Elan Lee

Exploding Kittens sells a game every 6.4 seconds

Elan Lee shares the scale of Exploding Kittens: they sell a game every 6.4 seconds around the clock, and their first Kickstarter print run was 700,000 units.

“We sell a game every 6.4 seconds. Round the clock. And our first, like, we started our company on Kickstarter in 30 days. We were trying to raise $10,000. We raised almost $9 million instead. Our first, our first print run was 700,000 units.”

Work the retail floor to learn why customers put your product back

To understand Walmart sales, Elan Lee planned to work as a Walmart associate in Arkansas, not as a stunt. He wants to learn the contextual reasons shoppers pick up a game and put it back down, which is information you only get on the ground.

“in order to sell products at any retail location, you have to understand the customer, and you have to understand when they're walking into a space, what are they looking for, and what turns them off, and what turns them on? And if they pick up a game and then put it back, why did they put it back?”

Steal thisGo work the floor where your product is sold and watch why shoppers pick it up and put it back down.

How Bomb Squad became Exploding Kittens

Elan Lee's first card game was called Bomb Squad. The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman asked to collaborate and reframed it: instead of being scared of bombs, make players scared of cute fuzzy kittens, and call it Exploding Kittens. That one conversation produced the brand.

“What if instead the thing that you were most scared of were cute, adorable, fuzzy little kittens, and we'll call the game Exploding Kittens instead?" And that's really the origin story, like that one simple conversation happened to meet the right person at the right time, and we decided to collaborate on this thing.”

How Bomb Squad became Exploding Kittens

Elan Lee's first card game was called Bomb Squad. The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman asked to collaborate and reframed it: instead of being scared of bombs, make players scared of cute fuzzy kittens, and call it Exploding Kittens. That one conversation produced the brand.

“What if instead the thing that you were most scared of were cute, adorable, fuzzy little kittens, and we'll call the game Exploding Kittens instead?" And that's really the origin story, like that one simple conversation happened to meet the right person at the right time, and we decided to collaborate on this thing.”

Crowdfunding: ignore the funding, focus on the crowd

Once Exploding Kittens had raised $2M and exhausted the Oatmeal audience, they flipped the standard Kickstarter playbook: instead of money-based stretch goals, all stretch goals rewarded crowd participation (post a photo of 10 Batmans in a hot tub) and made the game better for free. The campaign grew to 219,000 backers, still the all-time record.

“this whole thing is crowdfunding, and all of those stretch goals, every strategy I've read, every YouTube video I've watched, everything is based on funding. Like, they ignore the crowd part, and they're just like laser focus on funding, funding, funding, funding. And I was like, I think that's backwards. I think instead we're going to ignore the funding because we've already got $2 million, and let's just focus on the crowd part.”

Steal thisOn a crowdfunding campaign, make stretch goals reward crowd participation, not bigger pledges; let virality, not dollars, drive the back half.

Crowdfunding: ignore the funding, focus on the crowd

Once Exploding Kittens had raised $2M and exhausted the Oatmeal audience, they flipped the standard Kickstarter playbook: instead of money-based stretch goals, all stretch goals rewarded crowd participation (post a photo of 10 Batmans in a hot tub) and made the game better for free. The campaign grew to 219,000 backers, still the all-time record.

“this whole thing is crowdfunding, and all of those stretch goals, every strategy I've read, every YouTube video I've watched, everything is based on funding. Like, they ignore the crowd part, and they're just like laser focus on funding, funding, funding, funding. And I was like, I think that's backwards. I think instead we're going to ignore the funding because we've already got $2 million, and let's just focus on the crowd part.”

Steal thisOn a crowdfunding campaign, make stretch goals reward crowd participation, not bigger pledges; let virality, not dollars, drive the back half.

Games shouldn't be entertaining; they should make the players entertaining

Elan Lee's core design philosophy: a great game is a toolset that turns the people you play with into the entertainment. If the game itself is the entertainment, players extract it once and leave; if the players are the entertainment, you get a replayable viral engine.

“games should not be entertaining. Games should make the people you're playing with entertaining. And that simple line, which is a very silly line, like, I remember the first time we pitched it to our investors, we're like, we're not going to make entertaining games. And they're like, never say that again.”

Steal thisDesign your product so customers entertain each other with it; make the people the show, not the product, and you get built-in replay and word of mouth.

The one-question playtest: 'Do you want to play again?'

Exploding Kittens replaced a 30-40 question playtest survey sent to their 400 'Kitty Test Pilots' families with a single question: do you want to play again? They only ship games where 100% answer yes; any 'no' triggers a video review to find what broke.

“we now send out a questionnaire and it has one question on it, just one, start to finish, one question. And that question is, do you want to play again? And I have found that that question is the most direct heat-seeking missile to answer the question, "Have you made the players entertaining?"”

Steal thisReplace your long feedback survey with the single most predictive question, and set a 100% bar before you ship.

The perfectionist who rejects million-dollar shipments over one Pantone

Elan Lee says his printers and distribution partners hate working with him because he's a perfectionist. If he can detect even one degree off in the Pantone of a card back (which must be identical so the Exploding Kitten stays a surprise), he sends the entire shipment back, unpaid, to be reprinted.

