SEATTLE — Alex Butler was just 7 years old when he created a bestseller. Not a book, not a movie, but a card game: Taco vs Burrito.
Now, Alex, 15, is a 10th-grader in Seattle and ready to move on. He, with support from his parents, sold the game last month in a cash deal to Wisconsin-based company PlayMonster.
“It was never something that I’ve been attached to or anything,” Alex said. “It’s not super important to me. I just kind of wanted to get the most money out of it.”
Taco vs Burrito made just under $1.1 million in 2018, its first year selling on Amazon for $20 a game. Since then, it has sold 1.5 million copies and was ranked Amazon’s No. 1 bestselling game at one point.
Alex’s family and PlayMonster did not disclose the total amount of the sale.
Alex said the idea came to him randomly. He didn’t like tacos or burritos at the time but spent plenty of time playing card games like Exploding Kittens with his family.
He comes from a business family. His mom, Leslie Pierson, calls herself a “serial entrepreneur and has been behind several projects, including one called GoodHangUps that she promoted on “Shark Tank in 2016.
So when Alex came to her with the idea, Pierson decided to play along. At his age, she figured he’d eventually get bored and move onto something else. But he didn’t. Instead, Alex would walk with his parents to Cafe Bambino in Seattle where they would play early prototypes of the game.
On the way home, Pierson said Alex would come up with another twist or idea to add to the game. Eventually, Alex started playing it with other people too, like his friends.
The goal of the strategic game is to create the most valuable meal, using ingredients, modifiers, action and wild cards. Some cards, like tummy ache, subtract points. The player with the most points in their meal at the end of the game wins.
To help cover the cost of production, Pierson started an online fundraiser. On its first day, she asked Alex to guess how much they raised. He bet on $200, but it was over $1,000.
“He lost it, mind blown,” Pierson said.
By the end of the fundraiser, and after some promotion at Seattle’s Comic Con, the fund had raised $25,000. So they decided to take it to the next level. Pierson and Alex’s dad, Mark Butler, created Hot Taco Inc. to help run the business. Alex owned the majority of the company until it was sold to PlayMonster.
They chose a manufacturer that Pierson said “treated Alex like an adult” and put about $25,000 to $30,000 worth of product up on Amazon.
The first batch sold out, then the next, then the one after that. They kept reupping the supply, bigger and bigger, expecting it to eventually lose traction. But it didn’t.
Over time, however, the family decided they wanted to take the business into the next phase. With Pierson running most of the logistics, she knew the game had gotten too big for her small team. So they started searching for a company that could take Taco vs Burrito to the next level of distribution.
They had been offered buyouts many times before but declined. But this time, it just felt right.
“It was never something I wanted to do later in life,” Alex said.
Pierson reached out to PlayMonster, which owns other games like Farkle and 5 Second Rule, and started looking at financials. She liked the company’s vision, and Alex agreed. They sold the company, choosing a complete buyout.
Jonathan Berkowitz, CEO of PlayMonster, said he was interested in the game because the “characters are amazing,” and it provides fun and competition for all ages.
“It’s always fun when kids can beat their parents in a game, but the parents can still truly enjoy playing,” Berkowitz said.
PlayMonster plans to expand the game through new line extensions and markets. Beginning in November, it’s going to release a new version of the game in a collectors tin, Berkowitz said.
Berkowitz said that when he first found out the game was created by a 7-year-old he was shocked. Alex is working with his parents to invest the money from his acquisition. Pierson said they are still discussing as a family how to distribute the money. But the one thing Alex said he wants to buy with the cash? “A Lambo.”
Despite the game’s success, Alex said his future probably won’t be in the card-making industry or a traditional nine-to-five job. He now likes music production, sports and video games, he said.
Pierson is also taking some downtime since the sale. The family plans to enjoy some vacation together in the upcoming months as they move on from the beloved Taco vs Burrito game.
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