Would you remortgage the house, drive around the country, and put your home address in the public for millions?

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Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Sample and we’re talking about empires and ideas that people had that turned into something big. As Steve started the countdown for the recording, he told me that today we’re going to talk about UNO, the card game UNO. And I have to admit that I didn’t play UNO as a kid.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, you didn’t? Okay.

Dave Young:
I didn’t know anything about UNO until I got married and my wife liked UNO and we taught it to our kids.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So you played it with your daughters then, did you?

Dave Young:
Yea. It’s a vicious game.

Stephen Semple:
It is a vicious game. My nephew used to love playing UNO, so I’d play it with my niece and nephew, but what would be funny is, for whatever reason, he would end up being the one getting all the cards and you have these little hands and he’d be holding-

Dave Young:
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Now the funny thing is he would think it was hilarious that he would have all these. So it was kind of fun because he would find it funny that he’d have, “Well I clearly had the advantage because I’ve got all the great cards because I have half the deck in my hand.”

Dave Young:
Yeah. How could I lose? That’s like me on a golf course. I’ve got way more golf experience than you do because I hit the ball a lot more than you do.

Stephen Semple:
So as soon as I got looking into UNO, I couldn’t help but have all these really great memories of Jeffrey and Robin and playing UNO with them because it really is a great game to play with kids.

Dave Young:
Yeah. It’s fun and, like I said, I always feel bad giving somebody a card that loads their hand up. I don’t know why. That’s just-

Stephen Semple:
The way you are.

Dave Young:
I don’t have that killer instinct.

Stephen Semple:
So just to put in perspective how big UNO is, UNO is the best-selling card game in history.

Dave Young:
Really?

Stephen Semple:
Yes. Number one.

Dave Young:
Okay. By defined as a game specifically with those like that?

Stephen Semple:
With cards, like a card game.

Dave Young:
Yeah, but not-

Stephen Semple:
Selling card game.

Dave Young:
They haven’t sold more cards than the Bicycle playing card company.

Stephen Semple:
No. No because-

Dave Young:
But just a specific game.

Stephen Semple:
Yes. They’ve sold 150 million packs in 80 countries.

Dave Young:
That’s a lot of UNO cards.

Stephen Semple:
That’s a lot of UNO cards. It sure is.

Dave Young:
And 80 countries?

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
See, that makes sense because you don’t need to speak English to play UNO.

Stephen Semple:
Right. It’s very simple. Right. You don’t need instructions for it.

Dave Young:
It’s numbers and colors. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So it was invented by Merle Robbins in 1971 in Cincinnati. So the 1970s-

Dave Young:
’71. Okay.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. It was 1970s. Lots of tension. Gas prices are crazy. Gas rationing, Vietnam, the stuff going on with Nixon, and really, people are yearning for a simpler, happier time. Merle was raised during the Great Depression and in the 1960s he worked in a factory he was laid off from that factory and went on to become a small-town barber. And he loved playing games with the family. And they love playing Crazy Eights. But what they found was there’d be all these fights while playing because people would forget the rules for the Crazy Eights.

So Merle decided to settle that. So he decided to get a blank set of cards and write the rules on the cards. And instead of suits, he used colors.

Dave Young:
Okay.

Stephen Semple:
Right? And so he created this simpler version of Crazy Eights. Now the only thing is the version he created was too simple and the game passed by too quickly. So he needed to create something, add something, that would catch people off guard. So he created the draw four card.

Dave Young:
Oh, okay.

Stephen Semple:
Right? Like the card, here, you got to take, so-

Dave Young:
Four cards, yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Which is something that allows you to really stick it to the competitor. But this is now a new game. He’s now actually built a new game. And then the wild card was added where you’re allowed to change color. So while it started from Crazy Eights, he did create a brand new game by bringing these ideas into it. And so he wants to make the game a business, but he has no idea how to do it. He’s a small-town barber. So 10 of the family members pool their money and they decide, “Well with this money, he should be able to go and print 5,000 copies. Let’s make 5,000 copies of this game.” Now one of the family members creates the name UNO.

Dave Young:
Okay.

Stephen Semple:
Now there’s some controversy here. There’s this legend that in some document somewhere it says some weird thing where it looked like UNO was a misspelling of you or something like that.

