Ep4: What Really Happens Inside a Game Store with Bat City Games and Comics
Join Josh on The Business of Gaming podcast as he visits with Brendan from Bat City Games and Comics, a local game stop in Austin, Texas. This episode discusses retail management and the evolution of his gaming assortment as he working through the challenges of starting a small business in the gaming industry.
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Introduction
Hey all, welcome to the business of gaming podcast. Today we're at Bad City Games and Comics in Austin, Texas. I'm
Josh from Game Haven Guild and I'm here with Brendan, one of the owners who opened the store almost two years ago.
Where did the Idea of Starting a Game Store Come From?
Tell us about the store. The store is coming up on 2 years old. What was the kind of origin story of it? What brought you around to wanting to open up this
store? Well, I mean, we I have a friend, my partner who's up in uh Dallas, a work friend of mine. Uh we were looking for
something to invest in. And so we, you know, the whole gambit from do we flip houses, do we, you know, buy a subway or
something like that, you know, just things just something to have on the side to kind of give us give us something to look at. And um I know I
had come from originally come from Arizona. I wasn't born there, but I was spend most my a good part of my development years there. And there was
um some a comic book shop there and I called Atomic Comics and they were very popular in Arizona. Had same vibe that
we're going for here like much, you know, very clean, crisp. Uh, we always describe this shop as kind of an Apple
store smashed into a comic book game shop, you know, kind of give you that vibe. And so I brought that up with him
and when I started looking at at the map of how Austin's set up, you see a ton of
board game shops and comic book shops north of the river, but there wasn't a ton south, right? Um, there's, you know,
a couple here and there, and we just when we started honing down on it, we kind of saw this desert here, like in
this part part of town. So we kind of we we you know started putting a business case together which was you know kind of
tough. There's not really a lot out there that tells you exactly what it is. There was one one place that had like
you know where you could do franchising so you could get a little bit of the data on what it would do. But I mean we
spent time just sitting outside shops in Dallas or here just watching how many people walk in and out of the shop and how big does their bag go and try to
figure out what it what it would be. But um but I think we were surprised in some of the what we had pre started off with
the business case and where we're at now. At the time we had somebody who came out from Arizona who helped us get it set up, you know, did a lot of work
in the beginning. Unfortunately, we had to part ways, but um but we we got it we got it to where we we were pretty solid
with the business case. We were we were wrong on a couple major things in in the right way, but uh um specifically like
you know what what would our split be? We did not anticipate Magic the Gathering being nearly as large as it
How to Choose Game Categories and Assortments to Stock?
is. It is so huge. Tell us about beginning and then now like what did you think like cuz you got
a big games, you got a big comic section, you within games you have a massive board game section, you've got
some card games and some wargaming. Like what did you think your split was going to be kind of the different groups
versus how's it actually come through? Those are probably we we anticipated we
would be, you know, the big buckets would be comics and then that split into
used and new comics, graphic novels in there, too. So, it's kind of three graphic novels, used comics and new
comics. Board games, we kind of that was the the gaming part of it and we didn't
really anticipate that. Magic, Pokemon, Lana, Star Wars Unlimited, we didn't
really think too much about that. It wasn't really up on that part of it. And then Warhammer kind of came along probably about the 6 to 8 month mark and
we were just looking uh the idea that we really built the store around was uh diversification, right? If you um if you
got a big comic book release coming out like the Absolutes for DC or Invincible Battle Beast, then you have that as a
pillar to help with your revenue. But when it's when there's a kind of a dry spell in comics, you might have a big
release of Magic or you might have a big release of Pokemon. uh it might have wingspan come out or fin span you know
extension there. So what we found is that diversification is the huge part of
what keeps the business going right. So you can see um you know a percentage a large percentage in multiple groups as
opposed to just all depending upon a magic release. So you know that's great at some point there's there I don't know
when it'll be but there might be a saturation to magic doesn't doesn't appear to be they like they just did
Final Fantasy and it was massive but at some point you worry about that. So, I want to make sure that we have the strong diversification. That's that's
where where we kind of focused and and that's to me the big part the big difference was the the um the trading
games that those we didn't anticipate being the size they were they started. So, that was where we had to give them more space and and more attention and
focus. When I look at the store, you got a a really big store. Is this like 3500 square?
