Silly Card Game

It’s just a silly card game.

Although I don’t recall saying this until recently when I was self-reflecting with my personal coach, it seems to have been an underlying theme since my wife Bethany and I started Radio Chatter. It was our first conversation starter game - a deck of 52 playing cards with adventure-themed conversation starter questions on them. This condescending mindset toward our own game probably has roots in the first time Bethany started asking questions on our GMRS radio and getting the feedback from people that we should make something out of her "game.” Her quick response was always, “But it’s just conversation starters, there are many products like this out there.” In fact, we had used conversation starter games throughout much of our relationship, including on a deep and personal trip to Iceland. Side note: That story of ours can be found in the book Tails from the Trails: Off-Road Stories of Adventure and Resilience by David McBee. So since we didn't come up with conversation starters, it was natural for us to have disbelief that our simple and not original idea could lead to anything of true value and sustenance.

This doubt, or even dare I say lack of confidence, in our idea carried over into the half dozen or so podcasts we were on when we first launched our product. I know if you go back and listen to them, I comment several times that it’s a fun side hustle, but we aren’t going to “retire off of it or anything.” Subconsciously, this probably also led me to pursue the business acquisition space. Seeing Radio Chatter as still a side hustle, it was natural to think the obvious replacement for the 9–5 would have to be something of equal magnitude, such as running an existing business. Building a business to meet those same financial expectations would take years, and likely fail. That is the whole point of ETA, as I commented in my very first blog post: buy a proven, steady stream of income.

Why build when you can buy?

I knew this journey I am currently on was fundamentally about becoming an entrepreneur, and my entrepreneurship desire was a mixed model. I always envisioned my true self owning several businesses or having several different gigs going on at the same time. My mindset was fixated though that I needed to acquire to have something proven and stable, and everything else would just be the fun hustles to give me the mixed model I was looking for. Buy so I have the freedom (financial and time) to build.

This concept was echoed in a conversation I just had with someone who has both started a business (and still has it 7+ years later) and has recently purchased one (<3 months ago). We talked about how leaving a 9–5 to start a business (what he did for his first business) is scary. You may have a family or others depending on your income. You may even take out a loan to get your business off the ground without knowing if it will work. But purchasing gives you existing customers and cash flow, so it seems a lot less scary. It even feels less risky. But acquisitions require more upfront capital, though that cost feels warranted because you have a working machine on day one.

When I reflect back to last November, when I was refining what my next steps were going to be since I knew I would be leaving the 9–5 in April, even though I knew it was entrepreneurship, I was still figuring out how. I remember being on a plane to Bora Bora - a trip years in the making to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary and our 40th birthdays - reading and listening to everything I could about entrepreneurship. Books like Traction and Entrepreneurial Leap, podcasts, and articles all hammered on a similar theme: 

develop an initial prototype for your business idea and get it in the hands of real customers. When people you don’t know start advocating for you and talking about your product, you know you’re onto something.

I remember chuckling reading this suggestion and reflecting on Radio Chatter and the orders from people we don’t know and have never met. The orders to Australia even! People have reached out asking to wholesale for us and how they can help. People have asked us to be on podcasts, or better yet, podcasts have talked about us independently without us as guests. Yet, I always pushed this positive feedback aside because it was “just a side hustle.”

When I compared us to other similar companies, especially in the off-road and overlanding space, I can recall envying what they had. One company I have gotten to know makes adventure badges for people to commemorate their travels. You can check them out on their website: All Roads Taken. They started around the same time we did and I have gotten to know them quite well. I always liked that they had a physical product (like Radio Chatter), but they also had a mobile app and a way to interact with customers on an ongoing basis. This really hit me in the soft spot of loving software and software development. It wasn’t just transactional like our product, but ongoing engagement with their community via their mobile app.

Compare this to the last company my business partners and I completed a due diligence phase on as part of a potential acquisition. It had a physical product, an online presence, and an ongoing relationship with customers. It really pulled together a lot of what I’ve experienced both working in Corporate America, some of what I have done being an entrepreneur, and what I’ve read or listened to in terms of entrepreneurship and leadership. The business was very well-balanced and checked a lot of boxes of my interests. That was exciting, thinking about pulling together all these thoughts, ideas, and visions in my head into a physical/digital company that continually provides value to passionate customers.

Around the same time the above-mentioned acquisition fell through, we launched our first Radio Chatter mobile app version of our physical card game on iOS. When this happened, and I started talking to people using it, I quickly saw the possibilities of a digital game that continues to get better over time and brings a community together. I started seeing that part physical and part digital model I had envied in other businesses could very well be right in front of me.

So now, we are back to the two-sided coin and what path to take. Do I continue down business acquisition as my primary mode because that is “less risky, more financially viable” and what I said I was going to do when I left my job? Or do I take that second “risky and time-consuming” path and focus primarily on building our business? The decision is influenced by energy and where I find myself excited but also what I perceive as risk at this pointing my journey.

Risk can be subjective. I know this because I worked in cybersecurity, where measuring risk was always difficult. I have built and modified risk assessment models with very smart people and one thing I have learned is risk perception and tolerance requires context for maximum impact, but perception and context also changes over time. This means the way you perceive, measure, and respond to risk has to evolve too.

I’ve seen this play out not just in theory, but in my own life. Back in 2020, when the world was on lockdown and spending was at a low for most households, Bethany and I both were on a reduced salary. I remember working on our finances and our emergency fund thinking about risk such as losing our jobs, more salary cuts, and how to pay the bills if things got worse. It took a while to realize our emergency fund was unnecessarily high because we had other debt like a car payment and student loans still on the books. When that (obvious) connection finally hit, I took a big chunk of that emergency fund and paid off my vehicle and Bethany’s student loans. Now, we had less debt and therefore required less money in an emergency fund.

Risk = perception.

This same kind of realization happened when I was reviewing the finances with my wife not too long ago. At the time, I assumed we needed a short(er) runway because the money would go toward acquiring a business. But when that fell through, I realized something important: without a large purchase draining our cash, the runway we built was much longer. And the progress I already made in a few short months suggested building could actually be viable. Any additional income we made in the meantime, such as via consulting or freelance work, would extend the runway further, creating more time for Radio Chatter to grow.

So at this point of my journey, the pendulum has swung to “build” away from “buy” as my primary focus. Not only are we still getting our physical product out there and pushing our first digital product, but we’re also further advancing three other projects we have had in the works for over a year, stalled because of lack of time. Some of these prototype products well suited for digital, others are more suited for physical products. Simultaneously, I am getting some feelers out there and talking to individuals who could benefit from my ~20 years of corporate experience as a short-term, part-time consultant of freelance/fractional team member. Shameless self-plug, if you know someone, pass them my way!

But back what is important:

What do you see as the risk associated with what's holding you back?

How are you measuring it?

Could you perceive it a different way?