Britt - Hella Awkward Card game

Dex: 0:11

Hey, welcome to another episode of In The Black. This is your boy Dex. And before I get into our guest, I wanna take you back to your childhood a little bit. When for anybody out there that has siblings, you know how competitive the two of you were. And, you know, when it came to like video games nintendo or whatever, you guys kind of went at it now, what happens when, instead of going at it and becoming competitive, you come together to form like Voltron. Well, that just leads me into our guest today. Bri is a co-founder of hella awkward, a card game for the awkward conversations you've been meaning to have. She's also a theater artist, a beauty influencer that's based out of New York city on a mission to help you enjoy deeper connections. Hella, Awkward has been featured in Essence buzzfeed Health Magazine and is now available on Amazon. And Macy's so Bri, welcome to the show,

Britt: 1:06

thank you so very much. I'm so excited to be here with.

Dex: 1:09

man. I'm so excited to have you. I'm so sorry for anybody out there. That's listening. I'm a little on the sick side right now. Not just mentally, but physically. I got a little flu going on, but uh, we're gonna get through this all together. So

Britt: 1:22

it.

Dex: 1:24

so, you gotta tell us about your game. How did you come up with it? How did you create it? Who was the game for, and how much of it is just based off of research of you and your brother going at it ever since you were kids.

Britt: 1:38

Yeah. So Hella Awkward was created in the midst of. Insane New York city quarantine in June of 2020. So it's myself, my brother, Brandon, and his girlfriend, Jane. Basically we would watch Issa Ray's Insecure and we would FaceTime after every episode of season four. And we would just talk through the episode. Like a lot of people always would. And realized we were having really dope conversations of course, and getting to know each other in a different way, as adults, as friends, building our relationship as siblings, and then him building his relationship with his, you know, now girlfriend Jane. Um, and so we just thought we need to kind of. Figure out how we can continue these conversations. Like how can we bottle this into something that we can help other people use as a tool to, you know, build their connections and have their, you know, deeper relationships like we were experiencing. So really we just were. Putting down hundreds of different questions, topics, conversation, starters into a PDF file. And we would meet virtually every week and go over all of these different questions. And once we had a document, we sent it out to a bunch of our friends and family and we're like, Hey. Can you guys look through these and tell us what you think and ask your other friends and give us feedback and some criticism. And they were like, yeah. . So we did that and they came back with a lot of great criticism. We went back to the drawing board, scrapped. A lot of stuff changed. A lot of things, added some other things and it kind of formed into what is now Hella Awkward. So that was really the beginnings. And after that, We went into figuring out. You know, our design, what do we want this to look like? What do we want it to feel like? And that's really where Jane comes into play. She's a product designer. And so it was just figuring out the design. And then for me, it was all about figuring out how do we get this made? So I'm the research component. I love Googling a billion different things, asking everyone a billion different questions. And so I just started looking up. How do we actually get a product made? I had no idea. It was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but we're gonna figure it out. okay. So I went on to Facebook and I found all of these. Crazy groups on tabletop games, card games, gaming industries, small businesses, black owned businesses. And I just joined every single group I could and just read everything, asked a bunch of questions, asked for different resources and a lot of people were super helpful. And so that's sort of how I learned and then we were able to kind of move forward from.

Dex: 4:25

That is so awesome. I just kind of wanna make a little confession. Um, when I bought this game originally, I bought it for me and my wife and then my brother and his wife had their anniversary. So I gave it out to him. Just on a

Britt: 4:39

Oh,

Dex: 4:39

cuz I didn't, I didn't want to give him a Starbucks card. He doesn't drink coffee or anything, but and I had to, I had to ask for it back from him in order to do the research for this. And man, next time he's just getting a Starbucks card. So there's that?

Britt: 4:56

You don't give

Dex: 4:57

Well, I don't know if he didn't want to give it back, but I, I definitely got some side eye, so, but in fairness he gives me side eye all the time. So there's that. So.

Britt: 5:07

hilarious. We'll have to get him his own copy as well.

Dex: 5:10

oh, that's what's up. So shout out, Ian. I love you, man. So now with all these questions and, you know, doing your research, sending out to family and friends, what question brought you the most unexpected answer?

Britt: 5:25

Unexpected answer. Well, I think the question that always gets people riled up the most is how much do you make in a year? That one people either. Completely wanna skip or they're like, why would you wanna talk about salaries and money? You know, it's so taboo. Like who's trying to be all in my bank account. Um, or people are like, you know what? We should be talking about our salaries. We should be talking about how we can make money in our communities. That's that makes sense. So I'm glad you asked that. And so that question is always the most polarizing. You know, I always am like encouraging people to open up as much as possible when they're playing and not skip. You know, if you don't know our game, we include one skip card per player. So you can, you can skip one question. But, that question in particular is the one that I would say gets people riled up the most.

