Using Your Noggin
Back in 1998, when Richard Tait was using the color copiers at Kinko’s to piece together a prototype of a board game he’d invented called “Cranium,” little did he know the finished product would unleash such passion in game addicts that they’d dub themselves “Craniacs.”
Tait wasn’t sure what he’d create when he decided to leave Microsoft in 1997 and put his entrepreneurial mettle to the test. Inspiration struck while on vacation with his wife and another couple.
“It was one of those rainy Sunday afternoons, and we were playing a game of Pictionary,” he recalls. “Karen and I are phenomenal Pictionary players, and we won quite handsomely.” The other couple challenged them to a round of Scrabble. “Sure enough, they humbled us in Scrabble,” he says. “I wondered why there wasn’t a game that gave everyone a chance to shine.”
Getting Cranium onto store shelves was a challenge and Tait made some rookie mistakes. During their first year, they missed the American International Toy Fair, an annual industry conference for manufacturers, distributors and sales agents.
Having missed Toy Fair, Tait and business partner Whit Alexander fled to Starbucks to lament the missed opportunity and mull their options. “We looked up, and saw our customers standing in line,” he says. “We thought: Let’s take our games to where customers are, rather than where games are sold.”
Tait used his business connections to land an audience with Starbucks’ CEO, and persuaded him to stock Cranium in the coffee shop.
Now, more than 16 million copies of Cranium have been sold, and the Seattle-based company has expanded internationally and launched books and a new line of toys.
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