Matt Edmondson: How to Create a Global Board Game

0:00I've got a game here. Walmart have got like 5 ,000 stores. So, you know, that's a big deal. Can I vanish the traitors and then pretend I came up with a format?

0:13Ben Hanlin: Welcome back to What's The Trick? I'm your host, Ben Hanlin, and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people to try and understand their creative process. and this episode is no exception because today's guest is Matt Edmondson who I would just call an ideas machine which we'll get into but you might know Matt from being a Radio 1 presenter he's been at Radio 1 for years he co-hosts with Matt and Molly you'll have heard them Molly King and he's done TV presenting but on the side of that he's created so many things so he's created TV shows the show Dressed to Impress on ITV2 or Make Me a Prime Minister which was on Channel 4 as well as other TV shows that he's co-created and then on the side of that and this is what we really dig into in this episode he's created a board games company now I've never met someone who's done that before so if you ever wondered how do they come up with the games the ideas and then how do you get them into stores and sold as a product we go through that entire process so it's a really fun different episode and as I say he's an ideas machine so we cover first of all his volume of ideas and how he manages them and then how he takes his ideas and then starts turning them into projects so I think that's really interesting and also how he got his board game company on the shelves of John Lewis and into Walmart in America which is unbelievable and his energy in general was quite inspiring.

1:39Ben Hanlin: That's the thing I took up from this was just how creative he is. And that was, again, the point of doing this podcast is to be inspired to be a bit more creative myself. So I took some of it out of it. I'm sure you will as well. Let's dive in. Without further ado, this is What's the Trick with Matt Edmondson.

1:59Ben Hanlin: Welcome to What's the Trick. And today we are going to understand what is the trick to creating a global board game company. Are you ready? I think so. I think maybe I need the answers myself. No, you'll be... Well, we'll see. But the thing is, I guess most people, I would imagine, you can tell me if I'm wrong, probably think of you as TV and radio presenter. So we are going to... I really want to kind of unpick, because I've never met a board games creator. We're going to go into the whole process of that. But first, truth be told, you've just come from the radio. I come from the radio. If you're watching this, I apologise for how sweaty I look.

2:35It's because there's a tube strike and I scooted here on a scooter designed for a child. So yeah, I'm hot. But actually unbothered, because I'm getting to spend time with you. But like today, for example,

2:46Ben Hanlin: I was here, I didn't listen to the show. Did you do any... What? No, sorry. I'm sorry. But do you, is there a process going into it? Like you making notes on your phone the day before for things you're going to talk about? Because just turning a mic on and talking to the average person, how do you fill the time? Yeah, it's... You just sort of do. That's the process. That's the process, guys. Thanks for listening. I'm an extensive note taker in general. Often I can't decipher them later on. I've got like, I think 5 ,000 notes on my phone. And I always think, I must go back and have a look at those.

3:25And the ones that have any merit to them, they tend to resurface. They tend to get pulled into one note together. I have a note for the radio. And it's things that are half thoughts or... In fact, I can have a look at what I've got in there at the moment.

3:40Ben Hanlin: So this would be stuff that you might say in the next week or so on the radio. Yeah. So as I do them, I delete them. Yeah. And some of these won't be ideas. Some of these will be just like the tiniest nugget of like, oh, there might be something in that. So straight away, you've taken an idea and you've turned it into a format, a game, which is a very you thing to do. Very you thing. And the thing is that game will happen. We'll do it once and then it'll go and that'll be that. There's all sorts of stuff on here. So you as a, this kind of a weird way, not a weird way to live your life, but are you going through life essentially with one eye above yourself going, this is the thing that's happened, note it down, like completely observing life and like putting it into a diary type thing?

4:21Not really. I think if I, if I have the thought, I will jot it down. I would say that I'm very disconnected from any environment I tend to be in at any given time. So I always describe it as like, it's almost like there's a pane of glass, frosted glass between me and the rest of the world. Because I'm just off thinking about random stuff. So I'm never like engaged in anything that's going on in the present. So when I go home and Brian says, oh, what was Ben wearing? I will be like, I have no idea. Right. I find it quite hard to notice things about the real world. Like I'm always in awe of stand-up comedians who can find those tiny bits of life minutiae because I'm like, gosh, they would just completely go over my head.

5:11They'd pass me by.

5:13Ben Hanlin: Well, that's – I didn't expect such a – I thought you were going to go, yeah, I'd just write some stuff down and say it. But all of a sudden, like you say, you've got all this going on there. Here's a question, though. I'm going to do a couple of radio things, and I really want to dive into the gaming. Sure. But the other thing I was thinking about with you, so you've been on the radio for years, and you've interviewed, I would imagine, lots and lots of big names. Yes. And the way it kind of works in radio is you often go, the producer might say, tomorrow you've got Hugh Jackman, or tomorrow you've got whoever it's going to be, Leonardo DiCaprio.

5:43Ben Hanlin: Two things. He's not coming on my show. Well, he would have done over the camera. Come on. But here's the deal. The thing I always think with that is, First of all, what do you do to deal with nerves? Are you bothered by these big... Because some people would go, oh my gosh, I'm going to panic all night thinking about that. And second of all, you've got five minutes with these people who are flowing around the world. They don't know what day of the week it is. And you've got to build a connection with them. So what's your thought process going into that? I love it. It's my favorite thing. Is it?

