036: Tiffany & Eric
In this episode, I’m joined by serial entrepreneur Eric Chen to talk about how a car accident became a catalyst for his journey into entrepreneurship and how he raised $148k+ for Sabobatage, The Boba Card Game.
We discussed:
Sabobatage’s origin story
The car accident that prompted Eric’s path toward entrepreneurship
The importance of spending time to self-reflect
Turning an idea into a reality
How Eric launched a successful Kickstarter campaign
Sabobatage and culture
Show notes:
Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/boba-card-game/sabobatage
Sabobatage pre-order: https://bobacardgame.com/
Asian Hustle Network: https://www.asianhustlenetwork.com/
NFT for Good: https://nft4good.com/
About Eric Chen
Eric Y Chen is a serial entrepreneur recently launching the Boba Card Game "Sabobatage" achieving $20K in just one day. He loves to help people build businesses from scratch, specializing in product launches, and invests in a few CPG brands.
Follow
Transcript
Tiffany Yu: Hi, everyone. You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. If you are new to the Tiffany & Yu podcast, Tiffany & Yu is a podcast about things that matter. And more specifically, I'm talking with friends who are using their voices and platforms to cultivate creativity, compassion, and change. So today I have an in real life guest with me, visiting San Francisco, Eric Chen is a serial entrepreneur, recently launched and completed a successful Kickstarter campaign for a boba card game called Sabobatage. Hi, Eric.
Eric Chen: Hello. Great to be here.
Tiffany Yu: Eric and I met through a mutual friend, Brian Pham. We met because we both ended up starting to be active on Clubhouse around the same time. Do you remember that?
Eric Chen: So I was very active when Clubhouse first started. And then of course based on the timing of when we had to launch our campaign, I was just too busy to stay on Clubhouse.
Tiffany Yu: Remember we actually met because you were coming through town and had sent me a Facebook messenger that you were coming to an event.
Eric Chen: But that was like a few years ago.
Tiffany Yu: That was a few years ago.
Eric Chen: And it wasn't until we got lumped into that group and then I was like, why does she seem so familiar? And then I checked my own DM to you. And I was like, oh yeah, I'll like going to be at an event they're going to be at. And then you never showed up to that event.
Tiffany Yu: That's true. Since then we've had a couple of touchpoints. And many of our listeners will know that I love boba. So I saw that you were launching Sabobatage, but I always love starting with origin stories. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what you think your origin story is that led you up to this Kickstarter campaign. And then we'll chat about the Kickstarter campaign.
Eric Chen: I mean, the origin story would take a long time. I'll give you the abridged version. And it's just a lot of fast-forwarding up until the point. So I'll kind of like backtrack where I was working in corporate. So we'll just skip all of the corporate stuff. Went off to do entrepreneurship or attempt to become an entrepreneur in early 2017. And even before that, I was already dabbling into entrepreneurship, helping out other business owners, trying to work on stuff just so I could get experience while I was working in corporate. But from 2017 on, it was the whole the idea of become a digital nomad, go run an e-commerce business, work from your laptop, do whatever you want. And so that was what I was fascinated by. But once I did it, I realized it was not sustainable or it's kind of a far-fetched idea. So I decided to get a little bit more serious. And at that time I had linked up with my business partner and we started working together on various projects. And we had a lot of steam, going in, a lot of projects coming through, clients. We had some really good projects. And it just got to a point after building this business, we were pretty much a product incubator. So companies or people even like a single person inventing a product out of their garage. Maybe they've had a patent for the last like 10 years, but they just never knew how to launch something. That's where we would come in. So I built up a lot of experience from developing products to launching them to market within the short span of like two and a half years. And it just got to a point where I always just felt like I wasn't really dedicated to one thing to doing it well, so it's like whenever something happened with a project or there's something wrong, we would shift blame or throw it onto the client or say, oh, this is your fault. We can't do anything until you resolve these things. And I realized like, maybe it's more so if I am really dedicated to something or very passionate about what I'm working on, then you would do everything you can to resolve any challenges or obstacles. So with the partners, things kind of just started to shift around. They were like, oh, we should focus on this area of our business. We should focus on logistics. We should focus on distribution. I wanted to continue helping people build products, do something with their dream. So I said, I think I'm going to go off on my own and separate. So this came around the time of right when the pandemic started happening, sheltering in place. And to me, it was kind of a blessing in disguise to just be able to have a plan to just be at home. I