Dex: 6:20

I in my case, if I had to answer that question, well, the reason I wouldn't wanna answer is cuz I don't want anybody laughing too hard at about how much money I don't make. So there's that, so.

Britt: 6:33

That

Dex: 6:33

Yeah. Yeah. So write that one down. Okay. so what was this process for getting the physical product and, you know, sourcing your printers and people like that? Because I know you talked to the Facebook groups, what, what all did they tell you?

Britt: 6:49

Well, the biggest thing was there was a few people that already had lists of manufacturers that they were using. And so I was able to kind of compile from those lists and make my own list. Since our game is only paper, we really wanted to have a really high quality paper printer. That was something that became. apparent as I was doing my research. So I sort of made my own list of different manufacturers and where in the world we could get this made. I looked at making it here in the U.S., but it just was completely impossible. Like the pricing is just insane. So then like most people I had to look overseas. So now we manufacture in China and basically I was just sending out a bunch of quotes to, To a bunch of different manufacturers and just saying, Hey, this is kind of what I wanna make. Can you make it? And if so, how much would it, it cost . So they would come back with different pricing, different quotes, and then we would order a sample, get the sample shipped to us, and we would look at the different quality and then decided, okay, we're gonna order from you based off of your sample and based off your customer service. And, and so that's how it kind of got started.

Dex: 8:01

Okay. So what was the turnaround for the time that you, you sent out, you know, the bids and to where they, you received the samples?

Britt: 8:10

So again, we started June, 2020. Our goal was, we wanted to have product ready by black Friday. And that was hilarious because it definitely did not happen. we got samples back probably around that time. Uh, like November, December of 2020, and then we opened our pre-order on our website in February of 2021. And then we actually had product to ship. Probably by may of 2021, and then we were shipping out from there. So it took longer than we wanted. It was sort of more rude awakening for us. Cause we had no idea. We were like, oh yeah, we'll be ready to go by Christmas. We just decided that

Dex: 8:52

Yeah.

Britt: 8:53

But that was definitely not the case.

Dex: 8:55

Well, I'm glad you guys did it on black Friday instead of before, Thanksgiving, because you would ruin a lot of meals. If you did that.

Britt: 9:04

No, your, your meals will be better. You're deepening your relationships. There you go.

Dex: 9:09

Everybody got that uncle. They don't like everybody. So, yeah, I am that uncle. Um, so tell me about your marketing process and what worked best for you. Was it really just word of mouth or, or what happened? Exactly.

Britt: 9:31

Yeah. We, I mean, we self-funded our companies since all of our savings, so we are bootstrapping up the Wazu for our business. So we didn't have money to just blow on Facebook ads as we were getting started. So we had to be scrappy. So it was just organic social media word of mouth and just asking. Friends and family to just repost as much as possible. I still ask people like, Hey, can you make me a quick video of you playing this weekend? If you have friends coming over, I always have cards on me. So if I see somebody when I'm out and they're like, oh, what's oh, you can have that game. Right. And I'm like, yeah, here, check it out. And then I'm just filming. Cause everything is content. So really it was just all organic social building up our email list to kind of have like our Hella, Awkward family as we call them. And then. As we were growing and building and making, starting to make money, then we started moving into more paid, you know, like traditional social media ads. Um, and then of course on Amazon, we started doing, playing around with some ads on Amazon as well. So, but honestly, when you're getting started organic, organic, organic, just follow, whatever the trends are on social and just do that. So that was the biggest key making reels, making TikTok, um, and just showing. So behind the scenes process showing, you know, all of our milestones and just being really transparent on building the business that seemed to work really well. People like to see us just shipping our product, us hustling with boxes and taking it to the post office. And. You know, like home boxing it and playing it ourselves like that, that really resonated with people. And so we we're slowly growing, you know, we're still small, but we have very engaged community of people who are excited about us and definitely organic social was the key

Dex: 11:22

Well, real recognizes real. So, you know, that's, there's that? So I gotta ask you this. How many of these have led up led to a breakup a divorce?

