Board games for rent
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Here I would like to tell you about one project that we worked on at the product management course by the Product Sense team. Now the guys have changed the line of training courses, before it was 3 stages: the first stage helped to understand what the product approach/mindset in general is, this stage was free. The next stage - intermediate, a course of 10 weeks, more in-depth, involving teamwork on the project and protection in front of a group of experts at the end of the course. The third step is Advanced level (if I am not mistaken for people who started their own business/startup). Now I will talk about the second stage training.
For me, 50% (or even more) of the benefits of any course are people - mentors and participants. The overall level, the motivation, the questions are all important. I wasn't a practitioner at the time, but it wasn't my first product management course. It was curious, but I didn't have high expectations.
For me, 50% (or even more) of the benefits of any course are people - mentors and participants. The overall level, the motivation, the questions are all important. I wasn't a practitioner at the time, but it wasn't my first product management course. It was curious, but I didn't have high expectations.
Structure
In the course at the very beginning it was necessary to divide into projects - the course participants offered ideas to work on, those who did not have big ideas could join the project they liked. I joined a project whose idea came from Sasha, who has been a good friend of mine ever since. The project was about renting board games.
Each week of the course was devoted to a certain aspect, we often called each other and discussed our thoughts and brainstormed. It's great when people are interested, sharing thoughts and experiences, it's such a flow, a real synergy. Often we would start with one thing and come up with completely different things in the process.
Each week of the course was devoted to a certain aspect, we often called each other and discussed our thoughts and brainstormed. It's great when people are interested, sharing thoughts and experiences, it's such a flow, a real synergy. Often we would start with one thing and come up with completely different things in the process.
Process
The first module was introductory. There we teamed up, came up with ideas, there was general information about product management and what skills middles need, we set goals for the course. I immediately decided to join the project, where the word 'games' was mentioned, as something as clear and pleasant as possible. There were thoughts that if I do not reach the end, then at least I will spend time discussing board games.
On the second module, we started to fill out Lean Canvas and write a press release. Admittedly, we fiddled with this for many, many weeks, polishing, changing, and clarifying. I do not remember, at what point we moved away from the rental service, and began to think in terms of sales service. There were thoughts about the exchange service. The first version of the press release has not survived but the core audience was defined as modern adults aged 25-40 who like to actively spend time with their friends. People like us.
The high-level concept sounded like 'We are like a video rental service in the world of board games'.
The third module was about finding value and interviewing users. We did 10+ in-depth interviews. We had a clear plan and structure for 30 minutes, but I immediately fell out of it all, simply because the conversation went in a completely different direction. One summer I read a book 'The Mom Test' by Rob Fitzpatrick and I remembered a very important thing from it - the more informal the interview is, the deeper and more real insights you get, simply because some things can be forgotten or presented in a different way if you ask about it head-on.
We got some interesting insights: the idea of renting games seemed interesting to our respondents, but we understood that for the segment of people for whom we were offering this service, the cost was not much of an issue, besides, there were certain inconveniences with checking kits, rental and return conditions, etc.
In the fourth module we defined the target audience and its needs, built JTBD, in the fifth - we defined the CA and assessed the market volume, identified a non-market advantage. Module 6 was a break in the middle of the course, an opportunity to completely turn the idea around 180 degrees if the initial hypothesis was not confirmed.
On the second module, we started to fill out Lean Canvas and write a press release. Admittedly, we fiddled with this for many, many weeks, polishing, changing, and clarifying. I do not remember, at what point we moved away from the rental service, and began to think in terms of sales service. There were thoughts about the exchange service. The first version of the press release has not survived but the core audience was defined as modern adults aged 25-40 who like to actively spend time with their friends. People like us.
The high-level concept sounded like 'We are like a video rental service in the world of board games'.
The third module was about finding value and interviewing users. We did 10+ in-depth interviews. We had a clear plan and structure for 30 minutes, but I immediately fell out of it all, simply because the conversation went in a completely different direction. One summer I read a book 'The Mom Test' by Rob Fitzpatrick and I remembered a very important thing from it - the more informal the interview is, the deeper and more real insights you get, simply because some things can be forgotten or presented in a different way if you ask about it head-on.
We got some interesting insights: the idea of renting games seemed interesting to our respondents, but we understood that for the segment of people for whom we were offering this service, the cost was not much of an issue, besides, there were certain inconveniences with checking kits, rental and return conditions, etc.
In the fourth module we defined the target audience and its needs, built JTBD, in the fifth - we defined the CA and assessed the market volume, identified a non-market advantage. Module 6 was a break in the middle of the course, an opportunity to completely turn the idea around 180 degrees if the initial hypothesis was not confirmed.
