Cashflow

Businesses live or die on their cashflow.

We're lucky that we've been profitable for five of our six years.

We had to replace a laser-cutter in the other one.

But cashflow is a continual problem.

We go from feast, after a crowdfunding payout.

Photo by Sarah Agnew on Unsplash

To famine.

Most years Paul and I have had to lend the company money to stay afloat.

Or fund crowdfunding advertising.

The last few months have been hard.

Larger than expected bills.

Getting used to paying VAT.

I've had to cover bills from our savings a few times.

And we owe people money.

It's stressful.

My goal this year is to get the website sales to cover the overheads and make a little positive cash every month.

I ran the numbers.

Worked out what we'd need to spend on ads to hit that point.

I started slowly increased the ad spent so we didn't drop back into the learning phase.

It dropped back into the learning phase :(

Ad performance has tanked.

I've had to lend the company money to cover the ad spend.

Really hoping it gets out of the learning phase soon.

Gamble

Board game publishing, well any publishing really, is gambling.

You back a horse.

By choosing a game to publish.

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

You bet a stake.

By paying for marketing and artwork.

Kickstarter has improved things, since you no longer have to gamble the manufacturing and shipping costs upfront as well.

And then you find out how your bet did.

When you sell the print run, or run the crowdfunding campaign.

If you’re a big company, you hedge your bets.

Back many horses.

Hoping some of them win big enough to cover any losing bets.

We’re small.

One bet at a time.

Each one needs to cover the stake really.

Away Team Bingo is live on Gamefound now.

It finishes tomorrow.

And it’s tracking towards just covering its stake.

Rough

This week I've mostly felt rough.

Had a bad cold at the beginning of the week, and then my COVID and flu vaccines at the end.

I've taken a lot of Lemsip!

We've still made progress though.

Paul's been building up stock.

Including of the new Box of Pirate Flicks - so that's now up for sale on the website.

I've been finishing off the Away Team Bingo campaign, ready for Tuesday's launch.

At this point it looks like it's going to under-perform Rocky 'Roid.

I just hope it breaks even!

I've also opened a Gamefound store.

And been working on Jotunsaga.

#

New terrain cards, might make them hexes.

Incorporating feedback from last weekend's playtest with the public, and last Tuesday's trip to Newcastle Playtest.

There's no rest for the mildly ill!

Six/Seven

Our sixth financial year finishes today.

Seventh if you count the year I ran it on my own at the beginning.

Before Paul joined and we became the home of FlickFleet.

It’s been another pretty good year.

Made a profit.

But nearly ran out of cash twice.

Did ok.

What will next year bring?

Hopefully more conventions.

Maybe a new game?

I was playtesting Jotunsaga at the North East Tabletop Expo on Sunday.

Feedback was positive.

It’s improving.

Progress is being made.

Video

I’ve spent the week doing stills for the Away Team Bingo video.

A still!

And shipping a lot of games.

We had our best week of orders since November!

And with Paul still away, I was shipping them.

The stills are good progress, but I also need to film some video.

And that’s been a challenge.

Finding the time.

During daylight.

When I’m not shipping games.

My day job have recently changed the benefits package to give us an extra day off per year.

So I’ve used mine today.

To do the filming.

And then hopefully the editing too.

Here’s hoping for a day of solid progress.

Growth

Last week I talked about how I’m chasing growth.

Not for the reason you might expect though.

Not to win capitalism.

Or sell the company to Asmodee.

But to get to the point where it’s really working.

Currently it almost is.

Almost.

We pay Paul a (meagre) salary.

We’ve grown every year so far.

Except this year

We’ve been profitable 5 out of 6 years.

But we’re not stable yet.

Web sales need to be greater than overheads.

So we can survive between crowdfunding campaigns.

Sometimes they are.

Sometimes they aren’t.

And then we’re bleeding cash.

The last couple of years we’ve had to lend the company money to do things.

Or stay afloat.

We haven’t this year.

But at one point we had less than £150 in the bank.

With bills to pay.

I want to grow.

So that doesn’t happen any more.

That’s why.

Fool

I’m an idiot.

I’ve been fixated on our financial year.

This one is going to be worse than last year.

Not by much.

Only 5% or so.

But I’ve been trying everything I can to close that gap.

Or even squeak out a sixth consecutive year of growth.

Web sales have more than doubled this year.

But that’s not enough to counteract the Pirate Flicks being our second best campaign, not a sixth consecutive best ever FlickFleet campaign.

Plus we’ve missed a couple of conventions this year.

Away Team Bingo was a chance to close that gap further.

The game is ready.

So I’ve rushed the campaign.

I’ve been trying to get it delivered by the end of this month.

To hit this year’s numbers.

That’s doing it a disservice.

The campaign is far from ready.

No high ink photos.

No video.

Reviews aren’t ready yet.

Artwork is pending.

And I haven’t run any ads.

Because the campaign isn’t ready.

I’m a chump.

I should push it back.

By a month. Or six weeks.

And do it properly.

Give it the attention it deserves.

Growth isn’t everything.