It’s All About The Fun – with Tom Dusenberry and Adam DeGraide – e48 – David Vs Goliath.

Adam DeGraide:

Coming up today on David Vs Goliath and it’s going to be a “Wow-Wow” factor or a Bam-

Tom Dusenberry:

It’s going to be a “Wow-Wow” factor and Bam Bam. It was one of the greatest acquisitions of all time.

Speaker 3:

Welcome to today’s episode of David versus Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a three time Inc. 500 recipient, and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide:

Hey everyone, it’s Adam DeGraide with another remote edition of the David Vs Goliath Podcast. Welcome, so glad to have you here. Today we have Tom Dusenberry from Dusenberry Entertainment and we’re going to learn about games we’ve played with, projects he’s worked on, he’s worked at Hasbro and Mattel and all these amazing place, plus he’s building a game of his own just like I am so it should be a lot of fun. Today we have a new corporate sponsor just like last week, it’s automatemysocial.com. Automatemysocial.com. If you’re a small business and you’re either paying somebody full time to do your social media, or you’re paying an agency to do it for you and you’re not getting the results you need, imagine if you could automate 90% of your social media and never have to think about it again, like forever. By the way, only then you’d have to schedule the customized posts 10, 20% of the time, but you can automate almost all of your social media.

Plus, you can automatically create your social media content in seconds. This software is amazing, it’s patent pending. We use it at David Vs Goliath ourselves, Anthem Software uses it, it’s called automatemysocial.com. And by the way, if you’re an agency or a social media engineer that manages other people’s social media, you can let our software do the work for you at automatemysocial.com and it’ll be our little secret and you’ll get all the credit. So with that out of the way, make sure you visit us at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com, there you can subscribe to receive emails and updates on the podcast as well as apply to be on the podcast. Well, with no further ado, we’re going to get right into it with Tom Dusenberry. Tom, welcome to the David Vs Goliath Podcast.

Tom Dusenberry:

Thank you very much. I’m very excited to be here Adam, it should be a lot of fun.

Adam DeGraide:

It is going to be a lot of fun, and I was reading the pre-show sheet which I love to do, and normally I have the paper and I like to cringle it the old Rush Limbaugh used to do. I noticed that you’ve been involved in the gaming industry since its infancy to now what it is it’s ridiculous value, and you’ve been involved in Hasbro. I think in the introduction I said you might have been with Mattel that’s probably not true, you’ve probably been with mostly Hasbro your whole life. And I don’t even know if you know this or not, but I am at 85% done with my very first video game that I built, and I’m going to be looking for someone to help me do the right thing with distribution and promotion and so I’m excited about this interview as much as I’m sure you are as well too in learning about this space. But for the watchers and listeners tell them a little bit about Tom Dusenberry and how you ended up on the David Vs Goliath Podcast today.

Tom Dusenberry:

Yeah. Great. Well, thank you. It’s been an incredible journey, it really has. When I started in the game industry I was a 19 year old kid and I was lost, I didn’t really know what I was going to do and I had an opportunity to work on the loading dock of Parker Brother Games and to think that this journey ended up meaning that 22 years later I was the CEO of the company, and then had the opportunities to continue on as an entrepreneur myself is just nothing short of incredible. And for me, it’s just been amazing because it’s just one great story after another because the industry just continues to grow and continues to prosper. But overall what I’ve learned in my massive amount of time in the game industry is that there’s only one thing that really matters, and that is it’s all about the fun. And that is if you deliver a fun experience people will want to play it over and over, and then you will have an opportunity to have a hit game.

And I’ve been associated with literally thousands of games, and I’m always striving for trying to find out is it fun? And when you do make that magical experience happen, it’s so exciting because there’s nothing more rewarding than having people come to tell you over and over how much fun they’re having in playing your game. So it’s just been a wonderful journey and there’s really been two parts to it, there was a corporate part which was the first 20 years, and then there’s been the entrepreneurial part which has been the last 20 years. And one thing I can say in addition to it’s all about the fun is that it’s all about the people, the people in the game industry are just fantastic.

