Astro Artificer
I had the great opportunity to interview John, Aka the Corporate DM. To read a summarized version of the interviews, take a look at my article here. Some of the text has been lightly edited from the original transcript for readability.
Interview 1
Hey John, Thanks for agreeing to this, really looking forward to it. Your business caught my attention because it's genuinely unlike anything else I've seen in the pro-GM space, the professional service framing, the niche depth, the pricing, the infrastructure. I want to understand how it actually works, not just how it looks from the outside. A bit of context on what I'm building: AstroArtificer is a content brand focused on helping aspiring pro-GMs understand what sustainable GM businesses actually look like in practice. I'm an aerospace engineer applying systems thinking to the space, so I'm less interested in "tips and tricks" and more interested in the architecture behind what's working. These are async questions, so take as much space as you need. There are no wrong answers, honest and specific is more useful to my audience than polished
- You have a career spanning technology, finance, accounting, and law, and it's clearly not incidental to how you run games. How did that professional background shape the way you thought about building CorporateDM as a business, rather than just a hobby that pays?
It’s a major component in addition to being well-read and pursuing academia in a strategic manner. The first thing an entrepreneur needs to understand is how to build a profitable business. If you’re a salaryperson, you may be good at your job and know it better than others, but a business is many things. A consultant once asked me how my technical department contributes to or takes away from EBITDA. My team turned out good quality product and I had never been asked how our contribution affects other parts of the organization. Fortunately, that consultant gave me a crash course in finance that inspired me to pursue a degree in finance and I later completed the puzzle by pursuing accounting so I could understand how activities across a business affect and are affected by the numbers. Before going back to school I understood that you do a good job and money appears. There are many more moving parts than build it and they will come. Since you are in the systems thinking profession, you certainly understand everything is interconnected.
Some mentors in my life have said you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Without knowing what to measure, you have a blind spot. The first step is to learn what that is. You can mitigate it later. Many entrepreneurs work on “vibes” or the motto, “Just run good games.” If you’re measuring cash inflows and outflows, marketing campaign results, among other metrics you’re moving beyond vibes and managing a business.
Another component that is applicable to any business is that if the revenue stops when you stop working, you have built a job and not a business. Shaquille O’Neal has many restaurant franchises. He makes money without making the doughnuts himself. Find something that sells without you being there.
- You have one campaign listed on StartPlaying at $60 per seat, but your website shows a much broader set of offerings. How do you think about the relationship between StartPlaying and your overall business, is it a lead source, core revenue, brand signal, or something else entirely?
StartPlaying is a store front like Amazon, eBay, or DoorDash and can be used in many ways. Some retailers and restaurants have a traditional storefront, printed direct mail flyers, gift card placements, etc., while others operate through a third-party storefront only with no website, no printed materials, or other components. I’m very old school in that I look at the SBA or Chamber of Commerce guides to starting a business for setting up a business natively before going to third parties. Regarding your question, I use StartPlaying as one of many channels much like a restaurant may sign up for national services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Chow Now, plus a list of local area only delivery services, in addition to walk-in where you have an order taker, cash register, and credit card machine. The more sales channels you have the more eyeballs and potential customers can see your business. Yes, it is possible to run a restaurant only with Door Dash to remove complexity, but you run into the all-eggs in one basket problem, and you’re turning away people who happened to open Chow Now first.
- Your reviews consistently mention the same things, pacing, immersion, lore depth, the technology setup. That kind of consistency across different players suggests a deliberately designed experience rather than just natural talent. What did you consciously build into your sessions to create that, and how long did it take to get there?