Yeah, I thought that's a good good guess. So, we're about 4,000 with our store. So, if you take out our store room, we're about 3,500, you know, uh
actual um you know, uh retail space and we have a large portion of it dedicated to being able to set up and play games.
Yeah. Permanent tables. Looks like close to maybe 25% of the store if not is around gaming space.
Yep. And then um and then we try to leave, as you can see here, this space is pretty open. So, we get six or eight
more tables over here. I mean, we can get on a Wednesday night when we do commander, we'll get 60 plus people
playing commander. there. So, that's uh that's great. It's usually about 15 tables. So, it's about the about the
limits that we can do. Anything more than that, we'd have to do bunk bed tables or something and go up
or go outside. We talked about the weather's nice. We could probably put a couple outside and so Sure. Tell me about the expectations on that
area, right? How when you open the shop, did you expect the indoor gaming part to
be a big part of it or and how has that changed your your thoughts over the last two years? Yeah, we we definitely
planned I mean we built out six or seven tables to start the permanent tables. So
we would that was always a plan from the beginning and we always had our demo wall with uh that I just brought all the
games from my house and said yeah well then eventually people just donate games or we get demo games from vendors. Um
and we the one thing we had thought we would do is the first couple months we would have it set up in reservations and
then we thought at some point that we would like you know charge for people to to reserve tables and we've made the
decision over time that we just will never do that. So we want people just to come in and play. I mean I don't care if
somebody comes in and sits at a table for 3 hours doesn't buy anything in the shop to me that we're building that community where
we just want people to have fun. What we found is that people then will support the community. They'll buy our games here. We obviously can't always compete
with Amazon because someone's selling out of their garage and gives them rent utilities, but someone's willing to pay5
or $10 more for a game if they buy it from a shop that they sit down and play it. They crack it open right there. Or they played the gimmel game and they
liked it and then they play it. Um or they'll buy snacks and they'll buy or there they'll buy a p a pop they like or
something like that. So we that was one thing we thought at some point once we got popular enough that we may rent out
the tables, but we've we've made the decision not to do that. So yeah, do you still take reservations for the
tables? Yes. So you do it right online. So we have there's the there's four high tops and four regular city seated tables and
you can go in and reserve them for two hours at a time. Uh you can even do it for more than that. You just got to do two reservations and you can do that. I
think we have it set up now a month or two out. Oh, great. Yep. And we block off periods because we have obviously
Wednesday nights are a no-go. We have all the magic going on. Uh we have like every other Saturday there's a big board
gaming group that comes here on their own. So they're they probably they use up six or eight tables just by
themselves. So there's always ability to walk in and we'll set up a table for you if we don't if those are all reserved.
Yeah. Um so we have the ability to to flex with the capacity we need to. Tell me about that that community
Building a Community for a New Game Store
building. You're just opening up. People are finding about the store by driving by. You got a great location here, but
what were you doing to try and build that community at first? Yeah. So, that's the the toughest thing with with
any anything you you start, right? Um, so we we wanted to make sure, like you
said, we got the location. We wanted to get a really bright and, you know, recognizable sign. So, we did that. Um,
we really pushed and really asked for reviews online. That to me kicks off. It gets it to the top of the uh to the
searches. It helps with the algorithms. We do do some advertising like on Google just to kind of make sure it helps bump
us up when we're looking for comics and board games. Um, but really it's word of mouth. I mean, to be 100% honest with
you, the way you build a community is you become part of the community. Just a good place to be. You can't fake it.
So, we really try to welcome people when they come in the shop. We try to ask what they what they're looking for, what
they need. We explain how our reservation tables work. Uh, and we just you just get to know people and you just
sits I you know I'm from New England, from Boston the old show Cheers, right? You just want people to know your name.
