Meet Carla Kopp

We recently connected with Carla Kopp and have shared our conversation below.

Carla, 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?
When I first got into board game design and publishing, it was on a whim and I was just trying to have fun. After designing my first game and playing it with friends, I decided I wanted to take the next step and to go to a convention and show of my game and get feedback. I figured out what convention I wanted to go to, got a hotel, drove 6 hours, and found out where people brought their games to be playtested. I went to that room, walked around, and ended up leaving. Everyone in the room was a man, none of them acknowledged that I was there, and everyone seemed to be busy. I ended up hiding out for a bit, then I went back, started introducing myself, and getting to know other people. At the time, I was a super introvert and that was certainly not easy at all to do. I knew no one and had to push my boundaries to simply get involved. It ended up working out, but it certainly wasn’t the easiest path. Since then, I wanted to make it so other people, especially minorities, had a better experience as designers and publishers. The board game industry is predominantly white and male, so there’s the extra barrier for everyone else where they might not see other designers that look like them, see themselves in games, or find games that are accessible to them.
I try to take as many steps as possible to make the community as welcoming as it can be. I try to hire diverse people in all parts of the industry, from illustrators, graphic designers, editors, designers, booth staff, and more. I try to feature women of color on box covers. (At one time, there was a survey done and there were more sheep on game covers than there were women.) I try to make the games themselves accessible in a variety of ways, from being color blind friendly, not too expensive, usually playable in about an hour or less, and other ways. I go to conventions and keep an eye out for those people that are wandering, looking for a group to join, but might not have the confidence to introduce themselves. It’s a completely different experience if you’re invited to join a table and it’s made obvious that someone has made space for you, instead of trying to do that on your own. It can be the difference between someone staying in the industry and finding their place and them deciding that the board game industry is not for them.
My first experience happened in 2016 and the industry has definitely changed since then. There’s definitely still room for things to get better, but it’s about taking things one day at a time, helping out one person, and slowly as more people stay in the industry, they can do the same for others and there’s a snowball effect that benefits everyone.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I design and publish board and card games. My company is Weird Giraffe Games and I make games that are a bit weird, but that’s ok, as we’re all a bit weird. The games have classic mechanisms that people should be able to recognize, then a twist that makes them stand out. They usually have themes that are a bit weird, too! I do a lot to make sure the games are easy to learn, but have some depth once you understand the general idea of the game. Weird Giraffe Games tend to also be more friendly than other games; instead of taking from others, everyone is benefiting together. One of my most popular games is Gift of Tulips; it’s a game about giving flowers to friends while you’re at a tulip festival in Amsterdam. It’s a simple game, but it rewards giving more than anything else, while you’re also building up your own bouquet of flowers. It’s super colorful, has thematic Dutch art, and is one of the only games I’ve ever played where players are genuinely thankful to each other. It’s such a positive experience and it’s been a joy to share with as many people as I have. It’s also got an amazing team of ladies behind it, in an industry where most people are men. The game has recently been reprinted and is available for sale after it quickly sold out immediately on hitting retail last year.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities that were most impactful on my journey so far have been my willingness to ask questions about what I don’t know, perseverance, and community mindset. There were plenty of times where I could have guessed what to do and learned things the hard way, but along the way, I made sure to consistently ask questions and verify that I knew the right way to get things done. When you’re running a business and it involves different countries and laws, if you make a mistake, terrible things can happen. You want to make sure everything is as planned as possible before you make a mistake that can cost you your entire business. This journey has also definitely been more of a marathon and not a sprint. You don’t build a business overnight and it takes a lot of money, effort, and even some failure to succeed. If I had not been willing to keep going through all the rough parts, I would not have made it to where I am today. There’s definitely been a ton that I’ve worked through that haven’t been at all fun, but you have to get through those parts to create something you can be truly proud of.
From the start of this, I’ve loved the community aspect of board games and being part of the industry. I found my first friends from helping out others, which taught me a lot of things in an environment where I wouldn’t fail. It also gained me a lot of support later on, as people tend to remember who helped them out in the past. I got to learn, make friends, and also get a ton of help, just because I saw others that were trying to do the same things I was doing as potential friends, instead of rivals. Plus, it’s been a lot nicer to have met so many friends along the way.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
You can never do everything perfectly. However, you can learn a ton of different things so you can identify all the tasks that you hate doing and the ones you’re surprisingly good at. If you don’t at least try learning new skills, you won’t learn about yourself and you won’t be able to make the best decisions. When I started working on Weird Giraffe Games, I didn’t have any real artistic skills, but along the way when I worked with artists, I’d ask questions about how to do things and slowly gained a ton more skills in graphic design. I’ll most likely never be an illustrator or anything like that, but I can definitely manage working on a rulebook layout. It’s saved a ton of time to be able to make the minor changes and I’ve been able to take on more with each project, while I rely on other graphic designers and illustrators to do the things that I either can’t or the things I’m bad at. Due to this, I’ve saved a lot of money, but also a ton of time! I used to have to make a list of things for a graphic designer to fix, then wait for them to finish, then go over the list, get back to them with the list of things that were missed or had changed unexpectedly, then wait for the next round of changes. With so much dependent on timelines, I can much more easily predict when things will be done if I do them myself and I fully understand what changes need to be made.
I’d never force myself to work in areas I wasn’t skilled in or that I dreaded. Even if I find out that I dislike doing a certain task, the fact that I had at least tried and gained some knowledge in the area meant that I could better describe what I wanted from someone and I had more insight into the kind of person I’d hire for the job. It also gives you a bit more empathy and appreciation when someone does a job truly well that you either couldn’t do or you would end up taking you far longer to do.

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