Cashflow

Once again, cash is tight.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Because Gamefound fulfilment has been delayed, the tax man has temporarily taken £6,000.

We'll get in back in June.

And shipping has worked out much more expensive, because of the US tariffs and the tariffs paid up front shipping option.

Which is much more expensive.

I'm hoping Gal4Xeon will help, but that's still several months from paying out.

We need to get new ads up and working.

I need to get our monthly sales to cover our slowing growing overheads.

So we're not reliant on shows and crowdfunding to stay afloat.

A focus for my Mondays I think.

In other news, I'm on the organising committee for a convention in Gateshead.

We're planning for October this year.

It's slowly coming together!

Segue

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

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

Half!

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

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

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

So I've stopped advertising to the US.

Which is going to cost us a lot of sales.

But save us some advertising money.

How can we segue to keep things going?

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

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

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

They are all tariff-free at least.

Perhaps we need to promote them more?

We can advertise those worldwide.

No shipping fees. No tariffs.

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

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

Something needs to change!

Aw[esome|ful]

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

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

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

Cashflow.

And profit.

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

But cashflow was always a challenge.

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

We stayed alive through crowdfunding campaigns and the occasional convention.

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

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

Larger overheads meant worse cashflow - more pressure.

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

This year I've focused on fixing that.

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

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

And in some senses it's been successful.

Web sales are near double last year.

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

That's awesome!

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

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

But not profitably.

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

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

So sales are much lower. 

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

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

That's awful.

I'm hoping next year will be better.

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

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

Fingers crossed. 

Something needs to change.

Tariffs

In a lot of ways we’re lucky.

We make FlickFleet in Paul’s garage.

In York. In the UK.

So it’s not getting hit by the made in China tariffs introduced in the US.

The UK was fairly quick to strike a trade deal.

And we got 10%.

But we’ve benefited a lot from De Minimis.

The exception for orders under $800.

Half our orders go to the US.

Half!

The De Minimis rules were due to end.

In July 2027.

We had a couple of years to formulate a plan.

A few weeks ago that changed. 

It’s now next weekend.

All our orders to the US will get hit by a 10% tariff.

And whatever charge the courier feels like passing on for the hassle.

Or maybe even a higher flat rate fee?

We’ve stopped advertising to the US.

It’s going to have a huge effect on us.

For the moment we’re recommending US customers contact us about folding their orders in with the crowdfunding rewards we’re shipping in bulk towards the end of October.

Launch Week

Our latest FlickFleet campaign goes live on Gamefound tomorrrow. 

The rollercoaster begins. 

We use crowdfunding to raise the funds to reprint most of the expansions at once. 

Amortising costs. 

Some small economies of scale. 

Because of that, we need a to raise a lot. 

Not millions.

Not hundreds of thousands.

But certainly tens of thousands. 

All but one of our FlickFleet campaigns have been the best ever (at the time). 

The last one was second best. 

We’re now in the lull, before the launch. 

Will it do well? 

Best ever? 

Enough to fund the print runs and shipping?

Not enough? 

Soon we’ll know. 

There are some encouraging signs. 

We already have our second best number of pre-launch followers. 

And we’re not far off best ever pre-launch follower count. 

Will it be enough? 

Soon find out…

Bleed Through

I have a full-time day job.

And a family with youngish kids.

And I run Eurydice Games in my spare time.

I try to keep them all separate.

Focusing on my day job during work hours.

Focusing on my family when I'm with them.

I'm very lucky that I work hybridly.

I can work from home or go into the office, which is only a 2 mile walk from my house.

I like going into the office. 

I enjoy the company.

We have a lunchtime games club.

I like working from home too.

I get to spend my lunch breaks with The Wife.

Get chores out of the way during the day so I have more time in the evenings for Eurydice Games.

For the last month I've been in the office every day because of a late-running project.

It's been stressful.

And it's eaten into my time.

Then Friday we had some issues too.

I was working until late.

And a bit on the weekend.

I don't like the bleed-through.

I'll be working from home again more next week.

And with The Wife travelling for work I'll be able to spend lunchbreaks catching up on Eurydice Games stuff.

Like the Gamefound campaign.

It's not all bad though. 

I played a lot of games in February.

Mostly at almost daily lunchtime games club.

Together

Paul and I run Eurydice Games.

