The Crowdfund-Then-License Path
Three ways to sell a game, and the only one worth taking is a hybrid: prove it on crowdfunding, ship it, then license it.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 92%
Asked what a smart, capable person with no games experience should do, Elan lays out three paths and then rejects all three individually. Self-publishing he calls terrible — you make and pay for every mistake and cannot undo them. Going straight to a publisher works but requires bona fides you do not have. Crowdfunding alone is powerful because it is a discovery platform, but it is not the whole answer. His actual favourite is the combination: start on crowdfunding, fail and relaunch until something succeeds, ship the game and prove you can fulfil, collect video reactions from every buyer, and take that package to a publisher who already has the retail meetings.
Origin
Exploding Kittens itself launched on Kickstarter at what Elan calls perfect timing — few people had heard of the platform, the game was drawn by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal who already had a large audience, and 219,000 people backed it. He is candid that a campaign at that scale is unlikely today, because roughly half of Kickstarter projects shipped late, wrong, or never, and backers now arrive carrying that baggage.
Core principles
- 01There are three paths — self-publishing, licensing to an existing publisher, and crowdfunding — and the best one is a combination of the last two.
- 02Self-publishing is the worst option for a beginner because you make every mistake, you pay for every mistake, and once made you cannot undo it.
- 03Licensing works and can still make you rich, but publishers need bona fides; you cannot arrive as a brand new designer with a brand new game.
- 04Crowdfunding is not just funding — it is a discovery platform where strangers are actively looking for new experiences to back.
- 05Your first crowdfunding project will probably fail, and that is fine, because nothing is at stake and you are learning the process.
- 06Ship before you approach publishers — if the only thing you can prove is that you are a train wreck waiting to happen, you get nothing.
- 07A small fulfilment counts: sell a hundred copies, fulfil a hundred copies, and reach out to every one of those buyers for a video.
- 08Crowdfunding is also a cheap filter — if you cannot sell anything there, you will never sell a mass retail buyer, and learning that fast saves you years.
- 09If it is going to fail, you want it to fail as quickly as possible, and that is good news as long as you do not take it personally.
How to run it
- 1
Eliminate pure self-publishing
You can print your own decks, design everything, write the rules and spend a few thousand dollars on a few hundred copies. Elan's verdict is that it sucks, you will make every mistake, you will pay for every one, and once made you cannot take it back.
Pro tip Tim's parallel warning — do not underestimate the value of your time and sanity.
Watch out Tim's own audiobook product ended up as a garage full of unsold inventory that eventually melted in the heat.
- 2
Launch on crowdfunding and expect to fail
Start on whatever crowdfunding platform you like, especially if it is your first time. Learn everything you can. Your first project will probably fail, which is fine — you have nothing at stake and lost nothing. Fix it, relaunch, fix it again, relaunch again, as many times as you need.
Pro tip The platform is doing double duty as a discovery engine — people are there looking for cool new experiences to back.
Watch out Crowdfunding numbers are down across the board because backers were burned by unshipped projects; expect a harder audience than five years ago.
- 3
Borrow trust from the secondary ecosystem
Elan's advice for the trust deficit is that a secondary ecosystem has grown up around Kickstarter — curated sites that vet, promote and advertise new offerings, most with 'backer' somewhere in the name. They take a percentage in exchange for helping with fulfilment and creation.
Pro tip The percentage buys you more than promotion: multiple parties now have an incentive to make sure the product actually ships.
- 4
Ship before you approach anyone
Elan is emphatic — do not go to publishers before you have shipped. If the only thing you can prove is that you are a train wreck waiting to happen, you will get nothing from them. Ship the game and show that you are organised, even on a hundred-copy fulfilment.
Pro tip Fulfilment competence is part of what you are selling; publishers are underwriting your reliability, not just your design.
Watch out A successful campaign with a stalled fulfilment is worse evidence than no campaign at all.
- 5
Harvest reaction videos from every buyer
If only a hundred people bought the game, reach out to every single one and beg them to record a video about how much they love it. That is what you are actually searching for from the campaign.