forego the office, the resources, the warehouse space. I was like, I'm just gonna be on my laptop, just focus in and just working away on what I had in mind. And then what ended up happening was, I moved to LA mid-last year. And then was just inspired by all the creativity that was going on, my roommates and stuff, they were in the creative space. So it was just like all of this really good energy, just being surrounded by others. And this one day the spark came to me with boba and a card game. I actually came across it on Instagram. I wish this memory would come back to me because someone out there on my Instagram story feed was someone just drinking boba, and then someone else was just playing cards or poker or something. And in my mind, when I was sitting there, I was like, huh, okay. boba, this person drinking boba, this person's playing a card game. And I'm like boba card game. And I'm like, how come this doesn't really exist right now? So that's when the idea sparked and I started to really think it over because as you imagine, I worked on so many projects. I just didn't want this to be the next idea that I'll very excitedly launch a website, work on it, half-baked idea for one month, and then I just let it die. So actually simmered on this idea for a couple months and just because I didn't want to just run off with it and then not do anything. So I really, really focused in on like, okay, if I'm gonna build whatever this boba card game is, I'm going all in. And that's when I decided to just go for it.
Tiffany Yu: I feel like what we just got was the LinkedIn highlight reel. And I feel like there's a much more deeply personal story of what drew you into entrepreneurship. If you feel comfortable, I'd love if you could talk a little bit about the car accident and what shifts happened for you in that.
Eric Chen: So I was working in corporate. I was always on the corporate track. I was in sales. So all I wanted to do was move up the corporate ladder. The end goal was to just be a VP of sales at some big tech company. That was the idea. Being born and raised in Silicon Valley, that's what you're going for if you're not an engineer. And March 2016, I ended up getting into a very bad car accident. And it's just one of those things where, I mean, I assume I'm a good person. I don't really do anything too crazy, nothing too dangerous. And that night I was at a study abroad reunion dinner, from the study abroad group. And so I was meeting up with friends and afterwards, I was like, oh, telling my friends who worked in SF. I was like, it was a Friday night. I was like, Hey, like I'm in the city. If you guys want to meet up and then we can carpool back home. And so that was that. So we met up with my friends after that dinner at the bar. I just remember getting one drink. I was like, well, you know what, like my friends not drinking. So I was like, do you want to just DD? Very simple. And we live in Fremont, so that's about a 15-minute drive outside of the city. And next thing you know, I'm just waking up in the hospital post-operation post-surgery. I had tubes down my mouth and woke up freaking out. And they actually had to sedate me because I was a danger to myself because I was just freaking out. But, what ended up happening was my friend had fallen asleep at the wheel just less than a mile away from our house. So in like the suburbs if your parents are driving home and you're just in the car, as a kid, you usually just fall asleep closer to home. There's a sense of comfortability and you can relax a little. And I think that psychologically, it was kind of what happened. It's like, oh, we're so close to home. And he just like dozed off. I mean, given it was a long drive but he had swerved off the road and crashed into a tree and the impact area was on my side. And what ended up happening was the seatbelt had pulled on my stomach so hard that it ruptured my intestines on the inside. My friends said I was conscious. I stumbled out of the car. He called the cops and the paramedics came. They were asking if I was okay and I just was mumbling words. And they said, your friend is too drunk. We don't understand him. And he's like, no, he wasn't drunk. We only had one drink. And so apparently I was able to point to my stomach that there was something wrong. And then I think they detected that I was internally bleeding. So they sent me off and that was the car accident. So what ended up happening was, they had to cut me open, reattach my intestines. And I was in ICU for about a week and then sent me home to be on bed rest. And I regained my core muscles because once they cut you open, that's your stomach muscle. And it took about, I think a little over two months for me to finally slowly regain my strength to sit up and walk, and go through that whole process. And then I ended up getting a job at Google, like soon after, and it was a sales job. So it was pretty straightforward. But about six months in, I started to experience internal complications where I was bleeding internally. And it just happened a couple of times. I had to go through all these different procedures for them to even figure out what was going on, operate on me. And at that point, when you're, for internal bodily issues, especially around your organs, you don't really feel pain. There's no nerve endings there. So you're sitting in the hospital with this issue, but mentally you're fine. And when hospitals and you realize