6:08I love it. So I don't get nervous at all with that. And why is that, by the way, do you think? I think it's because they are simply a human being. And so I'm not putting them on a different pedestal. I'm not thinking of them as a famous person. I'm thinking of them as, you're just a human being. Is that my phone jiggling? No, it's not. I'm thinking of them as, you're just a human being. You're coming into my space. And that's the other thing. It's like they're coming into the radio studio. And in the radio studio, the vibe is kind of set by me and Mott. So they have to step, they step into our energy rather than us stepping into theirs.

6:51Oh, that's interesting. And so I think that helps. It also really helps that Molly's incredibly lovely. And so I can be a little bit, not lovely, but I can be a little bit more odd, I guess. I can be, I can ask things that are a bit strange or, and I think as an interviewer, I've always offered something of myself in exchange for something from someone else, if that makes sense. So like I would, rather than, you know, asking a question about...

7:25Ben Hanlin: The new film that's just come out or whatever. Well, if you want to ask something that's a bit unusual, I would say like, I've got this thing at the moment where I have, you know, every time I go to the loo, I'm looking at my phone and I keep missing the toilet Is that a me thing? And then you're suddenly asking to someone It's like, well, he's just said that thing as if it's the most normal thing in the world Yeah, but he's done it to Tom Cruise And so now Tom has to give an answer to that but I'm not saying, hey Tom when was the last time you peed on the seat? Yeah, yeah, okay And there's a sort of, I don't know it feels like you're sharing a bit of yourself with them But I love it.

8:06And I particularly like the ones where they have a reputation for being difficult.

8:13Ben Hanlin: And I like the ones who... I'm not going to ask you who they are. Well, no, I mean, I can. The one that I really remember, and I don't remember lots of them, right? A lot of them, people say, have you met this person? I have to Google it and see if it's a photo of us. The one I remember, and it was a junket. So that's you going into their environment. And they've done 50 of these all day. You've got six and a half minutes, go. Yeah, and the questions, because it's a film, at least some of them have to be relevant to the film. And so it was Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. And De Niro is for a movie called The Intern.

8:47Ben Hanlin: Oh, yeah. De Niro is incredibly renowned for basically hating all interviews. I actually heard him on the Off Menu podcast. And the whole format of that, as I'm sure you know, is you choose your dream starter main dessert. Good format. Great format. I've never heard two presenters work as hard as James Acaster and Ed Gamble interviewing Robert De Niro because they went, so what's your dream starter? And he went, I'll kind of eat anything. You've not read the brief, have you? Okay, but like, what would you like? He's like, whatever the restaurant want to bring, that's what I'll eat. And they're like, cool, just so you know, we are going to ask you this.

9:28Every answer was like, I don't know. The whole thing.

9:31Ben Hanlin: That's like doing Desert Island diss and go, whatever's on the radio. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Put it on shuffle. So I went to interview them and everyone who's coming back into the room, because they keep all of the reporters and interviewers in a sort of holding pen. By the way, right now, all I'm envisaging is Notting Hill. Yeah, it's exactly like that. How'd you get on? She's tricky. Yeah. So, and it was that coming back, everyone was like, oh, he's quite, he's quite challenging. And I thought, I'm going to get him. I'm going to get him. How'd you get De Niro? No. Just by, it's almost stepping into the role of someone who already thinks they're his best friend.

10:12So talking to him like you've known him for years.

10:16Ben Hanlin: Okay, so hold on. So you walk into a room like the studio we're in now and it's lit and you sit down, watch your open gambit. What I did with him actually, and this totally broke the ice. Yeah. because I had stayed in a hotel that he owned. He owned a hotel called the Greenwich Hotel, possibly still does in Tribeca, New York. And I had my honeymoon there. Oh, I mean, that's a good one, isn't it? And I went in and I said, I said, hi. I sat down. I was like, hey, Anne, really nice to meet you. Robert, really nice to meet you. I said, Robert, before we start the interview, I know I've only got six minutes, but I'm going to waste 30 seconds of it.

10:48I stayed at the Greenwich Hotel. And I've got to ask you, how did you get the water pressure to be what it was like? And his eyes just lit up and he was like, my God, you're the only person who's ever noticed. And I was like, Bobby, the water pressure in that hotel, it's off the chart. The bath filled up in 45 seconds. He was like, we got this special guy. He's got a pump and it lives in the... And he was just like, he's so into it. And so we took 45 seconds to talk about the water pump. And you're done. And then at that point, it's great. And by the end of it, we were best friends.

11:24Ben Hanlin: Wow. So that is, though, is a thing. So there's a few things to unpick there. I'm not going to go into too much of a second. But first of all, you've gone, they're all people. They're just people. And also you've gone, instead of me just diving in and getting the auto response, find something that's going to be a pattern disrupt. Find something that's going to complete. Yeah, like jolt them into something else. And you've done it in a way that's super personal. So you've kind of, it's almost like, I talk about this with certain people. If you want to get someone's attention, if somebody looks like they've made an effort on their clothes and they've got brand new shoes, go, wow, I really like your shoes.

11:54Ben Hanlin: Where'd you get them from? at least something that's going to get them to talk about the thing they're passionate about. Okay, so that was quite amazing, actually. I'm not going to even ask you some of the difficult ones. Right, so that's the radio. Let's dive into it. So let's talk about format games. Yeah. I want to start around 2020, 2021. Give me the origin story. You can give it in the bullet point. Okay. Bring us up to speed. So the bullet point is I like creating things. Sometimes it's radio ideas. Sometimes it's TV shows. And I had this idea for a TV show years ago about celebrities doing things that rhymed with their own name.