This involves taking the product beyond the simple slogan of “Just run good games”. With any business, you will find that customers have preferences. Some people interact with games for entertainment. Others interact with them because they like the social aspects. Others may interact with a game because it is based on an IP they love. It’s important to know why your customers are there. Everyone is equally unhappy if the time spent is a disorganized salad of hex crawl, deep intrigue, unsolved mysteries, and defeating the villain. Someone who has read all roughly 140 Star Trek: The Next Generation novels will approach a Star Trek game differently than someone who has only seen the feature films. You can have casual conversations with your customers or send out surveys to find out more about their preferences. You mentioned the recurring and consistent themes in the reviews. That is a result of cultivating the “right” customers for whatever product you are selling. Many of them have read hundreds of novels and know the world inside and out. Inconsistencies with extended canon jump out at these individuals, but also tying a game story into a novel they read is a surprise many enjoy because they have an inside perspective. Those types of customers want to feel as if they are cast members. Those customers want a screenplay, novel, or movie they can live in for a few hours. Game design goes beyond exciting mechanics. It has to have real weight and feel like a complete living world at all levels to those kinds of customers.
- Your sessions are priced at $60 per seat, which is above average for the platform. What allowed you to confidently price there , was that a gradual increase or a deliberate positioning choice from the beginning?
One should not price their burger on Door Dash for $12 because other burgers are $12. What makes your burger different from other burgers, regardless of sales platform? That’s the proper way to look at it.
When making a pricing decision, one needs to determine the value given and the perceived value in addition to accounting concepts such as contribution margin and cost of goods sold. My business was built off platform, and I’m considering what is considered reasonable globally in both virtual and in person context. A customer in Shanghai might pay $50-$100 per seat and consider that normal, while an American in the Midwest on StartPlaying might believe anything over $20 is too much.
Another factor in pricing goes back to the types of customers in the previous question. They understand premium bundles. Some customers are GMs for their friends and family. They attend premium games to get ideas for their own games. Part of the value proposition is that they don’t have to copy by memory when they get access to the scenario documentation. This is also another area where price and bundled features may steer certain types of customers into your pipeline and create sales objections for other types of customers. I dabbled with the average price on the platform for a while but revenue was less than cost of goods sold. This is where you need to pretend you’re a game tavern/café and price to pay the bills not race to the bottom with loss leaders to build a customer base then raise prices on them to become profitable like big tech firms.
- If StartPlaying disappeared tomorrow, what percentage of your GM-related income would remain intact? Was designing independence from the platform intentional from the start?
100% would remain intact since StartPlaying is only a product catalog and a turnkey credit card processor. Customers can check out on any platform. They are all substitute goods for each other.
Yes, building a business natively before adding additional sales channels was intentional. This is an area where reading on topics such as Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, along with standards such as ISO 22301 are beneficial. A hurricane or flood aren’t the only events to affect your business. The pandemic forced everyone inside and virtual entertainment such as streaming services or platforms like StartPlaying benefitted while in person businesses suffered. After pandemic ended and in person venues reopened there was a reverse flow where many of the customers who were purchasing premium games on StartPlaying switched to other entertainment when those options became available again. A good Business Continuity Plan factors in both natural and manmade events. Sometimes, customer preference can be as devastating as a forest fire.
- If you had to explain your GM business model in 3-4 sentences, the core moving parts, what actually generates income, what's aspirational , how would you describe it?
The core moving parts are design, writing, and publishing. Without material, you don’t have a game. Bundle a variety of options, not just the game itself. Think zero-waste factory. Your scenarios are not producing revenue when you’re not using them. They’re scraps until you polish them and license them separately from experiencing them.
To expand on the idea, look to the big Asian conglomerates. Many products with fully vertically integrated manufacturing as opposed to US companies that specialize in one very narrow product with most of the effort outsourced. Diversify as much as you can because it not only makes good business sense, but it’s one of many steps in making a Business Continuity Plan.
