Stonemaier Games Went From Crowdfunding Campaigns to a Multimillion-Dollar Business

Jamey Stegmaier

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Updated: May 8th, 2023

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Jamey Stegmaier is a designer, writer, and blogger and is best known as the president and co-founder of Stonemaier Games. He has devoted most of his life to creating and designing board games.

How Stonemaier Games Started

Viticulture is a game about managing a vineyard in old-world Tuscany.
Jamey Stegmaier created the game in 2012, and they later partnered with Aaron Stone to run a crowdfunding campaign to launch the business.
Stonemaier Games has run eight successful crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, raising over $3 million. Owing to the crowdfunding success, Jamey and his team are known for their success on Kickstarter and are often sought out for advice on running campaigns.
Stonemaier Games website offers a resource library for tips on running crowdfunding campaigns and a published book on Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide.
Today, Stonemaier has grown to $100 million in revenue.

Jamey Stegmaier Advice to Entrepreneurs

To understand Crowdfunding, learn from other campaigns by observing and participating.
Study and research in your category as well as others.
Keep a spreadsheet of learnings from blogs, books, and other campaigns.
Jamey still ran Stonemaier Games as a side hustle even when the Viticulture Kickstarter campaign surpassed its goal by over two folds.
Jamey pitched an alternative schedule at work that allowed more time to develop board games while shrinking his job to a 4-day work week and taking a 20% pay cut.
Jamey believes that one-on-one interactions with the community are at the heart of Stonemaier Games’ success.
The founder ensures that he personally and timely responds to community members who engage with their content.
He believes that Personal and timely communication is crucial during a crowdfunding campaign.

How Stonemaier Games Became Multimillion-Dollar Business

Stonemaier Games is a board game publisher and designer that has had success growing its business through several different strategies. Some key tactics they have used include:

Building a strong community: Stonemaier Games has a dedicated fanbase that is passionate about its products and helps to spread the word about the company’s games. The company fosters this community through its website, social media channels, and other online platforms.
Creating high-quality products: Stonemaier Games is known for producing well-designed, highly-polished games that are fun to play and visually appealing. The company puts a lot of effort into playtesting and refining its games to ensure they meet a high-quality standard.
Crowdfunding: Many of Stonemaier Games’ games were financed through Crowdfunding, which allowed the company to gauge interest in its products and raise money for production before releasing the games to the market. This was a way of testing the market before any mass production and making sure they had the fund to support the mass production
Marketing and Promotion: Stonemaier Games use a variety of marketing channels to promote its products, including social media, traditional print media, and online advertising. The company also participates in trade shows and other events where it can showcase its games and connect with potential customers.
Strong Partnership and Networking: Stonemaier Games have strong partnerships with distributors, retailers, and other industry players, which helps the company to reach more customers and get its games in front of more people.
Strong Customer service and support: Stonemaier Games maintain a vital customer service and support system, allowing customers to communicate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their product and ensure the product meets their expectations.
Expansion of the product line: over time, the company has released several different games, which have helped it to reach a wider audience and generate more revenue.
Continuous Improvement: Stonemaier Games keep track of customer feedback, which helps them improve and evolve their products continuously.

These are the ways that Stonemaier Games has grown its business. The combination of these factors, along with the company’s passion for game design and its dedication to producing high-quality products, has helped it become a successful publisher in the board game industry.