And so yeah, we have I wouldn't say dozens, we probably have hundred plus customers now that come in here multiple times a week
and we just know their name and they come in and they buy a pack at lunch when they're at work or and they go off and they and they, you know, come back
later and play Magic that night. So that that to me is it's a slow it's not even a grind. It's just a slow
process and you need to be committed to it and and you need to make sure your employees are on board, right? Cuz I
can't be here 24/7. I have a regular Monday through Friday day job. So, yeah. So, you have to make sure your employees
have that same vision and that's we're we're lucky. We've been really good with that. So, the marketing side of it, you said
you're doing a little bit of Google like uh keyword uh type. Any other big
marketing things that have either worked or not worked in the last years? So, we do we did Facebook advertising
periodically. Um, it's hard to say how much that worked. I we just decided not
to do more of it. We'll do it like during uh ACL and we just will do like a
two-mile radius around ACL. So, basically basically everybody who's in there uh gets the gets it on their phone
and kind of stops. We do see some pickup in traffic for that. Um we we've
investigated whether or not we would do like mailers to homes or anything like that. And to be honest with you, it just
seems to be word of mouth seems to be working well for us. Um we watch the the gap between new customers and return
customers only. It's pretty consistent organic growth. And so we've we've toyed
with um and at some point I'll convince my partner maybe we'll go with like a a digital sign up front because I I think
that might help us with you know being able to advertise magic tournaments or events coming up and so it's a little
bit more dynamic than just a static sign. Um but they're not they're they're pretty big investment. So you got to be
you got to be sure that they're going to generate additional revenue for the for the shop. Um we've given out gift cards.
We've had Mike, my daughter, and her fiance went to a con and while people were waiting in line, gave out cards and
stuff to the shop. Um, but all those are really tough to measure. I didn't really see a lot of those coming back. So, I I
think what we found is that location when I talk when I check someone out, I ask if they're first time with us, I ask
how they found out about us. And I would say not even joke, right? 75% is just they saw the sign, they drove by. Yeah,
that's why the digital sign may be a good option cuz it gives a little bit
more like oomph for what's going on like you know free comics like you have free comic day it's like wow wait a minute what free you know and stop in so those
type of things so that to me is I think a lot of people don't plan what they go do like they just drive out they're out
for the day and they're going to go have lunch or they're going to Target they go oh we'll stop we've driven by this 10 times let's eventually stop
yeah and that I think is and then once you kind of if you if you if there's a value there and people feel welcome and
then they're just going to come back with trades. How about then? And that builds in the conversation on choosing this location.
How to Choose a Retail Location?
This for sure was probably not the cheapest location you looked at. You're right on one of the major highways. You got great street visibility. Again, that
sign it's it's noticeable coming down the highway. What was your thought process on
choosing this location? Weighing that kind of cost of rent versus that visibility. Yeah. I mean, well, one
thing is we had like when we first did this, someone could have told us this rent and this rent, and we had no idea
what was normal, right? We were really good. We got a a realtor that was was very uh helpful with us, had done
commercial real estate. Uh, and to be 100% honest, this was actually the first thing we looked at. And we looked at
some other things. Um, it was, this had been empty for probably
two years, maybe three or more. I mean, I think maybe even through the whole pandemic. So, it was an old Palis shoe
shop, still painted like Pless. It was yellow walls and had the carpeting that was glued down and all that. Had all the
fixtures on the inside. Um, so it didn't look anything like this, right? It had
uh and so, but we like the location. I like the fact that you're in a Walmart
parking lot. you have all the parking you can possibly need. Uh that in Austin is a such a huge deal, right? You go to
places and you got five spots and it's just like how do you post 60 people and they have five slots, right? So that was
a major plus. Um we were worried about like only being able to get it to one location, one direction, but this is
Texas. Everyone's used to that. So they're used to doing that U-turn. So that ended up Becky in Arizona. I mean
everything's gritted and you don't have to ever worry about that. You just turn in wherever you want to turn in. But people are used that year. So that was
not bad. So we we we dug into it and it I think we got a pretty decent deal
because of it had been sitting empty for so long. So maybe two years later it might have been a little bit tougher but
it was still when we compared it to some of the shops that you know had opened in Arizona and so forth there was still
much higher rent. I mean, so that's a that's a thing, right? And and like you mentioned, a lot of shops are more like
the one size, you know, 1,200 square foot. And so when we're going close to 4,000 ft, you're you're making
a big investment. And but we we were comfortable in that we needed that space to have that space.
