Burnout

Eight years ago I was doing graphic design for the second run of Zombology with my sleeping daughter in my arms.

Since then I've raised two kids to the ages of 13 and 8.

Worked full time as a Software Engineer, manager of Software Engineers, or Product Owner.

And run Eurydice Games.

Which takes about 2 days a week.

Every week.

I've worked 7 days a week for 8 years.

Matthew Dunstan's recent video about burnout touched a nerve.

The last few weeks we've had advert issues.

Poor website sales.

Stress.

Last year we lost a load of money due to crowdfunding timing and advertising the website being unprofitable.

More stress.

Photo by nikko macaspac on Unsplash

The last couple of weeks I've lacked the mojo to sort out a few boring jobs about running a company.

They are starting to pile up.

Fortunately, I have an amazing wife of 22 years.

Even more fortunately, she has a new job. More hours. And a better salary.

So I've dropped Mondays at work.

I'm going part time.

I'm hoping that will free up some time to relax. 

Recuperate. 

Re-energise.

I'll be able to do some Eurydice work during daylight hours.

Not at the end of a long work day.

After family time and chores.

Hopefully, that'll help with both creativity, productivity and progress.

It starts today! 

Recovery

It's possible the website is fixed.

I think I've found the issue with the false orders.

And fixed it.

Meta is no longer reporting false sales.

And after a week and a half of no orders, we've had 5 in the last 5 days.

A return to normality.

And breathe.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

With that load off my mind, I've been able to spend some time on the new roll and write.

The last few changes have been minimal.

It's stabilising.

Which means it's time to do a first cut of the written rules.

Which is required before I can start sending out playtest copies.

And getting some real feedback.

And hopefully some ideas for improvement.

Weirdness

It's been a bad week for the website and ads combo.

We normally get 7-10 orders a week.

Pretty reliably.

We spend a chunk of money on Facebook ads to get that.

Last week we had none.

Not one.

That hasn't happened for years.

We've been spending the same amount on ads though.

And here's where it gets really weird.

Facebook reckon their ads have brought in 21 sales this week.

21!

But we've had none.

What!?

I even placed an order myself to check the website was still working.

It is.

But the ads are screwed.

Need to fix that somehow...

Segue

The recent change to the De Minimis customs rule in the US is a real pain.

Historically, about half our sales have gone to the US.

Half!

Now, anyone buying from the US faces 10% tariffs (it's UK made at least - in Paul's garage).

Plus courier fees, which have been less than $10 from what I've seen so far.

It's a pain, and it'll make future US web sales harder.

So I've stopped advertising to the US.

Which is going to cost us a lot of sales.

But save us some advertising money.

How can we segue to keep things going?

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

We've always sold the P&P files for FlickFleet.

And we've now four print and play roll and write games.

They are all tariff-free at least.

Perhaps we need to promote them more?

We can advertise those worldwide.

No shipping fees. No tariffs.

But ads for them haven't worked well in the past.

I wonder if I can improve them to work in future.

Something needs to change!

Aw[esome|ful]

It's the end of our 8th financial year on Tuesday.

We've done well to last this long, Reiver Games only managed 6 years, and it was on life-support for the last two.

If you run a business there's two things you really care about.

Cashflow.

And profit.

Historical we've done ok at the second one, managing around 11% profit on average over the last 7 years.

But cashflow was always a challenge.

Our overheads were initially small, but our web sales outside of campaigns were tiny.

We stayed alive through crowdfunding campaigns and the occasional convention.

But that put us on the clock - we needed to crowdfund frequently to keep us going.

Then Paul lost his job and we started paying him a (tiny!) salary.

Larger overheads meant worse cashflow - more pressure.

The last few years we've had to lend the company money a few times to keep it alive.

This year I've focused on fixing that.

Building up more cash in the company and trying to leave it in, not take it out.

Spending money on ads to boost website sales, so we can cover our monthly overheads.

And in some senses it's been successful.

Web sales are near double last year.

We've much better cashflow than the last couple of years.

That's awesome!

But the ads weren't as profitable as I'd hoped, and as I scaled them they got worse.

The ad spent brought in enough sales to cover the overheads and keep us afloat.

But not profitably.

Every year until now we've shipped a full crowdfunding campaign.

But this year we carried nothing over from last year and only shipped about 10% of the rewards of this year's campaign.

So sales are much lower. 

Coupled with the fact that we've paid the costs for a crowdfunding campaign this year: ads and fees.

So with the unprofitable website ads compounded by all of the costs and very few of the sales of crowdfunding we've made a massive loss this year.

That's awful.

I'm hoping next year will be better.

We've a lot of crowdfunding to ship in the next few months.

And I'm working with someone to improve our web ads.

Fingers crossed. 

Something needs to change.

Inception

The weekend before last I was down in York helping Paul bag up bits for Gamefound Fulfilment.

Last week he made up the first 35 copies of Box of Xeno Flicks 1.

Each one laser-cut in the garage.

Then bagged, boxed and shipped by hand.

Fulfilment has started in earnest.

Before I got my train home I told Paul that the campaign for Exodus from Reynoldsworld was the last roll and write game I had in progress.

There was nothing else in the pipeline.

No more ideas.

We left early for the train, as we'd had a very slow journey to Paul's from the station due to roadworks.

But it was fine.

I got there with half an hour to spare.

So I started designing a new roll and write.

I'm incorrigible.

I need to get the Exodus rewards out in the next week or so.

And cover Paul's holiday with shipping any orders we get.

But I've started on the next one.

And I could steal a few bits from The Planets My Destination and Away Team Bingo to knock up a very quick first prototype!

A bastardised first prototype, stealing bits from other games for speed.

Grafting

Paul makes all the FlickFleet games himself.

On a laser-cutter in his garage.

But that’s not all of it.

He sorts and packs the dashboards.

He counts and bags all the wooden bits.

Then the right ships in with them.

Then boxes everything.

Then parcels, addresses and ships all the orders.

It’s an enormous amount of work.

Especially when we have a crowdfunding campaign to fulfil.

Hundreds of orders.

All more or less at once.

My wife had friends round for her and the girls this weekend.

So I went to York.

And lent a hand.

For 24 hours only.

But we bagged hundreds of ships.

100 copies of FlickFleet.

And most of 100 copies of the new expansion.

And we managed to get a couple of games of Battle of Hoth in too :)

In other news, the Exodus campaign finishes tomorrow!

Last chance to back.