Post #11 Co-Designing, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Part 1)

So This post ran on pretty long so I split it into two posts. Tune in next week for part 2.

At the time of this writing, I am one day past my 32nd wedding anniversary. Definitely a mile stone in the age of throwaway relationships. I will, however, have to give the bulk of the credit for our success to my wife. But then, that’s the way partnerships work. They are never exactly 50/50. And that brings us to today’s topic.

I have a co-design partner in Cruise Monkey Games, his name is Cesar. We work together and back when I first came up with the idea for One Letter Better I showed it to him. He took it home, played it with his girlfriend over the weekend and came back all excited. He said, “This needs to be on the shelf at Target and Walmart.” I was surprised to say the least. I mean, I thought it was a pretty fun game but I didn’t know if it really had the bones to stand up alongside Monopoly and Uno. Things progressed with that game, and we started kicking ideas around for some other types of games. More on that process in my post on the shiny object syndrome here.

As things continued on, it looked like it was going to be a fairly serious endeavor. So I asked Cesar if he was interested in forming an actual company and being partners. This time, I was not surprised he said yes. I had already started using the name, Cruise Monkey Games and there’s a whole story behind that name that I may have already shared, I might have to go back and read some other blog posts. At any rate we filed with the state of California and formed an LLC, got an EIN number from the IRS and we are now a legitimate company. I told Cesar when I first proposed the idea that it would be a 50/50 split. There may be a few of you who are reading this right now and thinking, “that’s crazy, it was your company, your idea… Etc., etc.”.

I had a number of reasons for going this route. First and foremost was simplicity. It’s far easier to divide everything two ways expenses, profits, workload (where possible, more on that in a minute) and everything else. Also, I felt like I would not have thought about making game designing an actual legitimate business if it wasn’t for Cesar’s enthusiasm over OLB (our short hand for One Letter Better). I also didn’t want to be “the boss”. It’s a four letter word and not one of my favorite positions to be in. I also have some personal history in a number of partnerships. I started a mobile DJ company right out of high school with some friends and we did pretty well for a number of years. I learned a lot from that endeavor. I’ve also been in a partnership with a creative type who is absolutely one of the most talented artists I know. The downside to that arrangement was he wanted to control almost everything we did. Yes, his art was the basis for our company but it didn’t sit well with me and eventually led to the dissolution of the partnership.

Cesar and I don’t agree on everything… Thank goodness! The last thing in the world I want in a business like this is another me. Yes, I have some pretty good ideas but I also have some terrible ones. We can usually tell when an idea is good. One of us will say, “I really like that idea!” And usually if one of us doesn’t agree with an idea, it’s not the entire idea but usually some part of it. I have a slight advantage over Cesar in that I’ve done about a half a dozen or so escape room’s and he’s yet to do his first one (as of this writing, September 22, 2023). So there are times when I might have to interject my very small modicum of experience and steer an idea in a slightly different direction but for the most part our vision seems to be pretty much on the same track.

There are some skill sets that we have in common. We both work in maintenance so building things, painting and all of that we can both do. But we also have skills unique to each of us that will really help. Cesar has had far more experience in electrical work than I have, at least when it comes to voltages of 120 and higher. He also has far better artistic skills than I do. I’m pretty good on the computer with graphics but the stuff I sketch out with a pencil needs a lot of help. On my end, I’ve done a fair amount of work with Arduino processors and I’ve done a lot of programming. I’ve also done a lot of writing which is why I do the blog posts. Public speaking, presentations and that sort of thing, that’s my world, too. (20 years as a DJ helps.) Keeping us out of rabbit holes and on track, Cesar is better at that than I am although SOS tends to affect both of us.  Communication? Yeah, definitely one of my stronger attributes. I am forever asking Cesar, “Hey, did you get my text yesterday?” He said his girlfriend makes the same complaint and I told him, “Dude, maybe it’s you.” He’s getting better. And of course my kryptonite is Amazon, I’m prone to getting ideas and ordering pieces and parts before the entire plan is really fleshed out. This is why one of the props we have is a 60 minute hourglass… Yes, an actual glass container with sand inside that runs out in about 61 minutes. Oh, we’ll use it one day but not right now.

Tune in next week for Part 2. IN the meantime, have a great day and be nice to someone.