It's kind of weird like we needed it to do that, right? You can't put eight tables or 15 tables when you're set up
fully in a,200 foot spot, right? So you're you're kind of like a fish in a fish 10 gallon fish tank. You can't
grow, right? Like and so we kind of leaned out there and when we first opened shelves were bare, right? We I
couldn't we couldn't get enough product in and looked pretty empty. And then that's when people who hadn't been in
for a year came in here. I was like, "Wow, you guys really got everything on filled out your shelves." And now I don't have enough space now to shelves,
right? And I like cuz I buy a lot of expansions. Um but yeah, so that we figured we'd grow into it, right? and
and we had the we had the ability we kind of had the capital to be able to s
survive that period of time to grow up to the revenue to where the revenue now is justifies the space at the beginning
the revenue didn't for the first six to 12 months didn't justify the space but yeah you you have to have that longer
vision there was that so that was kind of your ramp was in about 12 month mark is where the that's what we anticipated we opened in
September so we had a little bit of a benefit of having one holiday season so that kind of got us you
bumped up a little bit from there. Um, and then we worked out, we did a lot of sweat equity and a lot of we did a lot
of the investment on upgrading the the shop. So, we were able to get some uh some advance on. So, we'd have to pay
rent for a little while, which is helpful to help keep you cash flow. Uh, you either get you they either give you
money to do it or you do it. You know, there's always you pay for it in the end, but it just was allowed us to kind of get our feet underneath us and get
kind of stabilized. Um, I would say that first January, February after that kind of slowed down and that was we weren't
worried at all, but it was definitely the low like after the storm and Christmas. Uh, and then just some some
magic. That's when magic really started picking up was probably about the four to five month mark and we we were lucky
enough to have one or two customers that said, "Hey, you should do this." And we listened. That's the one thing that we're I think I pride ourselves on is
when I got five or 10 magic people here and I was like, "You tell me what you want." like I'm not yeah
setting the rules on how you do this. Do you guys want to do a tournament style? Do you want to do buy in? Do you want to just meet and play and all those things
and and that it just grew organically from there. And so that was probably
like I said the most fortuitous thing was getting that started. And once we got there then you know magic people
some of them play Warhammer and some of them play D and D and then they bring in friends and they bring in friends and it's the whole you know kaleidoscope
thing where you just get more friends more friends and then you're we have sometimes you get here around 7:30 on
Wednesday night and you're standing around waiting to play magic because there's no open tables. So um so that's
that's kind of where we want to be. I we have been here on a Wednesday night where your line is at your register
waiting for a table. It's very very both both impressive um but also a little
concerning on wow there's that many people right here waiting to play math. Yeah. And that's what we have to we
figured try to figure out like I said how to shoehorn extra tables in and uh it's a it's a delicate balance between
like you know you need 95% of the time you need the retail space and then you got to figure out like we have we have a
lot of things now in rollers where we consolidate everything down together and then we have extra space or we spread it back out again during the week. So
perfect. you in particular also have a pretty big online presence in terms of you got a big storefront. You it's you
How Relevant is a Website for a Game store?
got your pre-orders set up on there. Uh what was your initial thought about how
the online business would play into your store and then how is it actually impacting what you're doing?
That's a great question. You know, we I didn't have a lot of experience. I I had a web done a website once before. I'm
actually I've had done an author and had published a couple books. So, I had a website for that and I'd done some online things there. Luckily, Shopify
kind of has a built-in integrated online web store. It takes a little time to learn it, but it's it's not too too bad.
Uh, we had somebody help us set that up at the beginning, and then once you learn the nuances of that, you can get
moving pretty quickly and get things up there. Um, I would say the m 50% maybe
of our online presence is literally the people here in Austin who just buy stuff and then come in and get it or just
pre-orders or uh buying pre-releases for Magic or Yeah. Star Wars like this weekend. The other 50% are just
random people buying stuff from Minnesota, right? They buy a pop from, excuse me, from Minnesota. I'm just
like, how do you find that? And Google's great, right? You just Google it. And then like I told my partner, it'd be weird. We would sell two, we'd sell
something and then like three hours later like a Warhammer army set and then like two hours later you sell another
one. I'm like, "How the heck does that?" Well, Google picks up picks it up and goes, "Oh, I sold one from here. They have them." So the next
time they do, it's like, "Oh, we'll do it again." And then if you do two times and wants to do it three times, right? So we have somebody call us up. Do you
have any more of those? Right. Like, no. Unfortunately, Warhammer is a different different vendor. You they're harder.
