Spellio co-inventor Max Gelbert reveals how self-publishing a game led to a licensing deal with Jazwares

Spellio! Tell me, Max: what’s Spellio all about?
Spellio is an addictive word game for everyone. It’s a fast-paced word game that really levels the playing field for different ages… Which isn’t typical in the word-game space! But our whole thing was to make a word game for people who don’t like word games! We don’t focus on complexities; we focus on speed; on how quickly you can think on your toes.

Great little pitch!
So that’s Spellio in a nutshell. It works for people that don’t really like word games because it plays in five-minute rounds. It’s low commitment, but in a way that people find very engaging. And it offers the right amount of stress! It’s just good fun – and you don’t even realize that you’re spelling because it feels like you’re just playing a party game.

Amazing! How do you play?
It’s dead easy. Each player gets a deck of consonant cards. You each lay five of them out face up in front of you. Then you share two vowel cards in the middle – between you. The whole goal is to use your consonants with the shared vowel cards to make three-or-more-letter words as fast as you can… And be first to run out of your consonants.

Easy!
Right? So: if I have C and a T among the consonants in front of me, and there’s an A in between us, I could say C, A, T – and put those cards off to the side. Then I refill the five consonant cards in front of me. The vowel piles in the middle regenerate themselves! That’s basically it; there’re no turns – just fast action and a bit of a twist – play to find out!

Excellent summary. How did Spellio come about, Max?
Spellio’s journey started back in 2022 when I was still a junior in college; Syracuse University. I’d come home for the Christmas break and a family friend was visiting. She likes to keep herself to herself so I won’t use her name! But my parents have known her since before they were married, and we’ve been close my whole life. She’s one of those people that has so many ideas… She’s always coming up with inventions and concepts of every kind. She was in the living room one day, sitting on the floor by the coffee table, and she had all these handwritten note cards with consonants and vowels drawn on them.

They’re on the coffee table?
They’re on the coffee table; they’re spilling out onto the ground! So I said, “What are you doing?” And she said, “I’m trying to make a word game!” Well, I hate to say it but the word games I’d played up until then weren’t much fun for me. So my initial reaction was that there was no way in heck I was going to touch that – because I would never in a million years want to play a word game. I’m just not very good with words; I’m not scholastic in that respect…

Although you have just used the word ‘scholastic’! I’m quite impressed!
Thank you – I’m actually quite impressed myself! Ha! But no; no chance. However, I liked what she was saying; how she was trying to base it on three- and four-letter words… And she made it sound better than most word games, so we sat down and – for about two hours – we just moved the cards around!

And how much of the original gameplay was there?
Some of the basics – we had the skeleton of a card game, but we weren’t really sure about the order of things or what it would all look like. We were a bit stuck structuring it, and then I flipped it around: what if we put the consonants here and we put the vowels over here? And then the board looked like the old game Spit… I love Spit! And then we made a word and tried grabbing a consonant, then a vowel, and that’s a turn… And I’m like, “I could play that. I would do this!” You know, that was kind of the bazinga moment; when we started to get the body of it right: a game based on how quickly you can make a word but not based the length of it.

I love this! You’re a word-game convert!
Ha! Well, after that, I go back to college… And obviously, neither my partner nor I know what the game industry is at that point. We didn’t know anything; we didn’t know what licensing was. So we wondered – you know – what do we do? We’ve made a card game. But how do we make it a good game? So we would talk on the phone while I was at school for hours, and then we used Canva, the free service online, to make a logo and start making cards.

This whole journey is remarkable! So you started by self-publishing?
We created a website – playspellio.com – and did an order through Staples to get the cards. We had to corner cut one-eighth-of-an inch off every corner for about a thousand decks.

Jesus! Manually? With a corner cutter?
Yes! I had my grandmother doubled over at the kitchen table for four hours doing the cards… Ha! And I have videos online of me hand-printing these cases! Because we didn’t know how to find a factory, we were the factory! When they were ready, I went to about 17 stores all around Boston and just pitched the idea to them. I was like, “Hey, we’ve got this game, will you guys give it a try?” And to my astonishment, they played it, enjoyed it and put it on the shelf. And the moment I got it in there and taught the team how to play it, it was selling like hotcakes.

Now, just to bridge the gap, Max, I’m assuming – before they sold like hotcakes – there was some product development? And playtesting?
Oh, yes! Definitely. We playtested for a full year and a half to get the card count down and the mechanics just right… We also added our twist bonus cards which bring the game its depth. But when we first prototyped it, we started by writing on bits of card. I actually watched a lot of podcasts with Elan Lee, the Exploding Kittens gentleman, and heard him talking about their creation process… And he’s like, “I just get post-it cards off of amazon and a Sharpie.” Ha!

If it’s good enough for them…
Right?! I’ve got some prototypes here. They were in plastic cases quite early on… One thing we knew was that we didn’t want to put them in a regular box. And these Twist cards are different… You can see this one says on it, “Beginning with this letter” – which isn’t even in the game anymore!

