Don’t hate the players. Jacklyn Collier (she / her) and Cassie Collier (she / her) are 2 sisters obsessed with board games—they played them nonstop as kids. But now they’re trading in Monopoly money for the real deal with Bundle, the company that turns your family secrets and inside jokes into a personalized game.

We asked the Pennsylvania natives how they went from fans to founders, which games are banned in their homes, and how they scored a Hallmark deal.

When did you both get into board games?
JACKLYN: I don’t remember a moment when we weren’t into board games. We were the sports family in town, and Cassie and my brother were big basketball stars. I was not an athlete, but the one arena that I could compete in was board games.
CASSIE: [We played] Trouble, Candyland, then we started college. I made all my friends freshman year playing Catchphrase, and Jackie played a Battle of the Sexes game in her dorm hallway.

What made you want to start a business?
CASSIE: It started with our family Christmas a few years back. We made a Call Your Family board game that collected all of our memories, inside jokes, [and] traditions. We played with our parents and it made us all feel closer as a family, reminiscing from childhood and on. A few months after that, we realized, “It works with our family, right? Could we do this for other families?” That was a light bulb moment. We created a rough prototype of a board game, had our friends play, test it, give us feedback, and then we went from there.

You have some games with Hallmark, too. How did that happen?
JACKLYN: We always grew up watching Hallmark movies, then I did a Hallmark podcast for a while. Once I was working for them, Cassie and I were saying to each other, “We want to pitch [a Christmas] board game to them.” We had a meeting with the CEO, then about a half hour before, his assistant called and said, “The internet is out; he’s going to leave for the day, and is not coming back for a few weeks.” Hallmark headquarters [is] about 20 minutes from Cassie’s apartment. We knew if we postponed, we wouldn’t be able to get the game out in time for the holidays.
CASSIE: We had to get dressed, put makeup on, eat a quick lunch—all within a 10-minute span. Then we caught the subway somehow—the doors were open when we got on the platform, which never happens—and made it quickly to the office. We were out of breath, sweating, walked into the CEO’s office, put our game on the table, and pitched him on it.We walked out of that meeting with our very first licensing deal.

Did people respond well to the partnership?
JACKLYN: It sold out! The big TV show on that network is When Calls the Heart. We had people messaging us saying, “Can you make a When Calls the Heart game?” Cassie and I said, “I mean… we could.” It’s been a lot of fun to play with the fans and to play with Paul Greene, who’s one of the series regulars.
CASSIE: Our mission at Bundle is to build community. You can have your family, your friends, but another community that we realized is very strong is fandoms. Building a game around Hallmark movies or around When Calls the Heart is tapping into this shared love for something. During the pandemic, we doubled down on our mission. We started to host monthly game nights with this nonprofit called Virtual Senior Center. We’d play with senior citizens and by the end of each game night, we’d have pains in our stomachs because we’re laughing so hard.

We read a stat saying a lot of families ban games for causing too many arguments. Do you have a similar rule?
JACKLYN: Oo! I don’t have one that’s actually banned, but Settlers of Catan is one that I will not play exclusively with a group of 30-something or 20-something-year-old men. [Laughing.] I’m not going back there.
CASSIE: A friend of mine, who I often do board game nights with, was uninvited from a wedding because he was playing [with friends] and things got really contentious. [Laughing.] So your statistic is real.