Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassidy Bass, MBA and Dominic Jones Esq.
Cassidy and Dominic, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
It all started with a trip to Paris and a dinner party with friends. There were no phones or gadgets in people’s hands. It was pure good old fashion conversation. We wanted to bring that vibe back to the states. With the influence of social media and podcasts, the idea came to life of mixing the desire for a conversation with a game night and dinner party fun. So I (Cassidy) did some market research and then Dominic and I began coming up with the design, questions, and game play. I then came up with the look and feel of the game and sent off the files to a printer. Luckily I have a background in graphic design so that was the easy part.
The prototype was all over the place. It had questions about everything you can think of; Racism, Love, Relationships, Sex, Work, etc. When we played it with some friends emotions were also all over the place lol. Some of the questions were too dark and put a dampening on the party and made people not want to play anymore. There were also some issues with the font on the card being too hard to read. So back to the drawing table we went. We had been talking with another couple about doing a podcast about relationships but it never took off. However, this gave us the idea to make the decks specific to one topic. Hence, our first deck being called “Love and Relationships.” This was the deck that went to the market.
Since then we have been marketing and selling our first game “The Conversation Party Game: Love & Relationships” and sparking conversation around the world hosting events, conferences, and podcasts features. We mainly sell online via our website but sometimes people can catch us out and purchase the game in person at conferences and other events.
Our goal is to get the game into retail and other online stores so in 2019 we decided to purchase barcodes for our products and create a wholesale marketing pricing plan. Now independent retailers, as well as big box retailers like Target and Amazon, can sell our products as well.
The process has been slow as we both are full time professionals, Dominic an attorney and I am a project manager, investor and soon to be a franchise owner. We are also parents to two beautiful girls, Kaiden (ten) and Kamryn (three months) The journey hasn’t been your traditional one but we both are passionate about getting people back to communicating the old fashion way before the devices and social media. So we continue day by day. We trust the process and are not trying to rush it. This is our story.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, the road has not been smooth at all. We started this back in 2017 at the start of our relationship not knowing if our relationship would even work out. Some people called us crazy for starting a business together considering the rate of relationship failure here in Atlanta. We took a risk on it. Over the last few years our lives have changed tremendously, but all good vibes. We continued to travel and last year we got engaged and gave birth to a baby girl. As I mentioned before, we still both have full time demanding careers through all of this. So juggling this thing called “real life” and still trying to host events to promote our game has been quite the challenge.
Please tell us about your business.
The Conversation Party Game is a fun card game that will stimulate intelligent conversation and debate about money, sex, relationships, religion, and more. Perfect for game nights, dinner parties with friends and road trips. If you are brave, you can even slide it into a date night. Conversation Games LLC is the parent company of The Conversation Party Game Series. Our mission is to create fun and engaging games and events that encourage and stimulate interesting conversations between friends and strangers.
We are most proud of the success of our game and the support it has received from our customers. We are happy that people want to have and are having real life conversations about love and relationships in a fun relaxed way. No pressure. We hope that our game is inspiring people, especially in the black community, to open up and talk to one another about topics that we don’t normally talk freely and openly about.
What sets us apart from other games similar to ours is #1 The card topics/questions are “REAL LIFE” and interesting. Most conversation starter games have generic and boring questions that no one cares to talk about. #2 Our game play is open. We structured it this way to encourage discussion. There is no right or wrong answer and no one wins. The goal isn’t to win actually, it is to open up and talk. Most games like this are closed ended topics/questions that require you to choose ABCD answers. #3 It’s not about money for us. Our success comes from the stories and feedback we receive from those that play our game saying that they loved it and they can’t wait for the next one to come out.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
We would’ve secured more start up capital that would’ve enabled us to scale quicker. We started this business with literally no money lol. The design work was done in house and the first shipment was paid for out of our pockets with $300. We had to save every penny of what we profited and put it back into the business. If we would’ve had more money to invest in this we think it would be in every big box retailer, featured on TV shows and be a household name by now.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.playconversationgames.com
- Email: conversationpartygame@gmail.com
- Instagram: @conversationgames
- Facebook: @TheConversationPartyGame
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