We were lucky to catch up with Ashton Wu recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ashton, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I wanted to create board game reviews that comprehensively covered games from top to bottom; Reviews I would watch before buying a game that would entertain and inform. This necessitated a review of the highest highs and the lowest lows of any given game. Thus, components, replayability, player count numbers, the chronically underrated accessibility, and more all had to be dissected.
This all stemmed from diving headfirst into the hobby during senior year of high school. We’d hop in my small SUV and drive to the local Barnes and Noble to pick a game to play. By then, the difficult part of high school was over and we just enjoyed our time together. So many countless memories emerged from playing Yu-gi-Oh and other multiplayer board games that I knew this hobby was something special, and how it could benefit others by encouraging play. While there were many games that felt like gold mines of enjoyment, just as many others fell flat. Thus, buying board games felt like throwing darts, and I didn’t want others to have that same experience.
As we’ve made more and more videos, we’ve learned more and more of how to provide value to fellow board gamers. It’s more than just how a game feels, but also what it’s trying to say, and who exactly that message is for.
Finally, I find a lot of purpose on our insistence on numerical scoring, with a personal and a recommender (aka more objective) score enabling consumers to see not just our opinions, but also how we view board games in the current zeitgeist.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Shelfside is a board game YouTube channel that my elementary school friend and I founded in 2019, right after college! We were all in on creating content online, which is something we’ve both being doing as hobbies ever since we met (videos, podcasts, blogs, etc. that never got monetized). I think our relentless pursuit of comprehensive analysis and zilennial styled videos are quite unique in this emerging industry!
Besides our flagship full-length reviews on the channel, including completing the biggest campaign games out there (Gloomhaven + Frosthaven), we love to delve into anything related to board gaming. Projects we’ve worked on recently are a Board Game Personality test and making a board gaming table for $100. In the works are my own board game (which I wish to crowdfund eventually), and a board game sitcom! Basically we love making videos, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we revived our podcast or made a movie one day, which is a bucket list thing for me.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Healthy Relationships. Whether it be making new relationships with partners or clients, re-igniting old ones, or even maintaining current ones, having healthy relationships is one of the most broad skills a person can have but can help in so many unexpected ways. And making our videos are almost always collaborative, and better the more people are involved.
2. Work ethic/time management. I used to be lackadaisical about school work and chores until I entered college, where I had to grind work to get through an Economics major. That type of mindset of being able to work weekends, late nights, and just commit to finishing something has helped immensely. A big difference between running a business and taking classes though: you never know what problem will emerge to surprise you!
3. Learning how to learn. Obviously pretty loaded phrase and vague, but being able to pick up new skills and hone your current ones will always be relevant. When we started I foolishly thought our videos were the best, and now I can barely even stand some of our videos from just 3 years ago. There’s always room to improve creatively, and if you love it, why not be constantly getting better to love it even more?
For those who are early in their journey, I would say that it’s really helpful to get a handful of challenging and diverse life experiences to build your foundation. Being able to handle rejection and how it’s not the end of the world is extremely helpful. Failure can be a prerequisite to bigger success, as long as you have the right mindset. And being an open-minded, flexible rational optimist is the cherry on top!
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
The most impactful thing my parents, namely my mom, did for me is expose me to as many new fields of study/work as possible. From when I was young there was no “set” career path for me, and anything was possible, from optometrist, to air pilot, to even corporate salesman. As I continued to age, my mom not only signed me up for many classes like Kung Fu, soccer, piano, and singing to stir my creative potential, but also jobs as early as 12 years old that really matured me as a person. From farmer’s market stand helper to NASA photographer (as an intern), these still experiences still help me today in untold ways.
And these experiences make it easier to readily try out new ones, which has taken my business in all sorts of new directions!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shelfside.co
- Instagram: @shelfsideboardgames
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/shelfside
Image Credits
@ken_takes_pics (WSBG photos)
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
