USAopoly CEO Dane Chapin on Entrepreneurship and Building Award-Winning Games| builders podcast

0:00What do you do? I create joy, laughter, and lifetime memories. and people look at me, what do you do? And I repeat myself, well, how do you do that? And I do that by making games.

0:17Today is a really fun conversation with games company CEO, Dane Chapin. He started his business 30 years ago with a branded version of Monopoly for the Atlanta Olympics. And today produces dozens of titles, board games, including the best-selling game right now on Amazon.

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1:48Hi, Dane. How are you? Good to see you today. Great to see you. I'm doing fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for being on the podcast. You know, you're the CEO of a games company, the op. And when I knew I was going to interview you, the first question that I had is, what does the CEO of a games company do during the day? I think back to the scene of the iconic movie, Big with Tom Hanks, where the CEO is walking through the store, I think it's FEO Schwartz or something like something like that. And he says that every weekend he comes in and observes how people are playing the games. And that's how he kind of gets his juice for his job.

2:26So what do you do? I create joy, laughter, and lifetime memories is what I do, really. I'll meet somebody new and you get in a conversation. Oh, where are you from? Well, what do you do? I create joy, laughter, and lifetime memories. And people look at me, what do you do? And I repeat myself, well, how do you do that? And I do that by making games. And think about it. You know, my childhood, probably my most vivid, best, most important savoring memories are times with my grandparents playing games, going to their house for a sleepover. And they loved playing games. Remember playing Canasta. And so that's what I get to do.

3:05How I do that, you know, that's obviously there's process involved. But, yeah, it's I got to tell you, it's a lot of fun doing what I do. I love it. I bet. Yeah, I have that same memory. My great grandmother, she taught me poker. We played other games, card games, coin games. And you're right. Totally, totally builds memories. And it's something you can do across generation with friends, with anyone. You know, I think probably your business was built most or primarily at the beginning with versions of Monopoly games. But maybe tell the listeners what other games your company's created. Sure. Well, we started this business 30 years ago.

3:45It was my two sisters, me and a secretary, essentially. and we had a license from Hasbro to do five city editions. So it was San Diego, New York, Atlanta, Boston, and San Francisco, I think. And we started to get some traction with it. And we started – Hasbro gave us a longer and longer lease. So over time, we rolled into sports and pop culture, music, all kinds of stuff. And then over time, we started to develop our own games. and now your combination. We sort of have three hubs here. We have a co-brand hub, which works with other properties and IP, including Hasbro and Monopoly and Clue. And then we've got a hobby area and we focus on hobby.

4:29Most of that stuff, there's no third party IP. And then we have our family party games at the op. And those are family party games. We actually, currently, we have the number one game in the country, which I'm pretty excited to say, called TAPL. Oh, TAPL. Yeah, that's a cross behind your shoulder there. Okay, describe that game. It is the world's easiest game to learn how to play. All right, there's 20 letters on this disc. I think this one works. Hang on. Is the power? And there's a timer. I'm going to turn it off for a second. So the categories, it could be, we come, we have categories as part of the game.

5:11there's a couple hundred that we include from let's see what are these categories things at a party song titles something flat and so in the game you start the timer you've got 10 seconds so let's say it's boys names that's about the easiest Ernest and then it goes to the next person around the table and they'll say Brad and that stops and resets the timer so you've got 10 seconds And then as it winds down to fewer letters, it gets a little harder. Now, boys' names, you know, that's a pretty easy one. We were playing this morning, and I said, well, things in a fire station. And it was a little more complicated, you know.

5:52And everybody's like, you're stumped, and there's 20 letters. It doesn't include, like, Z and X and U and Q and a couple other letters. And a pretty magical game. So there you go. You learn how to play in five seconds. It's slightly competitive. It can be multi-generational. That's kind of the magic of our games right now. Lightly competitive, multi-generational, and easy to learn how to play. You know, there are all these mechanisms and mechanics probably with games. That one's interesting because it's got a timer involved. Is that one of the keys to making a game really exciting? I think, you know, creating some urgency and tension.