12:37Britney Spears using garden shears. And I thought... Quite a tricky booking. Exactly. I thought we could do like catchphrase, but with rhyming celebrities doing things, little animations and things. And I pitched it to the BBC and they took it quite far. and it got down to two shows and they went with the other show. And I was like, oh, I really liked that idea. And I thought, maybe there's another way of doing it. Maybe I could do it as a board game. Never made a board game before, but liked playing them. And I realised that it's effectively the same as a TV show because it's a format. You're just putting it in a cardboard box rather than filming it in a studio.

13:15And I had a weekend at my in-laws and they're quite into their sport. cricket was on or football or something and i thought i'll just as a challenge over this weekend see how many of these little rhyming things i can write so you're at their house and they're going you join this and they're going what is he doing yeah i'm just there just tapping away and it's like okay yeah uh the guy who was the lead in er has just shown you his ass george clooney's pulling a moony great you're going tom crew shoes exactly yeah and i wrote 650 in across this weekend and i was like i think i've got a game here or at least the foundations of one and uh i think and we we can talk more about this in a second because i think this probably comes down to like how i think about ideas which is that most ideas for me are two bubbles that become one big bubble okay go on so uh i feel like i'm carrying around half of a lot of puzzles at the moment.

14:16I've got one thing that I'm like, that is interesting. It's an interesting feeling or it's an interesting thought, or I like the way that that bit of that show was done or whatever. And I'm waiting for the other bubble. And the other bubble might come the next day or it might come three years later. But the other bubble at some point is another thing. And they sort of find each other and they become a new bubble. And that new bubble is a completely new idea because no one's ever thought to take that bubble and that bubble and put them together

14:46Ben Hanlin: before and with the hold on this that that is i've never heard anyone describe so hold on are these bubbles literally whether you know it or not floating around in your head or are you writing all these down logging all this stuff yeah sometimes i write them down it's like a half a half idea so let's say that i um i don't i'm talking to a friend yeah and they say something that sparks in my brain like, oh, if that was paired with something else. Like if it was a dating app or something or dating something and you go, there's a dating thing there. Or, you know, you see a TV show and you're like, oh, the bit I like about that isn't the bit that makes that TV show interesting.

15:28Ben Hanlin: Yes. There's a little bit there that's like, oh, that's interesting, but it isn't a show on its own. Yeah. I have to wait for the other bubble. but that bit that bubble is there and and it's it might be in my notes often the one the the bubbles that are looking for their other half they just circle around and around yeah and then at some point you go bang there's the other one but with that though right most people stick in their lanes so if you were a songwriter you would write songs or if you're a chef you'd be thinking about food or radio you'd be thinking about podcasts but you've got like bubbles for tv shows, board games, radio.

16:07I got bubbles for stuff, industries I will never enter. Honestly, because you can't choose what you're going to have an idea about. You can't. And so sometimes I have an idea and I'll say to my wife, Brian, I'm like, I've just had an amazing idea for a bit of like a kitchen utensil. Brilliant. And she'll be like, why? Great. I need to talk to you because my parents are still not talking to you for the last idea. And it's like, no, I'm never ever going to make that thing. I'm never going to do anything with it. But I have a note of ideas I'm never going to do, but I couldn't not have the idea.

16:45Ben Hanlin: So at what point, though, because everyone has ideas, right? And there's loads of people that have jobs that never quit their job. And a lot of people go, oh, yeah, anyone can come up with an idea. At what point does it become almost wasted energy? At what point are you two days into writing a pitch for a cafe that you're never going to own? No, because I would only pursue the ones that I'm like, Oh, that's good. Okay. Although I would want to get involved in.

17:13So, yes, I will come back to the bubbles later. But I had, with the clues, I felt like I had the first part of a bubble.

17:21Ben Hanlin: So you've done your list. You've said to Brian, I've got something here. Yeah, but it isn't a format yet because it's just a list of things. Fine. So I was like, okay, well, how do you spin it into a format? and the other two bubbles that were floating around, one was the kind of name in a hat game. I was like, you know that one where you write celebrities' names, three rounds? Speed round, speed round. And the first one is you describe them. All the names go back in. Second round is you get to say one word and the third round is you have to mime it out. I was like, there's something about the fast-paced two teams against each other description thing that's enjoyable.

18:00And that could work with having to describe people doing things that rhyme with their own name. And I was like, okay, then I just need a scoring mechanic. And I thought, well, I've got things that rhyme. What about the classic game of pairs? And I can have Barack Obama and a llama. And if you find them, you score your points. And that democratizes it because if you're bad at the clue guessing or the acting or whatever, you can at least be good at the, oh, I remember where the pair of shorts was. It was there. Right.

18:29Ben Hanlin: So you're walking around your house going, I've got this thing. And by the way, for anyone who doesn't know, this ends up becoming a game called Obama Llama. But so you're there walking around going, Obama, I've got Llama. And Brian's going, what is going on here? What happens next? How do you bring this to life? so I had the idea at the parents house and that other bubble came really quickly I think it came on the drive home I was like okay it can be like the game name hat and thing and so I was like cool I'm going to make it so I hired a guy on Fiverr right and said I need some celebrities some matching illustrations for pairs and I am the world's tightest man I don't spend money on anything I was like take my money this is this is obviously going to be great I've mortgaged the house exactly so he made this thing and I had this little prototype of the game and it had some question cards and it had these little, this matching pairs bits.

19:20And I was like, cool. I actually don't know how to make a board game. I don't know how to do it. And I had met a lady called Leslie who worked in the board games PR industry and still does. And she'd sent me a copy of a brilliant game called Bananagrams. Have you played it? Yes. It's great. It's like Scrabble but better. And And I'd tweeted about it, I think. And I was then on her mailing list of like, send this guy games. He might post about them. And I messaged her and said hi. And it's probably the worst thing you can ever get. A message you can receive is like, I've got an idea for a game.

