Building Community Through Conversation: The Heart Behind Radio Chatter
When I think back to why we created Radio Chatter, it was always about building community and creating conversations. Bethany said it well in one of our first interviews with Midland:
"In the end, it's all about connection."
Connection was fundamental to the business from day one.
The Challenges of Building a Small Business
From a business perspective, not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship but I always thought I was. For me, I wanted to run a company, and I put a lot of time and effort into this side-hustle for the first year or so. But running a side-hustle is hard. It’s hard juggling the normal job, the family aspects, and being a parent. It’s also hard finding that balance when the side-hustle is with your spouse. Additionally…
Getting wholesalers to stock your product (B2B) is hard.
Getting customers to know who you are and buy from you (B2C) is hard.
Honestly, it’s all hard.
When we started thinking about growth, we followed the standard playbook:
Add a blog to improve SEO and bring people to the site
Run online ads (albeit we didn’t do a lot)
Post reels and photos on Instagram
Attend expos and sell products
It was a lot. By mid-2024, it went on the back burner. Balancing demanding 9-5s, rising our son, all while managing a growing side hustle was too much for us.
Taking the Leap: From Corporate America to Entrepreneurship
A few months ago, I decided to step back from Corporate America after nearly 20 years to focus on entrepreneurship. Bethany remains at her job and I thank her for that! She also remains in creative control of our products as she likes to remind me.
(Side note, you can follow my personal entrepreneurship journey at paulgunnels.com if you’re interested in transitioning from a 9-5 to entrepreneurship yourself.)
At first, Radio Chatter was just one piece of my entrepreneurial journey, but as I dedicated more genuine time to it, things changed. Sales started coming in, and then came the customer feedback. Not just online feedback, but at some of the events I was going to.
Within 30 minutes of posting on my personal blog that I was going to focus on Radio Chatter (the article was “Silly Card Game”), we received this email:
We broke the regular cards out for an [eight hour] trip to camp. Absolutely loved it. I was hoarse from talking and laughing so much. I've been friends with this group for over two years and I found out so much about them in just a few cards. We had a new to everything passenger in the group and she was initially a "third wheel". The game got her on the radio and asking questions and thinking about stuff as well. Our chatter got her involved in the group. I honestly think the RC game pulled her in way faster than sitting in silence for [eight hours] with her driver. By the time we got to camp, we had kind of fleshed out "personalities and group temperature"! This is high quality stuff that needs to be out there because very few live immediately in the area they want to travel to. I know we'll be talking about our answers for a while since we got surprised by so many!
That message hit hard. It validated what we’d felt all along: people love what we’ve built. Radio Chatter fills a real gap and solves a real problem: helping people connect.
We realized it was time to go back to our roots.
We needed to stop being business-driven and start being community-driven.
Refocusing on Authentic Connection
We recently launched our AI Transparency Policy and cleaned up the blog, removing older posts that no longer reflected our mission.
For example, our last few posts were repurposed from our Iceland trip years ago. I’d used AI to clean them up because I didn’t fully trust my own voice. I only posted a few before stopping because it didn’t feel right. Those posts didn’t help the community because they were about SEO.
So we took them down.
In their place, I wrote a new post about overland communication, specifically satellite texting, Starlink, and staying connected. This was my voice and something that has been on my mind for a while.
Standing Out in the Overlanding Community
There are already so many overlanding communities, apps, and groups. So why create another?
It took time to figure out what makes us different. We don’t want to be another thing to consume. Overlanding is already gear-heavy and very consumerism. Gear reviews, top gadgets, best upgrades, expos in every state…it’s all there. We didn’t want Radio Chatter to be just another item in your rig. We wanted to leverage our love for conversation and games to help people connect and support each other’s communities.
From Deck to Digital: Expanding to the Mobile App
We’ve heard the feedback: people love the cards but want a mobile version. Maybe they don’t play cards. Maybe they just don’t want to carry another deck.
So we made it happen.
The Radio Chatter mobile app is now live on the Apple Store, with Google Play in final review (anytime now Google!).
As someone who’s worked in software for nearly two decades, I was excited to bring the game into the digital space. With advances in AI, I’ve even been able to dive back into coding, well “vibe coding,“ since it’s been a long time since I coded for real.
This addition of the mobile has expanded how we think about solving problems in the overlanding and camping community. Although we plan to still have physical products, and we have many products in the works, we see a parallel digital path.
Rethinking the Campfire
When I think about community and where Radio Chatter fits (specifically in the mobile space), I look at areas that haven’t changed in decades. One stands out: the campfire.
Ask anyone what they do around a campfire (we did on Instagram recently) and you’ll hear:
Drink
Cook food
Listen to or play music
Beyond that, the list gets short. There’s nothing wrong with those things, but there’s an opportunity here. If I would have done the same survey years ago, people would have said the same thing. People want to connect, play games, and share stories.
The campfire is the perfect place to do these thing and build community. Especially now, as more people choose not to drink, there’s a growing need for new ways to connect around the fire.
Bringing the Game to the Fire
Traditional board games need a table. Around the campfire, the fire is the table and you don’t want to place your game on this one. You can’t pull people away from the fire either to play: you have to bring the game to the fire.
Lately, I’ve noticed more people on their phones around the fire. With Starlink becoming common, it’s easy to stay connected (for work, family, or emergencies) but it also makes it easier to slip into doom scrolling and connecting outside of the campsite. You’ve probably said it yourself before a trip: you looked forward to getting outdoors to disconnect.
So I started thinking: how can we use the devices already in everyone’s pocket to bring connection back to the fire?
Reimagining Connection with Technology
Imagine community games that work offline…no internet required. You don’t want to encourage online scrolling or connecting with people miles away. You want to connect with those sitting right beside you. I know phones don’t seem like the solution, but maybe they are?
Phones already solve the space problem, they also provide natural light for reading expressions, and they remove the need for tables or extra gear.
That’s where Radio Chatter can shine in the digital space.
Moving Forward
Yes, we are a game company, and and a physical game company, but our purpose is to build community. We use games and conversations to spark that connection.
We’ll keep moving forward, both physically and digitally, exploring ways to enhance the camping, overlanding, and off-road experience.
Our goal is simple: to help people create lasting memories and build stronger communities through the power of play and conversations. Let us know how we can do that for you by commenting below or contacting us via email!