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah, it’s funny that you say that. You and I have never talked before, this is the first time we’ve ever spoken, when I was reading your sheet it was like reading almost like my own life story in a lot of ways. I’m a huge gamer, I’ve been playing games since Commodore 64 came out. My brother used to program video games, I’d come home from school and he’d be like, “Hey, check out this video game.” I’m a huge gamer right now, I play a game called Apex Legends which is by a company as you know EA a division called Respawn that they have.

Tom Dusenberry:

Sure.

Adam DeGraide:

I play it every day, I’ve played it every day for the last three years. So much so Tom, that I actually just recorded a rock album with seven songs and the entire album is dedicated to the characters of the game and I just released it. It’s called the A.D.A.M. Music Project and the fans are going nuts because to your point, if you do something fun and you enjoy it people will do it over and over again. And you’ve seen now over the years gaming has taken on a whole new life, right? I mean, you have Comic-Con where you can go and people dress up like the characters of their favorite game. They immerse themselves with fan art which is what I just did, I call it the ultimate fan art project where I’ve immersed myself so much into this that it was so much fun that it became a big part of my life. It drives my wife crazy, but I can’t help myself it keeps me young Tom.

I’m in these first person shooters with young kids trying to survive and it’s a lot of fun, but you did say something fascinating too and I don’t want it to be lost. You mentioned that you started out at Parker Brothers in the delivery center is that correct?

Tom Dusenberry:

On the loading dock, right.

Adam DeGraide:

And then 20, 30 years later or whatever it was you became the CEO, and that truly is a David Vs Goliath story. Tell the listeners a little bit about that journey. So you didn’t just go from doing that to the CEO, what was that progression like briefly.

Tom Dusenberry:

It really is an amazing story because when I was growing up I didn’t know it, but I’m dyslexic and so for me to be marginalized all the time and even in my family if my sister and my brother got an A they would get $5, if I could get a C I’d get $10. And it was during the time nobody really knew what dyslexia was and what the circumstance was so when I got out of high school all my buddies went to college and I was like what am I going to do? And I got this job at Parker Brother Games, and it was amazing because what I found was that there was more to life than just being able to do proper English and that type of stuff. And what they really cared about was hard work ethic, and what they cared about was new ways to do things and that really fit in well with me. And it was an amazing journey Adam from a point of view that here I was this lost kid and the first thing that happened to me was that the government put in this thing called OSHA.

And it was a safety type of a thing for employees and factories and nobody knew what it was, but our factory had a lot of problems. People were getting their fingers cut off, there were back injuries, and I started and I took that as an opportunity and really focused on that and that differentiated me from the other people. And all of a sudden the people on the East Coast which was where the headquarters was realized that there was some talent that was in Iowa and I was able to transfer myself from Iowa to the East Coast. And that was the big change for me because now I was in corporate life, and what I found was that I really realized that the closer I could get to product the more important it would be because in the game industry it’s all about the fun and all about the product. So I went through this journey where I was a material planner, I was a purchaser, and then I had a break and an opportunity to switch to sales.

And in sales I did both sales and promotion, but then I did alternate sales and that’s when Atari came along and nobody really knew how to sell Atari so I found this small account called Toys“R”Us, and they were just a real regional account and all of a sudden they took off because video games took off and I was right there with them. And so sales was a great area for me, and then I had an opportunity to transfer into marketing where I did primarily marketing support. So whether it was advertising, international, promotion, ad licensing, I was responsible for all of that. And so when you look back, all of a sudden I was really skilled in being able to build the product, I was really skilled in being able to sell the product, I was really skilled in being able to market the product, and then I switched over to the best part of all and I became the head of inventor relations for Parker Brother Games. And it was, was creativity and innovation, and it was an amazing ride.