Pro tip This is the same evidence Elan's kitty test pilots produce internally — behavioural proof rather than testimonial text.
- 6
Take the bona fides to a publisher
Go to a convention and demo, or better, schedule a meeting and make the case. What you are saying is: here are my bona fides, here is proof this thing will sell, I have already sold it once. The pitch must answer why they would be a fool to pass on this opportunity.
Pro tip Publishers send scouts to conventions and check even the smallest booths and folding tables, but they have very few slots and one or two scouts, so a booked meeting beats being spotted.
Watch out Elan notes the submission form on their website almost never surfaces anything — cold submissions are the weakest channel.
- 7
Use failure speed as the actual payoff
Tim frames the deeper value: if you cannot sell anything in a crowdfunding campaign, you are not going to sell any buyer at mass retail, and knowing that saves you years of banging your head against a brick wall. Elan agrees, adding that if it is going to fail you want it to fail as quickly as possible.
Pro tip Elan's framing when a game dies: this game is flawed, and the faster I figure that out the faster I move on to one that isn't.
Watch out The only way this works is if you do not take it personally.
In the wild
Exploding Kittens launched on Kickstarter at what Elan calls an amazing twist of fate — very few people had heard of the platform, the game was drawn by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal who already had an enormous audience, and 219,000 people backed it. Over the following five years those backers stayed on Kickstarter and backed other projects, and found that only about half of them shipped: either the thing that arrived was nowhere close to what was promised, or it never arrived and no money came back.
→ A poisoned well — backers now carry an implanted memory of a bad experience, which Elan says is why nobody sees those numbers anymore.
Elan cites Brandon Sanderson, whom Tim had recently interviewed, as proof the platform is not remotely dead — a roughly forty-five million dollar Kickstarter campaign for fantasy books. Elan's read on why it worked is that Sanderson started with a great fan base, picked an incredible title, and made the first word of his campaign 'surprise', which nobody had done before. He calls it smart on top of smart on top of smart.
→ Evidence that crowdfunding rewards creativity and existing audience rather than platform momentum.
Tim adds a third option for the crowdfunding step: his friend Craig Mod, a writer and software engineer who produces beautiful hand-bound books in Japan, released the code for what Tim believes is called Craigstarter on GitHub. It lets you host your own crowdfunding campaign and, in Craig's view, fixes some of the bugs that were difficult to contend with on the major platforms, with Shopify and other services incorporated as modules.
→ A self-hosted route for creators who want the crowdfunding mechanic without the platform's baggage.
Common mistakes
Self-publishing as a first-time maker
Elan's flat verdict is: just don't self-publish, it's a terrible idea. Every mistake is yours, each one is paid for in cash and inventory, and none can be undone once the print run exists.
Approaching publishers before you have shipped
A funded campaign proves demand but not competence. Elan says if the only thing you can prove is that you are a train wreck waiting to happen, you will get nothing — the fulfilment is the part that makes you a credible partner.
Relying on the cold submission form
Exploding Kittens has a submission form and Elan says they almost never find anything there — it is time-consuming and the quality is low. Their most effective inbound channel is agents forwarding the good games they had to turn down.
Taking a failed campaign personally
Elan's entire pipeline depends on cheerful killing — roughly a hundred games a year, fewer than twenty shipped. The speed of failure is the asset, and it evaporates the moment a maker starts defending the project instead of moving on.
Is it for you?
Best for
First-time game, product or book creators with a finished prototype, no track record, and no existing retail relationships.
Not ideal for
Established creators with a proven sales history who can approach publishers directly, and anyone whose ambition genuinely is to run a manufacturing and distribution business themselves.
From the transcript
“just don't self-publish. it's a terrible idea”
“here's my actual favorite. a combination of two and three”
“ship the game first. if the only thing you can prove is that you are a train wreck waiting to happen, you will get nothing…”
“if you can't sell anything in a crowdfunding campaign, you are not going to sell any buyer at mass retail”
From the episode
#821: My Two-Year Secret Project, COYOTE — The Strategies and Tactics for Building a Bestseller from Nothing with Elan Lee of Exploding Kittens