He does all the manufacturing and most of the shipping.

I do finances, marketing, and graphic design.

And we both do the FlickFleet game design.

Which is slightly awkward.

Because I live in Newcastle upon Tyne.

And he lives in York.

100 miles away.

Our families are friends, so we try to meet up in Newcastle or York several times a year.

To catch up and hang out.

We play games with each other and the kids.

Chat, eat, hang out.

And don't make a heap of progress on Eurydice things.

Like FlickFleet game design.

I've just spent the weekend in Leicester with Paul.

Due to a storm disrupting my travel, I had to change my travel plans last minute and travel to York on Thursday evening (no Games Night 😢).

So I got to hang out with Paul and his wife on Thursday evening.

Then Paul drove me to Leicester.

And we spent 72 hours together.

At the end, rather than getting my train in Leicester, Paul gave me a lift back to York and I boarded it there, as it went through.

Another 2.5 hours in the car together.

We got so much done.

A very productive weekend.

Plus we sold some games.

In a space museum.

How cool is that?

Comparison

Is the thief of joy.

Apparently.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

I’ve seen a few people on the last week or two publishing their earnings in board games.

Or talking about it.

A few surprises.

A small publisher similar to us.

Who I’d assumed was doing much better than us.

Because they are in retail and distribution, unlike our hand-made-in-a-garage games.

They’d had their most profitable year yet.

Only a four-figure loss.

We’ve been profitable 5 out of 6 years!

Go us!

And a big name games designer who’d made over €150k in royalties this year! Which was worse than last year!

I had no idea that was even possible.

I assumed the full-time game designers were earning a small but comfortable salary.

That’s way more than I make in my day job as a manager of a team of programmers.

And way more than our revenue, let alone profit.

Another designer I’m aware of who had made $34k in royalties.

Again many times our profits.

I'd like to get to higher turnover.

And higher profits.

So we can fix our cashflow issues.

Have money to invest in new games.

Have enough cash left over for me to draw some of my dividends out.

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.

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.

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.

Reviews

We live a boom and bust cycle.

A big influx of cash when we do a crowdfunding campaign.

Which we spend on materials. And then shipping.

Then our overheads slowly eat away at the remaining cash until we do another campaign.

Sometimes we need to loan the company money.

Then we do another campaign. And we’re flush again.

Our overheads have gone up.

A lot.

Paul’s small salary. Various things to free up my time.

Website sales are usually minimal.

We need to get to the point where they cover our overheads.

Then we survive between campaigns.

We have a new website. I want to run ads pointing at it. 

I’ve been putting it off until Paul finished the Xeno Wars rewards. We had no stock.

Now we do.

But the website has been doing better.

Because of great reviews.

Happy with that!

By Hunter and Friends. And Tabletop Gaming Magazine. And Board Game Quest.

The sales we’ve got from each of the reviews are enough to cover the week‘s overheads.

And the cost of the review copy and shipping is probably less than the amount we’d have to spend on ads to get the same sales.

Good value for money :)

P.S. Rocky ‘Roid finishes tomorrow!

Maturity

Daughter the Second is five.

She can read to herself at bedtime. Do maths. Even speak a little German.

She’s maturing rapidly.

We got our logo re-done a couple of years ago

Eurydice Games is five too.

It’s a very immature business.

We’ve got as far as we have due to being very tight.

I do the books. In Google Sheets. It’s free. 

I also do the marketing, advertising, business planning, website. All badly. But for free. Or near enough.

I do lots of work. Lots of unnecessary work. Lots of bad work. Because I can kludge it for free.

It works. Kinda.

We’ve survived five years. Grown rapidly.

It’s now time to start thinking about our maturity. 

Spending a little money to do a better job. Or an easier job. Or pay a professional to do it.

I’m spending a lot of time on this at the moment.

Investigating an accounting package.

Approaching professionals to redo our website. Properly.

Speaking to professionals about advertising.

Hopefully it’ll free up some of my time for game design.

Loss

Our fifth financial year finished on Friday.

Most businesses don’t get to five. Almost 60% fail.

Reiver Games failed.

Eurydice is still going. And going strong.

Each of our five years has been a growth year.

Sales have increased by 49 times in five years.

And by almost four times in the last four.

We’d been profitable every year too.

Just.

