Introduction

I recently ran across a post by another publisher talking a bit about how they did things and asking for honest feedback of how you (or I) would do things differently.  This has inspired me to make this blog post on what we here at Mayday Games do differently and what I would encourage anyone starting a new (or running an existing) game company on how to do things.  This isn't meant as a criticism of anyone else or a condemnation of how others choose to run their operations, but some idea that vary significantly from how most others in the industry do things, and why.

1. Don't Be Complacent With Your Manufacturing Partner(s)

Mayday began all the way back in 2008 and I (Seth, the founder) opted to sell my home and cars in Utah and move to Suzhou China in 2011.  I lived there full time for 5+ years.  Why? To get close to the manufacturing, learn the language and hopefully get my costs down.  We had an evergreen title we were producing at the time for $3.30/unit and we retailed it for $20.  We went through a "factory" that was actually a middleman based out of Hong Kong for most of our manufacturing.  Back 15-20 years ago doing business with China was hard and perceived as risky.  

A group of other small publishers from January 2017 when we went around and visited 3 different chinese factories together.

Just starting out we didn't KNOW anything about what factories to use or how to go about finding factories.  I'll never forget one of my earliest GenCon's when one particular "factory" came to our booth and showed me a suitcase with some of the other games they produced.  These are VERY high quality and well respected games and I was elated to find the "holy grail" of finding THE factory where so many of the best games were being made.  I was beyond happy... until I saw the quotes and saw that they were significantly higher than some other quotes I had seen for the same product.  

Back then there was no really public knowledge of what factory did what or which ones to go to and I had NO idea how to deal with it all.  Moving to China and visiting actual factories I quickly began to see that there was a TON of difference not only in quality but also in price, and that one isn't always related to the other.  So I did what any good CPA/MBA would do and started asking for quotes from multiple factories.  I did several print runs with some frankly less high-quality factories that were somewhat cheaper but in the end the quality was just too poor.  We tried a few very "high end" factories and got quotes from many more but noticed their quality wasn't any better than some of their cheaper competition.  

But the main thing I did was I never outsourced the factory selection/bid process to anyone else.  I even now keep a googlesheet with every single quote for every single game we have made and I always quote every new game out to at least 3 factories that I know and trust.  I've worked with over 20 game factories in the last 17 years in the industry and have 6-8 that I know do good work.  So why not just stick to one?  To keep their feet to the fire, to keep them honest and to keep pressure on them to force them to keep me as a customer.  This is the actual quote for a recent game we are making in 2025:

Look at those price differences.  I also track how long it takes for each factory to get back to us and what the price is at what volume and select the cheapest among those I trust.  Sometimes it really surprises me just how varied the factory quotes are, one factory may be much cheaper on a specific game and then the next game they are much more expensive, you just never know.  I believe this is a result of the factories themselves not knowing how best to quote based on their own fixed overhead costs, direct variable costs and internal accounting practices.  It must also be influenced by their overall profitability, excess capacity and their own goals to gain marketshare in the industry.  

Do you remember that $3.30/unit game we were making in 2008?  We reprinted it several times over the years and the price slowly dropped as we shopped it around. Then in 2015 when we went to reprint it again we got a quote of $1.08 per unit at 3,000 units.  I was SHOCKED by that quote as it was about half of any of the other quotes, but we happily took it.  That factory made that game for us for two years before they came back to us and said they had misallocated their costs on that quote and the new price would be $2.11/unit.  I believe they lost money on that game for 2+ years before they realized it.  

But being on the ground in China and working directly with factories has really paid off.  That same $3.30/unit game is now about $1.42/unit for 2025 (3,000 units), which is amazing and so key with the tariffs in 2025.   If I was still working with that so-called factory that was actually a middleman the price would be at least 2-3 times what we are getting now.  Here is the actual quote for this game for 2025:

I frequently get factories asking for feedback and offering to "match" the lowest price to work with us, I never accept those and tell them I don't want to go haggling back and forth with factories in a bidding war and to just give me their best price next time.  

Something else I have heard from more than one factory in the last few years is that some factories are playing dirty with their quotes.  Imagine if I had a trusted employee (who we will call Chad) who was over the quote process who I sent to China to oversee manufacturing and select the factory.  Now imagine factory #4 from above was quoting at $6.64/unit but they offered Chad a direct kickback of $1/unit direct to his personal bank account to go with them for manufacturing.  It would be hard for Chad to say no to that and to just "lose" the email of factory #1.  This is actually something that has and is happening in the industry.  

So what is the main difference we have here versus other game publishers?  I as the owner still deal directly with the factory for all quotes and make the decision on who we work with in the end.  They can't offer me any kickback because I am the owner.  I also keep the factories honest but also play fair with them by not going back and asking any factory to match a competitor.  

I see time and again smaller and even larger companies (you know who you are) blindly sticking with the same factory just because they like to stay with who they trust.  Why give your factory that power over your production and why not take new projects out for bid to factories you trust?  Yes I speak Mandarin and am back to living in China again, but you don't have to do that to get a good bid with a reputable factory these days. There is public information out there about the factories.  If you are a publisher and want my run-down on my top 5 factories right now and why, reach out and I'll be happy to share my 17-year experience and recommend some contacts to you.  

