 Q-Bert was one of my favorite games growing up and he gets killed by these little snakes and then he like swears and there's like the little asterisks for what he says. We know what he says. Yeah. I spent a good portion of Skipping Preparatory Academy going downtown and bumming a quarter from people just walking around the arcade all day long. It was Dotto's idea to make this blue floor. So this place was not like kosher for putting this floor on. But we had determination and ignorance and we made it happen. Everybody welcome. Hey, hey, hi! Welcome. Welcome to the show. This is a show about it's about f*** ups. And I just did that because I couldn't remember what I knew what the show was about. It's about making mistakes. It's about having a big idea and wanting to do something really great. Write the great American novel, start a coffee shop, start an arcade. That's one thing we'll be talking about tonight. But then once you start doing it, you find out that it wasn't what it was cracked up to be. You find out that you don't know what you're doing. And that's what we're gonna talk about. Because in the end after that you learn and you're able to start something really amazing and that's the way it works for everybody. Tonight we're gonna be talking to Jason from Waterland Arcade. And I'm super excited about it because I grew up in arcades. I hope you enjoy the show. I know I'm gonna enjoy the show talking about Miss Pac-Man and Gallagher and Gauntlet. Hopefully, we will see. Everybody welcome to the show. I am here with Jason from Waterfront Arcade. Waterland. Let's do it again. Hey everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm here with Jason from Waterland Arcade. Why can't I say Waterland? Tell us a little bit about the arcade. Yes. Let's just get right into like the only thing I care about. Okay. Playing arcade video games. And I will say it's an Arcade Ambar, but it's all ages all the time. Even better. So yeah. Oh, you serve all ages? Well, it's a strict policy. We actually only serve to the adults. But we have an area for the adults to drink beer. Yeah, that's awesome. The idea for it for me was a place where you and your wife could come in, have a beer, while your kids go and play games. Oh, okay. And then you go play games, too. Okay. So it's like a family-friendly for everybody type of environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why did you, uh, why the name? The name. That's the name of the neighborhood. And I bought it from a previous owner who had an previous incarnation of this arcade. Yeah. So it was really just open for private parties. It wasn't open to the public as like a regular arcade. Same name before? Same name. Waterland Arcade. And he owned a few other restaurants at the time, so he didn't have time to keep this one open. Yeah. I run that same time. I had built an arcade machine with my kids at home, and we started getting really into these like old 80s games. Oh, wow. So like with the ROMs and the... Yeah. Yeah, was it like a Linux-based platform that you used? Raspberry Pi. That's right. You put it all together. That's right. You built a whole cabinet with buttons and joysticks and everything. Yeah. Street Fighter II was like the first game we were playing that day. Like that day, as soon as we had it built, we were playing Street Fighter II. Is that one of your favorite games growing up? Actually, it's funny you say that because Q-Bert was one of my favorite games growing up. And I'm about to build a Q-Bert in my arcade right now. And Q-Bert is our mascot, and my email address is Q-Bert at waterlandarcade.com. No way. So he's funny because he's... It was 1982, I think, when that came out, or 81. Yeah. And he gets killed by these little snakes, and then he like swears. He swears. And there's like the little asterisks for what he says. We know what he says. Yeah. So yeah, so we built an arcade machine, and that's when I started thinking, oh, I'm going to look for another arcade project to do that. And then this arcade was selling their arcade machines because they closed. They weren't even open. Oh. And so then I thought, what if I just open the arcade up and just built it into like this really great destination? What were you doing? What were you doing before that? I have a full-time job, too. Oh, you do? I had a day job, too. So do you still have a full-time job? Yeah. So now you have an arcade and a day job setup. How would you take the leap? Like, in your mind, you're doing this, you've got a good job. Still that moment for some reason? Like, where you're there, you see the cabinets, you see everything. And then you go home and you tell it like, hey, sweetie, we're going to open an arcade. What was your thought process like when that came up? You were just... I mean, that definitely did happen. Like, hey, Katie, my wife, what if I bought this place and I'm going to open an arcade? And she said that we're too busy right now. We have four kids at home. I ended up writing a business plan, this like six-page thing that was like pretty good. And I think the part she liked is I emphasized that I won't have to be the only employee there. I'll start out from the beginning with employees that can actually run the place day to day. So I don't have to be there like 24 hours a day, right? I mean, it's a creative endeavor. I'm building a place for people to come and have fun at. That's right up my alley. Jack, did you play video games growing up? I spent a good portion of skipping Preparatory Academy. It's in private school. Going downtown and bumming a quarter from people just walking around the arcade all day