The Board Game Billionaire: From a $10k Kickstarter to $100M/Year Business

2025-04-21

Want your own $100M side project? Get our guide to win your first 100 customers: https://clickhubspot.com/wfp Episode 699: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Elan Lee ( https://x.com/elanlee ) about growing Exploding Kittens from a $10K Kickstarter campaign to $100M dollar company. — Show Notes: (0:00) Humble Success: Exploding Kittens Insights (8:07) The origin story - From 10k to $9M on kickstarter (16:17) Focus on the crowd, not the funding (20:41) Gam...

Want your own $100M side project? Get our guide to win your first 100 customers: https://clickhubspot.com/wfp

Episode 699: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Elan Lee ( https://x.com/elanlee ) about growing Exploding Kittens from a $10K Kickstarter campaign to $100M dollar company.

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Show Notes:

(0:00) Humble Success: Exploding Kittens Insights

(8:07) The origin story - From 10k to $9M on kickstarter

(16:17) Focus on the crowd, not the funding

(20:41) Games should not be entertaining

(23:52) The Kitty Test pilots

(27:57) $0 marketing hacks

(38:49) Pushing past the ‘no’

(41:07) Business as a game

(45:32) Creativity loves constraints

(54:28) Irritation is the source of innovation

(59:13) Designing a game with Tim Ferriss

(01:04:08) Do what never makes you bored

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Links:

• Exploding Kittens - https://www.explodingkittens.com/

• Paxsite - https://www.paxsite.com

• Elan on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@mrelanlee

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Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

• Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com

• Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.

• Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies!

Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC

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Check Out Sam's Stuff:

• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That - https://copythat.com

• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth

• Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/

My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

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