Interview 2
- I want to understand the full journey. You mentioned a finance consultant who gave you a crash course that sent you back to school, and a career that spans technology, finance, accounting, and law. Take me back to the beginning. What were you doing before games were even part of the picture, and walk me through how that path eventually led to CorporateDM as a brand and a business? What did that evolution actually look like? (Feel free to give me a timeline; this makes it easier for readers to get a better understanding of your journey)
Ah, going back to the beginning. While attending junior college, I landed a merchandising job that was a contract gig. A mentor that was working contract for the firm at the time recommended that I incorporate, since I would be working in retail stores rearranging displays, changing prices, and other activities while the store was open and on occasion when it was closed such as new store build-outs or whole aisle resets. There was always the possibility of injuring customers or your work crew and you don’t want a lawsuit forcing you into personal bankruptcy. That was a crash course in governance, liability protection, insurance, maintaining accounting books, mileage logs, handling subcontractors, and more. That was a fortunate turn of events because most people aren’t setting up a business at 19, they’re collecting a paycheck and the boss is handling those details.
A few years later, after landing my first software engineer job for a cybersecurity firm I was talking to my HR “people person” asking about how to build out a resume by volunteering. She said at that company they only looked at paid experience. Nonprofit was fine but don’t waste space on the resume if it’s unpaid. I began looking for ways to find a paid side gig. After a few months I went to a local nightclub to see a concert and I saw a flyer for a DJ event the following week. I came back and enjoyed the DJ and the setting. I thanked the bartender and the manager for the cool environment and they informed me that it’s a promoter-run night which was new to me. The model is a venue is a bar, DJ booth, four walls and a roof without a regular theme. The promoters bring a portfolio of DJs, live bands, and most importantly the followers of those DJs and bands. They introduced me to the promoter and I had an idea. I asked, do you have a website. The response was “Website, what’s that?” Keep in mind this was the era when people on The Today Show were talking about this new thing called the Internet and they were getting used to email instead of printed interoffice mail. After meeting the team I bought in as a partner. I handled back end development while another partner handled the front end, we also had a marketing major that just graduated and an attorney on the team. Keep in mind on the tech stack most small business websites were written in notepad or vi on Linux at the time with just straight HTML. We were likely the only promoters in the city, perhaps the entire east coast running an NT 4/IIS/ASP/COM+ stack with a home grown CMS and a Lyris listserv for our customers. I had my resume enhancement and was working on something that wasn't Win32/ATL desktop applications! That was a great experience because we setup multiple channels for B2B sales. Our attorney handled the phone calls, our marketing lead handled the street teams which distributed flyers on university campus, and I handled the internet channel. If a DJ or band was passing through and wanted to book a night, it was up to the channel lead to handle the process from start to finish with the assistance of other team members. You could be negotiating a contract, handling the catering, telling the venue to order an extra case of vodka, or something else entirely. There was also a lot of coordination with venues. If we felt a band would draw a crowd we would need to look at the rider and find a venue with the space, electricity, sound setup, and convenience for the customers while avoiding the brown M&Ms problem. Then at show time we were there to make sure everything went off without any problems. Having an attorney on the team drawing up the contracts between our promotion agency, the venues, and the bands was a big help since start-ups were doing this with just a handshake at the time. We also eventually branched out into full operations management, where the performers dealt with us as a middleman, which let the venue concentrate on running the bar along with crowd control and security for the performers when autograph time arrived. Then we added talent management agency to our list where we were negotiating with venues as part of a band or DJs nationwide tour. That was some great business experience and it reinforced the lesson keep your attorney and accountant in the loop.
In the early 2000s, I landed a job in the casino gaming industry as a cybersecurity executive. There were several things coming together in terms of my business growth. The company had a hedge fund buy up most of the stock after a bet rigging scandal that I was brought in to clean up. Layoff rumors were circulating, but the industry veterans said that if you are laid off you come back as a corporation through procurement and you’ve got a year or two before they hire you back. Around this time some of the consultants sent by the hedge fund were asking “So tell me what do you do here?” That led to leaning into finance, then accounting with my education in addition to technical topics.