That's one we won't talk about. But um so that so it kind of gets surprising at times how quickly you can kind of get
into that space and then it can dry up and you go for a period of time without it. We have dabbled on eBay. Um the
tough part about eBay is the integration. So we've had too many times where
we sold something in the shop and then it was still up on the eBay and then it would sell on eBay and then I have to cancel an order and just that just
wasn't great. Um eBay was hit or miss. We had a we had a lot of high dollar Magic cards we bought from a collection
and those are great selling on eBay but a lot of other stuff it just and the
fees and all that stuff it's just it's tough. Um we do have a we are thinking we we've
always thought we need to get into whatnot because comic books are huge and whatnot. It's just right now I'm still trying to
build out the processes and the team here. I don't have dedicated resource to put on whatnot. But maybe I'd love to
collaborate with somebody someday. That's the house. But I just say I have 120,000 comics in storage and
it's just like you keep 25% of what you sell. I just sell them, right? And then we just I'll give you I'll pay you by
whatever you sell and we'll probably do some sort of collaboration like that. It's so missing. Uh so your online store because you
mentioned about the eBay problem of you sell it but it's still in your inventory. Is your online store inventory integrated with your store
inventory? And absolutely. So you're running your in store POS also through Shopify or Exactly. Yes. So everything is through Shopify.
Um and then a comics and then you use Shopify is an interesting and I don't know if you've ever had any interface
with it, right? You you go and buy it and you go, "Oh, this it only cost me this much a month." Well, that's signs, right? If you want this feature, you got
to do this. You got to buy this. And they they really are they really have a great business model. They have a base and then they have a bunch of developers
and then they get a percentage of all well that's what it you know uh there there's all kinds of different I've
talked to people that are on different square and different things they all have their pluses and minuses right so
yeah we use Shopify for everything we use couple integrated apps uh manage comics um for our comic books which does
our subscription so people's going to order subscribe to certain series and it help pulls them automatically and brings
them in um that's the greatest thing one not great is one great thing about the manage comics is you can just take a
electronic invoice from a customer from a vendor and you can import 200 different comic titles in a flash. If I
if I buy stuff from a distributor and it's magic I got a manually had thing put pictures in and all that. So, um, so
there's there's options where we could look for how do we automate some of that cuz that's the the big challenge um that
as well. But yeah, everything's integrated. Uh, so if something sells online, if we sell a pre-order, we can
reserve it for a customer. We can um we can pre-order things directly. Like if somebody wants a graphic novel, I can
pre-order them for them. So, it's it's pretty well integrated. Great. Let's go back to to your comment on some of the assortments and vendors you're
dealing with and and things along those lines. Uh, has there been anything In
terms of you're buying the the board games, I'm assuming you're going through a couple of the big distribution folks
for that. You're buying your, you know, your Warhammer and your your Magic Direct uh andor through Dist. Has there
been anything that's caught you off guard in that process of collecting inventory?
So, one is it some of them how difficult it was to get set up. They're very uh
adamant about being a storefront, about being a brick and mortar. Um the couple of them like until we got the sign hung
in the building, they wouldn't they wouldn't engage with us. Um I still have one I won't name them, but I've literally talked to them on the phone.