like, this is how much we rely on technology. It was like when the wifi is not good at a hospital, you can't even Netflix and watch TV shows. You can only read your book for so long. I ended up just sitting there with my thoughts. And it's not just one day of thoughts. It's just like four days of just sitting there in a hospital bed, people coming in and out, the person next to me is like, they're getting changed out all the time too. And it's just beeping hospital machines, nurses coming in at 3:00 AM to do more blood draws and stuff. So it was just, it was very, in my mind, like a very traumatic moment being consciously aware, insane. So that just leads to a lot of self-reflection, introspection, all these things like, okay, wow. I worked so hard. I was the number two sales rep at my job during Google. And I was like, I worked so hard for what I believe Google to be the number one company. And I'm like for what? And that's really where I began to reflect. I was like, maybe corporate isn't for me, and life is too short. And I do want to do more. There's something more out there for me and what was going to be that path to really get me there. And I really thought about it. It's definitely not me sitting at my cubicle or Google open desk kind of thing, but nine to five, very limiting. It was a good life though. I really enjoyed it, hanging out with friends, free food. We played ping pong almost every day, volleyball courts when the summer weather was good. That was like the beginning journey of what prompted entrepreneurship or what I believe the path towards entrepreneurship.
Tiffany Yu: Thanks so much for sharing that story. I often think back to like my own car accident that happened when I was nine. Do you see that as like a defining moment in your life?
Eric Chen: I usually say no. It obviously was a catalyst, but the very moment that it happened and the months that passed right after that, my mindset was, I just want to recover. I just want to go back to a normal life. That was my mindset. And that's why it wasn't until six months later, where me sitting in the hospital to really think about these things. To me, that was the pivotal moment. And a lot of people are waiting for this one moment to like, change their life. It never came to me in a split second. It was a very long thought process, really assessing. And that's the thing. I don't think a lot of people spend the time to really self-reflect. Some people journal and write these things down and set up goals. But to really just sit there for like days on end to think about it, because when I was going back to the hospital, that was cool to have friends visit. They'll visit for you, like for 30 minutes, an hour. They feel bad for you, they wish you well. And what happened after the four days, they operated on me, I went home and the very next morning I started bleeding out again. So I had to go back to the hospital and it was another four days. And at that point, I'm not calling my friends like, Hey, come visit me. I'm back in the hospital. So really, I didn't tell anybody that I was back in just like a few close friends, like, Hey, I'm back in, but you don't need to spend time to come visit me because I felt bad. It's a really crummy experience that you have to go to a hospital because you only go when someone's sick or someone has an accident. And even for me, I don't want people to just sit there and feel sorry for me. So I really just sat there alone. And so for people to really take the time to think about what they want in their life, you can't really teach someone that, or even force someone to do it. And I used to say this to my friends, especially towards entrepreneurship, it was like, how do you really have someone to have that opportunity to think about what they want in life? And is it that someone has to go through this traumatic experience to even have an opportunity to think about it? A lot of my friends, or especially like my roommates that I live with, I can now sense this difference in lifestyle and mentality where they're like, why are you so chill? Everyone in LA thinks I'm really chill. I personally think I'm very high strung, but I only freak out about the things that I believe really matter. And I would say like 98% of things aren't important in the grand scheme of things, only because you've experienced this whole traumatic experience. So really like people getting mad about certain things or stressing about something that's out of their control. A lot of the normal things people stress out about, I just don't. And that's why I'm more chill, but really I'm not.
Tiffany Yu: Let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back and we'll continue chatting with Eric Chen.
Eric Chen: Yeah.
Tiffany Yu: And we are back from the break here. You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu. I have with me serial entrepreneur or corporate salesperson turned entrepreneur, Eric Chen. And before the break, we were chatting about his journey to starting his successful Kickstarter campaign for the boba card game called Sabobatage and this car accident that you were involved in, in 2016, that really, I think was seeds, starting to plant seeds towards really changing your own mindset to doing more things that matter to you. So before the record chatting about the time that you spend in the hospital and really having this time to sit with yourself and a lot of people are afraid to do that.