6:28You know, it's just it makes it fun just where there's – but it's lightly competitive. So there's tension without – you know, you can just – kind of egg people on or say, God, you idiot. Why can't you figure that one out? That's an easy one. And, you know, everybody's got their sweet spots with this thing. I was playing the other day with some guys who are golfers and it's who's going to win the PGA. So you're just, you know, going down the list. If you're a golfer, it's kind of easy. Rory, Tiger, Dustin. And if you're not a golfer, it's not. So it just, uh, this thing can tap into any interest, any hobby, anything.

7:04you're right about the tension um i remember i vividly the first time i played jenga with my kids they didn't know the game but it's sort of an intuitive game once once they once they see it and i could not believe how how much of a rush it was from them to see how this game played and what you're trying to do and what you're trying to prevent to have to have happen yeah it's cool totally i totally agree with your initial statement about creating joy you know i want to ask more about Monopoly because it sounds like that's how your business initially maybe took off. What's it in your mind? Was there one that was most creative or your favorite of the branded Monopoly games or one that really turned the corner for you?

7:46I was talking with a colleague of mine earlier. I don't know whether this is true or not, but he told me he thought there was a version of Monopoly for millennials where you couldn't actually buy property. Instead, So you rented out yoga studios and stuff. Yeah, Hasbro actually made that game themselves. So there is, you know, Monopoly's been around since the 30s. And we came, we started with Hasbro in 1994. And then the brand is really spidered out from them, you know, from, they do slot machines and clothing and they've really done an amazing job. You know, it's part of the, it's an American icon, let's face it.

8:23It's just everybody knows. you know i speak at san yago state every few months to a group of entrepreneurial kids and i'll get in there and talk about one of my games and you know telestrations it's a really popular game but yeah three i love that game yeah it's a great game and three of 50 kids will raise their hand when i ask them have you played it or have you heard of it you know it's a little frustrating actually because i feel like it's so ubiquitous so i got some work to do and i say well like who's heard of monopoly and they look at me oh you idiot everybody's heard of monopoly So we've been really able to ride the coattails of Monopoly and really leverage off the affection that everybody's got for Monopoly.

9:00And then it's just been a really it's been a privilege and a lot of fun, you know, using it as a canvas to marry it with other worlds, whether it's the Beatles or Game of Thrones or the Olympics. We have a famous, well, famous internally story about the Olympics, which I'll tell you at some point today. my favorite game ever for whatever reason i loved wizard of oz as a kid and we had the chance to do like the 70th anniversary of the wizard of oz or 75th anniversary and we created a wizard of oz monopoly game i don't know 15 years ago or something and i was just so gratifying it was just so fun all this stuff i grew up with you know in those days there's no such thing as videotape once a year it would play on like nbc and it would be a huge night at our house with you know the kid my brothers and sisters.

9:47And then we got to do a game on it. So I don't know why that game stands out. But I guess they're a little bit like children, too. You know, you love them all. Yeah. So do you ever have fierce internal debates about what gets the boardwalk spot? Or what? They're fierce. You know, we did a Napa Valley Monopoly game, I don't know, 25 years ago. And it was so funny. Opus One, which is one of the, you know, the premier vineyards up there and brands, they wanted to be on the park place or board. No, they want to be on the opposite. They want to be on the purple. Oh, they wanted to have the least expensive place that it was just sort of a tongue in cheek thing.

10:31So it was really kind of funny that that's what they wanted. And so we so they mixed it up. We did a what game did we do? We did Aspen Monopoly one year, and there's two iconic hotels up there, Little Nell and – God, why am I drawing a blank on it? I'll think of it. But they were both vying for the boardwalk space. In our mind, it was the Little Nell was an automatic. And the other was a little more historic, the Jerome. And I think the Jerome ended up – they ended up not going on, and we put their iconic restaurant on it. Oh, okay. That's so funny. Now, it's tricky. I get it. I get it. Well, Seattle, we did Seattle Monopoly game like 27 years ago.