Dave Young:
Or you know. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
Okay.

Stephen Semple:
But whatever it is, here’s the brilliance of the name UNO because UNO is one, right?

Dave Young:
Yeah. It’s Spanish for one.

Stephen Semple:
In Crazy Eights, you would say, “I’m down to my last card. Last card.”

Dave Young:
Ah.

Stephen Semple:
What do you do in UNO? UNO.

Dave Young:
UNO. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
You yell the name of the game in excitement while you’re playing the game. Talk about an anchor.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
And in some games, UNOs yelled four or five times.

Dave Young:
Yeah. Then you’re-

Stephen Semple:
Right because you may not be able to put that card down now you pick one up and then you put it, “UNO.” “UNO again.” “UNO again.” Right? But the name of the game is yelled in excitement while playing the game. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Dave Young:
Especially if it’s being played in public somewhere with a group of people. Let’s say you’re sitting in a ski lodge-

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
And there’s a group of eight or so people playing this game over by the fireplace.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
And every now and then one of them yells, “UNO,” and they all seem to be having a good time.

Stephen Semple:
Right. Oh yeah. I hadn’t even thought about that. So it’s a brilliant, brilliant name for a game. So basically, they want to create this and Merle goes out and finds this young designer to design the cards. And one of the things that is really important on this, that this designer caught onto is the game is fast and simple. So he needed a design that reflected that. So we take a look at the design of the cards, quick to see, very fast, very simple. The original color was not the red and black that we see today. The back of the cards was avocado green. Remember that color? Well, it was being used a lot in the ’70s.

Dave Young:
Yeah, it was. Appliances.

Stephen Semple:
So Merle goes to find out how much it’s going to cost to get these 5,000 packs made. Turns out it’s $8,000, not five that had been raised amongst family. Most of the family members dropped out and now he only has $2,000. They say, “Look, we’re not putting more money in.” So it’s 1971 and he literally bets the house on this. He takes out a mortgage.

Dave Young:
Wow.

Stephen Semple:
Merle bets the house. The first run of UNO, but he has no connection to the game business, he has these 5,000 decks, and he starts selling them out of the barber shop.

Dave Young:
Wow. Okay.

Stephen Semple:
So he makes a few sales, but not a lot as you can imagine. It’s not like you’re going to sell a lot of cards out of the barbershop. So he decides to go on the road to sell the game at campsites. He said, “This is a family game. People will play this at campsites. So I’m just going…

Dave Young:
In campsites?

Stephen Semple:
“I’m going to play this game with people in campsites. I’m going to create word of mouth. I’m going to sell the game at campsites.” So he goes on the road. So he would literally play the game with people and they would buy it. Eventually he sells all the games, but it’s months on the road.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Months on the road. So he returns home with a small profit, but he’s 60 years old. That’s a lot of work. It takes a toll.

Dave Young:
No kidding.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. One day, there’s a knock on his door, Bob Tezak shows up. Bob Tezak is a mortician, owns a funeral home and has a flower shop. But he had stumbled on the game and he loved it so much because somebody brought it to family thing and he loved it so much he decided to buy the product. And he realized the product was from this guy in Ohio. Merle’s address was printed on the cards.

Dave Young:
Nice. That’s smart.

Stephen Semple:
Right? So Bob hops into the car, goes and drives to see Merle, and offers him $50,000 over five years plus royalty.

Dave Young:
Wow.

Stephen Semple:
And Merle takes the deal because Merle’s like, “I’m tired, I’m 60. You know what? This gives me enough money. I can close the shop and retire.” So Merle closes-

Dave Young:
And royalties.

Stephen Semple:
“And I’m going to get the royalties.” Tezak forms a company called International Games and they work out of an empty room in the flower shop next to the funeral home. They change the avocado green to that now iconic black and red.

Dave Young:
And that black and red has that swirl. I mean, it looks like action. Those cards look like they’re moving.

Stephen Semple:
Yes, and that was the whole idea, right? Sales are slow. They sell 500 games, and 500 sets of cards in the first year. And the 1970s was really wild in the toy business. It was really all about electronics and futurism and all of those other things. So he was really struggling to find a retailer to pick up the game. Really, really struggling. But he notices that there’s this new retailer that’s up and coming called Walmart.