Britt: 11:38

I would say actually opposite. We hear a lot of reviews from our friends and just random people who have bought, who will send us an email or a DM or whatever. And most of the time it's because they're having problems in their relationships and they play. That's just thinking, oh, it'll be a really fun night. And then they say, oh wow. We actually talked about things that we've been avoiding talking about, or we decided. After playing this, we should go to therapy and like actually figure out our relationship. Or I had a, a mom email me and she said she played with her adult children, that their relationship had been strained. And they finally are talking again because of this game. So it's really helpful. I think. So there's not so many breakups, more so, uh, makeups

Dex: 12:25

man. See here, I am trying to crack a joke and now you got me tugging at the hard strings.

Britt: 12:33

You.

Dex: 12:34

man, I'm gonna try harder next time. How's that? So now that you're disrupting the family. Counseling scene. We gotta get back into the distribution. And you, you briefly mentioned it when you guys first got product. Were you and your brother and his girlfriend, were you guys sending it out personally or did you guys just send a bunch of 'em to Amazon? Like what was your whole process at that point?

Britt: 13:00

Yeah. So when we first started. Shipping. So again, we had our, our pre-order open in February. We were shipping out in may. So we had, you know, hundreds of orders already that we had to start shipping. So we did all of that ourselves. We have some videos on our TikTok and our Instagram that you can check out where we just have boxes from the floor to ceiling of my brother and Jane's apartment. They're the warehouse. And then basically I just. Ordered boxes and tape and craft paper. And we got some little note cards made. So we've handwritten. Thank you notes. We got some little stickers that we send to some of our like repeat customers and, and so we, we just ship everything ourselves on really like the distribution side. They're the warehouse side. And then when we have like big, huge orders, we all work together to ship those out. So during black Friday, it was just me and my brother in a glass of wine, just all night, long packing things, up, shipping things out. We got a printer from Amazon and we just kind of figured it out on our own, you know, we do have. Amazon. We have an Amazon store as well. So we do ship all of those products over to Amazon. And then obviously you can, you can order on prime, like everyone loves, but, but yeah,

Dex: 14:19

that is what's up, man. That is what's up. I'll be honest with you. You had me at a glass of wine. I mean, I'll, I'll ship out a couple if you, if you get the vino so I bet

Britt: 14:29

use the help

Dex: 14:31

You know, why is this guy knocking

Britt: 14:33

line. OK.

Dex: 14:34

You promised wine.

Britt: 14:37

We can pay in wine that's one thing we could do.

Dex: 14:42

That is what's up. So now that you've gotten sort of the head start with this and you've had to bootstrap and figure it all out yourself, what would you do differently if you had to, to start this whole process over again? What, what would be the big major change for you?

Britt: 14:59

mm-hmm yeah, that is a good question. And I. I'm not sure if there's anything that I would really change so far. Like obviously I wish we had more money to invest so we could maybe scale quickly. But I really think that we went into this with such a good intention of we are family. So we have to not to be all cheesy. We are are family, but But legit. We were like, we never thought we would start a business together. Like me and my brother have always been quite close. We're only two years apart. And. You know, building a business together was never on either of our lists of things to do. But now that we have, we started and we said, our relationship as family always has to come first. And that has to be the center of this. That's how this thing works. It can't just be. You know, the numbers and the, the business meetings. And we have to always make sure that our relationship is always intact. So I think having that as a base made everything else really fun and exciting for us to learn together. So there's not really anything I would change. Like, I feel like we. We've built a really cool community of people. We've gotten to know so many other black game makers and we're friends with a lot of them. We've met with a lot of them. And so we all kind of share resources together. Um, we've just kind of been scrappy. Like we've just figured out you just move forward. Of course there have been like challenges and things that we have to learn along the way, but then we do it again. And now we know. So honestly, I've really enjoyed this process. It's been really fun for. And doing it with my brother of course is incredible and so rewarding. So I, I wouldn't.

Dex: 16:55

That is a long roundabout way of saying no. Yeah, we did it perfect the right time. So, you know, whatever y'all. That is so great. That is so great. I'm so glad you and your brother, you guys started off close and then it, is it fair to say that you guys have gotten closer since you've, you know, joined, you know, jumped into this venture?

Britt: 17:18

A hundred percent. I mean, one of the things that we did when we made the questions is we all had to answer the questions. Together first. And if we didn't have a really good conversation around each question, then we would scrap it from the game. So obviously when we're all answering all of these cards, even the sex cards, sometimes you're getting to know someone that's a little too awkward about your brother that you might not wanna know, but now we know. And so we're closer because of it, even if it was a little awkward, you have to give past those moments. Um, especially if you want other people to participate, you know, as we would want. So. So, yes, we're very close. I've gotten closer to his girlfriend, Jane, which has been great getting to know her through this process and just seeing my brother as a business man and knowing how he works and how smart he is. And I definitely admire him and have learned so much from him in that way as well. So it's great to kind of work with him in that sense.