Eric Chen: Be with their own thoughts.
Tiffany Yu: To be with their own thoughts. Do we have to go through something like a traumatic car accident in order to look in the mirror back at ourselves and really determine what our priorities are? Both you and I have had a version of that, which now we are on this journey of self-awareness, but I'm curious if you have any strategies to really continue to anchor yourself and do that work to learn how to sit with yourself.
Eric Chen: I'll share this, that none of this really became clear to me until last year. And you and I were talking about how I moved to LA, you might possibly move to LA and you're asking about my experience and how my life has changed and stuff. Similar to me talking about the contrast and living with my roommates. Because they're so creative, a lot of inspiration comes. It was just, I was so ingrained in the idea of entrepreneurship that in the last two and a half, three years that I was building these other businesses and helping clients, I was very distracted because I had that idea. I was like, yes, I want to do something more. Self-reflect in life. And then I went and did all of those things. I built a business, I helped other people's. And for the people who are curious about numbers and stuff, that when we launched companies, we're doing like six figures per month. I've seen it all in terms of a range of successes and just seeing what was fulfilling and what was not, the type of people you want to surround yourself with. I was able to experience all of it. And I don't think it wasn't until when I really did move and start to go solo was now another chance for me to really think about what I wanted. Because I spent so much time working with my business partners. They called all the shots. And then at that point, I realized I wasn't really thinking for myself. And so I kind of let all that go from 2017 was like, yes, I'm going on my own. And you have this very motivated and exciting time of pursuit of whatever it is you wanted. And so for the people who want to practice this self-awareness, I would say definitely surround yourself with the people you believe you want to be like or learn from. But really sit down with yourself and push yourself to do all those things rather than relying on someone else. I posted on Asian Hustle Network and the most impactful line in my opinion because it just resonates with me. It's just like I thought I was being an entrepreneur by running a business, having equity, and building a business. But I realized that I was selling myself short. And it was more so within the pursuit of business, I let my partners control my own future, even though on paper, we had equal shares and all these things, but it really wasn't for myself. And so for people who want to be self-aware whether in that regard on the business side, or even just in life, it's just really feeling things out, getting attuned to being self-aware, and just knowing that it's not going to happen overnight. This is just for me, I'll tell people this is a four-year progression for me to finally be at peace with myself. So once I moved down to LA, after six months of moving, to really self-reflect on what was important, what was not, I would say that's where my headspace is. And I think for some people they can really tell that I'm, what I believe have found inner peace, with some would call it. And that took a long time to get there, but you start off with just trusting yourself.
Tiffany Yu: I love how you called it, like a four-year journey to find whatever level of peace you're at right now. And that journey still continues. So I want to transition to talking about the Kickstarter campaign. You were some may call it doom scrolling. You were looking at your Instagram, you saw people enjoying boba, you saw people playing cards, then you thought of this idea of like let's put this together and see. Once you realized, let me put this together and see if I can create a boba card game, what were the steps that ran through your mind to say, okay, I have an idea. How can I turn this idea into a reality? What made you decide that crowdfunding was the way to go? I'm sure many of our listeners have entrepreneurial ideas and you figured it out, but I'm curious, did you have any limiting beliefs running through your head during this time? Or was it a Google search? Like how did that happen?