long. Hey, you got a quarter? Hey, you got a quarter? Bet you I could beat you on Pac-Man. My high score would be higher than yours. You want to play Tetris? That's awesome, but competitive nature of it. Street fighter when you had the roller-roll. Pac-Man, do you have a street fighter at your arcade? I do have an original Street Fighter 2 at the arcade. No way. I just got one like a month and a half ago. That's got to be exciting. I have a list, so going in, I was like, even when I first moved into the place and renovated the whole place from the floor up, it was, what's my list? What games do I want to get? And that's where a lot of mistakes were made early on, because you get passionate about this. This is the big mistake that people who launch a business make. It's like, how much of its passion, how much of its good business? Did you have to be good business? Because obviously you're passionate about the games themselves. Wait, did you get a game that you should not have gotten? My approach to this place was, let's do the classic arcades. Let's get the games that represent the whole 80s arcade culture. So the games are like Defender, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Miss Pac-Man. I can kill it at Miss Pac-Man. Robotron was another one that I really like, super excited about. I love to play that today. If I had a hard day, I want to play Robotron, I'd feel great afterwards. It's just this frenetic, fast-paced game. So these games cost money, all of them. So I made this list and I tried to shop and I tried to find good deals, but it's capital outlay. So right at the beginning, I'm spending capital on games. I had to fill the place with games. There wasn't very many, and a bunch of them were broken. So I had to get rid of some broken ones or fix them and then add all my own games to the place. So these are the ones I was most excited about. Today, we have 50 games now, and the bottom five earners and played are these games. No way. They're the bottom five. I think you need to set them up like in a throne room of some kind. I don't want to get rid of them also. Because they kind of give it this classic arcade credibility, I guess. I love those games. I still love those games. It's so fun for me when I see some kid come in and play it for the first time. And really like it, and really try to play it. So that's kind of what I'm trying to do with the place is to share this culture with people. So that's fun for me, even if they don't make me any money. I think... Hey, Jack, are we close on drinks? We are on it. We're on it. Tell us what we're drinking before we drink it. Tonight I got a fantastic drink for you called Play If You Want To. We're going to start off with an ounce of Hennessy, a half ounce of Caribbean rum, zaya, a half ounce of our lairds bottled in bond, apple brandy, and a quarter ounce each of Amaro Mileti and green chartreuse. Two dashes of orange bitters. And this is a non-dilute cocktail. So we're actually going to chill this cocktail through our freezer. I've got a defunct bottle of a Ordon Oco rum from Brazil, one of my personal favorites. I like to aerate a little bit. And then we'll pop that in for a chill. Alrighty, and now that that's chilled, take our cocktail and measure out our proper portions here. We take our pre-chilled glassware and our pre-chilled cocktail and combine. We have cinnamon aromatics for our nose and palate. You taste with your nose and your eyes before you do with your mouth. You could smell it, right? Like something burning. I'm a bit of a nerd, a bit of a geek myself. So I was like, man, I'm looking for all this memorabilia. I've been looking for stuff for years. But instead we went in the opposite direction, extremely serious. The drink is called, play if you want to. This is above average. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you, Jack. Alright. Cheers. Cheers. Now, it's the Rovia. Here we go. It's chilled with pinballs. Oh, I see that. Is that what that is? Are those pinballs? Yeah. Chilled with pinballs. He got them really cold and now they're providing the ice. Talk me through a little bit what you did. So you got these early games. Yeah. And now they don't, it breaks my heart. It really plays. That's how I feel. Like, I'd be like, don't even put money in them. I'll make these for free just so you get, yeah. That's what people want to come here. They want to have a good time. They want to rock to the family. That's atmosphere. They want to play competitive games. The top games are the like, shoot basketball, the basketball shoot game, and air hockey. Those are like number one and two. I have a ski ball. Those are like number three. So these are even throwback before. Yeah. Like those are games that have nothing to do with sort of like the video game. In fact, in my top ten, there's one video game. In my top ten. What's the video game? It's House of the Dead 2. House of the Dead 2 is in your top ten. Yeah, you shoot the zombie killing game. You know what it is? What? It's like strikes a really like House of the Dead 2. Shoot them all. That's an awesome game. Really? By the way, that was one of the first games I bought. So that was a winner. Yeah, House of the Dead 2. That one is hugely popular. It's a super fun game. And so I have gotten a lot of four-player arcade games since. So Gauntlet Dark Legacy is a really great four-player game. Yeah, let's talk about Gauntlet. Gauntlet. Yeah. No, we don't need to talk about it. I just got really excited when you said Gauntlet. Yeah, babies, I play also. Nobody plays it. Nobody plays Gauntlet. Nobody plays Gauntlet. This show needs to change