19:58Because you think it's probably going to be bad. But I met her and I showed her this thing. And she was like, that's pretty good, actually. I said, what are my options? She said, well, you can self-publish. And I thought, I can't do that. It's too hard. I haven't got the kind of like admin chops for that. I can barely reply to an email.

20:17Ben Hanlin: You don't want to be sending out orders. I can't be dealing with like a factory. In between playing Justin Bieber on Radio 1, you're dealing with orders. And she said, or you can license it to another company. And she said, there's a couple of guys. They've got a small little indie games company. Why don't you go and show it to them? And it was these three guys, Ben and Tris and Dean. and they had this company called Big Potato, which is now massive. Yeah, I keep seeing a lot of their games, yeah. It was like them in a shed in East London. Literally, it was like in a garage. And I went and showed them the game and they really liked it.

20:53And as I left to get on the tube, I got a call from them and they said, can you come back with that prototype? We're actually pitching to John Lewis tomorrow and we want to pitch them your game.

21:02Ben Hanlin: No way. So I dropped my thing back and a week later they were like, they took it, they took the game. Hold on, you've sold a project to John Lewis. So the guy off Radio 1 who's never made a game, hasn't even made a game, has sold a project that doesn't exist to John Lewis. Yeah, yeah. That's unbelievable. Off this little thing I had printed, you know, from our local printers. So they then went off and made the game. And so I wasn't involved in the design or anything like that. They did a fantastic job with it. They know what they're doing to turn this thing into units and stock. Exactly. Exactly.

21:36And it became a massive success, this game. So it was great. So that was like a licensing thing. We don't have to go to Tim.

21:41Ben Hanlin: But when John Lewis put in an order, because they're obviously national, huge, is that a big deal? Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was big. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, they bought a really good amount. And they had an exclusive on it for the first year for High Street. Yes. Or for like bricks and mortar stores. Yeah. And because of that commitment, they bought quite a lot. So you've done that. I'm guessing you've learnt off them. throughout the ropes and then at some point you and your brother-in-law decide to do the like okay go independent is that right so off the back of obama llama i was like oh cool i've done a board game i guess i'm in the board games industry now i can do some more i'll fly to new york to i saw you flying around the world selling these yeah so i i um come lockdown 2020 my brother-in-law was running a cleaning business and couldn't send cleaners to anyone's hopes so he was like doing nothing.

22:34Now, he's not a creative man, but he is a fantastic logistics guy. He is a guy who loves a spreadsheet. He loves an email. He loves chasing factories. He loves all of the stuff that I can't do.

22:48Ben Hanlin: Because you said to me years ago, I remember you said to me, because I was like, wow, you're doing all these things. And you went, yeah, but you got to understand, I'm not brilliant at business and that kind of stuff. No, I'm not. I have to find a grownup, basically. I do, to come and do the bit. And I think for years I thought, oh, well, the ideas is the easy bit. Everyone has ideas, but I don't think they do. I learned later on that not as many people are having ideas. And actually, Lawrence is a really good example of that, which is that he just isn't a creative person. His sense of taste for a product doesn't necessarily exist in the same way that mine would.

23:26But he's really good at getting stuff done. And stuff that I would never be able to do in Send an Invoice. Just can't do it. And part of my journey later on is discovering that I had ADHD, and I'm sure we'll get to it, but I think undiagnosed for many years, but it kind of explains like, oh, I could never do any of the stuff that required being a grown-up. So, yeah, in lockdown, 2020, Lawrence has got nothing going on. I was meant to be making a series of a show that I make for ITV2 called Dress to Impress. Which is again something that you created. Something I created. But that wasn't happening because it was shot in shopping centres and you know.

24:09So I was sat there and Lawrence said to me, he had a mate who sold karaoke machines on Amazon. Right. And he was doing pretty well. And he was just buying these like white label karaoke machines, putting his own branding on and selling them on Amazon. Problem is that anyone can go to the same factory and get the same product. and then you're in this sort of race to the bottom price war. And I said to him, well, what you want is your own IP. You want your own product that you can sell that you're the sole manufacturer of and then you'll be the only one doing it. He's like, yeah, but what? And I said, I've got a load of games that I've made prototypes for but I've never done anything with.

24:51I said, let me go and grab one. And I brought one down. It was like when you could meet two meters apart. It was like a family barbecue, one of those things. And I said, I gave him this process and I said, it's called Answer Grams. Dead simple game. Let's do it. And he was like, okay, if you can figure out how to design it, I'll figure out how to get it made. So I designed it in a very clunky, insane way. And now that I'm several years down the line, I look back and go, what was I thinking? But we managed to make this thing. and he managed to find a manufacturer and we got a load of them shipped in.

25:27Ben Hanlin: So you say he managed in China, is this, or is it in the UK? So he found a company called Cartamundi, who you might know from the playing card world. Card company, yeah. So they basically do playing card stuff. And in the same way that you can buy a white-label karaoke machine, there are sort of standard deck sizes. So, you know, if you get a deck of cards, it's 52 cards and a couple of jokers and normally a couple of cards advertising you another deck of cards. In their sort of off-the-shelf, off-the-peg formats, you would get these little thin boxes that were the perfect size for Amazon postage, so you'd pay less postage.

26:04And they were also, they stocked two decks of cards. So you're not inventing anything. You're not like tooling a new bit of...