During the five year period I was there in the last three years we had eight and nine and nine of the top 10 games came out at Parker Brothers, and that of course was what Hasbro saw, Alan Hassenfeld specifically, and he invited me to join him on a journey of innovation. And I came back and I said, the future is all about the internet, and the future is all about interactivity, and that created Hasbro Interactive and put me on the journey of video games for the rest of my career.

Adam DeGraide:

And that’s what you became the CEO, right? Was Hasbro Interactive?

Tom Dusenberry:

I became the CEO of Hasbro Interactive, correct.

Adam DeGraide:

Man, and I got to tell you all those things that you’ve been involved in have touched I guarantee every one of our listeners and watchers right now because you’ve played a game that you’ve been involved in. Whether you liked it or not is irrelevant, you’ve done it, you played these things. And I remember Atari man, I had Intellivision and so Intellivision was the at the time, at least my family felt like because it was more expensive then it must have been better, but we ended up migrating off of Intellivision onto Atari as time went on with the 2600 and all those things. And then it’s just gaming has always been a big part of our lives, and it’s a big part of even my family’s life. My wife games, my kids game now, and it’s amazing. When you went through the journey and you went through those different departments I think this is important, because a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs are people right now that are working for somebody else and want to move up.

You talked about initiative, you didn’t use that word, but really what you were describing early on was that when the new regulations came out you figured out a better way to do it which got the attention of corporate, which brought you over. They said, okay, if he can fix this part of the business let’s put him in this part of business and you’re successful there and so you migrate your way up. And one of my first jobs was I stocked dairy shelves at the IGA, and just like you said I’ve learned everything… And then I moved up in my life from sales in banking, to sales in radio, to creating ad campaigns in radio and TV, to owning my own ad agency, then to switching over to building software solutions for businesses. And that journey by the way really strikes first and hard with initiative, which means where you are right now there’s probably a better way to do it. And if you want to go and grow, look for those that are doing it better than you and try to emulate it and make it even better.

For you Tom when you were doing that, was that something that just came instinctually for you or was that something that you learned from somebody else that that’s the route for you to continue to grow in your career?

Tom Dusenberry:

I think Adam somewhat I always felt that I was limited because of my dyslexic. So because of that it was like I wanted to stay where I was safe and that’s why I stayed with the same company for a long period of time. I would think that most people today their journey if it was like mine would be hopping from one company to the other as they were reinventing themselves to be able to grow in the environment. And I do think that it was somewhat unique because I was reinventing myself all the time, and having to reinvent myself internally to people. And I felt that one thing that I did that I think that others didn’t pay attention to was that whenever there was an acquisition or a change in management, that meant that there was a new opportunity to reinvent yourself. So a lot of times when I was switching from marketing to sales it was because there was a new company taking over and all of a sudden there was a new leader that I wanted to be supportive of, but I felt that that was really critical.

But I also think that you need to have an end goal, and that is that for me once I realized that I was pretty good at this stuff the thing that I really wanted to focus on was innovation and leadership. And for me, I felt that that was the top guy because if I could run the engine, meaning getting really good games into the company and then lead a group of people that were 10 times smarter than me the result could be pretty exciting. And so that’s what it was all about, was really to focus on what you’re really good at and try to get yourself into the position where you can take advantage of what you’re really good at. And so for me, once I got to innovation and leadership it was what I’ve done the rest of my careers.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s awesome. That’s amazing. Now we’re going to take a break here from our corporate sponsor in a second. When we come back, I want to talk about what it’s like to work with your current company. So somebody does have a product and they’re looking… I know you have a lot of NDAs, you’re the international man of mystery that’s what I’ve heard, that’s what I’ve learned and you’re writing a book or a story for your family to understand what does Tom Dusenberry actually do? And I think that’s important to talk about, and then I want to learn about the process of how you handle a project in generic terms obviously, we don’t to get specific, and then a little bit about your team. So you’re with Adam DeGraide the host of David Vs Goliath, This is Tom Dusenberry, here’s a very important message from our brand new corporate sponsor, automatemysocial.com. We’ll be right back.

