This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello, hello, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm proud, honored, have the privilege to be your host, bringing you stories and features every day of real people, mostly with real jobs who don't have a lot of money, taking steps to create more security for their lives. And they do this in the form of starting a side hustle, an income generating project that you begin without quitting your job.
Now I've been learning a lot of things along with our listeners since we started way back in January 1, 2017. And one of the things that surprised me, I mean, it's a long list, but one of those things is that card games or board games can be incredibly popular. And not only popular, they can be incredibly profitable. I remember playing card games and board games when I was a kid, but to be honest, mostly I remember playing video games. So in a lot of ways, these physical card games, board games that are played with a group of people, a non-virtual group of people, an actual group of people sitting around a room, did kind of surprise me a little bit, but I suppose it shouldn't be because, you know, we are seeking greater belonging, community, connection.
And a while back, we featured in episode 339, this party game that was inspired by cards against humanity that goes on to make six figures. Well, today is another story, another six-figure party game story. This one actually comes from the Netherlands, and we can say that dark winter days were no match for four Dutch friends who were looking to spark meaningful conversations. They did, in fact, spark meaningful conversations, and they also sparked a hugely successful side hustle that is now going all over the world in lots of different places. So I'll tell you about these four friends, the inspiration for their project, and what happened along the way in just a moment.
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Winter in the Netherlands means cold days and long dark nights. There's only so much you can do indoors when blistering winds and building snowdrifts drain your motivation to leave a cozy home. But as cabin fever grows, conversation tends to drift into small talk and meaningless platitudes. At least that's what one entrepreneurially motivated couple noticed on a bleak December afternoon.
The year was drawing to a close, and Bart and Lisette were spending lots of time indoors with their family. But with all this time being surrounded by people, they began to realize that they didn't really know them any better. They didn't feel connected to them or engaged in conversations. In fact, the more they thought about the lack of valuable conversation in their lives, the more they realized that they desperately needed it. In their pursuit of bringing friends and family closer together, the couple set themselves the task of bringing interpersonal connection to life in the form of card game.
After borrowing paper from Lisette's younger cousin and markers from Bart's niece, they cleared a spot on the floor and started brainstorming a list of deep questions. But as they sat surrounded by blank paper squares, they realized that deep questions was simply too broad. They wanted to strike a balance between fun and engaging. And they wanted to focus on questions that were simple, yet thought-provoking. To keep it interesting, they also decided to include a different feature that encouraged you to reflect on the past year and another that would encourage you to look ahead and plan for the next year.
After all, it was intended to be a fun game, not a therapy session. Bart and Lisette, one of their friends and family, to go beyond the surface conversations they were used to, they wanted more. There's a Dutch word for that wanting of more, which I'm probably gonna mispronounce, but that word is vertelis. It means tell us more. To Bart and Lisette, this is exactly what they were searching for.
They wanted to see their families in a different way. They wanted to learn what's important to them. It was also a parting gift before they went away on a big trip. While on this trip, they ran into a fellow traveler from the Netherlands named Lars, who was in the middle of a 10-month excursion himself. They mentioned the idea behind vertelis to him.
Lars absolutely loved the concept, so much so that he joined them in their pursuit of creating meaningful conversations. Together, they developed it into a fully formed game complete with 46 questions. Bart, Lis, and Lars all had jobs of their own, but Christmas Eve of 2016 presented an opportunity. Lars gathered his family and friends, built a fire in the living room, explained their new game, and then sat everyone down to play it. Soon, the air was filled with laughter and engaging conversations.
Questions like, "With the knowledge you have now, "what would you have done differently?" were being passed back and forth. It went so well that everyone wanted to play again the next day. That's when they knew they had truly stumbled upon something good. They created a website for vertelis and started putting out feelers for a manufacturer to produce it. But they quickly discovered that order rates were incredibly high, and those manufacturers required a lot of upfront investment, which, of course, they didn't have.
Crowdfunding was becoming more and more popular, and so they looked at Kickstarter. But what they found was that the more successful campaigns involved projects that were more technologically based, not something as simple as the card game they had in mind. Since building strong relationships was what the game was all about, they decided they would commit to producing the card game if they were able to pre-sell at least 500 units. Much to their surprise, they ended up selling 200 of those units just to friends and people they were connected with on social media. As they continued to reach out to manufacturers, something unexpected happened.
One of those potential manufacturers thought it was a brilliant project and decided to pre-order 300 units themselves to give to their customers as a New Year's gift. This strong early interest provided them with some additional funds they could use to advertise on Facebook. And that's where they learned to scale their audience and convert them to customers. As a direct result of their efforts, they went on to make $100,000 in revenue within the first month they had inventory. Over the next three months, the product launch was such a success that they sold an additional 25,000 units.
That's right, 25,000 with a total of $400,000 in revenue. They also found a new manufacturer that would accept 55% of the cost upfront and then allow them to pay the remaining 45% at delivery. That helped them with cashflow and allowed them to order more units. Since last summer, they've enlisted a fellow Dutchman living in Oregon to help bring the game to the United States and expand their reach. They've now sold more than 50,000 card decks and they're predicting that their success is only gonna continue through 2018.
So what are the challenges when you have a job and you start a side hustle that makes $400,000, sells 25,000 units in a short period of time? Well, for these guys, one of the challenges, but yet also one of the opportunities, is that they all work fully remote. They all have other projects and they're all based in different parts of the world. So to make the most of their work, they needed to make time management a priority as they coordinate meetings and deadlines across various time zones. But they're not slowing down.
Vertellus grew from hand-cut paper squares on that cold December day in the Netherlands to a successful self-managed crowdfunding campaign and those 50,000 units sold. In a short period of time, they've added both family and relationship-based editions and new languages to further expand their customer base. We could close this out by saying, whatever happens next with Vertellus, it's sure to be a conversation starter. Well, whenever I feature a project that has been a huge success like this one, $400,000 in sales in less than a year, 50,000 units sold, I do always wanna clarify and say, it doesn't always work this way. In fact, most of the time it doesn't.
That's why I like to feature projects that make $500 a month because even that amount can be significant in your life. Even that amount can be promising, give you potential, give you the empowerment and security that comes from a side hustle. But still, isn't it great that there are projects, and a lot of them in fact, that do grow quickly, that do scale to this amount? And I love the fact that this is a partnership between originally three, now four people. And I think the whole project itself speaks to the desire for deeper conversations and real relationships.
Like there is increasingly desire for belonging and community and this world that is so hyper-connected, we have instant access to so much information and entertainment, but yet we also have this deep longing to know people better. Just because you can know more people or know them more immediately through social media doesn't mean you actually know them. So I do think that's at least part of the reason why some of these projects are taking off. Real relationships, deeper conversations, a side hustle that's not only serving the global audience, but it's being run by different people in different parts of the world. I mean, what a great story.
I hope you enjoyed it, I enjoyed telling it to you. We will of course link them up in the show notes. Those notes are online today at sidehustleschool.com/437. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I've got more coming for you tomorrow and each day after that.
Thank you for listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