But why be complacent in your cost of goods sold? Do you blindly stick with one distributor or sales channel or shipping company?  Of course not... and yet I see so many companies these days just going to the same factory over and over.  It makes no sense to me.

2. Don't Just Pay For Third-Party Warehousing

As a small startup back on 2008 before crowdfunding, we didn't have the preorder sales from Kickstarter/Gamefound to play with.  We started out with my American Express card and a dream to make this business work.  It started out in a friend's basement and then in a very cheap warehouse.  It was more like a barn actually, but it was cheap. 

Our 'Warehouse" from 2010 and 2013

We looked at getting a third-party warehouse to store our product and ship it out for us, but it just never made sense to me.  I knew they would just do exactly what I would do, but then mark it up for their profit.  Mayday would also never be their number one client or priority and getting information to/from them would of course be slower than if we did it directly ourselves.  

Additionally, seeing a storage bill every month is much different than seeing your own warehouse packed to the rafters.  Having a finite amount of space and having to manage that space forced us to turn inventory over quickly and be very careful about how much we purchased from factories, keeping our print runs small unless there was overwhelming evidence that we needed to print more.  

We have always run our own warehouse and are super focused on getting as cheap a place as we can get away with.  We have stuffed ourselves into smaller warehouses and made do with no forklift for years, just to save money.  Here is an actual copy of our lease from 2019, we were paying $1,100/month for 2,000 square feet in what could best be described as a barn, but that was insanely cheap for Utah.  

Our "warehouse" of 2,000 square feet from 2019 to 2024.

We have kept our overhead costs down and manage all our own shipments and warehousing.  We do the same thing a third-party warehouse would do, but without the overhead.  

At the end of 2024 we moved into our own warehouse, it is a MONSTER of a warehouse, but we bought the one acre of land and built the 18,000 square foot warehouse.  We are in the middle 6,000 square feet unit and have pallet racking and a forklift so we can go 4-pallets high.  We are renting out the other 2 units this year which should cover our mortgage, allowing us to work there basically rent free.  Overhead costs are kept way, way down and being frugal (ok downright cheap) is a huge plus.  We don't waste money on stuff we don't need and we have been able to save enough over the years to be able to afford our own warehouse now.  We are no longer throwing away money on rent and our costs are SO MUCH CHEAPER than if we were still renting, or worse still paying someone else to do what we are too lazy to manage. Take a quick tour of our setup in the video below.

We still pinch ourselves every day that we get to work in such an amazing, clean and organized environment!  

 

3. Be SMART In Your Convention/Travel Expenses

We often hear of other companies spending $50,000 or more at a single convention for their booth, hotels, airfare (especially to Spiel) and chalking it all up to "well it's marketing".  Forget that!  As a CPA I keep a google sheet of EVERY convention we go to with total sales, every expense and the profit (or usually loss) to assess if that convention is really worth attending.  During COVID we stopped going to shows completely for a couple of years and our sale went up dramatically.  We realized that while yes the "marketing" and "general presence" are nice, you know what else is nice?  Staying in business.  Blowing all your money on high-living and expensive hotels just to show off how epic you are feels way too much like "fake it till you make it" style spending.  Our largest booth is a 20x20 at GenCon and that is already over $10,000 just for the booth.

We track every dollar and we assess every show.  We had to pull out of Origins a couple of years ago when we lost more than $10,000 on that show alone. The sales just didn't justify the expenses any more.  We had some employees pushing back asking us to go, I told them they could totally go, just split the loss with me.  For some reason when it was their $5,000 out of pocket sharing half of that loss suddenly they weren't interested any more!

But even if you do value the "marketing" and overall presence enough to go to more shows than we do, you should spend frugally and be extremely careful with how you spend.  One of the other added bonuses of running our own warehouse is that we have over $1 million a year in shipping expenses, and guess where that goes?  Right onto my personal points cards!  With that kind of spend I am a Diamond on Delta, a Titanium on Marriott and have more Chase Rewards and Amex points than I know what to do with. 