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Adam DeGraide:

And you’re back with Adam DeGraide and Tom Dusenberry. Tom, this has been so much fun, I’m learning so much. Now when somebody comes to you and they want to work with Dusenberry Entertainment, and whether that’s from a consulting perspective or a logistics perspective, tell the folks exactly in generic terms because I know you have a lot of NDAs you can’t break and you can’t… If you’re working on a new game yourself you don’t want to get it out there, but at the end of the day what would you do for a guy like myself that’s going to release a game? Put myself in my shoes, the game is called FSK and it means Find Serve Keep, and I built a really fun game to try to help people know what it’s like to run a business and I don’t want to say more than that, but it’s a lot of fun and it should be coming out probably I would say March of next year. What would you do with a guy like myself? Walk to folks through the life of that relationship.

Tom Dusenberry:

That’s exactly what Dusenberry Entertainment is all about today, and that is to find innovation and then bring that innovation to the market. And so I find that my client base or my customer base is two areas, it’s entrepreneurs and inventors, and then it’s also major corporations that are looking for new business opportunities.

Adam DeGraide:

Got it.

Tom Dusenberry:

So that’s what fits together. And what I do is that I am open to talking with other people about what their invention is and find out how far along they are. And I usually can use a very basic criteria and it’s called the “Wow-Wow” factor and I’ve really used it all my life. And the first Wow is that when you’re explaining to me what you’re going to want to play or what your game is I want to say, “Wow, I really like that. I’m intrigued by it.” And then I want to experience it, and when I’m done experience it I want to say, “Wow, I’d like to do that again.” And if that meets that “Wow-Wow” factor then I’m in.

I’m not guaranteeing it’s going to get to the marketplace, but it makes the basic fun criteria to be involved. And then what I do is I work directly with the entrepreneur on sorting out exactly what the mission is and what the best opportunity is to be able to do on the marketplace. And because of my history and my background, I’m blessed with the opportunity to be able to open just about any door in the game business.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s awesome.

Tom Dusenberry:

And so I find opportunities. Like right now I’m working in augmented reality, and uniquely the company that’s most intrigued by this is Mattel. And so Mattel is a very innovative company right now, they’ve got a leader named Chris Down who’s probably the foremost authority in innovation in the last 20 years in that industry and you feel it in their product, you feel it in their company. And so to me there is an example of where we have a unique opportunity in a field that you wouldn’t traditionally think about Mattel about being interested in something that could work for them down the road. So that’s just one example, and then I work with other entrepreneurs and try to find unique components that could work in a brand and then work with the brand group to see if I can deliver that to the marketplace.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s really cool. I mean, if you think about it with your experience, not only in taking a product from concept to completion and then marketing you really can help somebody. Did you know I was building a video game?

Tom Dusenberry:

I did not.

Adam DeGraide:

I mean, the timing couldn’t be better. So I named my gaming company and this is a side project for me, but I put a lot of money and time into this thing. It’s called BamBamTastic Games, and so Bam Bam. You talked about the “Wow-Wow” factor, that’s kind of the way I wanted it was like Bam Bam I wanted people to have fun, and I really wanted to have… You have all of these Diner Dashes and the Gardenscapes that make all this money and they’re great, but I felt like they’re missing that element where you can have a little bit of an educational component within the fun, not too much, but within the fun that can shape what an entrepreneur experience is like in running a business and I’m getting pretty close to it.

