Innovation

Devil’s Bench is a retail store and hobby space that was opened in the city of Brantford in 2015, by co-owner Alexander Kirley. The original concept of the business was a board game cafe but it was not sustainable enough to keep on running. At this time of difficulty, Kirley and fellow business partners decided to innovate and make it into more of a community-centric hobby space. It is now a facility for customers to play their favourite card, role-play and table-top games within the store for free. If you have the supplies, you are welcome to play and if you do not, then you can buy the supplies for these games in the store as well.

Devils’ Bench dedicates itself to providing a welcoming and fun-oriented environment, while also concentrating on growth and evolution. They have achieved 3 of the UN Global Goals with this innovation in place. These goals are the following

• UN Global Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being
  
• UN Global Goal 5: Gender Equality
  
• UN Global Goal 8: Economic Growth
  

While still earning profit from their day-to-day business, this innovation's focus is more on how it benefits the community and they use these goals as a standard to help the business grow even larger. Devil’s Bench is a place where members can enjoy their hobbies, while having access to new supplies for games and with someone behind the counter answering any questions individuals have.

Inspiration

In many instances, inspiration for innovation comes from past failures and the ability to learn from these mistakes determines whether success is inevitable. Devil’s Bench transformed into a retail hobby space from a board game cafe just a month after the store opened. The place went from being as busy as ever for about a month, then turning into a ghost town at a blink of an eye. That is when Alexander Kirley and his partners realized the current business model would not be sustainable.

Devil’s Bench was then inspired to re-brand to become more of a community-positive hobby space environment. The business wanted to shift, “a very big focus on the community… and reach out to people to show them new ways of gaming” said Kirley. The purpose of this innovation community-based but also economic, where the business wants to keep regular customers, as well as create a welcoming space for new ones. They do this by following the intention that Kirley reiterated, “everyone is a nerd here first, does not matter if you are a man, woman, or other, customers know they are welcome and can have fun in Devil’s Bench.” Learning from their failures early and quickly is a big reason as to why this business has been successful.

Overall impact

This innovations overall impact on the business has been tremendous because it has created more of a steady income for the owners and increased the engagement of the community. It has changed the lives of the Devil’s Bench owners but more importantly it has improved the peoples lives within the community. Looking at the bigger picture, “If you build a house for people, especially in niche communities, that usually get ostracized for participating in those niche communities, as soon as you build a home for them, they’ll come here, and they take care of themselves” said Kirley. Devil’s Bench’s way of creating a safe home-like space for community members has resulted into great friendships being formed, as people use the location to come together as one and create memories from their similar interests.

From looking at the short-term viewpoint of this innovation, it evidently shows how big of an impact it had. Devil’s Bench wanted to recapture the economic success that had occurred in the first month of opening the business, when the place was filled daily but in a more sustainable way. The transformation of turning Devil’s Bench into more of a comprehensive hobby space environment created a larger interest to the customers and directly affected the economic success of the business. The long-term effect of this innovation was creating more of a loyal reoccurring customer base. This is where experience is a major factor because the prices are slightly higher for the supplies of games compared to competitors, but the benefits you get from the hobby space is prodigious.

Business benefit

The innovation of the hobby space has benefited Devil’s Bench greatly by making the business more sustainable. This sustainability was achieved from increasing customer retention and the way they did this was by creating a reputation as an environment for nerds. This experience and reputation from society has increased the number of loyal customers that walk through their doors, which is why the business has benefited significantly. That was the biggest problem when under the board game cafe environment because it was more of a fad for disloyal customers. The creation of a new service benefited the business because this is now called a home for some customers, rather then just a store. The community has come together to become more like a family then just strangers.

Social and environmental benefit

The benefit the innovation gives the business is closely associated with how it benefits the society and environment. By creating a public spot for the community to get together, learn and play new games, it became to only place in the city of Brantford that offered this. The society has benefited greatly from this because it isn’t only a place to play the games that you love but also a place for you to interact with people that enjoy the same interests. People that sit at home, alone, all day long that play the same games that are offered at the Devil’s Bench, may have lingering long-term side effects. If you have the supplies for the games, you can play for free, meet new people, learn new games and that is why so many people call it home.

Interview

Alexander Kirley, Co-owner