That restriction made it a little harder, I imagine? Because where I think you’ve really nailed this is doing what Bananagrams did… You’ve managed to make a word game so much fun that it doesn’t really occur to you that you’re learning!
Oh, wow… That’s great to hear. That’s exactly what we wanted. You know, we really looked at Bananagrams when we were developing Spellio. We loved what Bananagrams did and their path to success was a lot of what we were trying to embody. We loved what they did with the pouch instead of a box, for example. We thought that was very smart: people could throw it in their bag and take it with them. Also, the way they just kept the business within friends and family and organically grew it… It was a lot of what we admired! So, yes, we loved what Bananagrams did; we loved their approach to it all.

Then forgive me interrupting to say we’ve just done an interview with Ben Krenz at Moose in which we talk about the future of Bananagrams. People can read that here. I’ve also spoken to Rena Nathanson about inventing Bananagrams here… Do carry on!
Anyway, after we refined the way Spellio plays, and we got it into those independent stores, I’d go into one of the toy or bookstores every weekend, set up a little table and run Spellio demos. I did it for around six months… Anyone that would walk by, I’d grab them, bring them over, make them play it. After playing it, people would buy three or four at a time! So we started self publishing out of ignorance, really, and then thought: let’s just do it all on our own.

Gosh and golly! This blows my mind. What did you learn about selling games by selling games that way?
I think that there are important things to know! If someone’s walking by, for example, you have to be able to demonstrate the game in 30 seconds or less. And I would tell them that! I would say, “This will take 30 seconds or less!” So they know it’s not going to take up their whole day. And you had to make it engaging to them…

Which is harder, I imagine, with a word game…
Oh, I think so. People struggle anyway, but yes – a word game… No thanks! So I’d have to literally get out in front of the booth and be like, “Oh, come on, come on! You’ll survive!”

“You’ll survive!” Ha!
Something else I realised I had to do in the stores was teach the staff how to play or the game wouldn’t sell. If it was in places that I hadn’t gone into yet, it would sit on the shelf. People just need to have that demo for them to buy into. And so it made me realise just how important that demo is because once someone’s played it, they become a customer and potentially a customer for life.

So… How do we focus on that? Because – when I left – staff would talk about it, you know? Then families would talk about it – and that’s what gets it off the shelf. So that was my reason for getting out of my comfort zone and just making a fool of myself every weekend… Knowing that it was benefiting the other person more. I knew for a fact that if they’d just give me those 30 seconds, they’d be happier for it.

Got it. I’m loving your energy; I’m loving the story. So you didn’t just show Spellio to customers in the independent stores? You also showed the staff how to play?
A hundred percent!

So do you think then that – after you left the store – the staff said, “Oh, he was a lovely guy! And the game is brilliant!”? So that when customers come in, they’re predisposed to recommend that game?
That’s it, yes. The data shows exactly that. After an in-store demo, the sales just went up and up. And I would see it because they sold out in all the stores that had Spellio in their chain within a couple of weeks. When we reached out to them, they’d actually say, “We love this game!” They wanted to buy more. They wanted to support it. So one hundred percent yes… That was the difference maker. And that’s something we’re looking to keep doing because getting the game on larger shelves means it needs to stand out.

Well, that leads us to licensing Spellio! So you started by self-publishing, but you’re also now with Jazwares. How did that happen?
While we were self-publishing, I was learning about what licensing was. There’s a channel online called Invent Right. It’s not a huge channel but – do you know Invent Right?

I do! Billy Langsworthy’s interviewed Stephen Key. People can find that here. And Stephen’s interviewed us a couple of times… Gawd knows where people can find that! Ha! They might’ve been podcasts. But yes: I’ve got a lot of time for Invent Right!
Well, I was very interested in what Stephen was saying and finding out what licensing was. So I watched a lot of his videos. And at certain points, because my business partners have kids and families, I’m the guy that’s has the free time. But I was thinking: I don’t know if it makes sense for us to be a full self publisher. Maybe it would be interesting to pursue licensing at some point if we were approached with the right opportunity. So in the back of our heads, that started to float around – but it wasn’t necessarily the forefront of what we wanted to do with the game initially.

Got it.
But what happened with Jazwares was great! Now, I will tell anybody and their mother about this game if I come into contact with them! And one day, when I was at my mum’s, an old family friend was over. I hadn’t seen her in years; she was my babysitter growing up, actually! She asked me what I was working on. I’m like, “Well, let me tell you!” – and I got the card game out. We played it and she loved it; thought it was really fun. Then she said she knew somebody who was in the toy industry that I should talk to. But the way she said it, I thought he WAS in the toy industry! Like, she didn’t say he IS in the toy industry!