26:13Ben Hanlin: Packaging or anything. Yeah, it's like this white box and these blank cards exist. so you can print whatever you want on the box and whatever you want on the cards and if if it so happens that you have a game format that can work there then off you off you go and so that was the simplest way for us to get it off the ground um and so we did we made this made this game and it arrived at lawrence's house we ordered i think 4 000 games and we sold them all in like 10 days Who did you send them to? The internet. The internet. We sold them to the internet. So I just put it up on my Instagram like, hey, I've got this thing.

26:54We tried to get them into Amazon. Now, at the time, it was COVID. So everything was being bought on Amazon. So the Amazon warehouse was like chocker. It was also coming up to Christmas. So the Amazon warehouse was chocker. And also, the algorithm didn't know who we were. yeah so the algorithm's like so i'm sorry you want to take some of my precious shelf spare i could be selling karaoke machines yeah you want to put some board games i've never heard of there so they let you sort of put 50 games in at a time but each time you do it it takes like four days um because there's 31 distribution centers around the uk so you've got to send it to them and they send it out and all so we put 50 games in and they'd sell like that and then they'd say oh we can you can take 75 now and then we'd send 75 in and we realized we're never going to sell these on amazon at christmas so we set up an etsy store yeah and lawrence had to post them all out himself he bought he bought a franking machine yeah and uh wait about about three and a half thousand from his kitchen um he was like he haunted his local post office every day he turned up could you imagine standing behind that guy it was awful he had to he got like a he a very personal relationship with the people running that post office because he turned up every day like 300 games to go out to different places him and his wife did them in the kitchen overnight every

28:14Ben Hanlin: like all day every day and people just heard about it through your social media yeah that's what got it going yeah wow and then and then because of that we got a meeting with john lewis ourselves and they said oh we love answer cards we'll take that and they said the most dangerous thing you could ever say which is if you have any other ideas please let us know and i was like do i and so at that point i was like well why not and so we pitched them two other games three weeks later that didn't exist which was which was a game called so wrong it's right yeah and a game called egg slam yeah um and there might have been another one actually not karen no not karen that came late that came a year after um and they took both of them and we were suddenly in production You've sold three or four games to John Lewis like it's just walking in and just selling a packet of crisps.

29:04We got really, really lucky. But also the games were good and I'm quite good at selling stuff. Yeah. It's from the days of selling Svengali decks.

29:11Ben Hanlin: Yeah, which is, for anyone that doesn't know what that reference is, Matt used to at one point have a market stall in Greenwich. In Greenwich Market, yeah. Selling magic tricks. Trick decks of cards. Yeah, because half of life actually is about the idea and pitching it, right? Right, so I've heard that when you do TV show pitches, you go in and you full-on give them a show. Yeah, you do it. If it's a quiz, you do the quiz. You make them play it, yeah. Right, and then fast forward a bit. So that's how we got off the ground. And then eventually you end up in Walmart in America. I was on holiday.

29:41Ben Hanlin: I took a photo of one of your games. How does Walmart come about? Is that just more of a global version? So we do our little thing with John Lewis, and we start to kind of creep into the industry. and there are these, like in any industry, there are these events. There's like toy fairs and, you know, just stuff where it's like, oh, the toy and games industry is coming to exhibitions and things like that. I live two miles from the NEC in Birmingham. Right, okay. There's always an exhibition going on. There's a massive, massive games thing that happens at the NEC every year. Ah, there you go. Takes over the whole thing and it's like, it's everything from board games to kind of like Dungeons and Dragons, tabletop gaming, collectibles, that kind of stuff.

30:20UK Games Expo. uh and so we started to go to things like that we found a distributor who came and helped get us into shops and um we at these toy fairs you know you'd meet a german guy and he's like i like your games can i distribute them in german and you go okay sure we'll make a german version yeah um and then you meet a polish guy and then you meet an italian guy and it's suddenly you've got this network of people selling your product and sometimes they license the idea and you send them the artwork files and sometimes they want you to actually manufacture it and get it to them

30:59Ben Hanlin: so this is the hugely talented matt edmondson he's great isn't he he's just like i said to you at the beginning he's an ideas machine and he's not disappointing this is a slight break from that conversation i call this a commercial interruption but i'm not selling you anything because I've got no sponsors, so it's just me chatting to you. What do I need to tell you very quickly before we dive back in? You might know this podcast is new. I think this is around the fifth episode. So I'm going to sound like every other podcast on the planet, and I'm going to ask you, do me a favour, hit like and subscribe.

31:32Ben Hanlin: Reviews are also really important to help this get noticed. Basically, though, I suppose I just want people to know that this is happening and that there's some amazing creative conversations going on. So if you want to share this on your socials, amazing. but also it sounds really simple sounds really basic but if you think you've got a friend or someone you know that would love this episode and would love to hear this conversation just pull out your phone whatsapp or message them snap them whatever the kids are using these days and send it on your myspace and just send them the link and just get them to listen to it and then you'll get one more listener and we'll grow literally one listener at a time that would be incredible and last week's episode if you missed it was the hugely talented again andy nyman who co-writes with derren brown he's an actor a writer and there's so much gold in that episode so if you're enjoying this one and you haven't listened to andy nyman trust me you'll enjoy that and the other thing i just want to say is if you are listening as well dm me on instagram or other platforms um mainly because i'm a little bit needy but it's just to know that you're listening what what you're enjoying, and tell me other guests that you'd like me to interview.

