Small Business Spotlight: OK Boomer
Meet Joe Spisak
For Joe Spisak, founder and CEO of OK Boomer, a typical family game night turned into a brand-new business venture. Now, his card game is helping generations to come together and bond over trivia.
“I have a big family,” Joe said. “It’s myself, my parents, my three sisters, and my grandparents, and we all live in a little culdesac. We’re a big board gaming family, and we’ll do the whole family game night thing. Everything from The Settlers of Catan, to UNO, to you name it, we’ve played it all.”
The Origin Story
The idea to create OK Boomer developed during Christmas of 2019 as Joe’s family played a trivia game together.
“My sisters and I were getting destroyed by the rest of the family,” Joe said. “Of course, in typical millennial fashion, I started complaining, saying, ‘Well, if these trivia questions were relatable to our generation, then we would actually be crushing you guys.’”
After game night defeat, Joe headed online to find a trivia game with questions relatable to his entire family demographic.
“I looked for a generational trivia game, something that leveled the playing field across different generations,” Joe said. “I wanted something that would not only test my knowledge of things, but also my parents, grandparents, and younger sisters.”
After scouring the internet, Joe was shocked to find that the game he envisioned did not already exist. Using knowledge from previously creating the game Dicey, he began working with his family to create a multi-generational trivia game.
“They say the best businesses are born to solve problems that exist in the industry,” Joe said. “I felt like I had found a big hole in the game space.”
OK, Boomer!
Working with his family to create trivia questions, OK Boomer was born. To win the game, players must correctly answer a trivia card from each of the five generational decks: Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.
“It was cool because my whole family got to make the game and create the content together,” Joe said. “We even made the cartoon characters you see on the game members of my family.”
OK Boomer officially launched at the end of 2020 and has sold over 50,000 copies to date. Additionally, the game has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers.
“The best feedback we get is hearing how different generations can bond with each other through OK Boomer,” Joe said. “One family wrote to us and said that their Grandma learned what the Gen Z phrase ‘No Cap’ means from the game, and now she always says it to her family. They said it’s brought their family together on a whole other level by being able to use each other’s slang.”
OK Boomer: The Next Generation
When it comes to fulfilling orders, Joe is excited to use Soapbox 3PL.
“We love Soapbox for its omnichannel fulfillment,” Joe said. “It’s great being able to use Soapbox as a managed service and have them fulfill. We also have the option to fulfill our own units from home, like for our influencer campaigns for example.”
OK Boomer is in the process of creating a mobile app, a Zoom plug-in, and a 365-day rip-off calendar. There’s also an OK Boomer Expansion Pack available for presale, giving families even more material to keep the fun going.
“Contemporary games definitely cater to a certain audience, so it’s great to be able to have everyone included,” Joe said. “These questions will naturally lead to your family telling stories, like your grandparents telling you about the time that they got their first pair of go-go boots. OK Boomer is a great icebreaker to get families talking and telling stories that would otherwise never be brought up.”
Click here to head to the OK Boomer website.