I've filled out their app like three or four times. We've been over the two years and I they're still not a distributor for them. Now I don't I have
they would be fourth on my list, right? But it's always it's always good to have another option to look for something
that might be in stock. So, I'll probably I pretty much given up. I know. I I talked to the guy. He's like, "Just
send me the email. I'll get you going." I'm like, "All right, I feel they'll build everything out within a day or so." And I never heard back. So, maybe
he's moved on. But, um I think they're all pretty much straightforward. There's some there's some challenges. A couple
of them are a little archaic in their in their websites and a little archaic in
their um in the way they do processes. One of the comic book ones is in
bankruptcy at the moment. So they've moved, luckily they've moved all their titles or the titles have all moved to
the other two big ones. So we kind of have everything covered. It kind of actually makes our life a little bit easier because I can order from two
instead of three now. Um so it's pretty good from that perspective. Um, I just think the the
challenge in it is the massive amount of inventory you have and that's what we're always looking with is like I would
probably say, you know, too often happens where especially in comic books, someone comes and they order something
off our website and then we can't find it, right? And well, 25% of the time
that may be us bringing in the system incorrectly, but most likely it's it got legs and walked out the door, right? And
um, comics you can't keep behind a glass shelf for anything like that. you have to have them out there on the board. Uh
so, you know, that's a that's the tough part of the business is I'm from I'm naturally just a trusting person. So, I
like I I hate to think that people because we have such a great set of customers. I hate to think that people
periodically will walk in and walk out with something. And when we at the beginning, we had all of our booster packs from where you could kind of pull
them off the thing yourself. And that was we very quickly realized that that that doesn't work. All right. So um
so so that was probably the biggest thing is the inventory control at this once you get up there with having
thousands of SKs is can be a real real challenge right so believe that well
What are the Biggest Challenges for Games Stores?
taking us to present day right what are you seeing as some of the biggest challenges you've got in front
of you right now that you're going to have to go and tackle in the next 6 months to a year 6 months to a year probably is how do we
continue to to grow like what are what are our revenue stream opportunities
Like do we go adjacent like we look at you know do you there are so many TCGs
out there like that they just I get inundated once a week with a new TCG wanted to launch and I I don't we're not
primarily a card shops right so I can't I'm not I don't feel comfortable carrying 30 different types of cards and
I don't I don't have the space for that because I I have to be very careful and whatever we dedicate space to has to
move and has to generate rather than so where do we grow those in ancillary spaces like you know Warhammer is really
kind of starting to pick up for us. We have a league going. We have a there's now a local um club that's the Bat City
Cowboys, I think they call themselves, but they're and so they're they were a local Warhammer thing did really well,
so we're sponsoring them. So, that to me is probably one of the places where I think we can get some more traction. Um
Star Wars Unlimited, I have a big release this weekend. We're really trying to lean into that now and trying to get more of that community going,
trying to see if we can replicate. Not that we'll never do magic. Magic is magic. help me. And uh like Pokemon has
been a crazy thing this year. Like it it was just out of control from the supply perspective and and costing perspective.
We didn't do and we still don't do a ton of singles and used and so forth, but we'll probably delve a little bit more
into that. People don't play it. We don't ever see them play in the shop. It's more of a collector's space. So, I
really like to focus on the things that people play in shop. Board games doesn't have that like one thing that just goes
crazy. it's like a ton of smaller games and so forth. So, um, but the incillary ways of looking for how do we how do we
pick up extra revenue streams to be able because the more diversified like I mentioned earlier, the the safer you are
from from something that people like, you know, losing interest in. About industry-wise, what do you see
happening with gaming either the people you're talking to or the the games you're working with? Uh, what do you see
some of the big risks for game shops and the gaming industry coming up? I mean obviously the the biggest you know elf
in the room is a tariff type of thing like what is I I see it in two threads. One threat is the actual pricing of the
the product itself going up. Uh that could be temporary because I I've already heard of gaming distributors or
manufacturers moving to say India or Mexico or things like that. So you can do things in the supply chain to kind of
get around it or or impact tariffs. My bigger concern is that if tariffs become
more widespread, it takes away discretionary funds. And that's we're purely a discretionary shop, right? Like
when you when you go through the pantheon of things you need, you all food, water, house, car, healthcare, all
those things. And then Magic cards are at kind of should be at the bottom. Now should I will tell you
there are some folks that Magic cards are right at the top of the Pantheon's list, right? Right at the top. they are