32:42Ben Hanlin: And if you're a potential guest, just drop me a message because I'm loving making this and I want to build you lot as a community so you've got some say in how these conversations develop in the future. Right, let's get back into Matt Edmondson. We're going to dive into how he got his board game company, Format Games, into Walmart, the largest retailer in the world. It's a great story. Enjoy it. you come up with these ideas and we have we you play around with these ideas and you have your bubbles but i'm sorry you asked about walmart how we got to walmart yeah go on yes so you meet these people around the world and one of the people we met was a distributor in the states and they said oh we've got a meeting with walmart coming up we're going to pitch your games and i said i need to be on the zoom i need to be on the zoom they were like no because we're pitching like loads of games we got loads of little studios we work with and i was like i need to be on the zoom trust me i need to be on the zoom and they they were like okay fine they said we managed to get control freak so they managed to get you half an hour on the zoom these two buyers they buy everything in walmart now to give some context the previous year from the distributor we worked with they had bought three titles out of like 50 that were pitched to them.

34:11So I've got half an hour and I created a keynote presentation, which I'm big into. Love a jazzy keynote. And it was like an interactive play along version of the games. And I did this thing where I had my half an hour and I perfectly back-timed it. Like I rehearsed it like it was a TV show. How many games are you pitching in half an hour? Three. So you've got 10 minutes per game. 10 minutes per game. They were not the sort of people that were personable. They were just sort of like staring at you down the Zoom camera. It was over Zoom as well.

34:46Ben Hanlin: Bear in mind you're trying to buy like fun games. Yeah, and I'm trying to build up some rapport like, hey guys, here's a quirky British guy's coming in. Just giving me nothing. The time I stayed in that hotel of Bobby De Niro's. Yeah, exactly. None of that. I couldn't De Niro them. and so I I had to basically monologue for half an hour and there was a point where we shot some video and I was playing that out and I messaged my business partner Lawrence who was on Zoom I was like are they still there I haven't heard anything I'm just talking into the void for half an hour it's like radio, you're just doing a radio show for these two people and got to the end of half an hour and I was like thanks very much they're like cool they bought all three of the games And they were the only three games they took from the distributor that year.

35:34So, I mean, it was really worth doing. And so that was mad. And so suddenly we've gone from like literally flogging them on Etsy to when we've now got to supply lots of them to Walmart and Target.

35:49Ben Hanlin: You get the email from Walmart going, yeah, we're in and we want all three of them. Is that you and Lawrence popping champagne? like as in the metaphorical popping champagne. No, it's more panicking. It's more like, how are we going to do it? But is that huge? Is that like, because that's the biggest retail in the world? Massive, yeah. I mean, Walmart have got like 5 ,000 stores. So, you know, that's a big deal. Target have got about 3 ,000. We got a game into Target as well. So yeah, absolutely massive news for us, that. Really big. And it sort of made us like, we sort of stopped being just like a little bedroom business to oh god we're now actually we've we've got a thing that we have to run and we've got to produce this stuff you got a team of people now staff so we we built up a bit of a team and then we realized do you know what we kind of liked the smaller thing of him doing the logistics and me doing the creative so we have people that come in and do some social media stuff we've got a guy that does some of our international stuff and almost works as like a translator between me and lawrence because he speaks a bit of creativity and a bit of business and i don't speak any of the business and lawrence doesn't speak any of the creativity so he's quite a good sort of like um yeah literally like a translator between the servers um but yeah i know i've i've i learned graphic design and i like i like that for me that's part of the the product and so i do all of that now but in everything you've done and we haven't really even touched much on the tv stuff but you obviously you've done a similar type of journey where you've come up with the ideas i'd imagine you've had your bubbles and then you've pitched and i hate to use this concept because it sounds like a dirty word but you are a very good salesperson.

37:38Ben Hanlin: Hey, thanks. That's not dirty. There's nothing dirty about it. And weirdly, I'm a magician on stage and I always think one of my strengths is sales. Of course. How much do you think about that in your kind of creative process or in the success that you've had as a creative that actually you're just really, as well, really good at selling? So I've only ever sold things that I've made that I think are brilliant. Yeah. So it'd be really interesting to try and sell something that I didn't think was good, because I think that maybe is the role of like a proper salesperson where you're like, look, I don't really have a great love for these nonstick pans, but I'm going to go out there and, you know, really, really make people convinced they're great.

38:21And I actually think I could do it pretty well. It really helps if you love the thing that you're selling and if you completely believe in it. And I will go above and beyond to minimise the gap between what it is that I can imagine and what they are going to see. So if I have to go and cut almost like a fake tape of the TV show I want to pitch so that they can get 1 % closer to seeing, oh, this could get made, I would go and do that.

38:55Ben Hanlin: Oh, so you mean basically spoon-feeding them? I'm trying to narrow the gap between me going, so here's the idea, and then in their imagination, sort of imagining something slightly different. Yeah. Or they're bringing their own kind of like prejudice or they saw a TV show that was like this before. And what I want to do is be like, this is how it's going to look. Yeah. This is like the vibe. This is the feeling it's going to give you. I want to give them as much of the finished thing as I can without having to actually go and make it. Making it easy for them just to visualize. So that, by the way, you've given us like a real in-depth story there as how that's come about and how, because I've never heard anyone go into that much detail about board games before.

39:42Ben Hanlin: Question now, what is the future? Let's look for what you're working on. So the thing that I always find the most interesting about you is you are, if I had to sum you up in two words, an ideas machine. Not necessarily a fully functioning one. sometimes a bit of a faulty ideas machine. So you're always, always working on, I mean, like working on one or two projects is just what most people, how many things are you working on? What's going on? Board games or other? It's hard. And this is a debate that I have my wife quite a lot, which is at what point does it become work? Because for me, all of these things are basically pleasure.