During those three weeks we continued to discuss different hypotheses and conduct interviews, read various articles about board games, analyzed markets and competitors, and read foreign forums about board games. We thought about involving big market rental services, but it did not fit into our concept in the end.
Our monetization model is subscription. We offer several tariffs. Each plan's subscription price is approximately equal to the cost of one game.
Our unit-economy was optimistic - we converged on month 4 and covered our investment costs on month 8. We took the subscription conversion rate of 3% as the average between the forecasts. The model included marketing costs, start-up costs, distribution of users by rates and user churn. Planned to reduce CAC through sponsorship at topical conferences and exhibitions.
But in fact, the phrase that is firmly imprinted in my head and which I wrote down - the main metric that kills any project is CAC (customer acquisition cost), it is very high. The customer acquisition cost doesn't depend on your product, it just depends on the engagement channels and the competition in those engagement channels.
Our monetization model is subscription. We offer several tariffs. Each plan's subscription price is approximately equal to the cost of one game.
Our unit-economy was optimistic - we converged on month 4 and covered our investment costs on month 8. We took the subscription conversion rate of 3% as the average between the forecasts. The model included marketing costs, start-up costs, distribution of users by rates and user churn. Planned to reduce CAC through sponsorship at topical conferences and exhibitions.
But in fact, the phrase that is firmly imprinted in my head and which I wrote down - the main metric that kills any project is CAC (customer acquisition cost), it is very high. The customer acquisition cost doesn't depend on your product, it just depends on the engagement channels and the competition in those engagement channels.
The customer acquisition cost (CAC) doesn't depend on your product. It just depends on the engagement channels and the competition in those engagement channels
Prototyping and testing the prototype. This module was the easiest for me. I assembled MVP - a site with the description of 4 rates in Figma.
The user chooses the games himself or uses the system of recommendations, places the order and specifies the convenient time of delivery. Courier brings and picks up the games at the specified time.
At the prototype stage we tested the hypothesis of allocation of the most expensive tariff with rare games, but this hypothesis was not confirmed and we left allocation of the standard tariff.
The user chooses the games himself or uses the system of recommendations, places the order and specifies the convenient time of delivery. Courier brings and picks up the games at the specified time.
At the prototype stage we tested the hypothesis of allocation of the most expensive tariff with rare games, but this hypothesis was not confirmed and we left allocation of the standard tariff.
Presentation the final idea
At the very end there was a responsible mission for me - to present the project, as only Sasha and I reached the end, others were somehow deflated, and Sasha was on her way to vacation. I remember the evening before - we did several runs, trying to fit the pitch into the 5 minutes allotted. But I still didn't get half of it done, I was worried.
The surprising thing was that the beginning of the course was in a new job, so I was not even sure that I would get to the end, there were a lot of things to do. But eventually I even defended our project to the experts, the project became dear to me.
The surprising thing was that the beginning of the course was in a new job, so I was not even sure that I would get to the end, there were a lot of things to do. But eventually I even defended our project to the experts, the project became dear to me.
New Round
A few months later, a person from our course sent me a message with an offer to restart the project. It was nice that we were remembered, remembered this idea of sharing, of board games. It was like it was some kind of sign. It was a new round of our project.
We came back to the fact that the only monetization model that came together in any way was the subscription model, but we hadn't found exactly the value of that, which would make you pay regularly. All one-time stories are hard to scale and predict. Sasha read about rental game businesses that ended up closing. Again we turned the idea in our hands like a Rubik's cube, but in this case we came to the same thing - the digital business would not pay off, and we did not want to go into e-commerce. The cherry on the cake was that I got a new job and Sasha moved to the current position of product manager. We hit a dead end with our idea and decided to put it on hold (for now), to let it infuse.
We are friends with Sasha, she is my confederate, a person on my wave. Maybe one day with renewed motivation we will return to our project. Since the presentation I realized that telling something in public is a whole art, and I want to learn how to do it.
We came back to the fact that the only monetization model that came together in any way was the subscription model, but we hadn't found exactly the value of that, which would make you pay regularly. All one-time stories are hard to scale and predict. Sasha read about rental game businesses that ended up closing. Again we turned the idea in our hands like a Rubik's cube, but in this case we came to the same thing - the digital business would not pay off, and we did not want to go into e-commerce. The cherry on the cake was that I got a new job and Sasha moved to the current position of product manager. We hit a dead end with our idea and decided to put it on hold (for now), to let it infuse.
We are friends with Sasha, she is my confederate, a person on my wave. Maybe one day with renewed motivation we will return to our project. Since the presentation I realized that telling something in public is a whole art, and I want to learn how to do it.