Brandstanding
One of the things that I love the most is watching collaborations develop through the Community. I think it was about a year ago that Tony Vasinda and Mark Guiney invited my brother and I to test out their new board game. It was fun and quirky and very up the CC ally, but I didn’t think much of it again until Sunday morning of the CC Summit last September. While people were trickling out and our team was tearing down our decorations, a small group of unlikely people were uproariously laughing around a table together playing the Brandstanding demo. A week later I’d heard from Ryan Boh and Chris Pesigan, two that they’d decided to fund Brandstanding’s first round.
This game is very much up our ally. At the Summit we love to ask crazy, playful questions to get things kicked off in the mornings like: “Write the Church’s official response to the Zombie Apocalypse” or come up with a “No holds barred R rated parish announcement about NFP.” Tackling ridiculous questions like that actually teaches us that play and creativity go hand in hand. Brandstanding is an awesome game to play for that reason and I hope everyone in the community gets the chance to play it at least once.
Their kickstarter launched this week and I’d love to see them continue to get the liftoff that they need to succeed. Next one could be us!
I asked Ryan to write up their story for anyone who’s interested. I think it’s an awesome case study in what the CC community really is now and potentially could be for us as we grow.
Catholic Creative Case Study: BrandStanding
After launching our Kickstarter we wanted to share how the Catholic Creatives Community influenced the establishment of our team and many milestones made over the past six months.
Investment & Partnership
After playing the game at the Summit, Chris and Ryan asked Tony about his intentions with it and his go-to market strategy. Tony vulnerably conveyed fiscal and organizational constraints that led Chris and Ryan to offer funding and consultative expertise in business, finance and operations. Following extensive discussion and collaborative sessions, there was unanimous consensus that Chris and Ryan offered unique skill sets that would drive growth.
Healing & Harnessing Creative Culture
One of the major realizations for Tony and the creative team was how much deep-seated distrust that creatives often times harbor towards administrative or executive personalities. When you work in and with parishes and diocesan offices there is often open animosity between vision keepers, direct ministers, and administrative staff. The BrandStanding project has been a place of healing and growth for all members of the team in learning how to use best business practices to harness a creative vision and move it intentionally towards success. It’s a place where team members are able to trust each other, speak openly, ask questions, and grow. Our hope is that this mindset and experience is something that could become commonplace in the Catholic Creatives community in order to move closer toward the vision of creating a new renaissance in the Church.
Inspiring Corporate Guys
Through the discussions about partnering and understanding Tony, Mark and Michael’s creative motivations, Ryan and Chris became captivated by the idea of providing financial security so they could focus on their art. In this case the Art was BrandStanding which is an entrepreneurial pitching and investing game. Chris and Ryan share the belief that Creatives deserve a fair income for their creative work and talents. They believe that by investing in BrandStanding it will enable Tony to spend more of his time creating and testing games (which happens to be something he loves).
Next Steps
Our team is proud of the fact that we are able to support the Catholic Creative circuit and beyond. Our passion for paying creatives to do amazing work is driving our fiscal and cultural goals with BrandStanding. From a community perspective, we appreciate how our flagship product brings people together to laugh and enjoy each other’s company. From an application perspective, we’re excited to watch BrandStanding become a catalyst to “break” traditional education with our goal to drive skill sets required for entrepreneurial culture within high schools and universities. More than anything we are thankful for the Catholic Creative community that helped facilitate a partnership aiming to change the world. If you appreciate what we are doing and want to get involved, then please support our Kickstarter, tell all your friends, and the Catholic Creative group will have a chance to create a set of cards that go in the core game, and create an 18 card expansion that we will make available exclusively to the CC community.
