I recently went one-on-one with Dane Chapin. Dane is the founder and CEO of The Op (formerly USAopoly), the board game company behind best-selling games including Telestrations, Blank Slate, Tapple, and countless licensed Monopolys.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Dane: I’ve gotten where I am today by continuously getting up. I’ve failed many times in my life from a young age, but I’ve got this superpower to get up and never get discouraged. Whether it was when I was in Little League, being told I couldn’t pitch as a 10-year-old and just bugging the hell out of the coach until I finally got to pitch, or selling Monopoly games out of the trunk of my car at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
I hate to admit it, but I was a distracted student in college. I was a pretty good student through high school, but when I got to college, all I could think about was playing tennis. I was on the tennis team, and that took precedence over everything, including going to class and getting the grades.
Then, a world-famous tennis player at the time showed up to our practice, and I was playing next to my hero. This guy was Jimmy Connors; he was like the Roger Federer of the day. This goes back 45 years. I saw him hit one shot, a return to serve against our number one guy. And it was just different than anything I would do. He was standing right next to the baseline; I’d be 10 feet behind it.
After spending my 10,000-plus hours developing my tennis skills, I knew from one shot from the best player in the world that I wasn’t going to be a professional tennis player. That sort of reoriented me. I started getting better grades, I focused, and I really never looked back. I got out of college and was an entrepreneur almost from day one. I just love it… a lot of different businesses. I think the last time anybody signed my check other than myself, I was 24 or 25 years old. So you just figure it out one way or another. Make it happen. Thankfully, in the early days, I had low overhead, too, so it didn’t take much to pay my bills.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?
Dane: It all started with my family back in the early ’90s. My sisters had an idea to create a twist on Monopoly and make different city editions, but they didn’t actually have a license at the time, so they made enough changes—or so they thought—that they wouldn’t violate Monopoly’s copyright. So, we changed things like “Go” to “Start,” and made other changes to the game. They eventually were able to pitch Hasbro on the idea of “knocking off the knock-offs” and managed to get a two-year license with Hasbro to produce authorized city editions of Monopoly. At the time, I was coming out of a failed real estate business and was trying to figure out what to do next, so I ended up joining my family in the business, and we really ramped up from there.
Here we are, 31 years later. We have 75 employees, and 80% of our business now is our own family party games. So, we’re migrating away from all the co-branded stuff and focusing on our own intellectual property.
Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?
Dane: It’s all about passion—passion and knowledge, no matter what the idea is. When I was in college, for example, I used to give tennis lessons. I had a special skill. And while my friends were making four dollars an hour in food service, I was making twenty-five bucks an hour playing tennis with Hollywood producers. So, on a Saturday, instead of sleeping off hangovers like a lot of my classmates, I was making a hundred bucks, spending the morning playing tennis in Bel Air. I think if you just tap into a special skill, whatever it might be, there’s always great opportunity with it. It was Warren Buffett who famously said, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” And that’s kind of how I feel at The Op. I can’t wait to get to work on Monday mornings and solve problems.
I see this echoed throughout our company, too. The creator of one of our most successful games, Flip 7, is a 48-year-old former school teacher who went from making school teacher wages to six figures this year alone – all because his whole passion in life is games. It’s pretty gratifying to be the company that he decided to go with, because with all the competition in the board game space, we’re not just competing with other board games. We’re really competing for people’s time. And if we can create more joy, laughter, memories, and connection, and alternatives, we’re going to win.
When it comes to testing a business idea, I think every entrepreneur needs to have people in their life who are willing to tell them what they don’t want to hear. You need a devil’s advocate. I’ve learned the hard way that when I propose ideas, people can sometimes be hesitant to tell me they’re bad, and that leads to wasted time and money. It’s important to have people challenge your ideas or push back because an idea might be a dud, or it might be good but needs some polish. You don’t want people just rubber-stamping everything you advocate for. Let your ideas be stress-tested and challenged.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
Dane: The most important step is to surround yourself with really smart people and let them make mistakes. I’ve certainly made a lot of mistakes of my own – but there are also some really good ideas in those mistakes. If you surround yourself with really smart and diverse people, you don’t fall into groupthink – instead, you get your ideas challenged and hear different perspectives on them, which really can take things to the next level.
I would also advise people not to take relationship building and nurturing lightly. I can sound like a broken record talking about this, but I’m all about being relationship-driven and really spending personal time with people who can move our business forward. Oh, and get on the phone – people sit at their desks and text and email, but rarely do people get on the phone anymore. I think it’s becoming a lost concept, but it is critical to developing and nurturing relationships.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
Dane: Grassroots, grassroots, grassroots. There’s no silver bullet. There’s no predicting viral content. You can see some of the goofiest stuff get millions and millions of views, and then there’s some really well-curated, creative content with money behind it, and it lives in a vacuum. On the social media side, we’re really leaning into influencers. Luckily for us, games are super “content-able,” so people like to post themselves playing games. So it’s happening organically, too, and we’re pouring jet fuel on it. We, of course, have an incredibly talented content and social media team as well, who have been elevating our channels’ content over the past few years.
We’ve really leaned into this with our Flip 7 game launch this year, too. We budgeted an enormous amount of units to give away throughout the year at all different places and events. It’s a great game, but if people don’t know about it, nothing happens. It’s getting harder and harder to get attention in today’s world, so you have to work harder and more creatively than the guy next to you to get your voice heard.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Dane: While it’s fiction, one of my favorite movie scenes of all time was in Gladiator. Russell Crowe’s character led his troops into battle and put himself right at the point of the sword. And I think that notion applies to being a leader – you just can’t mail it in. You can’t hide in your office. The first thing I did when I came back to The Op four years ago was put my desk in the middle of the open area in our office. The only rule was, if I’m on the phone, don’t bother me. Otherwise, I’m fair game. I made myself super accessible because you have to put the miles in and show up. You have to show your team that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to move the business forward. For me, it’s important to walk the walk, and not just talk the talk – and while it may seem like pretty basic, fundamental stuff, a lot of people don’t do it because it’s not always convenient. Teams recognize when they have an authentic leader, versus somebody who wants all the perks of being the leader but doesn’t want to do the work.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Dane: My best advice for building or leading and managing teams is really doing the homework. I spend an enormous amount of time on weekends – reading, thinking, pondering – so when I show up in a meeting and I know what I’m talking about, it puts people on notice to make sure they’re prepared, too. So I think there’s a flywheel that gets going, but there’s no such thing as perpetual motion. You’ve got to keep doing it, and you’ve got to pass the baton.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Dane: Ultimately, there’s nothing that replaces hard work, showing up, and building relationships. All of those things together contribute to success. If you work a little harder than the next person every single day, it adds up, and you build capital, and keep climbing from there. For somebody trying to make it big in the entrepreneurial space, I also believe you have to have a raw relentlessness, whether it’s trying to improve a skill or having a relentless curiosity.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Dane: Show up on time and always send a thank-you note. Thank you notes – whether a thank you text, email, letter, whatever – are so important to building connections and relationships. These two pieces of advice may seem so simple, but they are fundamental to every aspect of life, whether it’s business, interpersonal relationships, etc.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Dane: I talk a lot about passion, and while that’s so important, one thing people tend to forget about is enthusiasm. Regardless of your profession, enthusiasm is crucial. When people ask about my job, I tell them, “I create joy, laughter, memories, and connection.” They usually look confused until I tell them I make board games.
I am always extremely enthusiastic about what I do. I truly don’t know how anyone can succeed in life without being enthusiastic and genuinely passionate about their work. Why would I want to buy anything from someone who isn’t enthusiastic, passionate, and joyful?
