Rob Angel, the brilliant mind behind Pictionary, shares his inspiring journey from selling games on the streets of Seattle to changing the board game landscape forever. He delves into the emotional complexities of success, addressing how personal identity intertwines with professional achievements. Rob also discusses the importance of mentorship and philanthropy, emphasizing lessons learned from both his entrepreneurial adventures and his role as a parent. His reflections on connection and innovation resonate deeply, proving that creativity and human relationships are at the heart of lasting success.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Trust Your Business Intuition
Follow your intuition when choosing business partners or projects.
You don't have to work with the first person you meet; compromise and gut feeling matter.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Handmade Start of Pictionary
Rob Angel produced the first thousand Pictionary games by hand in his small apartment.
He then hustled to sell them directly on the streets of Seattle, learning business from scratch.
insights INSIGHT
Exit Strategy vs Endurance
Decisions driven by investor exit strategies differ from building enduring businesses.
Success lies in creating something people love long term, not just monetizing quickly.
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What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life
Dave Asprey
Game Changers by Dave Asprey is a comprehensive guide that distills the wisdom from over 450 interviews with highly successful leaders, innovators, and mavericks. The book focuses on three main objectives: becoming smarter, faster, and happier. It offers 46 science-backed 'laws' that provide practical strategies for optimizing diet, exercise, sleep habits, and mental performance. Asprey combines insights from human biology and psychology with real-world examples to help readers upgrade their 'operating system' to better align with modern goals. The book covers a wide range of topics, including taming fear and anxiety, making better decisions, establishing high-performance habits, and practicing gratitude and mindfulness[1][4][5].
Paris, 1987. Rob Angel, during the game’s launch in France
Rob Angel is the inventor of Pictionary. You have played this game. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t.
He Invented the game in 1985 and started manufacturing it in his studio apartment in Seattle, and then literally went out onto the streets, trying to sell it to people face to face.
Since then, 38 million copies of Pictionary have been sold worldwide. It’s one of the biggest games of human history. Is just staggering how many people have enjoyed this game.
He and his partners grew that company for a decade, handling everything themselves, figuring it all out the hard way, not knowing how to run a business, not knowing anything. They were kids.
They eventually sold it and Rob talks a lot in this conversation about what that was like and just the journey of making a success from the ground up and some of the personal experience of doing that.
I think there’s so much to learn from hearing these stories. It’s very soulful talking to Rob. He’s a guy who got successful long time ago and has really spent most of his time since then, just trying to help other entrepreneurs out.
He was on the board of a foundation to help fight AIDS because he lost one of his co-founders to AIDS in the eighties. That’s also kind of a success story, where we’re much better at handling AIDS now but It was pretty scary there in those days. We talked a little bit about that in this episode as well, but I’m just happy to be sharing such a delightful person with you guys.
Commencement Speech, Western Washington University College of Business & Economics, Class of 2019
Rob was a a waiter who came up with the idea for creating the international best selling board game “Pictionary”. In his own words he describes his invention as a “positive emotional experience” and wanted to share that feeling with the world after he played the game with his roommates.
Not all was smooth sailing at first… Challenges were constant but he assures that with focus, determination and holding to his and his partners shared vision, succeeded not only creating the game but a branding company that made it the biggest selling game in the world, spanning 60 countries and selling 38 million games until it was sold the IP to Mattel in 2001.
Today, Rob is an entrepreneur, explorer, investor, philanthropist, and sought-after speaker on a mission to help people create their own success and best life by encouraging them to have the confidence to take their first small step.
Deep Future 