11:14Starbucks was on it. Of course, you want to put Microsoft on it, right? They're iconic up there. And that was when they were in the middle of all their antitrust stuff about being a monopoly. And so they opted not to go on the game. Oh, that is hilarious and ironic. That's so funny. Isn't that funny? You mentioned earlier, it was you and your two sisters early on. Take us back to the origin story, because I understand a little bit of background reading is that you sold board games out of your trunk. Is that true? Maybe take us back to the first few months or year of the business. Well, that ties to the Olympic Monopoly game.

11:51And so we got to go from Hasbro to do an Atlanta Olympic Monopoly game, which was the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics. And it was 1996. And for those of us around, I mean, the Olympics that were coming to Atlanta, it was a huge deal. I mean, it was. I remember. You know, it was just it for some reason, the Olympics, when they're domestic and in your backyard, it's a lot bigger deal when it's on a separate time zone in Australia. you know you can't watch anything live and there was just a lot of you know you know just amazing corporate support around a lot of buzz around a lot of you know world famous athletes Hasbro gave us the go to do a Olympic Monopoly game and it was really exciting time for us we were working around the clock because we sort of got the approval late and we're trying to figure out and we're an embryonic company so we're trying to figure out how many games to make because it's kind of a white hot thing then Olympics are over and you're not going to sell too many Olympic games, you know, a month after the Olympics.

12:48And we settled on the number of driven by a PO that was promised to us at 20 ,000 units for a big customer. 30 days before the Olympics, that customer said, well, we're just going to order 90 games. We're having second thoughts. And we'd already pulled the trigger on production. And they'd never given us a hard PO. They had just given us a promise. And I mean, my life flashed in front of me because literally that would have bankrupted us. So I was due in Atlanta about a week before the Olympics to do all kinds of press stuff and they look for all the filler before you know the games start and so i was part of the filler with doing a olympic edition of monopoly so you know tons of radio shows and today's show and and i'm walking down the street three or four days before the olympics and i had shipped all the games to atlanta figuring that's where our customers would be and we had orders for about 5 000 games so i gotta figure out how to sell 30 000 games and if the games are all warehoused in atlanta at least we can you know turn turn them around in a day or two and about two days before Olympics.

13:41I'm walking through Olympic Village. I got a game under my arm. Some guy stops me. He says, what's that? What is that under your arm? I said, well, it's an Olympic edition of Monopoly. I said, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And it was really cool. It featured all the flags of the banners from the 22 previous modern Olympics. And it was just, you know, it was a perfect marriage or merger between the Olympics and the canvas that we have to work on Monopoly. And the guy said, where can I get it? And I said, well, you can get it at Rich's or there or there. And I said, here, just take my game.

14:11He said, dude, I'm not going to take your game. I said, well, I own the company. I got, you know, 30 ,000 more where this came from. I'm not going to let you give it to me. I said, you can pay me for it. So I told him 20 bucks. It was wholesale price at the time. Gave me a$20 bill. Light bulb went off. I rented a, I actually got a photo here. I'll pull it up for you. Maybe this will help drive the audience on YouTube. They'll be so curious to see this photo. Hang on, let me pull it up. And so I rented, I bought a dolly, rented a van, and I spent the next two weeks, if you can see that. Oh, there we go.

14:50I see that. Nice. So I made a little sandwich board with the game. And I hired a couple of guys that were like selling water bottles. I said, dude, you want to sell water bottles or Monopoly games? And so I had a couple of helpers. We sold 20 ,000 games on the streets of Atlanta in the next two weeks. So, wow, it was kind of inflection point moment for us as a company. You know, if I didn't do that, I'm not sure what the heck we had done. It would have put an enormous amount of stress on us financially because of investment we made in all that inventory. That's a really cool story. One of one of hustle.