Dex: 18:14

Oh, see, now you just made me think of that video. You guys had on your site about, or not your site, but your YouTube page with Jane answering that question, I'm gonna let y'all, uh, check it out. I'll link it. in the show notes, but I'll, I'll definitely let, y'all check that one out. Um, I'm sweating just thinking about it right now, but

Britt: 18:40

I know which way you're

Dex: 18:41

yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This is a family show. Y'all come. I, I gotta

Britt: 18:48

gets a little X-rated it's a little spicy.

Dex: 18:52

I gotta commend you though. You know, you have to remember as an older sister, you've spent literally this lifetime journey of watching your brother, you know, you probably fed him as he is a child, maybe changed his diapers, you know, peanut butter jelly

Britt: 19:09

Absolutely.

Dex: 19:10

beat him in Mario. taught him how to read. And then, and now you've come to this point where, you know, even though I'm sure you've had a ton of respect for him, you now have you now have this like new vision, this new respect for somebody that you've seen your entire life. And it doesn't sound like you've taken any moment for granted. So I gotta convince you. Yeah. Yeah.

Britt: 19:37

Thank you. That's so very sweet of you say I really appreciate that. And it's so true,

Dex: 19:41

Yeah.

Britt: 19:42

you know, definitely.

Dex: 19:43

to my brother and sister because they don't, you know, no matter what I've done to them, you know? Yeah. I'm talking bad about you. Yeah. I'm talking bad about you all seven listeners of this podcast know? Yep. Yep.

Britt: 19:58

Right. I know that's. I mean, family dynamic was so fascinating. Everyone has such different experiences. And I know we definitely had our problems growing up as kids just, we, you know, we didn't come from any kind of money. We grew up quite poor. We had lots of issues growing up, but I think the thing that always kept us so close is we all just really loved each other and we would play so many games. Everything was a competition. Everything was just. Making up something creative to keep the day going and having a good time. So it's fun that we got have this game that we can make together play so many games as kids. So it just makes it really amazing. It's so

Dex: 20:41

Yeah, it is. It is like, again, the heart strings, the heart strings, you know, You know, after hearing all that, I'm only gonna give you one tear. Okay. Just one tear. All

Britt: 20:52

one single tear

Dex: 20:53

that's it, that's it, you know, just for dramatic effect. So. But, uh

Britt: 20:59

it.

Dex: 21:02

but, now I gotta, I gotta know, you know, you got this great game, you got it out there. You got a good system. You got an amazing partner in working with you on this. Are you going to expand into other games?

Britt: 21:15

oh, absolutely. We're already working on an expansion pack that will hopefully be ready. For Christmas. Um, and then we're going to basically, we're gonna expand all of the categories. So we have four categories, real talk, dating, sex, and relationships. So we're gonna expand all of those categories out to include more questions. And then we're also working on a brand new game that we are in development for. So keep your eyes out for that. Join the email list. So you are the first to know of course when that happens, but yeah, we're growing, we're building

Dex: 21:50

Or even more, even more importantly, you could come back to this amazing podcast that I know. And you could talk about it on there for about a half hour, so

Britt: 21:57

Absolutely. Of course I'd be happy to

Dex: 22:00

well, ex ex uh, speaking of expansion, expansion packs, I'm sorry. I'm just, um, I'm on the meds right now, people. Um, I, I got some questions for you and they're directly from your game.

Britt: 22:13

Oh,

Dex: 22:13

Yeah, don't worry. I'm gonna keep it clean. All right. First one, what's your favorite city in the world and why?

Britt: 22:24

My favorite city in the world is of course, New York city. I've lived here for over a decade. And even though sometimes this place gets on my nerves, cuz it's loud and dirty. I still love it. There's so much magic. That you just don't realize until you leave. And then when you come back, you're like, wow, this city is so dope. There's just so many cool things going on. The food game is unparalleled. You can get anywhere in the city via public transportation. It's just insane. Like I wish the rent was cheaper that, you know, that would be nice, but I do love this place.

Dex: 23:03

Yeah. Well, wait a minute. Well then where did, where did you come from? I thought you were from New York.

Britt: 23:10

No. I'm from Michigan,

Dex: 23:12

what.

Britt: 23:13

from, from grand rapid Michigan. That's where I was, where I was raised. I went to Michigan state university, go green

Dex: 23:21

say go Spartans. that's what's up. That's what's up? All right, let me get to this next question. If money wasn't an issue, how would you spend your time?

