Two Years of Waystone + Looking to the Future
photo by Flint McInnis
A few weeks ago I met up with a couple who have been preparing to open a taproom for hard cider here in Seattle, and it was pretty damn eye-opening. They’ve been researching things for almost a decade, saved about 300,000 dollars, and are now honing their business plan in order to secure a one-million-dollar loan.
Waystone’s start couldn’t have been more different. We had little to no plan, pretended to know what we needed to until we did, and scraped together about $35,000 from our savings and a short Kickstarter campaign to get it off the ground. Everything moved at a breakneck pace, with the whole thing going from far-flung idea to opening day in roughly five months.
December 2022, Stefan assembles terrain while Ray and Jon let me snap promotional photos of them playing on our only completed table.
Since then, things just keep moving. The number of games we’re seeing and the communities around them continue to bud and grow. Membership rises at a slow, but unwavering pace. And with these awesome circumstances comes some challenging questions:
How many members is too many?
What is Waystone’s attitude towards growth in general?
It often feels like there are two options for gaming spots: Be the intimate community hub that survives on retail sales and a dream (then be ground into dust in a few years) or become so focused on growth that you lose what actually makes the place special.
Other clubs out there that I’ve seen contending with capacity constraints place hard caps on membership and ask guests to pay a fee just for visiting. These are the sorts of barriers that make miniatures games so often impenetrable, something we’re trying not to contribute to.
The prevailing joke has always been that we should just take a sledgehammer to our west-facing wall and invade the Allstate office next door, but the hard reality is that we really are outgrowing our 850 sq. ft. space. It puts too many constraints on us to have only five tables and 16 square feet of storage.
Preparing for the Future
A couple months ago I started getting into a routine of playing Battletech each week at Waystone, and more than once I’ve caught myself thinking how cool it would be if there was just a little more room between me and the person playing behind me. I find this hilarious, because not too far back I was rolling dice in game spaces so tight I had to ask the folks around me for permission to get out and use the bathroom.
We raised the bar two years ago, and now it’s becoming easier to see how we could raise it even higher.
Serendipitously, it wasn’t long after I was getting deep into these weekly games that our landlord popped in and dropped some big news on us: The Allstate office had vacated and was actually going to be available.
That news immediately brought us full circle—peeking through the windows of an empty space full of promise, considering a years-long lease that would either bankrupt us or bring a dream into existence.
The path does feel more complicated this time, though. We didn’t need to knock down walls when we first started, and we didn’t already have a beautiful, intimate, and inviting culture that we needed to worry about preserving.
Left: The current floor plan alongside the Allstate’s current layout. Right: A sketch of our “dream” floor plan.
The contractor who works with our landlord says that it could cost in excess of $50,000 dollars if we wanted to combine the two spaces into the cohesive gathering place we want it to be. Not to mention, we’d still need additional tables, a larger bar, more artwork and shelving…
And again, even if money weren’t an object, where does all of this growth and movement stop? When do we say, “We’re big enough.”?
Two years ago, I thought that by this time we’d exist in a dreamy state of equilibrium where serious puzzles were few and far between. I still hope we get there, but more and more I’m realizing how big a factor money plays in giving us the agency to solve problems and bring our vision for the club to life without compromising what makes it so special.
Offerings like the Year Membership Promotion we just launched help us do just that by providing us with a nest egg that can prepare us for big leaps like a space expansion, or smaller improvements that we’ve collectively been dreaming about like added ventilation and acoustic paneling for dampening noise. These promotions are also the primary way we can support our charitable organizations of choice and hey, they save you some money, too!
Whether you were there during the Kickstarter, have recently taken the step to becoming a member, or are simply keeping the dream alive with your lovely presence, you’re the ones propelling this whole thing forward. Thank you for all your support.
…and we’re very excited to celebrate with you at our Anniversary Party on Sunday, February 18th.
Cheers,
Dustin
