But the Fun!!! | Playing Games as a Business

Welcome to Episode 27.

Toby is joined today by Brad Koch, owner of Game Masters. Brad shares how various experiences hobbies and skills led to the business idea and after a long stent of no call backs from job interviews the timing felt right. An idea became a business with the help of some local resources, community and some good old hustle. Listen in and be inspired by Brad’s story and how he created a place for community.

“So I was looking in Salt Lake, I was looking in Pittsburgh, I was looking in Charlotte, because I was looking for places with more opportunities, because I kept striking out, striking out, striking out. Couldn’t figure it out. And then it was a off the cuff, just maybe I should open a game store. And I don’t even think she looked up from her phone. She goes, why don’t you?”

“...you want to be realistic in projections and you’re like, can this work? And you’ve got all those nerves in your stomach. But when you put your heart and soul into it, I really do believe that if you build it, they will come. And the community has just shown that if you, if you scratch that itch and you do what they need, just, it, it snowballs and then you just got to hang on.”

“First off, to get that kind of vote of confidence from your spouse is amazing. Again, as I said, she’s got her MBA, she’s the smart one. She put us in contact with the SBDC, the Small Business Development Council. We did some market research. We knew there was already some game stores downtown, but there was no retro video game stores. There was no place that really did cards and games the way we did. And we looked into it and we were like, it could be feasible.”

Episode 027

Release Date: October 14, 2025

Host: Toby Lyles

Guest: Brad Koch (Part 1)

Get in touch with Brad

https://www.gamemasterscheyenne.com

FB - https://www.facebook.com/GameMastersCheyenne

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gamemasterscheyenne

SBDC - https://wyomingsbdc.org/