Around the same time, the Private Investigator lobbyists were trying to require anyone working in tech to get a license under the rationale that if you’re cleaning up a virus you’re investigating a case of computer trespass. It was a money grab for more association membership dues since Best Buy and other repair shops would need to become licensed PI firms.
I quickly leaned into the situation by incorporating a business and joining the International Society of Computer Forensic Examiners with the intent of getting a PI license for my consulting business.
I was lucky in that I did not get laid off. At the time, I didn’t know how things would turn out so I started building a consulting business as a backup plan. This was another case of the side hustle having a positive impact on the resume. Going back to school for a finance degree and later some accounting credits to sit for the CPA exam boosted my career and my business acumen. Under the new investors, I was moved into legal, working for a gentleman who was second in charge of the FBI. Great boss and leader. You don’t get that high in government unless you’re a people person. I was able to leverage my forensics training on several internal investigations in addition to administering the budget for both cyber and physical security. This was what I would call a flywheel of synergies where the day job and the side job were feeding each other.
In my consulting business, I eventually added traditional classroom corporate skills education to the portfolio of consulting services. I started with licensed course materials so I could hire or subcontract instructors. I considered an “edutainment” product as an interesting direction. This wasn’t the sometimes fun team-building games, but education wrapped in a team format with scifi or fantasy backdrop. Instead of boring accountants in a high-rise office you are adventurers drafted by the king to investigate irregularities in the royal treasury. The detail could be accounting ledgers with real problem solving or you can dial it back to role play and questioning NPCs if you want to move it closer to the entertainment end than the education end of the spectrum.
Having side businesses was also a boon for future prospects. After leaving the casino industry, I landed an executive-level position at one of the Big 4 accounting firms. When companies throw around the terms self-starter, entrepreneurial spirit, etc. They tend to mean it. Part of what went well in the interview was I had already opened several successful businesses that didn’t compete with the firm. That demonstrates sales, management, and other skills which is what they wanted to see from future Partners. I referred a colleague from the casino company and he received the same treatment for being a competitive bodybuilder and owner of several gyms, including managing the employee gym at the casino company. The lesson here is no matter what entrepreneurial venture you start, it’s a resume booster and may help you find opportunities in the future.
- You drew a clean line in your last answers between building a job and building a business. But for most GMs starting, that mental shift is the hardest part. They know how to run good games, but they don't know how to stop thinking like an employee. How would you coach another GM through that transition? What does that mindset change actually require?
Let’s first start with what do you want? Do you want the flexibility to set your own hours, pursue your passion, and be your own boss? Those are terrible reasons to start a business based on my coursework. The idea defies conventional logic, but once I heard the professor explain it, things started to make sense. You can have all those things by simply working for someone else as an employee.
The downside to owning a business is that you must raise start-up capital and you can lose more than you make. Being an employee doesn’t have that disadvantage. You need to decide if you want to take that risk first. Then you have the administrative hassles that don’t exist with simply getting a job. You must raise capital, open a business checking account, acquire business licenses, pay incorporation fees, set up a website and social media accounts, set up multiple payment processors, etc. If that’s too much trouble, then you likely should remain an employee. The next part from Introduction to Finance was that the reason people start businesses is not to be their own boss or do something that ignites their passions. Starting a business is no different than investing in the stock market. Why would you start a business if you are going to make less than what you could from investing that money in a simple index fund? We spent a lot of time going over IRR, WACC, and other formulas and ratios to determine if your business is outperforming the stock or bond markets.
The next thing is if you’re an owner, you’re less likely to be a doer and instead be a manager or administrator. This is true in the corporate world where the higher up you go the less hard skills you need and it becomes a soft skills world. At the Big 4 accounting firm I was at we were told that once you make Partner your job is 95% sales calls and not performing client work. If you enjoy being hands on, you need to decide if being an investor and operator is for you or if you would rather be an employee. You should also be comfortable with the idea that if you still want to be hands-on, you will need to hire a professional manager, who will likely be paid more than you. Then you still need to make 15% profits to match the stock market after expenses and everyone’s wages are paid. Otherwise you're better off investing your money and finding employment.