Dave Young:
Ah. Okay.

Stephen Semple:
So he goes to Bentonville to meet a buyer who gives him an almost immediate no. Now here’s where Tezak got lucky. Who’s he bump into in the hallway when he’s walking out?

Dave Young:
Sam Walton?

Stephen Semple:
Sam Walton.

Dave Young:
No kidding.

Stephen Semple:
And Sam says to him, “Well what are you doing here?” “Oh, I’m pitching this idea.” Share it with Sam. Sam’s like, “Love that idea.” Turns to the buyer, “We should buy this.” So it is Sam Walton who put UNO into Walmart. And at the time, it was also great because Walmart was exploding. Between 1976 and 1981 UNO sales tripled every year, boom, boom, boom. By 1981, they were selling 11 million decks in a year. Guess what Merle’s commission was on that, his royalty. A million cool dollars.

Dave Young:
Nice.

Stephen Semple:
Right? Bob has this big jet, big headquarters, and fancy cars. They start selling UNO overseas. There’s this whole thing where they try to renegotiate Merle’s commission. Merle holds his own. Merle keeps the deal, which is all great. And in 1992, Tezak sold International Games to Mattel for a cool $40 million.

Dave Young:
Nice.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So look, everybody does well. But here’s the thing I admire about Merle.

He creates this game, he’s selling it out of the barbershop, and he could have stopped there, right? “Well, it’s not selling.” And he went, “Well it’s a family game and I don’t have money.” And here’s the thing is, when you don’t have money and you have to promote something, you have to spend on shoe leather. I’m amazed at the number of times people come to me, “Well I’m trying to build this idea and I don’t have money for marketing and I don’t have time to put into it.”

Dave Young:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
You can’t build something without time or money.

Dave Young:
They’re interchangeable, especially at that point.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. When you’re a startup, if you don’t have time, you better have money and if you don’t have money, you better have time. There’s not a magic formula where you can sprinkle pixie dust and it takes off. Haven’t come across any that’s done that. So he puts in shoe leather, the campsites, and I get it. Families play games at campgrounds. “I’ll take this to campgrounds. I’ll play the games.” Now what we all know is, in some ways, you could sit there and say, “Well the Bob Tezak thing was lucky.” But on the other hand, it was kind of inevitable because what he was doing is he was putting the cards out there. And what we all know, and again, we see this all the time in marketing, things don’t always connect A straight to B. Right. Bob Tezak came across that game somehow because somebody came across it in a campground and Bob Tezak was not at the campground, but from that campground experience, made it to Bob’s home. From Bob’s experience, Bob made it to Merle.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
And that is how things work, more times than not. But-

Dave Young:
And if nothing else where he put it, he put his address on the cards.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
So he was seeding. That was his ad for, “Hey, if you want more of these games, I’m your guy.”

Stephen Semple:
I’m your guy.

Dave Young:
Because you can’t get them in a store.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
Contact me. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Contact me. Yeah. And he did the leg work. And I still believe, even if Tezak didn’t happen, if he did a little bit more of that, eventually that word of mouth would build up. Like we saw that in Yahtzee, right? Yahtzee was like, “Get it out there, get it out there, get it out there,” and eventually it created its own momentum.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
So in the end, Merle did really well for himself. Merle did really, really well for himself and created the best-selling card game in history.

Dave Young:
That’s awesome. What a great story.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
And a couple of people had nice, happy exits from it.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, Tezak did well, but then he didn’t do well because Tezak lost his mind and eventually did some stuff that landed him in jail for 13 years and all this other crap. But if Tezak did well because he got the financial rewards, it’s just he didn’t know how to handle the thing.

Dave Young:
Just didn’t. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
But the other part that I do like is I don’t like that at one point Tezak tried to renegotiate the deal with Merle, but I do like the fact that Merle held his own and Tezak backed down, and look, they all profited and did well.

Dave Young:
All right. UNO.

Stephen Semple:
And what a brilliant name hey.

Dave Young:
Yeah. Well, what a cool story about a cool game.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
Thank you for sharing that on the Empire Builder, Stephen.

Stephen Semple:
All right. Thanks, David.

Dave Young:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big fat juicy five-star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute empire-building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.

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