40:20It's a hobby. It's like, oh, just thinking of a thing and I'm toying around with it. Yeah. And then... sometimes i monetize it and then it becomes like oh okay yeah that's now a job um but a lot of the time it's just kind of it's just play it's what i do for fun and so finding the boundary of like are you working or are you not working it's quite a challenging but the not working could eventually

40:45Ben Hanlin: but like so right now as we sit here i was to look at your what you're doing this week or this month how many projects is it have you got many board games yeah okay so today so today i've worked on a podcast which i'm launching soon with molly yeah it is the best thing i've ever done i am so proud of it beyond words uh this morning i was also doing an amazon listing for a new game that's coming out so it's another format game this format game game is called rock paper scissors ninja and actually the geister's blitz thing the mind thing that i started with a thing of like oh i want that feeling i it's not the stroke test but i want that feeling like ah is it that or is it that and i had this idea yeah um it involves a foam ninja star that you can throw at people which is a joy yes i mean just get it for that on its own within five minutes we've talked about games tv a podcast that you absolutely love and a musical i mean you've just in that this year alone you've created a body of work that people would go that's taken me 10 years it's unbelievable most of it's just fun it's just mucking around and seeing what happens yeah um i suppose a couple things i wanted just to kind of close on right so that i was thinking about this coming to chat to you observations about you for me is you love format like format is in tv shows everything why is that do you think um because you you have something that is infinitely repeatable but is different every time.

42:17So if you take something like Come Dine With Me, oh, what a format, you know what you're going to get. It just works. It's like a spaghetti bolognese. But everyone's got their own little twist to the recipe. And the thing that changes is your cast and your location and the food. The thing that remains the same is we give some points to some people, they get some money yeah and there's a funny voiceover and for me if you get if you nail the format you can relax about all of the other stuff all the other stuff is like that's where the entertainment comes in and that's where the stuff but people you need something to hang all of your other ideas on and that's what a good format does it's like the skeleton why do you love it because

43:07Ben Hanlin: some people created people exactly you've written a musical some people love you know written word but you love that puzzle, don't you? You love going... But the musical is a format, right? It's like Act 1, Act 2, we need a song that establishes the main theme. We need a... If we've got a romantic thing, we need a song that does that. It needs to end on a bit of a cliffhanger going into Act 2. Act 2 needs to say something that was set up in Act 1. It's all structure. So what you've just said there is the thing that my next question I wanted to ask you, and I talk about this for myself sometimes.

43:42Ben Hanlin: I think I'm quite good at it, but I think you're much better. The only way I can articulate, and I've never actually spoken to anyone about this, is pattern spotting. Whenever I've tried to do anything, you look at the existing pattern. So I'll give you an example. When I wanted to be a street performer, first thing I did is went to Comic Garden and I just watched street performers. If you watch 20 street performing shows, you see the format. You essentially watch the pattern and then you copy the pattern. The way you just described a musical, 99 % of people won't think a musical's got a rigid format like Come Down With Me but you've just broken it down into spotting the pattern and repeating it yeah I think that probably is a lot of it is the pattern recognition yeah and you do that like with everything right even with songs you've written songs but I'd imagine your brain almost thinks like that well what is the pattern of a song is that 100 % yeah yeah and and to me it's that it surprised me that people wouldn't know that like a pop song is always the same structure always but the way you're looking at it is almost quite in a it's not in a negative but it's quite methodical and mathematical isn't it yeah it's going with what what building blocks do we need to make this thing and you know you can toy around with that you can move things or you can you can break the rules and that's fun and people go oh there's something interesting about that but they can't articulate why but it's because you've taken the thing they were expecting it's quite similar to magic really it's like you're doing a lot of like, here's what you expect to happen and now I'm going to twist it slightly.

45:10Yeah, I think pattern recognition is a big thing and I think in my... It drives my wife up the wall because I can't I can't hear a word without a sort of subconscious process going on that says, what does it rhyme with? What does it sound like? How many syllables does it have? what is its natural melody to it so like ben hanlin it's got it's got every word has like melody attached to it yeah but not even rhythm like ben hanlin we go we would go up on the hand we'd go to a slightly which we'd go to a slightly different pitch and so my brain go it's like it runs it past other things and goes well what words what other things sound like ben hanlin like tuxedo sounds like ben hanlon it's you're putting the same thing where it would be and i don't and i'm but that and that's everything i hear yeah sort of that's going on in the background and so that's why i like wordplay and puns and you know that kind of that kind of stuff

46:18Ben Hanlin: yeah i always almost feel and i do this to a certain degree but you almost walk around life almost asking yourself well what's really going on here so like when you're watching a musical you're going, everyone else is watching it, but you're going, well, what's going on? Okay, you're setting this up for that. You're trying to almost understand the, almost like the matrix code. But I'm not trying to. There's nothing conscious about it. And actually, sometimes it's annoying. There's an enjoyment there, isn't there, I suppose? It's more just, it's like saying I blink. It's, you know, I take no joy from blinking, but it keeps my eyes moist.

46:51And this is like, it's sort of the same thing. I can't help but break things down into their little composite elements and go, oh, what does that remind me of? And what's that like? And why does that sound like that? And oh, that really reminds me of whatever. Sometimes I'll find myself singing a song and Brian is like, I haven't had that song in 15 years. Where has that come from? And it's like, oh, it's because you said the word artichoke a minute ago. An artichoke is the same rhythm as whatever it might be. And that made me think of that. That's, you know.

