Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Good question - the existing market is how you describe it.  It's older guys who grew up in the 60s playing Bowl Bound or the pro equivalent and have the time and money to explore newer card/dice games.  But it's not a huge market.  I simply found a hole between 100% realistic possibilities and a low% generic game.  It's the game I was looking for.

BUT, there's unexplored market(s) of younger customers, which would have been easier to acquire when the whole board game interest jumped 6-8-10 years ago.  But every era has its sports fans and there are young ones out there that grew up on devices and may find a novel interest in physical cards/dice.  But that would require a tik tok account and wacky thumbnails and faux crazy-energy vids that last 12 seconds, etc.

Pass.

I do have a lot of repeat customers and a ton of other ideas.  All-Decade teams for individual schools and conferences, some kind of express version (esp for the low-focused youngins), etc.

If I had worker bees, I'd be freed up to explore ideas and tweak existing things.  Hell, I haven't played my own game in like 6+ months. 

Ideally, an existing company sees it, likes it, and buys it.  I'd have some money and free time on my hands, lol.

It's nice to have options, and you have some good ones. Kudos to you for making it happen.

OK I thought it would be a good time to update this thread.  

We did just about $600,000 in business last year.  We really didn't start doing high cost jobs until July, so basically we made 90% of our revenue in half the year.  

I didn't make a dime, in fact I had to put money back into it to keep afloat.  All the money either went back into the business for capital expenses (equipment), or payroll, taxes, insurance, etc.  Plus, as a newer company, we had more than our fair share of f' ups.  The things I learned in 6 months astound me.  Not saying we're perfect, because we're still fucking up, but I'd say I'm 50% better right now than I was in July of 2023.  

2024 started very, very slowly.  I overbid a few jobs and didn't win, and that cost me 3-4 jobs that would have paid the bills.  I had to put several $10,000 into the business just to stay afloat and pay vendors.  I won't make the same mistake next year, we will work for break-even in January/February if necessary.  I really need to work on raising prices, but right now as a new company I'm stuck competing on price and not quality.  I hope that changes this year.  

March is a lot better, we've been getting a steady flow of work and made several big projects happen over the last few weeks.  Our skillset and competence is much better, although we did have one f'up last week that put us behind after some very good weeks.  My oldest son has been a real driver, he has put his all into this and has really grown.  We've had our share of hiccups, but starting to see some real successes.  My youngest son has been working too, but I haven't been pushing him too hard yet.  

I lost one employee last year that I wasn't sad to see go.  He was good on some days, and so-so on others.  I miss his work output, and I have not been able to find a full replacement.  

One of my guys just turned 19.  He's a slow learner, but he shows up everyday, works hard, is honest, and getting more and more capable by the day.  I'm really glad to have him, and I've been raising his pay up slowly as I can afford to.  The guy that left, I had him raised up pretty good and the first time I had to cut hours in the fall he left the following week (cut hours down to 40).  He was making about $1,000 a week FWIW.  I was paying him $16/hr plus overtime.  

I'm still working my regular job, it gets harder by the week to juggle.  I really don't want to leave this job yet, it's the best job I've ever had and it's not hard.  I suspect that as soon as we have our first "profitable" month I'll start very seriously considering leaving.  What I mean by that is when we pay all our bills and have a very good surplus.  We had to buy so much equipment to get started that it sucked a lot of resources away last year, but our capital expenditures should be far less this year.  I say that, but I'm already eyeing other equipment to supplement what we've got.  There's always something you "need" to make things easier/faster/better.  It's definitely a balancing act.  

keep up the good work
the first year is obviously the toughest

It's a gutsy move, I think, I wouldn't do it, but I'm not gutsy at all.  No risk ...

It's also interesting, to me.

Cincy, 

I take it you’re in your 60’s. The world was probably much different for you and your retirement. Did you have retiree medical insurance?  What about pension?  You mentioned stock options. 

These things are in the past for most companies. I’m right on the edge of what was, and what will be. They cut most of my benefits. I can still get retiree insurance if I make 50, but it’s expensive and marginally better than what I can buy on my own. They stopped our pensions right when I’m on the cusp of making the best returns ( my pension would have grown the most in my 50’s). 

Cincy,

I take it you’re in your 60’s. The world was probably much different for you and your retirement. Did you have retiree medical insurance?  What about pension?  You mentioned stock options.

I have retiree medical insurance.  I had no "pension" as such, but we had stock put into a retirement account each year.  It got to be a chunk, but it initially was entirely in the company's stock.  That changed a bit down the road and I could invest some of it in some mutual funds run by JP Morgan (who are not in my view very good at this for the customer).  When I retired, we devised a plan to dump all the company stock over time and diversify.  That worked out well for me.  The stock options were a relative pittance in comparison, but a nice little bump each year for ten years.  I don't have any now.

I started drawing SS when I hit 66, which also is a nice bump each month, and I'm on Medicare with the retiree health insurance added, it doesn't cost me much for both of us.  I pay $134 a month for two.

The stock plan still exists for new employees thought now it isn't as generous.  They called if a "profit sharing plan".