I think to what you said from my perspective, the “Wow-Wow” hey, wow, this is a cool concept, and wow this is fun to play. It’s not ready for public consumption yet, but it’s close, and I’m definitely going to want to talk to you more after this. Now, do you have a team that is involved in working with you on this as well? Or are you pretty much-

Tom Dusenberry:

I work with a series of different game developers and entrepreneurs and business people, and since the pandemic I find that I work a lot with moonlighters. And so they are major players in corporations that like entrepreneurial type stuff and are looking for other opportunities that are non-conflict with their current job, but unique opportunities for them to enjoy the market and to do something that they Excel in. So even if it’s writing a business plan, those guys are really good at that type of stuff and so I find that I have a wide network of experts that make me do what I do because of their expertise.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s awesome. And it’s funny I was reading and let me pull it up here really quick, and by the way the funniest thing Tom, the chair that I’m sitting at in this house that I rented is solid metal and so my legs and my butt goes to sleep every 10 minutes. So if you see me doing this watchers and listeners you’ll know why, I’m trying to shake it out. But what I thought was fascinating in here is you talked about one of your failures because not everything is roses, right? Not every product that Hasbro launched was a success, not every product that Tom Dusenberry has ever worked on was a success, not every project that Adam DeGraide has worked on is a success, right? You learn a lot from the mistakes you make as well as the successes, and when you combine the two together you can try to avoid as many as possible. But I thought it was interesting you talked about this game, what was the game called again? It’s right here. Was it Glover?

Tom Dusenberry:

Glover.

Adam DeGraide:

Glover. And so this was fascinating. Tell the listeners a little bit about that experience of something that you enjoyed from the “Wow-Wow” perspective, but the launch really wasn’t what it should have been and what did you learn from that?

Tom Dusenberry:

I think one of the things that you have to do in the game industry is that if you’re going to get behind a project you have to go all in, and so you need to love the project and you have to defend it as if it’s like your child. And in the process of doing that, you’re going to get nicked and you’re going to get knocked around a little bit, but you need to love your product. And to me what I found is that also you have to be cold-hearted and you love your product all the way up until you hate it. And it may be like that when you go from love to hate with a game, but it’s got to be a cold-hearted decision because you have to make the calls. And so Glover was unique I had the hottest designer working on this product, it was during a period when Michael Jackson was red hot and he was wearing the one white glove and so the concept of the character-

Adam DeGraide:

I knew his manager by the way, I knew his manager at the time. His manager was Dan Beck.

Tom Dusenberry:

Our character was a four fingered glove and that’s what Glover was, and he was just a wonderful little character and he had all kinds of personality and I honestly feel the game was really well done. But you can’t be successful in the game market unless you have a great game in the first place, but you’ve got to find an audience. And that audience at that time was all about TV advertising, and as good as the game was to me I don’t think the advertising that we went out with hit the mark and was able to find that audience. And I carry a burden because I’m a creative guy, I need to be able to know what my message is to my consumer and I feel a burden for that. But the biggest mistake I made was that this was a Nintendo product so it was a cassette, and at the time you had to buy inventory of what those cassettes were.

And I remember Nintendo took advantage of me from a point of view that I think to start out I was going to order 250,000 pieces, but they said, “Hey, we’ll give you a couple bucks off if you’ll buy 600,000.” And thinking it was going to be a hit, I went ahead and bought all that and I’m sure there’s inventory someplace in the world that’s still around from what I did. And so we lost a lot of money and a lot of people were disappointed and so you just have to suck it up, you clean it up, and you move on and the next thing you hope is a big hit for you.

Adam DeGraide:

I think it’s interesting you also said that you knew the TV commercial wasn’t great, on the sheet that’s what I was reading, but you didn’t ask them to redo it and you live with regret. Instinct man and intuition, right? When you’re the CEO or you’re working on a project that’s your baby, you’re going to listen to that voice inside of you because there’s a reason why you’re not feeling right about it. And you got to pause for a second and say, I got to figure this out. But at the same time, if you’re coming off a lot of successes and there’s a lot of energy and who knows what’s going on in your life you can make those decisions, but hey Glover’s out there.

Tom Dusenberry:

Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:

If anybody’s looking for some Glover, go check it out. Glover modeled after the Michael Jackson glove.

Tom Dusenberry:

Adam, I think you make a very important point, and that is that the top guy has got to have an instinct, and he’s got to follow that instinct. Now, the example on the opposite end, which was a huge success was Frogger and they were kind of in the same genre just-

Adam DeGraide:

I love Frogger. I still play Frogger today by the way.