Oh! You heard it as past tense?
Yes – like he had been at some point. When I looked at his LinkedIn, Herb Mitschele’s LinkedIn, it said he was the co-founder of a tech company, Shodogg. So I’m still thinking past tense! Anyway, I get on the call, I tell him what I’m doing. He’s a nice guy; we’re getting along… I tell him about the development, I tell him the stores we’re in – you know, just in a fun way. Then at the end of the call he mentions that he’s currently the Exec VP: Global Sales and Planning at Jazwares.

Amazing! I almost daren’t ask… Did you know what Jazwares was?
Well, I quickly came to learn it’s one of the top five toy companies! Ha! I couldn’t believe it! Anyway, after I sent him a game, he bought 12 more – he said his mum loved it! And honestly, Deej, it’s so exciting to talk to someone like that because I admire people in the toy industry so much now… They’re like my heroes; I just remember thinking, ‘This is crazy!’

For about six months after I made that connection, and as we got into more and more stores, I’d send him pictures… I’d be like, check this out. It’d be a picture of Bananagrams, Uno and Spellio on the shelf. And I’d text: “The big three – right here.” Ha! And he’d text back, ‘Alright – don’t get ahead of yourself.’ Ha! Then, when we were at New York Toy Fair in 2025, we had our own booth…

I remember! I think you’d won a little attention!
Well, we had 200 stores sign up to carry Spellio, which we’re very grateful for. We only had a small, five by ten booth with seven people in it; we were standing one on top of the other selling Spellio. But even after six months, Herb and I hadn’t actually said we should work together. I was just telling him what we were doing – we were completely on our own path. Then, while we were at the show, I text Herb and said, “I’d love to see you, do you have any availability?” He’s like, “Sure! Come up!” So I leave our booth, I go upstairs, and their booth is about a thousand-feet square with security, NDAs and receptionists! Ha!

And he comes all the way out to see me, which I thought was so nice of him to do during all the commotion, and he brings me into the booth. I go to the coffee bar and I’m sitting there, I have Spellio, I bring it out and all their C-suite guys are walking around – and they play it. They really loved it. And that’s when David Winter also got to see it. He really loved it too! So then the conversation quickly turned to them wanting Spellio to be part of the new portfolio of games.

Amazing! I think David talks about Spellio in a recent piece he did with Billy… People can find that here. So after David saw it, it went up a gear, presumably, because David is the man spearheading Jazwares Games?
Yes, that’s when the conversation really opened up about some sort of licensing deal; that if we were interested, they would be the guys to partner with. We went through a few months of the legal side of it. And where we stand now is that we’re still the distributor of the game into specialty markets and schools. So we licensed the global and mass-market rights to Jazwares.

And critically, your gran’s no longer bent over the kitchen table chopping away with a corner cutter?
Ha! No. She’s very grateful to have her back fully functioning again. But she had insurance, you know… Ha! She had workers’ insurance; she was alright. Ha!

Ha! Well, look, we’ve flown through this; I’ve really enjoyed chatting. I’m interested to hear your answer to this… What’s the most interesting object on your desk?
Oh, I have the most random stuff around me! I have a fish puzzle called Judgy Fish… Like a board game of fish saying very judgemental things. And although it’s not immediately in front of me, I also have some Play-Doh tubs from a visit to the manufacturing plant where Hasbro makes Play-Doh and Monopoly… They’re based in Springfield… So the Play-Doh was fresh off the line out of these three mechanical arms that they call the Three Stooges. Ha! I love those tubs.

Brilliant. This is a wonderful story, Max! Thanks for sharing it with me.

–

To stay in the loop with the latest news, interviews and features from the world of toy and game design, sign up to our weekly newsletter here

More Recent Interview

Anomia inventor Andrew Innes tells the story of his game’s long journey to market

“It was a Frankenstein’s monster…” Andrew Innes on the past, present and future of Anomia!

Designers Adrien Pédron and Thomas Favrelière on the origins of Archeo – and why Gigamic proved the perfect publisher

“We’d wanted to work with Gigamic for a long time…”: In conversation with designers Thomas Favrelière and Adrien Pédron.

BOTI’s Nico Blauw talks Pembe the Pink Cat, innovation – and the International Toy Board

“The look, the design, the audience, the messaging… It all appealed”: Nico Blauw reveals what made Pembe the Pink Cat a winner for BOTI.

“This was the missing piece…”: Rubber Road’s Jack Fox on TUBBZ’s move into blind collectibles with Mystery Eggs

Jack Fox, Sales & Marketing Director at Rubber Road, talks TUBBZ Mystery Eggs – and why Minions were a perfect fit.

Educational Insights’ Lisa Guili on TikTok, 20 years of Kanoodle – and ten million units sold

Lisa Guili reveals how one addictive brain teaser found its audience and became a phenomenon.

“I want people to bet on themselves”: Spin Master Co-Founder Ronnen Harary discusses his new book, No Experience Necessary

Spin Master Co-Founder Ronnen Harary talks to us about his exciting new book, working with inventors – and Spin’s most underrated launch.