If you’re ready to take the next step, understand that you’re going to be building a brand, not a job. Don’t plan on being a Matt Mercer celebrity GM. Gordon Ramsay doesn’t cook in his restaurants as a regular activity. He’s around for filming, grand openings, or other special occasions. You are going to be building something that doesn’t require you to be there with customers. A recent marketing study from i99IT says that 50% of game shops in China have 5-10 DMs as employees and 51% of shops have 5-10 rooms so all their DMs can be working at once. (note China prefers the term DM even if it isn’t D&D. It’s like all tissue is Kleenex). Think about that for a moment. You aren’t running games. Your enterprise is running games. You may have an opportunity to run a game here and there, but as the owner you need to make sure the whole shop runs smoothly. That not only includes the GMs, but the bar and kitchen, costuming, and cleaning between groups as well. In all likelihood you will need to open multiple product lines such as GM services, authoring, publishing, food service, alcohol, etc. Having diverse income streams is resiliency. If you only want to GM with off-the-shelf materials and not run a full-service shop you’re depending on the game to sell with no add-ons like food or drink.
Going back to my point about losing more money than you make, there is a lot of price pressure with game publishers raising prices for commercial licenses and consumer demanding more complex scenarios and features while maintaining low prices which squeezes shops. One emerging trend is not only paid DMs but paid NPC actors in costume with props and practical effects (fog machines, vampire fangs, fake blood, etc). The dynamic is very different from the GM and a few people sitting around the table. That eats into your margins even though the in-person prices are up to $50 USD/seat for a typical session and sometimes in the $150 USD range for something on the high end that’s exclusive to that one shop. This is also an interesting shift. Globally we’ve seen games go from $5 USD to $20 USD and now in China they’re going for $50-$150 USD. The cost of living and wages in China are lower than other countries. $50 USD per game is a larger percentage of income than for an American or European. This is an area where the rest of the world hasn’t caught up to the reality of positive cash flow requiring more than $20 per seat. It’s no longer a weekly game between a commercial GM and some friendly customers that’s priced as a slight substitute to having a free game, but a theatrical spectacle customers treat themselves to. That’s also a macro shift many GMs should prepare themselves for.
- You mentioned that if revenue stops when you stop working, you built a job (Amazing insight, couldn't say it better myself). When did you first truly internalize that, and how long did it take before CorporateDM actually reflected it in practice?
The first time I saw that was at a high school reunion. A classmate had opened several restaurant franchises. They only worked at the restaurant while they were training the management and staff before the grand opening. They stepped away from the restaurant after opening then began scouting the next location. The restaurant made money without them being there. By the time they had three franchises they could live on the dividends without drawing a salary and working. That’s likely one reason Shaquille O’Neal likes franchises. Once you get momentum, the money rolls in without you needing to be there.
We launched the CorporateDM edutainment division in our consulting firm with that in mind. The goal was to find the right product mix. When you stop to consider what goes into GMing there are things that you are likely making that have some resale value without acting in the GM role. For example, if you are writing or licensing sublicensable scenarios, game shops, both home and pro GMs may be interested in your material. This is what I refer to as “found money”. Think of it as a factory with scrap. Zero waste factories sell their scrap for recycling or it may be repurposed into other goods. That money was always there but nobody thought to look for it. It was going into the dumpster until someone decided to repurpose then they found extra money. If your scenario is scribbles on a sheet of paper, what does it take to convert it into something publishable? Did you write something that’s 80% ready to publish, run it once, then place it on the shelf? That’s leaving money on the shelf. It gets even worse if you neglect to capitalize all the expense of producing something, even if you never publish it. That’s another area I see pro GMs who are also creatives miss out is the Section 197 deduction for creating intangibles like a copyright.
