’ll be there on their Tuesday night gaming event at around 19:00. The other big thing that looks like it’ll enter the calendar is a convention at the end of June in Gent, Belgium. More here once we know for sure if we can go or not! It’s also the most fun in this whole project, actually playing the game, watching people get stuck into it and have a good time! I guess in the end that’s the reason why we believe so strongly in BaRPG, and why we’re pushing on through to bring something brilliant like this to the world.
You’ll hear from us soon when we have our coming events plotted out. Shout out to Cardiff, you may be hearing from us next Friday/Saturday too!
Until then, keep questing you fine drunks!
~Johno
