Board game boom sets entrepreneur up for sale
THERE is nothing puzzling about the boom Hamilton business Game Kings is experiencing.
The brainchild of Eliot Jessep and Ben Hawken, the business revenue is already up more than 200 per cent on last year, and on track to notch up $2.5 million in sales this year.
Jessep said the company was one that had definitely benefited from Covid-19 this year.
‘‘People being locked at home has made people keen on board games again. The week leading up to level 4 was busier than Christmas. We got thousands of new customers, awhole lot have actually come back to us.’’
The online board game distribution store produces its own games, as well as selling other board games and puzzles.
The business expanded in leaps and bounds, meaning it moved out of a CBD location to Kahikatea Dr so it had a warehouse and retail space available to them.
‘‘We have increased the range of games from 350 to 2500 games,’’ said Jessep.
‘‘When it first started this was like a hobby for me on Trade Me, and I was talking with one of my flatmates about how much this could do, and I said imagine if we could do $50k in a year. On Black Friday we did that in a day, over that period of Black Friday and Cyber Monday we did just shy of $200k, which is just insane.’’
One of Jessep’s original shareholders was his godmother, businesswoman Jan Sosinko. She sold her shares in the company to Alex Mark, who owns Groovy Media.
‘‘So they’ve taken over our marketing and advertising, so that has driven our growth.’’
Jessep has a plan to grow the company over the next couple of years so someone buys it.
‘‘In three or four years time I think we could easily be making $15m to $20m. It sounds ridiculous, but a couple of years ago $50,000 seemed ridiculous.
The boom in business hasn’t
When it first started this was like a hobby for me... On Black Friday we did [$50k] in a day, over that period of Black Friday and Cyber Monday we did just shy of $200k, which is just insane.’ ELIOT JESSEP
meant that Jessep was now living a life of luxury – he’s still flatting with Hawken and working as a stage lighting designer – but did get a new car this year.
‘‘Neither of us have started drawing massive amounts of cash out because it’s all about growing as fast as we can until one of our competitors or someone sees us valuable enough to buy us.
‘‘I am still the same 25-yearold, I still do a lot of lighting
work as well, but I am starting to struggle with the balance of lighting work and Game Kings.
‘‘I was just on tour with Benee for a month, which was awesome, but that took a huge toll on being away from here for amonth.’’
They have also brought out expansions of their popular games, bestseller te reo memory game Ta¯karo, which has two new versions, as well as Ta¯karo Bits & Bobs, and Ta¯karo Into The Wild.
Another popular seller was cheeky card game Kiwis Versus Morality.
‘‘The biggest critique was that it wasn’t dirty enough, so we have cleaned up the first version a little bit and released the ‘Black Box’, which is a dirtier expansion to add onto the game.’’
And they have also just released a Covid-19 related expansion.
‘‘We thought New Zealanders are pretty good at having a laugh. We made it New Zealandspecific, as we are not ready to laugh at Covid on a large scale. It was 50/50 if we should make it or not, but it was released on Black Friday and it’s selling really, really well.
‘‘We haven’t had any kickback so far.’’
Game Kings is set to release 12 new games next year.