uh they are what people will prioritize. They like I can eat Top Ramen for two weeks, right? I can get this pack. But
for sure, that's where I I worry the most is how do we how do we navigate that space and and then so we you know
we do some strategic things like you know we have a lot of see up top we we bought ahead on a lot of things. So like
we probably stocked out for about six months worth of our normal sales on some of our stuff. Um just when we heard
things were going to go really south and they kind of were okay, uh things tend
to sound like they're going to get really bad and then they come back to bad and everyone thinks bad is okay because it's not really bad, right? And so that's kind of where we've settled
in. We've definitely seen prices rise on a lot of stuff. Um and we do our best to
kind of absorb some of it, but you know, part of part part of it has to get pushed on. So that to me is the biggest
challenge I think immediately. Um, long term it's just I worry about the
viability of like Magic releasing something every two months. I just don't know. But they've been doing it for a
while and it seems to be okay. But I just saturation I worry about there. Um,
and then there's the balance of independent game um game folks and then
the big the big distributors and so forth. Um, we have a like next weekend we have a tournament for a game called
Breakers, which is developed by a local uh local uh friend of mine actually. I
know him now. I'm good friends with him. And so we'll have a tournament here. It's kind of like a trick taking game with monsters and stuff in it and rules
change every round. So it's it's a fun game, but he's he's learning to navigate the game development world and all those
things. But uh but that like I said I probably get two to three emails a week from game developers that want to stock
and then you add in one or two local comic book artists or graphic novels and you start and we really want to support
that. The problem is how much space can you dedicate to that and so forth. So it's a it's a pretty big challenge. So
that to me is like how do you how do you find out what's going to be the next hit and make sure you're part of that
city as a nate? Yeah. it as an Austin person, I think I know where it comes from. But like do is
there a story behind the name, the logo? I did collect comics. Yeah. For a good portion of my life and I was always a
Batman fan. So that was to me was like kind of the perfect genesis of Bat City, you
know, and we're in the Bat City. You got Batman in there. Um there was a lot of debate whether it was Bat City games and
comics or Bat City comics and games. It just games and comics tend to flow better. Um, individual I brought over
from Arizona help us open up was a comic guy. So he wanted a comics and games and he would always answer the phone sometimes like that. Um, but it ended up
it just flow better games and comics. Um, so that was primarily it and to be honest with you like the logo was just
we just stumbled on that. I mean we we engaged a sign person. We said this is
our name and we want we'd like something that has a bat in it and kind of like the city skyline. and he gave it to his
designers and like within 24 hours they came back with I would say 85 90% of the logo, right? And we were just like,
"Hey." And then I brought it to the website guy we had and we tweaked it and it was the original one they gave us was
more like um more gothic like scary looking and stuff. We're like, "Okay." We kept that. We still have stickers for
that, but we're like we want it to be a little bit more family friendly than that. So, um, so we kind of did it and
so within within 48 to 72 hours, we had our logo and it just worked out really
well and it and we got pretty locked in on the name almost probably within a week or two of deciding we were going to
do the business. It just seemed like it was a it was natural. It seemed like some and then people I think it
resonates with people pretty, you know, there's the people say, "Hey, we're going to meet a bad city or some people call it BCG."
you know, it's there's a couple things in there. If you say that to people are going to meet up at BC, they they know
where it's at. So, it's worked pretty well. Well, the last one for you. Two years in
now, what is the one piece of advice you'd give yourself two years ago before you opened this up?
I would say um do a little bit more investing in your
employees, learning the processes. Uh for the first probably year and a half, maybe even a little bit longer than
that. I I was the one driving and doing a lot of the the processes in the
background. We find we brought in somebody who now is kind of our back office person and they've taken up a lot
of that and that was just I just spend so much time bringing in new products so
forth. Um so I think that's the key is you you have to establish the process and then train it out to people. And I
think that's that really comes down to scaling and that's really the tough thing with things is how do you scale?
How do you keep up? And because I could walk in here and every single time I walk in, I'll say, "Oh, I got to do I
got to move that box over here and clear that out. I got to do this." And there's so many things to do. You as the leader
of the organization really have to try to limit yourself to the things that move the needle and you have to be able to push down to the rest of your crew
the things that they can do. But that to me is delegating to the right level is is pretty important.
Awesome. Brennan, thank you for spending the time with us. Appreciate the conversation. Yep. Again, great story. and uh have fun with
your 2-year anniversary celebration. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.