- In your last answers, you talked about cultivating the "right" customers, the ones who've read hundreds of novels, who want to feel like cast members, who recognize and reward depth. What does your actual process look like for finding and attracting those people? How do you identify your ideal customer profile, and how do you build toward them rather than just whoever shows up?
Part of the sales cycle is to convert leads into prospects and finally customers. Qualifying a lead can be done through interviews, surveys, or via ecommerce where you describe the offering and a customer adds it to their cart. Leads are whoever shows up to inquire, but they may have no intention of buying or they don't know what they want. That's a sales job to move them through the process showing them the upside while overcoming objections to closing the deal. We should also keep in mind that most people going to a game shop are there to buy a one-shot and may not be interested in becoming a regular customer. The same one shot approach goes for corporate consulting or training. Online GMs can be thought of as a game shop over Zoom. The ease of logging on might generate more repeat business because of lower friction relative to taking public transit to the nearest game shop, but when you consider all the options in the B2C segment there isn’t any friction in switching GMs if all you are offering is a game. There are around 1000 licensed game shops in Shanghai. Consumers aren’t suffering from a lack of options in person or online.
You can, with relative ease convert a prospect into a sale for just a game and maybe food and drink if you are a shop that has those amenities. If you’re going to engage in cross selling or add-on selling you need to treat the GM customers as leads and push them through the other sales funnels by qualifying them for additional purchases beyond the game. You should also consider if bundling is a reasonable option rather than ala carte cross selling or add-on selling. Bundles may create sales objections but they may also act as a filter for customers that want it all while steering those that want a standalone offering to another company that can accommodate them.
I break the B2C segment into gamers, Fans of IP, and GMs. Gamers are there just to pay for a one shot or an ongoing story. They want the game mechanics and don't care about the underlying fiction or lore. These customers are more sensitive to game system and character build than others. Fans of IP in many cases are engaging with the game system only because there aren't enough novels, comics, TV shows, and movies to satisfy them. In most cases game system isn’t important to them as long as you hold true to the fiction and a more conversational than mechanical game appeals to them. To me it's a good sign if someone shows up and says they read all 200+ Dragonlance novels and they're starting with Forgotten Realms next. Or when I inform them that we include lore from Beta Canon (comics and novels) plus all the non-gaming books like the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual which was made for screenplay writers to become familiar with the setting and for super fans to have a behind-the-scenes look. That’s a big and awesome surprise for any Trekkie. Someone who is interested in the game mechanics may not care for all the extras that cater to the Fans of IP. Some of that is rule of cool where customers love anything from Beta Canon where rules as written types may not like anything other than the game mechanics with as little of the screenplay and lore as possible. You as a sales executive, need to understand different motivations and how to satisfy them or quickly disqualify that lead. Knowing when to introduce sales objections to avoid a certain type of customer preference is also important in segmenting these types of customers.
GMs are another category where many are also fans of the fiction so we have a little overlap. When discussing home GMs purchasing needs they tend to have the same recurring story. They are paying for a game session because none of their family or friends can GM (the Forever GM) and they're looking for ideas to lightly borrow. You increase the value proposition for them by bundling in access to the scenario as well as the play-through tutorial for when they run it for their family. Cynthia Williams at Wizards of the Coast said DMs spend almost all the money. That’s free marketing advice from an executive who had the data. We should also consider that WotC is still trying to figure out how to monetize players regularly.
One of my best customers is a GM who let it slip in the sales call they were looking to “gently steal” ideas. They were extremely happy that the game session also came with the scenario for them to use with friends and family. They were also a fan of the fiction. They appreciated having the adventure written in a story format also called a replay which is very popular in Asian markets. They read D&D novels to their kids as bedtime stories in addition to being a GM for their kids. By licensing the scenario along with the play-through tutorial, their kids could play the same adventure which saved them time writing and testing a scenario themselves, and they could read the replay to their kids as a bedtime story about THEIR sorcerer. The casual gamer may raise a sales objection to all the extras bundled in, but that allows you to segment your customer base. You may have some people come through once and you never see them after. Others may return again and again. Then they may remain customers of your cross-sell and add-on sell rather than your GM service. That’s where you build a business and not just a job.
