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Hello every body and welcome to another bonus episode of the show. There will be a regular episode later this week.

My name is Patrick Rauland and today marks the one year anniversary of the show. I want to talk about the content of the show and the funding.

Content

So content first – a year ago I published episode zero called Why – which I’ll include in the show notes. In that episode I said:

“The point of this podcast to inspire and inform aspiring board game designers.” 

I’m guess I’m curious how well you think I’ve done that. 

• Are you inspired?
• Did you learn something?

If you did I’d love to hear what you learned, what inspired you, or what you’re working on.

If you aren’t inspired and you didn’t learn something I’d like to hear that too.
So I’ve put together a survey for you at indieboardgamedesigners.com/survey

It’s only a couple questions long. If you can fill that out I’d really appreciate it. It will help me put out the best content possible.

Funding

Next I want to talk about funding. I wanted to make this podcast for a year to really understand what I’m doing and what the costs are. There are three main costs:

• Hosting the podcast & website
• Transcripts for each episode
• And of course my time

So far I’ve paid for everything myself which I think is fine for the first year of a new venture. But I would like some support. The transcripts especially cost more than I thought. So I thought of a few ways to fund things.

1. Podcast extras – I could have additional segments, or behind the scenes, or listener questions, or something like that.
2. Private community – I could interact with a small group of people. We could work on games together. Maybe prepare for a contest or prepare to pitch games. It could also be marketing focused and I could help people launch a Kickstarter.
3. Write a book – I’ve learned a lot over the past 70 episodes and I think I could put together a book on some game design principles.
4. Online conference – I’ve developed relationships with a lot of designers & publishers. I could host an online conference to help educate and inspire even more.
5. Sponsors – I could add sponsors to my show. Although I really dislike that model since then you don’t know if I’m saying something because of the quality or because they’re a sponsor.
6. Donations – I could have a Patreon just for donations. I already have a Patreon setup since they recently changed their pricing and I wanted to be grandfathered in.

Each of these have pros and cons. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is there a way I can educate and inspire you more and a way to raise some funds to pay for the costs of the show?

Let me know in that survey. Again that’s indieboardgamedesigners.com/survey

Wrap Up

I’ve loved the last year. I’ve learned so much and got to meet so many incredible people in the board game world. Not just guests on the show but people in real life. I met a couple listeners at conventions and it’s a blast. I actually met a fan two days ago in my local play test group and it was super fun.

I look forward to sharing more awesome chats with you, promoting indie game designers, and hopefully educating and inspiring.

Until next time everyone. Happy designing.