Eric Chen: I remember when I first posted about the card game on Asian Hustle Network, that someone commented, tagged their friend, and said, Hey, didn't you have this idea a few years back? And so ideas are free. Everyone can have the same idea. I like to call it Chinese restaurant theory. I don't know if it's a theory. It's just, this is the Chinese restaurant concept. There's so many Chinese restaurants out there. And so if someone's telling you is like, oh, the market is too crowded or there's too much competition. You shouldn't do it. It's more about shifting that mindset. It's like, you should do it. At the time, there really was no existing card game or at least in the boba card game. And so to me, at least with my experience in business and entrepreneurship, it really didn't matter if there was competition. It was actually more statistical facts or stats that say it's better if there's competition because they're growing the market and the demand together. And so even with people who are wanting to start a product like this. If you're playing the Amazon game, like yeah, definitely don't go source a garlic press. That's like the joke of trying to be an Amazon seller. But in terms of a novelty idea like this, how it first started was just this product came through my own vision. If I also tell you or ask you to create your own concept of a boba card game, it's going to look drastically different. The gameplay is going to be different. The product is going to look different. And that's why for anyone out there, it's like, if you want to build something or build a company or build a product, you should at least try because everyone's definition or translation of it is going to be different. So what everyone sees today with the card game is what came from my mind and my vision for it. So to start off with the concept, I basically just took what I believed was the most fun in my opinion. If you talked to someone who loves to play Dungeons and Dragons, they'll probably would've made a board game instead of a card game. What I wanted to do was keep something more fast-casual, something more light, something that all ranges can play. And then in my mind, I'm like, I would love to have a game that you could just bring to a boba shop and play with your friends for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. That's the amount of time you're hanging out with them at a boba shop anyways. That is the perfect medium for me. I love playing Settlers of Catan, Monopoly Deal, all of these different games. And so those are some of the inspirations I took. I looked at other games as well and said, I do like these games, or I don't like these games for these reasons. So I do and don't want to include some of those components. Because all of these are different elements of games. But if you really look at all the different card games and board games out there, they're all pretty similar in some form or fashion. That's how I started to just map out the idea just in my head. Finally, put it on paper and just that's all I needed. It was just, I cut out index cards. It just literally wrote boba tea on there. And then just ask my roommates to play and like, Hey, this is the concept. So that's how it all got started. The idea came to me in July. It didn't really start formulating it on paper because remember how I said I wanted to simmer on this for a while. I think by August I had something on paper. And started playtesting, started making all of these tweaks. And then of course, just through my own experience of building businesses and products, you have to go through the proper motions of product testing and just making all the changes that you would want to and by the time December came around, I was very strict about playtesting. I created a low fidelity version, so a lot of product designers, they appreciate that when I say low fidelity. So I got a PDF version where I sent, if this wasn't shelter in place, I would have loved to just hang out friends and show them the game. But of course, no one's getting together. So I would send them a PDF where they had to print it and cut it up themselves. And then I would ask to go on Zoom and watch them play and observe them. And that's how the game just started to improve and improve. So what people are going to see today is the 30th version of the game.
Tiffany Yu: So Eric gifted me this cap that has one of the characters on it and it's
Eric Chen: Bo the Boba.
Tiffany Yu: It's Bo the Boba. So now I've got a boba hat. Let's talk about the Kickstarter. After day one, raised $20k. And then in total, you had told me your stretch goal was $100k.
Eric Chen: We had several stretch goals.
Tiffany Yu: Ok.
Eric Chen: And that's to help incentivize in the marketing perspective, people want to share and unlock the next milestones. My internal goal, my own personal goal, and achievement was to do $250,000.
Tiffany Yu: Ok. And?
Eric Chen: We ended up at $148,000.
Tiffany Yu: A lot of my listeners have great ideas. Oftentimes, I feel like the biggest barrier to entry is figuring out how to, you said ideas are free, how to turn it into a real thing. And I love that you went through all these iterations with your friends and that the final product that people are receiving is the 30th iteration. So you've done all of this product testing, but what drove the decision to then take it to Kickstarter? Because there's a little bit of vulnerability in there as well. Your background is in sales and marketing. And so I'm curious what seeds you planted before this launch that could make sure that it, and of course you can't make sure. Or maybe you do make sure, I don't know that it'll end up being successful on day one.