I keep a googlesheet (are you seeing a trend here?) of all of the cards, what cards get what bonuses and what those bonuses are worth relative to the cost of the card.  Here is a breakdown of my top 5 my cards and what I get with them:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve is $550/year but this gets me a TON of points, $300 Annual Travel Credit, doordash pass +$5/month doordash credit + Lyft Pink Annual membership, 3x points on dining.  Mainly I got 100,000 points when I signed up and I call them back every year and threaten to cancel the card and they throw another bonus at me to keep the card active.  Last year I got another 50,000 points by calling right before the annual renewal date.  You can join on with my affiliate link HERE.
• Marriott Bonvoy Chase is $95/year but I get 15 Stay Credits/year ( good toward keeping status + 1 additional Credit per $5k spent + 3x points on grocery/gas/dining.  I also get a free night on each anniversary date (35k points).  With at least 40k Marriott points at sign up it is a no brainer too.   I'm currently a lifetime Gold and working my way toward Lifetime Platinum on Marriott.  I get 4 PM checkout, early checking and lots of upgrades due to my status. You can join up on my link HERE. 
• Amex Business Platinum is a crazy $695/year, but I got 140k Amex points to upgrade to it last year (worth $1400), I get $200 in free Dell stuff every 6 months, plus Top 2 categories earn X4 points out of 6 categories for first $150 k per calendar year.  The 6 categories are: Airfare, US Ads, Gas, Restaurants, and.... Shipping!  Yes 4x on SHIPPING means I run $150k of our shipping bills through this card for 600,000 Amex Points per year.  You get 150,000 points if you sign up under my link right now, that is $1400 worth of points!  My affiliate link HERE.
• Delta Amex Reserve is one of my favorite cards, I put $240k per year on it to keep my Diamond Status without even having to fly.  Yes that is a lot but I get 4 upgrades into first class on international flights on Delta and Delta Partners per year for it and that alone is worth it to me.  As much as I travel, getting free Delta Lounge access is also huge.  Stopping over in LAX, SFO or SEA on the way back from Asia and taking a shower in the lounge is amazing!  My link for that will give you 100,000 Delta Points (worth about $1,000) so it is a no brainer if you can meet the $6,000 spend in 6 months to get the points.  My link is HERE.
• Chase Business Ink is HUGE for us, in fact we have two of these!  They cost just $95/year and give you 3x points on postage for the first $150k per year.  You get 90,000 Chase Points with my link HERE.

I currently have 370k Marriott Points, 250k Delta Points, 142k Amex Points and a ridiculous 843k Chase Rewards Points.  What is all this good for you ask?  Saving on Convention/Travel Expenses.  Just to show a few examples of how good this is, we currently have 3 rooms booked at Marriott properties from October 21-27 in Essen Germany for Spiel 2025.  Those 3 rooms cost a total of 375,000 Marriott points, or $3,750 worth of points.  The cheapest we could have booked those rooms was $250 per night x 6 nights x 3 rooms = $4,500 USD cash.  I am not going to pay a penny for all our rooms at Essen again this year.  Some years the points have been as low as 80k/room for those 6 nights.  Sweet right?

How about flights?  We used Delta Points to get out to GenCon from Salt Lake last year (2024) and transferred Chase points to SouthWest to get back. There were 9 of us that flew to Indianapolis and back. Hold onto your hats....

For 9 of us round trip we paid $95.23 USD total, plus 389,471 points.  Yes, $95 total.  

Essen last year we flew 6 of us out to Europe from Salt Lake City:

The total cost was $2,077 in cash and about 550,000 points for 6 of us round trip from Salt Lake to Amsterdam or other nearby airports.  

I am also super careful with my phone bill.  I use Mint Mobile on the Tmobile network and it works "fine".  Not great, but good enough.  I pay $240/year (so $20/month) for 15 gb per month.  But, I get a $45 credit off of each referral and in 2024 I had 4 referrals so I got $180 off my $240 phone bill for 2024.  $60 for 12 months = $5/month.  Not bad!  You can join Mint Mobile and stop paying $100/month for your phone bill HERE.

We are super careful what we spend and don't have the luxury of being hoity-toity.  We are down in the trenches trying to save money wherever we can, staying lean and hungry and always watching the bottom line to ensure we can stay around and keep our jobs.  I remember vividly when another employee was helping me unload stuff from a truck and set up our booth the day before a convention.  This guys wife calls and tells him "hey, you are the so-and-so (VP or something), this grunt work is beneath you!"  He calmly replied that he was right there slugging boxes with the owner.   

When I go into the warehouse it isn't to crack the whip or try to jam people up, it is to see what they need to do their job better.  If that means scrubbing toilets or making a run to Walmart to get something or taking note that we need a new computer, so be it.  I'm there to help everyone succeed together and this company only runs because we all pitch in together, and no one is above manual labor.  And I mean no one.  Check out this video of Kate (my wife) driving the forklift on the dirt road outside our old warehouse.  She has gotten pretty good from unloading containers.

Conclusion:

In the end, overspending will kill any company, especially when you are doing so well with your sales and profits that your expenses don't seem to matter much.  It is exactly when you are doing well that you need to be saving for a rainy day.  The board game publisher landscape is littered with bloated companies that produced too many copies of games, put them in third-party warehouses, over spent at conventions, or way overpaid for their manufacturing.  If you're a publisher, don't do that!  If you want to be a publisher, do it all on the cheap until you absolutely have to pony up and spend more money. 

Drive non-stop to GenCon like I did the first few years when I didn't want to spend money on the hotel or take an extra day off of my day job.  Sure it was a 24-hour drive from Utah and I was tired, but I didn't die!  Haul your own product to the convention center from the UPS store down the street (just ship it there with "hold for pickup" and use it as your personal warehouse).  I did this for several years and saved a TON on shipping this way. Find ways to save money and keep yourself in the game.

What are we doing different?  We still act like we need the money and are very frugal in spite of our successes.   Hopefully you found this insightful and can take some of this to heart!