Tom Dusenberry:

So here’s the example of the instinct is that I was on a journey to bring Frogger to my company because when it was the original Atari era Frogger was a big hit for Parker Brothers, and now I’m the head of Hasbro Interactive doing licensing and I want Frogger. So we get Frogger and Frogger is a pretty good game, and the way we’re introducing it to our management and the way we’re introducing it to the trade is that we have this cute little video and that is that why did the frog cross the road? And the answer was a semi comes by and smashes it and flattens it right on the road, and the answer is he didn’t and then we start to play Frogger, right? But it captures the essence of what Frogger is.

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah, it is.

Tom Dusenberry:

You got to get across that gosh darn road, right? So everybody loves that, I love that and it’s great. We get to the advertising group and the advertising group comes up with this strategy that I bought off on and it was called dude. And the idea with dude was that there’s these two guys that went into the back woods in Canada, and they were smoking dope and drinking beer and 20 years went by and they’re coming out of the woods now and they’re realizing that Frogger is back. And so the whole position was, hey, look at dude it’s great that Frogger back and then they start to play it. So I had to authorized that commercial, Griffin-Bacal was our advertising agency, one of the greatest advertising agency at all time. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, “This is wrong, we’ve got to do why does the frog cross the road.” And so I called Joe Bacal up at 2:30 in the morning, got him out of bed, and he and I had a three hour discussion where he started with me and said, you got to trust your agency. You’ve got to trust me. You’ve got to trust-

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah, of course, of course.

Tom Dusenberry:

And I kept coming back saying, “But Joe it’s wrong I just don’t think we’re going to hit our group. I just think why did the frog cross the road is what our positioning is.” And after a period of time he said Tom, “I think you’re right.” And so we changed the commercial to why did the frog across the road and sold I think it was seven million units of Frogger in total.

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah, man I got to tell you it’s those still small voices that we get in the middle of the night as a creative and as an entrepreneur and as someone who’s other lives are trusting in you that you cannot ignore. You have to listen to them. If you’re listening to me right now and there’s something going on in your business and you know it’s not right, don’t move forward until you figure it out because otherwise you’re going to break something else that’s going to give you even more sleepless nights and you got to solve those problems. Well, Tom we got to take one more break and then when we come back we’ll continue the discussion. You’re with Adam DeGraide the handsome host of David Vs Goliath, Tom Dusenberry the international man of mystery and video game obviously expert and promoter, and you’re listening and watching the David Vs Goliath Podcast. Here’s another message we’ll be right back.

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Adam DeGraide:

And we’re back with Tom Dusenberry and Adam DeGraide on the David Vs Goliath Podcast. Now Tom, I wanted to make sure you finished your thought. Was there another thought you had before I get into the next thing I want to talk to you about?

Tom Dusenberry:

All I was going to say is that I had that same type of experience when I bought Wizards of The Coast. And it an amazing time because to me I had this vision that I thought that Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons would be major players in interactive entertainment down the road, and I was very, very intrigued by the gameplay patterns that both of the games had. So I had been on a journey for four or five years with Peter Atkinson to try to convince him that we’d be a good company to do an acquisition with, and we finally got to the point that the board met and we were ready to do this negotiation. And so we came out and we offered a very, very favorable type of an offer to Wizards and they turned us down and it was quite disappointing and surprising. And the reason they turned us down was that we didn’t figure into our analysis this new property they had called Pokemon, and as you know Pokemon was just explosive in what their growth was.

So what happened was that they said no and it was all over and about four or five weeks went by and Adam it was driving me insane because my job was to make sure that Hasbro was protected from a long term point of view, and that this IP was just too important for us to be able to get. So there again in the middle of the night I woke up and I ended up calling my boss who was the chief operating officer of Hasbro at the time Herb Baum. And I said, “Herb, I think we’ve just made a horrible mistake.” And I said, “I think we can factor Pokemon in and make it a positive acquisition for The Wizards of The Coast guys and it can be favorable and we’ll get what we truly want which is Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.” And Herb said to me, “Tom, if it’s that important to you let me meet Peter.” And so I set up a meeting in New York the following day and Herb came down and Peter came from Seattle, and from that point forward they met and it was magical and we were able to get the deal done.