Eric Chen: We'll talk about the product world. If you're looking to launch a product, there's two main options, which is to just launch it on your own website and go for it. And then the other alternative is crowdfunding. I do have experience helping companies with crowdfunding already, so that was my own experience knowing what would be involved. So I wish this wasn't the case, but for Kickstarter, it's still very marketing-heavy. What crowdfunding is supposed to be is, yes, you put up a product and you show it to people and you'll garner support for it to make that dream a reality. But what crowdfunding really is, is marketing. You still have to market, you still have to drive people to come and see your product, discover it. It's like, where are you going to get these people? So it really requires Facebook ads, all of these different things. So you can still launch a successful Kickstarter if you have a small passion project. You're trying to raise just a couple thousand dollars, you can still totally use Kickstarter for it. But if you want to have a high chance of having a six-figure campaign, you're going to have to put a lot of money in. I allocated about $30,000 to get this project off the ground. And our publicly stated goal on Kickstarter was $10,000. But the idea is with and without the $10,000. Let's just say we were able to raise $10,000 or $15,000, that would help me in the pursuit of making the product come to life regardless. It didn't matter where we ended up on, even though my goal was $250,000, that was like my moonshot goal. $30,000 was already budgeted for the inventory costs and then marketing too, and then the cost for my team to create all the artwork and stuff. So the decision to go into it was how much of an impact could you make on Kickstarter? Because I would say Kickstarter is the route to go towards if you want it to be as public as possible. Because once you run it on Kickstarter, it's always on there. You can't tell Kickstarter to delete it and take it off. It's always going to be there. Because of the novelty of the idea and I really didn't need help to like do it. And of course, it's hedges your bets and it's to get people donating to the campaign to make it a reality. That is probably the best strategy for any game, but just know that you have to put money in to make it successful. We ended up doing performance ads. So of course, working with an agency to run Facebook ads, to drive traffic, but of course, you need to have the foundation within the campaign to make sure it's successful too. And so that's high-quality video production, having the campaign look really good to convert the visitors and stuff. So all of that was baked into that process. All of that I believed was the right move versus just like self-launching my own website or something.
Tiffany Yu: What I really appreciate about this conversation is you're highlighting how much work it takes behind the scenes to make a $25 product into a six-figure campaign. And I think a lot of the themes that you brought up throughout our conversation, even when you had the original idea is more like moving from an abundance mindset from a scarcity mindset, which is, oh, there's so many other card games but there's room for all card games. And then, oh, I want to launch this Kickstarter campaign and you have to put the investment in for it to see it return.
Eric Chen: You were asking how did I ensure that it would be successful on day one? I think for a lot of people who know me and have interacted with me, I try really hard to just maintain genuine connections. I thought we were going to do a much better with influencers and bringing them on board and having all these conversations like will you help post? I think we reached out to a hundred influencers and these are influencers that I've never interacted with before, so it was a very cold outreach. I think only 15 people responded that they would help. If you really think about 15 influencers is not that much. And so hoping that we would have a lot to drive the success didn't really come from the influencer side, but based on the mission, based on the idea of this and wanting support, I think my network and my community that I had built over time really came together to help support. So even though the influencers we reached out to you did help and support and push it, I believe a lot of the successes also came from friends who shared it. Some just happened to be influencers in their own right. They had a lot of big following and that really helped with a big, big, big push. But I would tell people, at least with a Kickstarter tip is always, always focused on the first day success. So it doesn't matter, to build out a campaign in between or during the Kickstarter campaign. I focus all attention for first-day launch. Hey, if you can share, can you share it on this day? This is when we're launching. That was the whole thing, even with media. We got news coverage, prior and during, or next day. It was just trying to tie it all into the first-day launch.
Tiffany Yu: I think that that's great advice about the day one launch. May is Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge that, since the beginning of this year, we've continued to see not only more visibility but an increased rise in anti-Asian violence. And so I'm curious, where you see Sabobatage playing in whatever zeitgeist, if it's celebrating Heritage Month now, or if it's using it as a conversation starter.
Eric Chen: So you just did the NFT for good.
Tiffany Yu: Eric bought my NFT.
Eric Chen: I bought yours. I've been in talks with Daniel about an NFT thing. I'm not going to say what we're doing. But the idea would be for us to launch something Sabobatage related within the NFT space for us to also have an opportunity to donate into AAPI and everything that's going on with the world. So that's how I would be tying in Sabobatage and using this as my own platform to support. One of the future plans is because this is a card game, it's meant for kids as well, is to have enough products and inventory to be able to donate to schools and orphanages and stuff like that. So that's like one aspect of the future once I get this out the door. I wish I had products in hand during this month, but of course, timing just didn't really add up.
Tiffany Yu: We've got the hat.
Eric Chen: That's all I have.
