Te Awamutu Courier editor Dean Taylor meets a 17-year-old who’s playing his cards right in the business world.
Te Awamutu College student Jacob Chetwin is working on making his award-winning card game a winner in the real world, but he has had to take notice of the lessons his own game teaches and not get too far ahead of himself in the process.
Jacob is in Year 12 and one of his classes is business studies.
He has an entrepreneurial streak and this year set up a company, complete with himself as chief executive, a board and investors, to manufacture and market Liquidation - the new card game that is designed to teach business terms and skills to Year 7 and 8 students, but is also fun for players of all ages.
Liquidation is the 17-year-old’s third company, following on from 3D Ink (3D printed phone cases) and Sweet Treats (an online pick‘n’mix store which will cease trading soon when Jacob’s food licence expires) and it took him six months to develop and manufacture this concept.
As founder and creator Jacob is off to a good start, winning the Waikato Region Young Enterprise Scheme title.
We will come to the process of developing and testing the product soon, but if we move forward to initial production, Jacob almost made the bad business decision to over-commit to initial manufacture numbers in favour of the lowest per unit production price.
“I was tempted to get the cards printed overseas but I would have had to order thousands of units,” says Jacob.
“I took advice from wiser business heads and chose a printer from Napier who offered everything I needed and I was able to learn about the process.”
Also on advice, Jacob visited Brebner Print and was given a tour of the plant and shown how his cards and packaging were produced.
As it turned out there was a relationship between Liquidation and Brebner Print - the print company had previously been owned by one of his investors.
Jacob had just 30 units made, but crucially all the printing plates and die for the bespoke packaging (it is unusually a 75-card pack) have been made for future print runs. All the packs are out and in use.
He designed the game to teach business terms, business phenomena and money management to intermediate-aged children, but wanted it to also be fun and entertaining for anyone to play.
Jacob also wanted it to be completely different from other games, so he did his research, adapted some elements of other card and board games and came up with what he hoped was a unique concept.
He says it is probably closest to Monopoly, but completely different.
As part of his business process, he is working with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, plus conducting his own research, to establish that he has a product and brand he can patent.
Key elements of Liquidation - the game - are that it is for 2 to 5 players, only takes about 10 minutes to complete a game, teaches business skills and strategy, has elements of luck and engages all players, at the very least for the first few rounds.
Jacob says unlike some other business games, Liquidation is quick and has a result. He has devised rules that mean players cannot be eliminated in the early rounds and, if they are too greedy, could be penalised at the end of the game.
Players can work together and form partnerships to attack other players and force them out of the game.
“Basically it is like real business.”
Jacob did most of the design work himself but called on his older sister Kayla to help with some of the people imagery.
He has also used technology to back up the game. It doesn’t come with a rule book, instead, he has made an instructional video players can watch.
There is a QR code that takes people to his site and that has background information about Jacob and Liquidation, plus how to order, how to invest and other useful information.
The basics of the game are that players start by picking five cards from the stack for their hand. There are asset cards, positive scenario cards and negative scenario cards.
The aim is to collect and bank asset cards, make extra profit with positive scenario cards and use negative scenario cards against your competitors. Banked assets are placed face-down on the table, so players don’t know the real worth of their opposition.
Assets include cash, buildings and vehicles.
Positive scenarios include making a profit, business grants and, the most coveted card, a merger acquisition, which allows a player to take assets from other players.
Negative scenarios include making a loss, an interest rate increase and a tax bill.
Players direct a negative scenario at another individual player to try and keep themselves ahead of their main competition, but the interest card is applied to all players who have a loan at the time.
If liabilities exceed assets a player is ‘liquidated’ and all the cards go back into the pack. After each turn, where a player can bank assets and play scenario cards, the player draws more cards so they always have five in their hand.
When the cards are all played assets and liabilities are totalled to find the winner.
Jacob tried the game with a number of people and has received positive responses. He also took it to five schools across Waikato and has 700 students playing, which provides him with valuable feedback from the target market.
He says there could be more fine-tuning before it goes to market based on the feedback.
After his exams Jacob plans to undertake a big marketing push, his aim to make Liquidation a successful and profitable business.
His research to date suggests the retail price will be somewhere in the $35-$45 range, but he imagines when he has the economy of scale he will be able to also do deals for schools and other bulk purchasers.
Jacob believes Liquidation has potential, and if he sticks to his own lessons on business which he has built into the game, he could be on to a winner.
Stay up to date with the Waikato Herald
Get the latest Waikato headlines straight to your inbox Monday to Saturday. Register for free today - click here and choose Local News.