Designing a board game is the fun part. Getting 2,000 copies of it made, with the right card stock and a box that survives shipping, is the part that stalls most first-time designers for a year. They do not know who makes games, what to ask them, or what a reasonable quote looks like.
The idea: a Google Sheet listing board game manufacturers, organized by what they make and where they are, with a built-in tracker for quotes and conversations. It is number 17 on my list of 100 business ideas in Google Sheets.
It is a contact list, and contact lists sell. But this one has a clear extra layer that could make it much more than a list.
The idea
Create a comprehensive list of manufacturing companies that specialize in producing board games. Organize it by company name, location, production capabilities (cards only, full boxed games, custom dice, wooden pieces, miniatures), minimum order quantity, rough pricing, lead times, and any other details a designer needs before sending an email.
Then make it a working tool, not just a directory. Track which manufacturers have been contacted, what kind of response they gave, quotes received, samples requested, and notes. A designer getting quotes from eight factories at once needs this badly, and most are doing it in their inbox.
What could put this idea over the top is the extra resources. Templates for the documents a designer will need anyway: a spec sheet to send to manufacturers, a manufacturing agreement outline, a checklist of what to inspect on a sample. A list of standard component sizes alone would be useful: common card dimensions, box sizes, tile thicknesses, die sizes. Manufacturers assume you know these, and first-timers do not.
One more angle. Plenty of people want to personalize an existing popular game as a gift or a promotional item. A tab with the physical dimensions of well-known games like Monopoly, Cards Against Humanity, and Codenames, meaning board size, card count, card size, and box size, gives those people a starting spec they can hand to a printer. It is a small thing that saves a lot of measuring.
Put together, the sheet answers the three questions every new designer has: who can make this, what do I send them, and what should it cost.
How to build it in Google Sheets
- Manufacturers tab. Company, Country, Region, Website, Contact email, Capabilities (a few checkbox columns: Cards, Boxed games, Dice, Wooden pieces, Miniatures, Plastic), Minimum order, Price range, Typical lead time, Sample policy, Notes, Last verified.
- Outreach tracker tab. Company (dropdown from Manufacturers), Date contacted, Contact method, Response (dropdown: No reply, Declined, Quote received, Sample requested), Quote per unit, Quote total, Follow-up date, Notes.
- Component sizes tab. Component, Standard dimensions, Common variants, Notes on tolerance.
- Popular game specs tab. Game, Box size, Board size, Card size, Card count, Piece list.
- Templates tab. The spec sheet outline and agreement checklist, laid out as fill-in rows so a buyer can copy them.
Features that fit:
- Checkboxes for capabilities, so a designer can filter for factories that do both cards and wooden pieces without reading every row.
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FILTER on a "Find a factory" tab with a few input cells at the top, for example
=FILTER(Manufacturers!A2:B, Manufacturers!F2:F=TRUE, Manufacturers!B2:B=B1)to show card printers in the country typed into B1. - Data validation dropdowns for Country, Response, and the Company column on the tracker, which keeps everything joinable.
- VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP on the tracker to pull each company's email and minimum order next to the outreach row, so the buyer never flips tabs mid-email.
- Conditional formatting on Follow-up date, turning red when past due, and on Response so "Quote received" rows stand out.
- Protected ranges on the Manufacturers and Component sizes tabs so buyers cannot accidentally overwrite the research while filling in the tracker.
A quote comparison block on the tracker, using MIN and a lookup to show the cheapest quote per unit and who gave it, is a two-formula addition that people will screenshot.
Who pays for it, and how to sell it
First-time board game designers, especially anyone preparing a crowdfunding campaign, because they must have a manufacturing quote before they can set a funding goal. Also small publishers doing their second or third game who want more options than the one factory they used last time. And the gift and promo crowd who want a custom version of a known game.
They pay for the hours of research, the verified contacts, and the reassurance of the templates. Nobody wants to send their first factory email and get it wrong.
Pricing: $29 to $79 as a one-time template. The Manufacturers tab needs re-verifying at least yearly, so a modest annual update fee is fair. A service on top is natural: for a fee, you send the spec sheet to five factories on the designer's behalf and fill in the tracker with the quotes. Many would rather pay for that than do it.
Sell on Gumroad with a preview of the component sizes tab as a free sample; it is generous and it proves you did the work. For the version you keep verified, use OnlySheets to sell access to the live Google Sheet, so buyers are shared automatically and always see the latest contacts.
First 10 customers: board game design communities are active and helpful, and they ask "who should I use to manufacture" constantly. Answer those questions with a specific, useful recommendation from your list, then mention the full sheet. Ten helpful answers will bring ten buyers.
Related ideas from the list
- Chinese Factory Contact List, the same mechanic for a broader set of products.
- Wholesaler Resources, another supplier list for people making physical things.
- Physical Product Promotion Tactics, which the same designer needs once the games arrive.
Want the other 99? This is one idea from my list of 100 business ideas you can build in Google Sheets. Get all 100 business ideas as a free Google Sheet.
And if you want to learn how to package and sell spreadsheets, my course Selling Spreadsheets walks through exactly that.