Giving Up

Giving Up

    There are two ways of looking at giving up, for one usually immediately thinks of that phase as meaning that one is simply quitting.  It doesn't matter the subject --dieting, a crossword, finding a job, keeping your spirits up-- sometimes you really do want to simply quit.  Lack of time, frustration, missing a key element, whatever.  But then there are other times when giving up is simply a matter of facing reality.  There's a sadness there, certainly, but it isn't really a matter of quitting as much as a matter of moving on.  This became evident to me as a friend of mine came over for dinner.  He and I had met some 20 years ago at a gathering for new entrepreneurs, each of us full of hope and excitement that our brand new and exciting products would free us from work and send us into the world of the Fortune 500.  Imagine being far from the high of meeting venture capitalists or appearing on a show such as Shark Tank.  Didn't matter for now, in this tiny local meeting done with good intentions, you're in the moment where you think, really think, that you're ready to show the world what you have...but the truth is that generally (sorry) you're not.

    Business plans, accurate projections, financial forecasts, all necessary and all usually not done by the struggling entrepreneurs who (like me) have little left to spend.  After all, you want your product or prototype to be the best (remember that old adage of "a good first impression?") so that's usually where you put your money.  In the case of my game, Perceptions,* I spent what I could to get my idea to fruition; it was all in my head, the finished product, so now it was just a matter of getting it made.  But as those of you who have tried already know, the next step (from idea to production) is quite a leap.  Graphic designers (an education in itself for often what you visualize is usually not translated well resulting in several or many versions of your graphics), finding suppliers (think fabrics or metals and do they do their own printing or does it have to be shipped out to another vendor which means another cost), packagers, shippers, postage and freight costs, then business licensing and patenting and legal fees.  And all of this is just to get the product --your product-- into your hand.  So by now, you're pretty much out of money and realize that you still have to move to the next step (getting it out to the world).  So you start going to the shows (renting exhibit space, creating more graphics for the backdrop, paying the union electrical workers required by the convention center, getting you and your product to the exhibit hall) and wait.  For even with the outrageous price you've paid, you discover that you've been cramped into the "nobody" section, the area where you and all the other little guys are waiting for one of the big guys to come by and recognize what a great product you have (sadly it's even worse on the crowded web).  The "big guys" are the corporate players, and believe it or not, they actually do want to see the new stuff out there; it's a chance for them to grab something in the early stages and make it their own.  And for me, that happened.  Mattel, Toy R Us, Kaybee...they all stopped by to ask questions about my game.  Did I do cooperative advertising (what??), what were my pallet discounts (whaaaat??), what were my costs at the 1 million level for wholesale (double whaaaaatt???), where were my products warehoused (whaaaa?? only now as in a baby crying).  Well, you get the idea...I wasn't ready for any of those questions and well, that was that.  The "big" buyers can tell in seconds if you are or are not ready.  One vendor told me that a local "test" would be to place an order for 10,000 units and if that were successful, they would move to a regional order of 100,000 units, and if that were successful, they would then place an order.  And by the way, they would need those units quickly.  Bit by bit, I watched the big boys walk away, moving on to the next product.  Could I get costs down (picture dropping down 95%), could I raise the price of my product (think tripling the retail price), did I have the product patented (luckily, that was one question that I could answer as an immediate yes).

    Anyway, my friend went through a similar route, he even renting office space and phone lines, all in an effort to get his own product out there.  But now, years later, here we sat talking about our unsold inventory (I was a bit lucky, selling about 1000 of my games through a variety of stores and lots of time marketing but even that number wasn't a dent in the minimum volume required to get production both affordable and going...generally, the smaller the amount, the higher the price to produce which often makes your efforts not worth the time).  Stepping back, one could see what stores go through almost weekly, offering specials or clearing out items just to make way for the new products coming, taking their losses then eventually throwing them out or donating them to charity.  People want new, fresh, original.  Those things sitting on the shelf or on your web page, well, that stuff was so "last year," as they say...so it sits and sits and sits.  Sort of like my friend and I.

    But here's the thing...your product is usually personal.  You made it, and often you made it with good intentions.  And it boils down to your belief in what you've created.  For my friend and me, we each still felt that our products were good products, not a flimsy get-rich-quick scheme but things that could really make a stir (in my case, my goal was to increase conversation among people)...maybe even make a small difference in someone's outlook.  But the reality was, there was a lot of inventory just sitting there.  He had begun to donate boxes of his stuff to charity.  And for me, my realization was that there was simply no need to continue to assemble and package my games (which took a lot of time since so many components had to be ordered separately then put together before being packaged).  We had both reached the point of giving up...not on what we had created, but what we were going to sell.  Time had run out; we had tapped out, or perhaps we had simply moved on.  Our energy was now elsewhere...and our inventories were now, well, just inventory.

    So for those of you waiting with your own product or idea or almost-complete vision, there might just come a time when your friends and family think that you've given up.  But as mentioned earlier, despite the subject, that doesn't mean that you've stopped trying entirely.  Perhaps you'll try something different or approach what you've done from a new angle.  Each of us decides for ourselves when or if we will quit.  And perhaps sometimes it might seem that indeed we've quit...but maybe we just never stopped giving up.


*So here's the deal, if you want to still order a copy of Perceptions, the link to my game is something that reflects what few games I have left in my inventory and once those are gone, the page will disappear as well.  The price shown is actually below the dang cost to me, the postage alone taking away nearly $14 just to get them out via priority mail and with tracking...but that's only to the lower-48 U.S.states since international postage and Hawaii/Alaska rates are horrific (I mailed a calendar --ONE calendar-- to Germany and the postage was $21 regular mail)...sorry.  But don't fret, you can easily take the idea of the game and make up your own questions...be inventive, be creative, think of what you'd like to ask your friends and family.  You may discover that once put in a "game" format, people are more than willing to open up and express what they really are feeling.  Try it...you don't really need my game.  You can do this...but if you really want one of the remaining copies (shamelessly now promoted as a "collectible" as deemed by me), then by all means, I'll look forward to sending you a copy post haste.  Just click here to order...oops, if you're reading this NOW, the site has been taken down as I've moved on to other products.  Thanks for visiting anyway...