“if I can detect one degree off in the Pantone registry of this card versus this one, I'm sending the entire— I don't care how many millions are in that shipment. I'm sending every single one of them back and I'm not paying a penny and you are going to reprint them for me. So they hate me and I get it. But also, I don't think the company would be where it is today if I said, yeah, we'll just ship it that way and the next run will be better.”

The urinal kittens stunt that mobbed their PAX booth

Broke after their Kickstarter, Exploding Kittens couldn't afford PAX ad space, so Elan Lee secretly placed cute bomb-holding kitten cutouts inside every urinal so attendees had to 'extinguish the bomb.' It mobbed their booth, and PAX reportedly started charging for urinal ad space afterward.

“I secretly put one of those inside every urinal in the convention center. So you had to pee on them to extinguish the bomb. it, like, mobbed our booth. Like, everyone wanted to see who made these things, so much so that the organizers came to us and they said, "You can't do this."”

The fake vending machine: 8 people sweating behind a cardboard cat

To turn a transactional booth into a spectacle, Elan Lee built an 8-foot fur-covered cat 'vending machine' with a 'random item, $1' button. There was no robotics inside, just 8 people throwing out pineapples, burritos and rocks. The line grew longer than the line to enter the convention itself.

“Instead of it being a vending machine, it was just a vending machine costume. There was no robotics in there. There's no— there's no computers. There's nothing. There's 8 of us sweating our asses off for 10 hours a day backstage. And every time someone pushes that random item button, we are literally pulling a random item and throwing it out the front of the machine.”

Become a registered grocer to get past a convention's produce rule

When a convention banned shipping produce backstage unless they were a registered grocer, Elan Lee refused the dead end: it cost ~$100 and a web form to register. Exploding Kittens is now a registered grocer in 15 states so it can ship produce to conventions.

“it turns out it's easy, trivial to become a registered grocer. I went to a website and you fill out a form, you pay like $100. And today Exploding Kittens is a registered grocer in Indiana. You know where else we're a registered grocer? 14 other states, because it's that easy as well.”

When you hear no, assume you asked the wrong question

Elan Lee's reframe of 'never take no for an answer': a no isn't the end, it's a signal you asked the wrong question. Shaan ties it to MrBeast's 'push past the no' production rule, where an initial no is never an acceptable final answer.

“Maybe the better way to phrase it is when someone tells you no, instead of assuming that that's the answer, assume you asked the wrong question.”

Steal thisTreat every no as proof you framed the request wrong; rephrase the ask until the answer can be yes.

Business is the only game with no answers in the back of the book

Elan Lee explains why he stopped wanting to hire a CEO and chose to run the company: like switching from physics (answers in the back of the book) to computer science (no answers), business is a game where you invent the rules and race to the finish first.

“That's what business is to me. There are no answers at the back of the book. And if you want to win this game, you got to figure out what the rules are, invent your own where you need to, and get to that finish line before anybody else.”

Creativity loves constraints: start with the box, not the blank page

Elan Lee hates blue-sky brainstorming and instead works from constraints. He won't ask 'how do we get 10,000 people to our booth'; he reframes it as 'I'm going to build a vending machine that must attract 10,000 people,' which immediately makes the problem solvable.

“If I were to sit down and say, how do we get 10,000 people to come to our booth? I'm getting— I'm not going to get anywhere. Like, I just have no chance of success there. But if I sit down and say, I am going to build a vending machine that must attract 10,000 people, now I'm running.”

Steal thisConvert a vague goal into a constrained build: name the artifact and the unreasonable target it must hit, then design within that box.

Hurry Up Chicken Butt: built from the rule 'no losers, only winners'

Elan Lee's #1 game in the world started when his bored 4-year-old said 'let's fix it.' He wrote constraints for a kids' game adults actually enjoy: she must beat him without him letting her, it can't be luck-based, she must visibly improve, and there can be winners but no losers.

“for me, it was my daughter has to beat me without me letting her win, and I have to look forward to playing again. There— the game cannot be luck-based. I have to watch my daughter get better at this game every time we play. I have to feel like she's learning something, and there cannot be any losers. She can win, but nobody can lose.”

Teach problem identification, not problem solving

Elan Lee argues creativity can't be taught, but it can be unlocked. Define the problem and what success looks like (the constraints), then hand it to creative people. You teach problem identification; they supply the creative solutions.

“you're not teaching problem solving. You're teaching problem identification, and then creative people will be able to solve those problems. But if you try to solve, if you try to teach how to be creative, you never get anywhere. All you're really teaching is how to identify a problem, how to know what success looks like, and then you just hire creative people to work within those constraints.”

Steal thisDon't try to teach creativity; teach your team to define the problem and success criteria, then let creative hires solve inside those bounds.

COVID workaround: rent the parking lot, not the warehouse

When COVID closed the warehouses that repackage Exploding Kittens' inventory, Elan Lee reframed the no and asked what owners were doing with their empty parking lots. He parked three 18-wheelers there and repackaged games inside the trucks, because he only needed the square footage, not the building.

“I finally asked a different question. It was, "What are you doing with your parking lots?" And the answer was, "Nothing, because nobody's at work, so our parking lots are empty." I was like, "Cool, can I park 3 18-wheeler trucks in your parking lot?" And they said, "Sure, why not?" And so I brought the games over in these 18-wheeler trucks, and I had one person per truck go inside and repackage our games because All I needed was the space.”