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The Tim Ferriss Show

#653: Elan Lee, Co-Creator of Exploding Kittens — How to Raise Millions on Kickstarter, Deconstructing Mega-Successes, Secrets of Game Design, The Power of Positive Constraints, The Delights of Craftsmanship, and The Art of Turning Fans Into Superfans

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

Lifestyle Design, Business, The 4-hour Workweek, Productivity, Timothy Ferriss Show, Startups, Tim Ferris, Entrepreneurship, Longform Interviews, Tools Of Titans, Timothy Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss

4.617.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2023

⏱️ 129 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Brought to you by Athletic Greens’s AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. 

Elan Lee (@elanlee) is the co-creator and chief executive officer of Exploding Kittens, a leading gaming and entertainment company. Under his leadership, Exploding Kittens has expanded its portfolio to nearly 30 different games with more than 20 million games sold in more than 50 countries since its founding in 2015. 

Before founding Exploding Kittens, Lee was the chief design officer at Xbox Entertainment Studios, where he led the Interactive Entertainment Portfolio. Prior to that, he was the founder and chief creative officer of Fourth Wall Studios and co-founder of 42 Entertainment. He began his career at Microsoft Games Studios as a lead designer on the original Xbox. 

Lee has won a Primetime Emmy for the series Dirty Work; Game Innovator of the Year for Exploding Kittens; a Peabody Award for the world’s first alternate reality game, The Beast; and an IndieCade Trailblazer Award for a distinguished career in interactive entertainment, among others.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by ShopifyShopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.

Go to shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim.

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This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and 10 free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

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This episode is also brought to you by Helix SleepHelix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

0:02.3

Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there,

0:04.5

one of my favorite platforms ever.

0:06.9

And let's get into it.

0:08.1

Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone

0:11.3

to sell anything anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources

0:15.1

once reserved for big business.

0:16.9

So what does that mean?

0:17.9

That means in no time flat, you can have a great looking

0:20.7

online store that brings your ideas, products, and so on

0:24.5

to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day

0:27.3

business and drive sales.

0:29.5

This is all possible without any coding or design experience

0:32.7

whatsoever.

0:33.5

Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods,

0:36.5

Shopify has thousands of integrations and third-party apps

0:40.0

from on-demand printing to accounting to advanced chat bots,

0:43.4

anything you can imagine.

0:44.9

They probably have a way to plug and play and make it happen.

0:48.1

Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into

0:51.2

e-commerce way back in the early 2000s.

0:53.8

What they've done is pretty remarkable.

...

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