Best of VVV – Michael Mindes – Tasty Minstrel Games
Vroom Vroom Veer with Jeff Smith
English - August 12, 2019 10:05 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 78 ratingsSelf-Improvement Education Religion & Spirituality Spirituality Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Ok, I admit it, I'm a nerd/geek! There...now you know.
Michael hit all my nerdy geek buttons! He makes games for a living, he named his company after an obscure Monty Pythons reference that only TRUE nerds/geeks will understand!!! WARNING NERD CONTENT...all "cool" people should move on to a less nerdy episode, you have been warned.
Michael Mindes is the Founder and CEO of Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) which is a multiple award-winning publisher of hobby board games. In this capacity, he grew TMG from a side business into a company approaching $2,000,000 in annual revenues, a team of 10 people, and all without any outside investment.
TMG seeks and found a symbiotic relationship with gamers, giving them the games that they want and they in turn allow us to continue to do what we love. TMG has achieved this through a combination of:
Fantastic Production
Customer Service
Direct Email Marketing
Social Media Content
HIGHLIGHTS:
Financial Management - arranged for pre-ordering and pre-payment for games from major retailers in combination with our manufacturing terms to significantly reduce our need for finances dedicated to maintaining inventory levels.
Inventory Forecasting & Health - developed internal data analysis tools to forecast and determine the health of our inventory in relation to our sales. This has allowed us to reduce our print run sizes without running into shortages and protect our cash flows from overproduction.
Leading Lean/Agile Initiatives - brought company-wide embracing of single-project flow to TMG. This allowed TMG to dramatically increase the number of games that we could publish while increasing overall quality, and reducing production defects.
Michael Mindes Vroom Veer Stories
Age 4 or 5, made up new rules for candyland
Started playing Chess with his dad; and joined the Chess club
Played Magic the Gathering and qualified for 3 pro tours
Spent two years "going to college" without attending class
Awkward talk with parents about "blowing off" college for two years; surprise outcome
Worked as a financial adviser for four years; started a games publishing business on the side
2015 started working on Tasty Minstrel Games full time
Served as company tech adviser during the taping of "Harbour" on Will Wheaton's TableTop
Michael Mindes Links
Tasty Minstrel Games Website