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Use Your Cranium
 Rourke O’Brien introduced Richard Tait, founder of Cranium, Inc., purveyor of the best-selling board game, Cranium.
Richard, a transplanted Scot, came to this country in search of a business education, having found that it was impossible to get into a business school in his native land without business experience. Lured by visions of beaches and bikinis, as seen in the television series CHIPS, Richard thought for sure he would go to school in Southern California, but ended up receiving an MBA from Dartmouth. With expectations of working for Steve Jobs at Apple, he discovered that they would not hire him without a green card. Microsoft, however, hired him and promised to get him a green card. After ten very successful years with Microsoft, he left the company in search of something more, but having no idea what that something would be.
While playing a game of Pictionary and a game of Scrabble with some friends, Richard got the idea to create a new party game. Along with a friend, also from Microsoft, Whit Alexander, the two teamed up to create what, by his account, is the fastest selling party game in history, Cranium.
Long on enthusiasm but short on industry knowledge, the two developed the game and manufactured 10,000 units, only to realize that toy stores made their buying decisions in February, and they had missed the boat.
But, sitting around in a Starbucks, they realized that their target audience, fondly known as “dating yupsters,” was the very audience standing in line to buy their coffee drinks at Starbucks. They approached Howard Schultz, President of Starbucks, and found a kindred spirit. They also found out that Starbucks had been looking for a game to sell through its stores. The end result was record sales of 20,000 Cranium games in one week through Starbucks!
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Ted Szatroswki (L) and Steve Waltar (C) talk with Cranium creator Richard Tait.
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Cranium sold over one million units of its flagship game in 2001, this, in spite of the fact that it is not cheap, having a $34.95 price point. Richard did say that they expect to lower the price to $29.95, which they expect will bring them an 8-10 fold increase in sales.
All of this success has brought the company wide acclaim, for instance, being featured in the January 15, 2002, volume of Inc. magazine.
Richard sees his company as the Ben & Jerry’s of the game business, as they give a substantial amount of money away. In fact, they have given over $600,000 to after school programs for at-risk children.
The company also sees its goal as building not just a game, but a lifestyle brand very similar to what Nike has done for sports shoes and apparel.
Richard gave six tips for success:
(1) Have a mission. Their mission is to lighten and enlighten peoples’ lives and to build a lifestyle brand.
(2) Change the rules. This upstart company was competing with two of the largest toy companies in the world, Hasbro and Mattel, and has cannily (a good word for a Scotsman) taken advantage of shrewd observations in the marketplace such as the relationship with Starbucks.
(3) Make hiring the number one priority. He is a firm believer in hiring smart and hiring young. Their employees are smart, driven, and passionate about what they do.
(4) Know what you are good at and outsource the rest. The company has fewer than 14 employees.
(5) Love your customers. Indeed, it is customers who have built Cranium by word of mouth, since the company has spent virtually nothing on advertising up to this point.
(6) Make sure the company has a heart. This is consistent with their concerns about community and also as a motivator for their employees.
Richard is also fond of the acronym CHIFF meaning Clever, High Quality, Innovative, Friendly, and Fun.
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Rourke O’Brien introduces Richard Tait.
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Cranium is now sold on all the continents of the world and was one of the highest sellers of any product through Amazon.com.
Richard also pitched the Sonics Professional Speaker Series presented by Howard Schultz, in which he is a speaker.
Thanks to Rourke O’Brien for his introduction.
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