The products of a new board game company will soon line the shelves, courtesy of several BJU faculty and staff members.

BJU graduate Mr. Will Meadows, creative director at BJU’s Marketing Communications, and Mr. Ryan Pilz from BJU Press’s Strategic Innovation Research Office have teamed up with Mr. Chris Rawlings, an associate professor in the Division of Accounting, to create the Tantrum House board game company.

Meadows focuses on designing the games, while Pilz focuses on marketing and Rawlings focuses on financial guidance and consulting.

Meadows has had a love of board games since he was young, and one day while playing a board game, Meadows told Pilz he thought the two of them could make better games than what other companies were producing. Pilz agreed, and the idea for Tantrum House was born.

Over a casual meal, Meadows then met with Rawlings (who taught Meadows accounting in undergrad) to tell him about the company. Soon after, Rawlings joined the duo’s vision, and Tantrum House’s campaign was underway.

Meadows said his children inspired the name Tantrum House. “I have three crazy boys now who constantly inspire me with their tantrums,” he said. Meadows also liked the unique search engine quality of the word “tantrum.”

Using the global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, the three are now promoting Tantrum House by writing quick, efficient game reviews as well as making videos to advertise the company. While their original goal was to raise $1,000 by Dec. 14, the Tantrum House team exceeded that goal by $128.

The online campaign was actually kicked off during one of Rawlings’ accounting classes to show students an example of a startup.

While continuing to gain an audience, the team is developing a prototype for an original card game Meadows has played for years.

In addition to Kickstarter, Tantrum House will sponsor a campuswide game of BJU’s infamous TAG to raise money for this year’s Bible Conference offering and to promote the company. Students interested in participating should download the app coming soon from Information Technologies for further instructions.

When asked what the main goals were for the Tantrum House team members, Meadows said it would be great to make enough money to pay off their children’s future school bills, but ultimately it’s about doing something they love.

Although the three men are presently doing great work, they said Tantrum House would not have been possible without their education at BJU.  Meadows, Pilz and Rawlings all agreed that the most important element their BJU education gave them was the relationships they developed.

Pilz said learning your field and developing good connections with other people with different gifts is invaluable because you never know when you might be able to help each other out.

Meadows added that being able to work with people who share a like-minded faith and hold to honesty and ethics in business is a huge blessing.