47:20Ben Hanlin: Well, so Matt, I feel like we could literally chat all day, but we're going to have to wrap things up. Are you ready for Ben's Fast Five? Yes, please. Okay, Ben's Fast Five. It's a format. I love it. That's what I thought you'd like. I was quite smug when I came up. I mean, you're going to look at this podcast and go, he's missing a trick. It was just a chat. We could have added more format into this podcast. No, it's great. This is a format. We're having a chance. So Matt, five quickish answers, right? We're going to start question number one, my Highlander question. Are you familiar with the film Highlander?

47:46I'm familiar with it in a sort of cultural sense.

47:49Ben Hanlin: I've never seen it. Oh, my gosh. Well, they're making a remake. Anyway, it's about immortals going around chopping other people's heads off. But when they kill another immortal, they steal all that person's skills and knowledge. Oh, cool. So you get this gift. You'd have to kill someone. They stay alive. But if you could steal anyone's skills or knowledge. I think I would take whatever Richard Osman's got going on. I think I would take that. Is he your idol a little bit? He's certainly someone I respect greatly. I mean, format creator, brilliant podcaster, brilliant, just a brilliant mind, great love of games, the novels.

48:25I mean, the guy, there's nothing he's turned his hand to where I'm not like, oh, that's bad. And also just a really humble man. I think he's great.

48:33Ben Hanlin: Yeah, he's amazing. Right. Richard Osman, that's it. You've got his skills. Question number two, time capsule. the government for some reason we will describe decide later on have created a time capsule you can only put and this can be very difficult one of your creations ever into the time capsule to live on the rest will perish and it's hard because you've got tv shows you've got podcasts you've got musicals you've got game i'm gonna put the molly podcast in are you i am i'm gonna put novel idea in novel idea makes the time capsule question number three culture vulture uh best book film or TV that you've seen recently that has resonated with you?

49:13Ben Hanlin: Severance. Obsessed with Severance. I've not seen Severance. Oh, my God, Ben. It's so good. You'd love it. It's on Apple TV. It's quite slow to start with. Who's in that? It's, what's his name? Oh, God, I can't remember his name. Don't ask me that. We will edit the time out. Anyway, give me the synopsis super quick. The synopsis is that people can opt to have their brain severed, like a hard drive that is partitioned. Okay, like a Black Mirror episode almost. Yeah, and so they have a version of them that goes to work that is their severed brain, but they don't know anything about the rest of the time.

49:55Yes, I have heard this. And the people who are at work know nothing about the real outside world, but feel like, oh my God, I'm living this half-life, and the people outside don't know that they are sort of causing great trauma to their innies who are at work. And it's this, I mean, it's just so brilliantly done. It's like a thriller.

50:13Ben Hanlin: Do you know what? You're about the fifth person that said that to me. So, yeah, I'll give that a watch. Fourth question. Here is my magic wand, Matthew. You can have my magic wand. Use it with great responsibility because you have the power to make something vanish that we can stick around. It could be a TV format, a TV show, a board game, anything that you think, do you know what? Let's get rid of that. Anything. I can vanish anything. Well, usually within your sphere. Within my sphere. Can I vanish the traitors and then pretend I came up with a format? I mean, that's a format that shouldn't be as big as it is, right?

50:47Ben Hanlin: It's so good. It's so good. It means executed brilliantly. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I think I would vanish it and then I'd go in and pitch it. You've kind of taken it in a different direction as it's intended, but that's fine. It's a magic wand. I can do what I want. Fine. Okay. And the final question is, what is the trick to creating as many ideas as you do? So if somebody was to ask you, somebody, a young Matt from 10 years later was going, I've got all these ideas, I do all these things, I've got these bubbles in my head. What is the trick in turning my ideas into actual reality? I would say it is to follow what keeps you interested and to also not feel like you can't give something a try, even if you know nothing about it.

51:39Ben Hanlin: Because a lot of your career is just going into different... Everything. I've never written a musical before. I've got no right really to have done that. But someone's got to do it. So why not? I've never... I haven't done a board game. People do it. Just go and try stuff. and sort of embrace the idea that you don't just have to do one thing. And it's okay because there'll be people that can help you out along the way. And it's quite fun not being the most knowledgeable person in the room. Well, thank you very much. Thanks, Ben. Cheers, mate.

52:13Ben Hanlin: So there you go. That was Matt Edmondson. And I think for me, on reflection of that now, I've listened back to it. There's two main takeaways that I've got. and I'd say first of all he is a salesperson isn't he like yes he's a creative but he knows how to sell his creative vision so people will buy it and I think that's quite interesting that when we are trying to sell a project or something we're passionate about we're often the best ones to do that and he knew that and he made sure that he was in the room to make sure that he could give his point of view to really sell the passion so I think that's kind of interesting and the other is the bubbles take two random bubbles two random ideas and smash them together which was very similar to what andy nyman said last week is that the way he created ghost stories is he took something he didn't like which was the play the vagina monocles but he liked the uh way it was done there were certain elements of that he so he took one thing from that idea and then he loved the woman in black and he loves horror so he said well if i put that idea and that idea together we've got a brand new show so that's just showing that these kind of smashing two separate ideas together is getting to be a bit of a common theme anyway i'm gonna stop rabbiting hope you've enjoyed it remember if you know anyone that would love this episode or any of our episodes just whatsapp send them a link and say listen to this you filthy animals um that was slightly christmas themed uh end right see you next time bye

53:40Thank you.