If You Understand This About People, You Can Sell Anything

TL;DR

Exploding Kittens co-founder Elan Lee explains how he built a multi-billion-dollar games company by rejecting conventional industry wisdom. His core philosophy: games should make players entertaining, not be entertaining themselves.

Key insights

• Games should be toolsets for player-generated entertainment, not self-contained entertainment. Lee’s mantra “games should not be entertaining” means the game acts as a viral engine; players become the
• The “Do you want to play again?” single-question test is the company’s primary product filter. They replaced lengthy surveys with that one question. 100% “yes” is required before shipping; any “no” tr
• Creativity thrives on parameters, not blue-sky brainstorming. Lee cannot generate ideas from an open brief (“build a good game”), but can excel when given a specific constraint (“build a vending machi