things. Whoever's watching. We've got to make up like Gauntlet. What did you do after you got those games? Did you continue to invest in it? What did you find you had to invest in? Right. And it would be successful because there's a lot more, like there's real estate involved. There are taxes involved. There's financing involved. Marketing. Marketing, yeah. One of the costs I didn't think about when I did my little Six Pager was when I planned my revenue and I planned my expenses, what they would be to see if this thing would even pencil out. Yeah. And then my costs were off. There's a lot of costs that I didn't think about. One of them was advertising costs. I thought, oh, I'll do some AdWords. I'll do some Facebook promotion. Maybe a couple hundred bucks a month. You work in tech. Yeah. I'm the same way. Very hand-wavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, it's a lot more money than that. And I print ads. My audience really is families and moms and dads and people who maybe get certain parent magazines and that are local, you know, like local, local. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, those and print ads is different. And then there's, of course, Facebook promotion, but you want to promote, here's the big thing I want. So, if you post something on Facebook or Instagram, not all your followers see it. Like, only a few of them see it. You know what I mean? Like, you have to pay. You have to pay. And I mean, I anecdotally knew that, but you don't know it for real until you're like, okay, I'm posting three for a day. Yeah. And I'm only hitting 100, 200 people. Yeah. I want to be hitting the thousands of people in my place every day. Yeah. That costs like $500 a month plus. Absolutely. So, people join our thing all the time. And so, they have an ability to see what we post, but I have to pay for that. So, I didn't think of that. That's a little bit more money than I thought. Accounting. You mentioned taxes all higher than I thought. All those things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think when you're launching a business, one thing I've learned, early, you've got to be willing to call your baby ugly. You know? You've got to be willing to be like, you know what, I've got to own this. I wanted to buy Defender. No way. I was willing to pay $800 for Defender. Yeah. And judging by how it's doing, it'll take 180 years to get that $800 out of, you know, from 25 cents a play, right? But it's still your baby. It's my baby. So, like, you're the one that got it, right? Yeah. I'm okay with that. And I'm going to keep it. And you've got to just own it and be okay with that. But you've got to pivot early and decide, okay, how do I pivot? Like, how do I bring in... How am I going to make up the money? Bring in... Yeah, we'll make up the money and we'll make up the savings, expand what Arcade does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What have you figured out to sort of differentiate yourself in that space? So, I think a bit... A lot of it's my personality and what I'm hoping to bring to the place, but it's the vibe. That and the people I've chosen to work there. They bring this vibe that is the most welcoming, inclusive, love-filled place. Are we showing love to everyone who comes in? Do we want to be making a party atmosphere? Place people want to, like, come have a good time. So, I think that those things, they're just really big on. That and the music, that's the other thing we have that's better than any other Arcade is. Our music is insane. What's the music? We do live DJ nights every Thursday night. Live DJ nights? Yeah, we have DJs from Seattle, who would play Seattle Clubs on the weekend. They come to our place on Thursday nights and play for fun. How do you find the DJs to come to this sort of place? So, my employees are friends. They're DJs themselves first. They bring in their network of friends and people who are DJs. I'll take a minute right now to shout out to Dotto. Today will be his last day. We're having a big party for him tonight. I'm going to miss him so much. He's employee number one. He helped me build this place from scratch. Wait, today's his last day? Yeah, yeah. Tonight, I'll be partying with him. You put a lot of trust into your employees to be able to take it whatever direction it's going to go. I make that happen. That's a big deal. I think any good creative or somebody that starts something, they recognize that really, really quickly. That's the thing that makes any of those things better. It gets easier when you make some muggly babies. Yeah, I won! When you realize that some of your decisions are bad, you're way more willing to trust other people's decisions. That's true. So, not all their decisions are great though. So, it was Dotto's idea to make this blue floor. All right, this floor, by the way, it does look pretty cool. It was a nightmare. When he first pictured it to me, I'm like, oh, that sounds really cool. How are you going to do it? And we're like, oh, there's this expensive epoxy that you put on your concrete. So, we ripped up all the carpet to the concrete. And then you had to prepare the concrete to take it. And there'll be some pictures I can share with your fans. Prepare the concrete to take it. We can pretend like we cut to a picture right now. We had this solvents, and these solvents are very expensive. And we went through like 30 cans of them. And then we were scraping till 2 and 3 in the morning for like three weeks. So, this place was not like kosher for putting this floor on. But we had determination and ignorance. And we made it happen. You love it just a little bit more