Our B2C goal is to cross sell and add-on sell or simply bundle multiple offerings. It’s not a good outcome when you have a single product such as facilitating a game and customers leave due to scheduling or other issues or if they are the one-shot buyer passing through. It creates business resiliency if your GM service customer leaves but they join a monthly subscription for scenarios they can run for their friends and family. Product has the advantage of not requiring anyone to be on payroll to deliver the service in a live format. I see providing GM services as a way of bringing customers into multiple sales funnels to see if we can qualify them for something else that is more product than service-oriented. If they leave as a GM service customer but stay with other products that’s an ideal situation since that frees up more “rooms” to push new customers through the other funnels.
B2B customers also have different interests. You may go into an entertaining team building activity that's simply fun engagement. The manager may want an educational experience in addition to fun team building. HR may want to license a “play book” that they can use and referee themselves rather than you sending employees in. We worked on a D&D session for a physician client where the adventurers were traveling medieval surgeons. We collaborated with the boss to include folk healer problems using proper terminology that tested their ability to diagnose and prescribe treatment in a primitive setting without resorting to expensive magic as a plot point. Those cure disease spells are expensive once you consider it a world simulator with a level of in world realism, plus the logistics of one cleric curing a village of 100 people suffering from dysentery, where the water supply is still contaminated.
Game shops are other customers similar to HR departments. They compete on having mass market, city limited, and city exclusive scenarios to run. You could be licensing something mass market for $100 with commercial use rights or $1000 with single shop city exclusive. That can be a good opportunity if you’re on the creative side since the market study on i99IT says that 77% of game shops have ~50-300 scenarios to choose from. This is also something notable. Game shops compete on the scenarios they have in their inventory. If you’re operating a shop you need to ask how much of your inventory is something produced by WotC or Paizo vs. Something custom made just for your customers. The exclusive model is also likely why customers move around between shops and GMs a lot.
LinkedIn is your friend for B2B. You would be surprised at the number of GMs I know who never kept up with their school and work alumni. Your network might send you a consulting engagement where you can cross sell or add-on sell a team building or training exercise. Don't be afraid pitch a team building exercise for a client that bought a bucket of billable consulting hours and are approaching the end of the year use it or lose it.
- What's the most painful lesson you know now that you wish you could've told yourself at the very beginning of building CorporateDM?
The B2C sector is more complex than allocating some billable hours into an edutainment session for a B2B client. I would say examining global trends more thoroughly would be a big one. There were a lot of macro changes that were occurring that many thought would not affect the Western market. The “that’s happening over there and won’t happen here” problem. After the pandemic began winding down there was a slow down in the virtual GM business since alternative in person options were available. Many in the US felt that virtual GMs were here to stay and that leading indicators from around the world could be dismissed. The news media was reporting that many people were going back to movie cinemas, bars, concerts, amusement parks and more. It made sense that online GM business would decline since other options were once again available. The concept of substitute goods from economics. It was only wishful thinking that people would not go back to pre-pandemic norms, much like the hair metal band managers in the 80s thought Seattle Grunge was a passing fad and everyone would be back to Rock n’ Roll all night and party every day . This was also around the time that the number of game shops that only do paid games (no merchandise like dice or books) in China went from 2,400 to over 45,000 over 3 years (with 50% having 5-10 GMs). That reinforced the idea that customers wanted in person options. Data from 2025 shows that online GMs are 18% of the market. There may be some global variance by region but the trend of in person GMs appears to be well established. That still leaves many other segments of the industry that are growing which means opportunity if you are properly positioned for it.