And what was amazing about that acquisition was that Pokemon and the success of Pokemon paid for Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons in nine months from Hasbro’s point of view. It was one of the greatest acquisitions of all time.

Adam DeGraide:

And you think of I mean, timing, right? I mean, it was timing. And once again though not ignoring the instinct that you were having in the middle of the night. It’s funny, I don’t know what it is about 2:30 to 3:30, but that’s what it happens. It’s when it happens.

Tom Dusenberry:

I think it’s because humans they think they reflect. A lot of times if somebody tells me something I don’t want to really respond until I’ve slept on it, and I think that that’s what you do. Is you’re sleeping your deepest thoughts come out and that’s where probably insecurities come out and mistakes you made and you want to go correct those types of things.

Adam DeGraide:

This is an important part of DVG a component is I talk about this all the time which is when you’re successful entrepreneur like yourself, right? You’ve had a very successful career, there’s those that aren’t as successful as you right now but you try to reach out and help them, right? And then there’s always somebody that I try to have in front of me that’s more successful that I can talk to from time to time as well too so you’re reaching up, you’re reaching down, you’re trying to help humanity. Is there anybody right now that you’re mentoring and working with, or has that been a part of your life in the past or the present? And then also, who is it in your life that helped mentor you?

Tom Dusenberry:

Yeah, so I feel that community service and giving back is central to a successful and viable life and that’s why I do that. So I have a history of being the president of the local boys and girls club, I was on the trustee of the local hospital, I was a board member of the local university so I did all those things. But what I find is that what’s most important is to give back from an entrepreneurial point of view on the things that I know the most and that is games. So yes, I work a lot with a lot of people just trying to help them sort out and make sure they don’t buy inventory frankly just to make sure they don’t make big mistakes that could cost them-

Adam DeGraide:

Whatever you do don’t buy 600,000 Glovers.

Tom Dusenberry:

Right, don’t be stupid is the point. So yes, I really like to help other people, and what I find is I help people that are freshly coming out of college and they’re looking for what their first job is, or I find entrepreneurs that have started in the marketplace, gotten so far and they need help to try to get to the next level.

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah that’s definitely going to be me my man, I don’t know anything other than I had an idea and one of the principles I have in my life is that if I wake up in the middle of the night and I feel like I’m supposed to do something I just do it. I don’t overthink it, and so I’m definitely going to want to pick your brain over the next couple of months.

Tom Dusenberry:

Yeah. And then from a point of view of who I look up to, probably the single most person that I look up to is a gentleman named Randy Rissman And Randy was the founder of Tiger Electronics, and so he really like invented the handheld business, but I’ve-

Adam DeGraide:

It that with the soccer games and stuff that I used to play and football?

Tom Dusenberry:

Yeah, exactly. And you probably know him best because he brought Furby to the world. What happened was that Randy and I got to know each other because he was in acquisition for Hasbro and became part of the Hasbro family, but literally for the last 20 years he’s been the guy that I go to because he’s a great operator, he’s got great instincts, and he’s always giving me recommendations that’s best for me. And I know that’s unfiltered and so I really respect and value that and so he is really important to me. And then my other big mentor was Dave Wilson who was the head of Hasbro games for years. Dave always kept an eye on me and Dave was always there when I needed somebody to talk to about a very complicated matter. He would definitely listen to me and tell me his best thoughts as far as how to get out of it.