because you killed brain cells. No, I hate it more. Like, oh, you hate it more. Every time you look at it, you spit on the floor. We're going to cut to another picture. Okay, that picture. By the way, I hope they don't cut to any pictures. And it just shows you like... Waiting like an idiot. We're going to cut to a picture. There's a picture, and it shows a scratched up blue floor. That was taken like a week later. Because it turns out when you move like a 500 pound arcade machine across this floor, it just scratches it. So, like, instantly it was all scratched up. It's interesting how you've been able to take hold of opportunities really quickly. So, instead of saying, this is just an arcade. You hire some people in. They DJ. You're like, coming in and DJ. Let's hook it up. We've got good speakers. We've got good setup and be able to do something like that. And you mentioned that being just your experience of software development, taking the fail fast, iterate, that type of stuff moving forward. Are there other ways that that's influenced the way that you do business? I think my team appreciates that when something goes poorly, I'm cool with it. Like, I'm not like, I don't yell. They're probably shocked. Yeah. Because I think sometimes something will happen and they feel really bad. I'm all about, like, cool, what do we learn from this and how do we put in a mechanism to prevent it from happening again? Let's get creative on that. I have them over for dinner at my house, like, once a month. So, we do these arcade dinners, bring your families. Oh, great. You're the cool boss. And then once the food kind of dies down, we're like, all right, what problems do we have to try to solve right now? We have to think about solving. It's a very collaborative, actually, atmosphere for that. So, super fun. We were talking about this before, and I have to bring it up because I'm really excited about it. You have karaoke in the arcade as well? Yeah, so we just did it. We just got karaoke last month. And it was for, we were doing a party where they wanted karaoke. And we were talking, me and my employees were on the play, so we're like, we should just have karaoke. We had enough people saying, why don't you do karaoke? I can't believe there's enough people saying, why don't you do karaoke? It came up enough that we're like, let's just go to Guitar Center, buy some, just buy all the equipment and just upgrade the whole experience, right? What do you see next? Do you envision quitting your day job and kind of running with something like this or running with multiple ones, or is it more just like, I mean, this is something you'll just have for a long time and it'll be something that you love on the side. Well, I love my day job too. It's not necessarily, that is my end goal. It's a great question. It's why I did a lot of soul searching over the summer, honestly, right? What it comes down to is the arcade delivers on so many things that I want to do, which is make an impact on people. I love that. And so, so many people's lives have been changed from this arcade, even in this first year. I've heard a few people say the arcade saved their life. I've heard a couple people say it saved their marriage. Somebody said it helped save their marriage? That's amazing. Yeah, so just like a place to go or to reconnect or... It's a community. Like the people that come, the people that work there, it really is becoming like a family. And that's what I wanted to happen from the beginning. And I think maybe that's why it's happening because I'm trying to cultivate this like welcoming atmosphere. This is important to me. So this is way more important to me. It's not a business plan. It's more of like an impact plan. You know, it's like, what kind of good can we do? And that's how everyone at the arcade feels. They're like, man, we're like making a difference for people who come in. Yeah. So that's very meaningful to me. What advice would you give to anybody that's planning on starting their own thing? So usually people do that because they're super passionate about something, right? They're like, I'm really good at this, right? Like I'm great at making pies, so I'm gonna make a pie shop or whatever. I don't know. Something cool. Let's talk about pies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In my book I recommend called E-Meth Revisited. A lot of small business owners have probably read it if they haven't. Totally get this book. What it talks about is that the myth is, oh, I'm dope at pies, so I'm gonna be great at pie business. Turns out that's not the case because business is different than pies, right? So like maybe I love arcades, but I'm not good at like making arcade business. Right, right, right. So that's why I learned to pivot right away, right? So that I could keep coming up and creative ideas to monetize the space, right? Thank you, thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. Dude, seriously, like this is amazing. Thank you for being on the show. Wonderful. I love talking about this stuff and the advice that you give and I think the approach that you've taken to the arcade is phenomenal. I really do. Thanks again. Thank you. Cheers. All right, cheers. Everybody, thanks for watching the show. Thank you, Jason, for being here. So we gotta talk about Gauntlet and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And I loved it. If you like what you saw, then subscribe. Ring the bell, do this stuff on YouTube so I can show up in front of you again or we can show up in front of you again. And if you have your own f-up, go to fups.com. We'd love to have you on the show.