15:24I love it. So you think about that maybe as a stage of your business. And now now you're 30 years in 32 years in something like that. And do you think of your business over that time in terms of a set of stages? You know, like I think as people are, people might think, you know, how do I get to a million dollars in revenue? How do I get to 10 million? How do I get to 100 million? That's one way of looking at things. Is there a way that you think about the evolution of your business? Yeah, I mean, I reflect back on my career with USA Apple. So I started, I was 35. It's 30 years later. I'm 65 now.

16:03I stepped away like 12 years ago to start some other businesses and I came back in two and a half years ago to run it again

16:14and I think I should have taken more risk now we certainly took risk but I don't think I was I reflect back at opportunities to be more audacious and we've been successful as a company we're a mid-sized company we have 80 employees got a couple of peers in the business that started when I did. Now they've got billion-dollar toy companies. And, yeah, I don't think they're any smarter or more creative than I am. Great guys. But I think they were just – they had a vision to be – they were really driven by growing to a certain number. And I really just – I don't know. I didn't think of the business that way before.

16:50And now I'm sort of putting stakes in the ground about hitting a certain number. And it's not necessarily just to hit that number, But it it it creates it forces you into process to say, OK, if we're going to grow the business by 50 percent over the next three years, you know, what are the pieces and parts that we need to put together to get there? And so I think, you know, I think it's akin to running a marathon. You know, let's suppose you're you run a marathon. You had a four hour time and you want to get to three hours and you go go to a coach and you accesses your natural ability and how fast you are and this and that.

17:25and you put together a program, you know, it might be a year program where you start training once a week and you break it down and, you know, okay, my daily training. So, you know, you hit these hurdles every day. And, you know, if you do all the training and the process, the race takes care of itself. So that's how I'm thinking about it. And then that's the reward to say, you look back and reflect, gosh, I put in all this work. I had laid out the groundwork. I kept on it. And, you You wake up one day and you have all this growth or you hit your three hour marathon time, whatever it might be.

17:57Well, that's an interesting, really interesting lens you put on it, which which I interpreted it as how far ahead are you looking at things? And when you talk about the story about the Olympics, it feels to me that you're very, very focused on this place in time and tomorrow and next week. And how do we, you know, how do we cover the fact that we've purchased, you know, pre-produced all these games? At what stage do you feel like you could think a little bit further ahead? Was it right away or only after the business had become established? You know, that's kind of more of a life question than a business question, you know?

18:36Yeah, probably. I was a competitive tennis player in college, through college. And I was myopically obsessed with playing pro tennis. And I played at UCLA, one of the leading schools in the country. And, you know, a lot of those kids that go through that school, you know, playing on the tennis team, you know, go to the pros. And my grades suffered for it. And I was, you know, like six or seven on the tennis team. I wasn't one of the top players, but I felt like I was the better athlete. And it just I didn't start playing tennis till late, you know, at 14, which is late relative to getting to that level.

19:09But I I was worked my ass off and, you know, got better and better. and then Jimmy Connors, who had gone to UCLA, a famous tennis player. You know, he's now 70, but a lot of people don't remember who he was. But he was like a Roger Federer and Nadal of his time and number one in the world. And he had gone to UCLA his freshman year. He was six or seven years older than me. And he was my king-god hero. I love the guy. And he showed up at our practice one day. And he was on the court next to me. So the coach was saying, okay, Jimmy, you're against Fritz. Dane, you're on court two. and all of a sudden I'm adjacent to the number one tennis player in the world and my hero, who I'd never seen live before, so I'm beside myself.

19:51And Fritz is getting ready to serve. I'm ignoring what I'm supposed to be doing, playing on my own court, and I'm watching Jimmy. And so Jimmy's standing on the baseline getting ready to return Fritz's serve. And Fritz had a huge serve, and I would stand about 10 feet behind the baseline. And Jimmy hit the return of serve like it was an offensive shot. And one shot, and it shattered my dream. I knew instantly I would never catch up with that. It was just too big. I would catch up with the guys on my team. I kind of knew if I could catch up to those guys, it gives me a pathway to the pros. And it was my heart and head synced up finally because my heart wanted to do it.

