November 22, 2017
We’ve all played Trivial Pursuit, right? The trivia board game you never know the answers to so you get the Friends edition in the hope you might actually win.
Imagine if the next special edition were all about you—your life, your family, those inside jokes only the few of you know about (or find funny).
Well, it’s here, and it’s called Bundle (so-named because the game is meant to bring family and friends closer together).
Sisters and Susquehanna alums Jacklyn ’08, a theatre studies major (MFA, University of Houston), and Cassie ’09 Collier, an economics major (MPP, Harvard University), invented the personalized board game.
“Games and play have always been such an important thing in our family,” Cassie said. “Bringing my sister, brother and me closer together was something our parents really worked on cultivating.”
From playing poker with their dad to Bucks for Bonding (a kind of get-to-know-your-sibling game) with their mom, games have always been a family affair—as has Susquehanna. Their brother, Shawn, is a 2011 economics graduate.
Both sisters were living together in New York City—Jacklyn as an actress and Cassie as a financial analyst for Deutsche Bank—when they created their first, handmade board game.
“We were looking to give our parents a unique gift for the holidays, but we couldn’t find anything,” Jacklyn said. “So we designed a board game using our own childhood memories and family traditions.”
Putting Bundle in Business
After an evening of laughing and reminiscing around their parents’ living room, a light bulb went on. If their family loved the game, would others?
“What if we really decided to go for this?” Jacklyn said.
They launched Bundle in August, and have secured their LLC designation and provisional patent. Over the next three months, they are focused on raising seed funding, applying to start-up accelerators and hiring a manufacturer to produce the game.
To order your own Bundle, customers choose their theme and fill out a questionnaire that Jacklyn and Cassie use to write the questions.
It’s time-consuming, but both sisters say the endeavor—which seems to have perfectly merged their individual talents—is even more fun.
“Getting the questionnaires back from our customers is one of the best parts. It’s so great reading all of the beautiful memories of the people they love,” Cassie said.
Added Jacklyn: “By the time we’re done, we feel like we know these people.”