Tiffany Yu: What I really appreciate about Sabobatage is, I think that there's something fun and playful about boba, which is why we all love drinking boba. There's like a whole culture around Boba. And when I think about Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, it's, how can we acknowledge that there is, unfortunately, this narrative that as Asian Americans, some people see us as perpetual foreigners, but at the same time, there's some parts of our culture that are so fun and playful. And how can we make sure we acknowledge those dualities as well?
Eric Chen: I think with the launch of this whole thing, I've been able to expand my community and network too. And this has just been more eye-opening because the whole idea and similar to how Andrew from Boba Guys. His whole mission with his Boba store is to bridge cultures. That's the perfect way to explain it. It's like, you just want to be the bridge. Now that I'm launching this, I'm talking to so many boba shop owners and they're telling me, Hey, we're expanding our second shop, third shop or whatever 10th shop to rural parts of America where you don't expect a boba shop to be, it just shows how much more America is adopting these different cultures. And I was thinking, I was like, I don't think my place in this world was to open a boba shop myself, but it's like, this game is now that introduction to the boba world. It's like for me to share this with my friends and the toppings, the characters within the game. Passion fruit isn't a common fruit here in the States. Aloe, or just even eating aloe and all that stuff. That's sunblock or sunscreen to most of America. So it's like to be introduced to all of this stuff, it's just opening more doors. That's why I believe this game does allow that opportunity and whether we can get this into the doors of like big-box retail in the future. It'd be cool to see this. Actually, I was just at Target the other day and whenever I go to Target, I just stand at the game aisle and stare at the game shelf and seeing what's new, seeing what's out there. And I picked up this box that was something that just came from Japan. And I was like, that was the one thing that stood out to me because everything else was like, you can tell the artwork is very Americanized, but this one was a lot cuter, but it wasn't just American cute. This was like, oh, there's a flare for the Asian cute. So that's why I was like, very conscious about the artwork with this. It was, we weren't going super kawaii or like super like chibi anime and stuff. It was like, let me find the in-between. And so the artwork you guys will see with this game is how I perceive my Asian American-ness wrapped into the artwork.
Tiffany Yu: So we're in San Francisco right now. Boardgame culture or game culture is huge here. So you took something that you love doing, which is you had familiarity with all these games. You figured out a way to turn it into a product, and then you leveraged your background to make it a success. And so as we close our conversation, you shared a little bit of the bigger vision around Sabobatage, which is, let's see it in a Target. I always close my podcast by asking my guests the same question, which is what are you grateful for today?
Eric Chen: That's a great question. I don't practice gratitude every day, so it's nice that you're even prompting this. I think just the fact that you and I are able to sit here together and this is what I believe is the beauty of, whether it's you want to call it entrepreneurship, but just having a community and being able to build the relationships like this, that is what I'm grateful for and just being able to just sit down. The whole reason you have this is to support your friends' voices and show what's out there. Being able to finally sit down face to face, get to know each other and stuff too.
Tiffany Yu: I always love starting by looking at the lineage of how we met, which is you sent me a message that didn't really lead to an IRL thing. And then we ultimately needed a couple more touchpoints of Bryan re-introducing us, and then us realizing that we had this connection and then you passing through town as well, to get reacquainted. So, if people want to support Sabobatage, is it available to buy yet, or are you fulfilling Kickstarter orders right now? And if they want to support in other ways, like following your work, what's the best way to do that?
Eric Chen: I believe by the time people are listening to the episode, products won't be available yet. We will have pre-order phases coming up in the summertime. So I would suspect June, mid-June is when things would be available for pre-order while supplies last. The first 10,000 units that we have manufactured, we have about 5,500 going out to Kickstarter backers. So there's only 4,500 left. There's some private events going on where I'd think that's going to dwindle our inventory really fast. So the best thing you can do is subscribe to our email newsletter on BobaCardGame.com. Very easy to remember and going to Sabobatage Instagram. That's where we're very active in posting what's going on. And then if you want to follow my own personal IG, which I don't really post that much, but I'm very active in commenting on other people's stuff, it's @chenericeric.
Tiffany Yu: Excellent. Well, thank you, Eric, for coming on the Tiffany & Yu podcast.
Eric Chen: Thanks for having me.