20:31My head was a little smarter, but my heart overpowered my common sense until I saw Jimmy hit that one shot. And I started getting better grades, and I discovered that there was going to be life after tennis. And it's been a hell of a fun ride. Yeah, no matter what sport you're into, there's always a time when you realize I'm not going to be Wayne Gretzky, like in my case, or Jimmy Connors or anything like that. And yours happened live in front of you. That's a funny story. I wanted to talk about the kind of entrepreneurship in general because I know that we've talked a lot about games so far, but you've focused on ventures like water bottles, beer, real estate.

21:16So not just one type of thing, lots of things. What do you think it is about you that makes you want to constantly invent and build? I just don't want anybody telling me what time I have to be back from lunch. I was pretty entrepreneurial as a kid. I was always driven to make money. I was giving tennis lessons in college on the weekends, and I was making$30 an hour 45 years ago when kids were working food service for$3 or$4 an hour. So I could go give, instead of sleeping up a hangover on a Saturday morning like a lot of my college peers, I was pretty disciplined to go get tennis lessons. So I always had money in my pocket, and I liked it and created a lot of independence too.

21:59and then I my first job out of college or one of my first jobs out of college I was working in the mail room at one of the film studios I decided I wanted to be a movie producer and I had given tennis lessons to a bunch of you know Hollywood people so guy who was ran the studio well you start in the mail room I hated it I lasted I can't imagine I lasted a year I think I almost got fired about 10 times and the one thing I hated a ton was just you know you got you got 30 minutes for lunch or whatever the number was. And if you're not back, you get in trouble. All right. This was like, this is not for me.

22:36So, okay. So unexpected answer to the, to the question, but it makes sense. You want it to be totally in control of your own, of your own destiny. And, you know, I want to go back to something you said earlier, cause you said you're at San Diego state or you, you talk there sometimes you talk with a lot of students. and um and then let's say that that some of those students or one of those students they have kind of the hustle and desire and inventiveness that that maybe you were talking about before they really want money in their pocket or or or they they don't they don't want to be told what to do by by a boss what are some of the things that you see in those folks um that might still potentially hold this person back because i'm thinking about entrepreneurs that are listening to this and want some sort of like secret nugget or words of wisdom about obstacles to break through?

23:24I'll tell you, I think one of the most important things you need as an entrepreneur is people in your life that'll tell you what you don't want to hear. Because it's happened to me where I've gotten myopically focused. And I had a couple of the businesses I started when I had my time away from USAopoly, I was really maniacally focused and I just wasn't hearing, you know, some constructive criticism from people. And then people got to the point, they didn't want to tell me what I didn't want to hear because I wasn't going to listen to them. So I think it's really important. You know, I don't care how good the idea is.

23:57You know, you want to, you know, it's like our games. We've got games. And I tell people here all the time, some of the new games, I said, we need to get out of our echo chamber and take these games and not bring people into the office and play games and watch them play games. We need to get these games out in people's living rooms and, you know, in restaurants or places where people play games and watch dispassionately, you know, if this game works or not. And it's just interesting, the clues, you know, you just got to really expose yourself to, you know, what may work and what doesn't work and what may work great in a laboratory may not work really well in real life.

24:34So So I just think you've got to – my skin has gotten a lot more scarred over the years. I'm kind of indifferent to criticism. I want it. I want to get outside my comfort zone. So I think there's a few key nuggets there. My daughter, she went to graduate school, which she finished about three years ago. She's an artist. And she had a couple of different options. And I said, why are you choosing UCSD? She said, I think it's the one school that's going to push me outside my comfort zone. more than the others and i was actually a little surprised with her answer because she you know her personality was is wanting to you know stay inside a comfort zone and yeah for various reasons and boy it she has blossomed since then and the stuff she's doing as an artist i think is directly attributable to getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and you know and exposing yourself as an artist you know when your stuff doesn't sell you take it pretty personally.