The crazy story of Exploding Kittens

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.
— Joseph Campbell

These past two weeks, my brother and parents came to visit us in Sri Lanka. While we had plenty of activities planned, we also left a good chunk of unstructured time—something our family loves turning into game-time. We usually stick to simple card games like Trou du cul or Shithead, and despite the rivalries, cheating, and occasional grunts of frustration, we always end up laughing and having a great time.

In the world of games, one company has absolutely crushed it over the last decade: Exploding Kittens. There’s a good chance you’ve played one of their creations—whether it’s Exploding Kittens, Throw Throw Burrito, Poetry for Neanderthals, or Hurry Up Chicken Butt.

Today I wanted to share the wild story behind the company—and the clever tricks that helped make them a household name ↓

Elan Lee, co-creator and now CEO of Exploding Kittens, was working as Chief Design Officer at Xbox when a moment with his niece and nephew changed everything. He walked into their house, excited to see them—but they didn’t even look up, totally absorbed in a video game he had designed himself. That sting of disconnection hit hard. He left the video game industry soon after, with one promise: whatever he did next had to bring people together.

The Birth of Exploding Kittens

The first prototype was a simple card game Elan called “Bomb Squad.” Players drew from a deck, trying not to blow up. But then his friend Matthew Inman—creator of The Oatmeal—suggested a collaboration and pitched a twist: “What if the most dangerous thing in the game wasn’t a bomb, but... a kitten?”

The absurdity of the idea worked. They renamed the game Exploding Kittens, and the partnership began.

To fund the project, they turned to Kickstarter. Their goal was modest: $10,000 to cover printing a few hundred copies. Thanks to Matthew’s big online following, the campaign exploded—raising $10,000 in seven minutes, $1 million on the first day, and eventually $8.5 million from over 219,000 backers. It remains THE most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time.

Marketing That Broke the Rules

What made Exploding Kittens go viral wasn’t just the quirky gameplay—it was how Elan and his team flipped traditional marketing upside down. While most Kickstarter campaigns focus on raising money, they focused on building a crowd.

“Let’s stop thinking about funding,” Elan said. “Let’s think about fun.”

They issued absurd challenges to backers: snap a photo of ten Batmans in a hot tub, dress a cat like a taco (hello, Taco Cat), or legally rename your pet. Instead of unlocking upgrades based on money raised, they did it based on community participation.

The strategy worked. Their backers didn’t just fund the game—they helped launch a movement.

The Vending Machine That Outsold the Giants

Once the game was out, the next challenge was standing out at conventions like PAX (Penny Arcade Expo)—where big studios spend hundreds of thousands on flashy booths. With no real marketing budget, Elan got creative.

His first move? Urinal ads. Since bathroom advertising was free, he slapped stickers of kittens holding bombs in every urinal, with the line “Pee here to diffuse.” It caught people’s attention—and sent booth traffic through the roof.

But the real showstopper came the next year: a giant, fur-covered vending machine shaped like a cat. The idea came from Elan's frustration at how forgettable the booth experience was at conventions. He realized that buying a game from their table was no different than using a vending machine—impersonal and unmemorable. So he thought: What if we became the world’s most spectacular vending machine?

Press a button, and you'd get a copy of Exploding Kittens. Press the “random item” button, and you might get a pineapple, a burrito, or a rubber duck.

The result? A line so long it blocked the entrance to the convention. People didn’t just come to buy—they came for the experience.

Silly Ideas, Taken Seriously

At the heart of Exploding Kittens is a core belief:

That’s why their games are designed as social toolkits—not distractions. Every game is tested by their in-house lab of 400 families, known as the “Kitty Test Pilots.” And there’s only one question that matters: Do you want to play again? If even one tester says no, the game goes back for revision.

Exploding Kittens didn’t just break crowdfunding records—it rewrote the rules of marketing, gameplay, and what’s possible when you treat absurd ideas with serious intention.

Elan’s story really inspired me. It reminded me to bring more fun and creativity into my own work. While fun is baked into games, I realized I can do something similar—by being more playful and inventive in the in-between moments. Those are what turn an experience from good to memorable.

Let me know if you enjoyed this issue—it’s a little different from my usual style, but I loved digging into this story and couldn’t resist sharing it with you!

— James

Tools & Websites

• Sublime is a personal knowledge management tool designed to help you save, organize, and create with everything that inspires you.

• Gradients.fm offers a beautiful collection of gradients by Jim Raptis, with many available for free in the freebies section.

• Huly is a team-focused project and task management tool that syncs with Github, similar to Notion and Linear. They also have a really cool and interactive website ↓

MAKER OF THE WEEK

Ahmad Mansour is a street photographer from rural Egypt who captures the quiet beauty of everyday life—those raw, fleeting moments that often go unnoticed. His work shines a light on important social issues, especially around women, children, and the environment, while also playing with fashion and creative twists. He’s won a bunch of international photo awards, and his stories have been featured in places like National Geographic and Emirates Magazine.

James’ Library

…Aesthetic Corner…

The Hydrant Directory

The Hydrant Directory is a project by multi-disciplinary artist Day Lane that catalogs over 130 3D-scanned fire hydrants. From each hydrant, Lane extracts a color palette that's free for designers and artists to use. Really cool project!

Seabord Rise 2

The Seaboard Rise 2 by ROLI is a next-gen MIDI controller with a soft, touch-responsive surface that lets you shape sound through expressive gestures like sliding, pressing, and lifting. It’s designed for musicians who want deeper, more fluid control over pitch and tone than a traditional keyboard allows.

Sustainable Living

Seedbills is a speculative design project that reimagines the concept of money by linking it to seeds—symbols of resilience, cooperation, and abundance. Through beautifully crafted “bills” featuring five culturally and ecologically important seeds, the project invites people to question the values embedded in our current capitalist system and imagine alternative economies rooted in generosity, care, and balance with nature.

Each Seedbill tells a story—from rice as early currency that fostered cooperation in Asia, to fonio’s role in climate resilience and food sovereignty in West Africa. These seeds act as gateways into deeper conversations about colonialism, food systems, Indigenous knowledge, and environmental justice.

Seedbills combines research, design, and storytelling to question how we put a price on life and imagine a more connected, caring economy. It was featured in the Spacefarming: The Future of Food exhibition and keeps sparking conversations about what we truly value in today’s world.

Friends of James

• Beehiiv — the powerhouse behind all my newsletters, helping me craft, design, grow my audience, and monetize effortlessly.

• Notion — my go-to tool for the last 6+ years, where I store all my notes, manage tasks, and essentially run both my life and businesses.

• Webflow — the engine behind all my websites, letting me design, build, and launch seamlessly without code.

• Make — the tool that runs my business on autopilot, handling all recurring and time-consuming tasks

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