Until this year.

We made a small loss.

Less than the write off cost of the laser-cutter.

But still.

I'm proud that after the failure of Reiver Games I've learned how to run a business better. 

Paul and I are doing well.

And next year is looking good too.

Fingers crossed…

Spend

Our bank account lives a boom and bust lifestyle.

After a crowdfunding campaign it's stratospheric.

For us.

Then we spend on materials and components.

Photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash

Then again on shipping.

Then Paul's salary, conventions and advertising chip away at it.

Till it's paltry.

Then we crowdfund again to stay afloat.

We're in the spending phase now.

The last of the wooden bits arrive this week.

I've just spent £8,000 on the acrylic. Most of it.

And £2,500 on playmats.

Next up are the big boxes and the printing.

Then it'll be shipping again.

The balance is heading south...

Relationship

In March I got new quotes for everything we'd need for the Xeno Wars print run. Including boxes.

Once the Gamefound campaign was complete I started getting those quotes refreshed to reflect price increases due to war in Ukraine and other global factors.

The box manufacturer had gone bust.

They'd made 2,150 boxes for us over three years. We had a relationship.

Not any more.

I frantically started hunting for a new manufacturer.

Several companies I contacted couldn't do it.

Some of those put us in contact with others.

Others just refused to answer emails and phone calls. 

I get that they might not want (or be able to) do what we need, but that's not a good way to do business.

It's been slow going.

Last week I reached out to a few more companies.

Much better this time. They all got back to me, all quoted for the work.

One stood out though.

He wanted to speak on the phone.

Discuss the project. He'd looked at our website.

Had some ideas to do things differently. Better. Maybe even cheaper than what I'd asked for. With further savings in future.

We spoke several times. Clearing things up. Asking and answering questions.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

His quote came in cheapest of the five I'd got.

The company is 170 years old.

And, it turns out, I've used them before.

Guess which one I'm going with.

Three!

Eurydice Games Ltd. was incorporated three years ago.

I ran it on my own for a year before that.

It’s going well.

Need to fill in those outstanding orders!

It would have been better if it wasn’t for Brexit derailing the Kickstarter fulfilment.

But the orders we’ve still got to fulfill are enough to make next year better still.

Many of you will know this ain’t my first rodeo.

Reiver Games was my first publishing company.

That started well too.

Then went rapidly downhill.

Doing better than green!

We’re doing better this time.

Thanks Paul!

Repetition

I’m trained as a Software Engineer. 

It was my day job until 2015 and then part of my day job 2019-2020.

It means I have the skills (though rusty!) to write computer programs. To automate tasks I spend months on.

There’s a saying that if you repeat a task you should automate it.

Every time we go to Kickstarter I spent months massaging data from one spreadsheet to another. 

Kickstarter backers and Gamefound orders together. Into the format Paul prefers for fulfilment.

Then from there into invoices.

I’m automating the invoice creation at the moment.

Should have done this years ago.

Would have saved a boat-load of time.

Time I could have spent on game design, graphic design or something else worthwhile.

I’m an idiot.

Four

I started Eurydice Games four years ago.

To self-publish hand-made games.

Specifically not to go to Kickstarter.

Or mess up like I did last time. To learn from my mistakes.

Things have changed!

Paul joined and we formed a limited company a year later.

We’ve been to Kickstarter four times, each more successful than the last.

This year is already our most successful ever, and we’ve a lot of games we hope to ship in the next six weeks.

Things are changing further.

Paul is going to be employed by Eurydice Games from September.

And earn a salary.

I never managed that with Reiver Games.

I really hope we can continue to be successful enough to support Paul.

Here’s hoping year 5 is a good one!

Overheads

I worry about overheads.

There's something hanging over me.

Those costs you pay every month regardless of sales.

They sank my first company, Reiver Games, as the bank loan repayments and warehousing costs were bigger than sales most months.

So I worry about them.

Ours have increased.

We're lucky that we don't pay salary or rent. 

So ours are very low.

But still.

If we're not actively fulfilling a Kickstarter, our overheads are now often larger than profits, and sometimes even sales. 

There are two types, those that affect profits only (like depreciation and homeworking allowances) and those that affect profits and cash (like bank account fees and software subscriptions).

The latter are the worst.

We need to keep them down.

Or increase sales.