Failure motivates

Andrew Wellman was living his nightmare.

The Jay County entrepreneur –– he paid off his cancer treatment totaling nearly a quarter of a million dollars in three years by selling the rights to his original products and companies –– found himself in a battle with depression after moving back to Portland in January.

That’s why he developed “This Is My Nightmare,” a goal-driven card game. And although it may never see store shelves, Wellman’s idea helped bring him out of depression and started a chain of events that led him down a new career path.

Wellman is a survivor of choriocarcinoma, a rare testicular cancer with which he was diagnosed with in May 2016. (At his five-year checkup in May, Wellman was “officially” determined cancer-free.) While in remission, he discovered his passion for product development.

He founded two original companies, home decor business Marie & Boone and music product store Offer Music. Wellman later began selling his product designs –– such as his idea of crafting recycled bottle openers from musicians’ old cymbals –– and eventually sold both companies, paying off his remaining $250,000 debt in medical bills.

In pursuit of Andrew’s profession, the Wellmans moved to Elkhart five years ago and later bought a house in Bend, Oregon. After being more than 2,200 miles away from relatives for about two years, though, they decided to move back to Indiana.

“A lot of it was to do with missing out on family things,” explained Lisa Wellman, Andrew’s wife. “The kids had started forgetting who people were, and of course, Oregon is really expensive.”

Lisa accepted a position teaching second grade at East Elementary, and the children — 9-year-old Makenna and 6-year-old Daxton –– started classes in Jay Schools.

Andrew, on the other hand, still wasn’t sure where he could fit in. While in Oregon, he enjoyed working for non-profits The Giving Plate and Friends of the Children.

“I felt like I was making a difference and actually impacting lives, and when I came back here, I kind of lost all of that,” he said. “I kind of felt like that move back was for my wife and kids, and they were doing well, but I was lost in the shuffle.”

Without motivation to create again, Andrew Wellman found himself sinking into depression. He spent most of his time at home and began to withdraw from society, Lisa Wellman explained.

“He just kinda looked like he felt lost, like he didn’t know what step to take next,” she said.

One evening the couple ventured out to Greenville, Ohio, and began talking about ways Andrew could regain his drive to create. That’s when the idea for a motivational card game came into play.

“From that moment, it was definitely a shift in his behavior and attitude and it just started to snowball from that point,” Lisa Wellman said.

He started as soon as they returned home. Andrew Wellman began developing a game with an underlying theme of setting and achieving goals.

Unlike a traditional card game, it’s played over the course of weeks or months. In each session, players share their progress. If they haven’t met their goal established at the last session, they’re required to draw a card and do as it says.

Consequences vary depending on the card and its severity, with everything from going bowling and throwing gutter balls each frame to shaving eyebrows or calling exes.

Those cards would hopefully motivate a player to meet their goal, Wellman continued.

“I didn’t just want it to be a game,” he said. “I wanted to help people. And I disguised it in a game. It was the basis of it.”

After developing a prototype and creating advertisements, Wellman launched a Kickstarter campaign for his idea. He’d never asked others to back his projects before and wasn’t thrilled about fundraising. Without startup money, though, he wouldn’t be able to produce physical copies of the game.

Unfortunately, his campaign only raised $1,001 out of its $10,000 goal. Failing to meet his fundraising goal in June crushed Wellman.

“You could just see him starting to slide right back down into that place of feeling like a failure,” Lisa Wellman said.

Still, he wanted to thank the 25 friends and family who had backed his project. He decided to create a website for his game.

Wellman took a six-month long boot camp in order to learn how to code. He’s been putting together a site using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, all various forms of coding.

As a result of his new credentials, in August he started as a technology instructor at East Jay Elementary School. He’s now teaching elementary students basics in computers, such as typing and coding. Despite the young ages, he’s sure they’re able to learn basic coding skills.

“They’re capable and ready, as long as you frame it in the right way,” he said of his students.

Looking back now, Wellman said he’s relieved his card game didn’t take off. He explained he wouldn’t have been able to learn coding or have been able to pursue teaching if he had been busy with new product development.

As a father of two, he also looks at it as a positive way for his children to stay motivated and learn from failure.

“It doesn’t matter if (my Kickstarter) fails, I just want to show my kids how to get back up and keep going,” Wellman said.