Britt: 23:38

Well, traveling is always huge on my list. I love travel. So I would definitely just travel the world and be sort of a nomad in that sense. I would just go to different. Parts of the world, different cities and just kind of create like a little home base or like a little friend nest and spend a few months in different places. And then obviously now I can kind of run my business remotely, so I would still work on Hella Awkward and building this game and just travel nonstop.

Dex: 24:11

That's what's up, man. So to all the street food vendors in Thailand, she's coming.

Britt: 24:17

Absolutely.

Dex: 24:19

All right, let me hit you with another one. What is the one thing you want to accomplish before the years end?

Britt: 24:28

oh, one thing I can't believe it's almost August. That is also insane. Um, I think what I want to accomplish and we are so close is I want Hella Awkward to be. In mass retail at Target, that was always a big goal of mine from day one is Target is sort of like the, the Mecca, especially in tabletop game world. So I'm hoping Target. We come in for you before the end of this year, I'm claiming it. It's gonna happen. Putting it in the universe. Manifesting

Dex: 25:10

it's funny. Cause my, my wife is huge into to board games, you know, family games and. We have, uh, exploding kittens in the whole nine throw, throw a burrito, throw,

Britt: 25:19

I love it.

Dex: 25:20

Yeah. Like

Britt: 25:21

Totally.

Dex: 25:22

Yeah. She, she, uh, she loves all that family stuff and yeah. That's exactly where we pick up all of our games. So yeah. So shout out,

Britt: 25:32

That's the spot. That is the spot.

Dex: 25:34

It is, it

Britt: 25:35

Yeah.

Dex: 25:36

All right. So you can only stream one album for the rest of your. Which album are you listening to? And why is it? Uh, Marvin gay. What's going on?

Britt: 25:49

That that long is of course I, if I've listened to the whole front to

Dex: 25:53

Oh,

Britt: 25:55

that,

Dex: 25:56

Britt. Britt. I need you. I need you to hear me. I need you to hear me. I need you to take one hand, put it out, put it out in front of you. Nice and flat. Now I need you to take the other hand and smack the first hand. Okay.

Britt: 26:13

Oh, no

Dex: 26:14

Yes. You, you gotta, You

Britt: 26:16

all I'm

Dex: 26:18

You gotta get that, that same bottle of wine. You gotta listen to the album front to back and then

Britt: 26:25

you, right? You

Dex: 26:26

We'll put that on an episode or whatever, but yeah, front to back. It, it rocks your world. I promise. No, but seriously,

Britt: 26:33

That is a good idea.

Dex: 26:34

you listen to?

Britt: 26:37

Um, one album. Hmm. I think the album I always go back to, and this might be a deep cut for, for, um, in the indie band world. I don't know if you know, but you should but it's this band called Hiatus Coyote. I am absolutely obsessed with them. They're like an Australian band, but they have like, Really dope mix of like jazz and funk and hiphop. They, um, Drake actually covered them. Um, in one of his songs, uh, a few albums ago I'm obsessed with them. So I would listen to their album, not stop. They just, they just kinda like going on, check it out.

Dex: 27:23

You know what? I might just smack my hand for not knowing that one. So you never know, you never know.

Britt: 27:29

check them out,

Dex: 27:30

I I can't believe you have this one last question in your podcast it's or not in your, in your, um, in your game. It's what is your favorite podcast and why is it In The Black like that is, are you, are you shouting me out right now? I just feel like you

Britt: 27:47

I know. Isn't so crazy

Dex: 27:49

It is nuts. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Britt: 27:54

for

Dex: 27:55

No, no, it's been a real pleasure. Um, but last and, but not least. How do we get ahold of you on all your social? How do people get ahold of you to look for the next game? So,

Britt: 28:07

Yeah, so you can find us on all social at Hella Awkward cards and I'm the rent, the one who's on the social. So just send me a DM and say hi, I love to be DMing people. So. Hit me up after this. And then we're sold@hellaawkward.com as well as we're on Amazon. And we're on Macy's dot com. So check this out.

Dex: 28:29

That is what's up. I am definitely gonna keep all that information and stuff in the show notes. So for everybody out there, you know, I know we've all had a hard time with this pandemic and quarantine and everything, but, you know, maybe you could get together with your loved ones and start a card game. Um, but you're not gonna get better than this one. I can tell you that one. I can definitely tell you that one. So. For Bri, my name is Dex. This is in the black check us out on all socials at, in the black, uh, podcast and follow us on apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The best way to support the show is to share it with a friend. So check us out. You guys have yourself a great day.