Adam DeGraide:

I know. I tell you, man, you can’t do it alone. One of my early mentors was a gentleman by the name of Eustace Wolfington, he invented car leasing. And one of the things he told me and his nephew at the time who was my business partner, Sean Wolfington he says, “You don’t do business alone, period.” It’s too difficult, it’s too painful to do it alone and to this day I still try not to do it alone because you’re good at what you’re good at, and you’re not good at what you’re not good at. Now one of the final-

Tom Dusenberry:

So I find today that who I get a lot of knowledge from are my two sons. One of my sons works at Fandule and he works in skill based gaming so he is highly knowledgeable in the acquisition of customers and that kind of stuff.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s great.

Tom Dusenberry:

And my other son he runs the Ferrari Motorsport division for North America, so he is got a different perspective on how things work, but I really think that for me where I’m at I’ve got to be relevant in the market. And so 20 and 30 year olds are very attractive to me because of the fact that they’ve got knowledge I just simply don’t have.

Adam DeGraide:

I’m going to need their help too because I’m 51 and we definitely need that. One of the things I like to end with is I think really important, there’s a point in people’s lives where they’re either going to move forward or they’re going to regress in their entrepreneurial life, or their progression in business in general. And it takes courage, you think back to that boy who had dyslexia and the world didn’t really understand it and so that probably created some insecurity to you at least initially. And then you get in this environment and you want to show yourself that you have multiple talents and that you can make a big difference. There is an element of courage that comes in especially when you have a disability like you had, what was it in you Tom?

Was it just something that you were born with? Was it a piece of advice that you got at one point in time? What was it for you that gave you the courage to not only make the suggestions, but implement them and then to take those steps all the way up to becoming the CEO of Hasbro Interactive. People need to know this because this is the most important part of an entrepreneurial journey in my opinion is what is that for you?

Tom Dusenberry:

Well, I think that fortune favors the brave. I think that’s a great phrase, and I think that you have to believe in yourself and that’s very important. And what I can say is that I’ve spent my entire career and I can look at all the failures that I’ve had to deal with, but I can also say I learned from each of those failures and they were good at one level or another. So one thing always leads to another, and I also think though that you’ve got to think one or two or three steps ahead of where you are now and what’s it going to take for you to be able to get to where you want to get to, and then start to work on that mission. But for me, I think that the thing that was unique about me was that for some reason I’ve always been able to attract the smartest brightest people.

They’re attracted to me for some reason, and that to me is something that is really favorable because who I work with and my best friends are always the smartest, brightest people and they like me and I like them and I think that that’s a big part of it. Is that you need to be genuine and you have to be a quality type of a person and you’ll attract those type of people as well, and that’s where innovation and creativity and new ideas really come from.

Adam DeGraide:

That is amazing. How can people find you and reach out to you if they want to learn more? They have an idea, they have a game, they need some help, how would they find you?

Tom Dusenberry:

Well, my website is dusenberryentertainment.com so that’s pretty straightforward, and my email address is tom@tomdusenberry.com. And I am open to talking to other inventors and to entrepreneurs and trying to help them. And I have a very basic business model that’s very focused on you not me because I’ve got a lot of projects going on and I want to make sure that we’re successful. So I’m not one of those guys that’s coming in and saying, “Hey, you got a great idea and I’m going to take it and run with it.” I’m the kind guy that says, “Hey, you got a great idea of what can I do to help you to make sure that this is successful?”

Adam DeGraide:

And it’s going to be a “Wow-Wow” factor or a Bam-

Tom Dusenberry:

It’s got to be a “Wow-Wow” factor and a Bam Bam.

Adam DeGraide:

It’s going to be a BambamTastic factor. Exactly, man. And what I love about David Vs Goliath is I never know what’s going to happen and who’s going to be a part of it, and it just happens and I’ve interviewed the most interesting people on the planet. Have you had a good time being on here today?

Tom Dusenberry:

I had a great time. It was a lot of fun.

Adam DeGraide:

And I’m definitely going to need your help. Tom Dusenberry from Dusenberry Entertainment and this is your host Adam DeGraide for the David Vs Goliath Podcast. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. You never know what’s going to be next week so make sure you tune in. Thanks for watching everyone and have a fantastic day.

Speaker 3:

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