It’s Not Child’s Play: A Handbook for
Toy Inventors
By Jeremy Loudenback
October 2003
Cranium
Richard C. Levy
Ronald O. Weingartner The Toy and Game Inventor’s Handbook
By now, families across America have made Whit Alexander and Richard Tait’s
invention a staple of family game nights, helping the duo’s product gross
millions of dollars in sales.
The well publicized story of how Alexander and Tait turned a self-published
game, the board game Cranium, into one of the hottest
sellers on the shelves of coffee kingpins Starbucks is
a case of innovative inventing success thanks to both “know how” and “know
who,” according to toy industry veterans Richard C. Levy
and Ronald O. Weingartner.
Before its astronomical success, Cranium was the entrepreneurial embryo
of two former Microsoft employees. A fortuitous meeting with Starbucks
CEO Howard Schultz led to a momentous opportunity to tap into corporate
synergy and reach the coveted Starbucks demographic.
During the meeting, Schultz ended up liking the game and bought it for
his stores. Fortunately for the pair of inventors, the game coincided
with Starbucks’ plans to sell a game in its stores, and the partnership
propelled Cranium to the household name-recognition it now enjoys.
“Amateur toy and game inventors
become pros the same way amateur athletes do: through training and
competition.”
Like Alexander and Tait, a toy inventor’s path to success today requires
hard work, slavish attention to detail, foolhardy tenacity, a bit of luck
and above all, an appreciation of the unique market forces that shape
the toy industry. Fortunately for those who harbor dreams of turning their
ideas into reality, Levy and Weingartner have created a fun and illuminating
guide for inventing success in the toy industry.
Levy and Weingartner’s new book, The Toy and Game Inventor’s
Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, License and Cash-In on
Your Ideas (488 pages, Alpha, $19.95), lays bare the sometimes
byzantine and fantastic fraternity of toy inventors, agents and toy company
executives. The duo strings together more than 100 interviews in the book,
including scores of stories about the hard-won successes of toy inventors,
and crucial information for independent inventors, such as how to prepare
proposals and prototypes, and how to negotiate and get the best terms.
Levy, who has licensed over 125 original concepts in his 25-plus years
in the toy industry, including products like Furby and
the best-selling game Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,
says that the book speaks to prospective inventors as well as industry
veterans looking to gain insight into the creative process.
“Our aim was to write a book that would benefit not only wannabe inventors,
but also corporate executives who must interface on a regular basis with
the complex species of creative individual known as inventoricus independentava,”
Levy said. “We hope that by giving each side a better understanding of
the other, there will be even greater synergism between these forces,
and that will result in greater successes.”
While his partner Levy has extensive experience as an inventor and author,
Weingartner has been the consummate “insider,” working for over 35 years
in research and development in the toy industry. He, too, sees a growing
need for novice inventors to learn the ropes in the toy industry.
“Throughout my career, I have been involved with highly creative and
inventive people both inside and outside companies,” says Weingartner.
“I was particularly struck by the external, independent inventors who
each year took the challenge of speculating on marketable new ideas for
toys and games. I saw many people who wanted to commercialize ideas but
who were unaware and naïve about moving ideas to market.”
“There are
two kinds of amateur inventors: the paranoid and the more paranoid.”
The last 15 years have brought dynamic change to the toy industry, and
even seasoned toy inventors have been scrambling to find their bearings.
While it is still independent inventors who power most of the brightest
successes in the lucrative $30-billion a year toy industry (Classics like
Pokemon, Cabbage Patch Kids and Etch-a-Sketch
are all the brainchildren of independent inventors.), toy inventors today
are faced with a diverse set of challenges, according to Levy and Weingartner.
A shrinking number of toy companies, coupled with the continued importance
of licensing, retailer consolidation and many toy executives’ “hit mentality,”
have changed demands on toy inventors. Weingartner says in most cases
independent inventors are up against tremendous odds to bring their idea
to fruition.
“Consumer product interests are fickle, and costs that marketers will
pay for a ‘WOW’ in a toy are often fractional,” he says. “Fortunately,
most toy companies are comfortable and receptive to external inventors,
and the business has an insatiable annual capacity for new items. Other
sectors tend to be insular and restrictive to external inventors.”
Though the toy business is relatively friendly to inventors, licensing
and market factors have made turning an inventor’s dreams into dollars
more difficult than ever before, Levy says.
“Today the industry almost totally relies
on classic or entertainment licenses. This is why products do not
last long. There can be no evergreens when the forest is cut down
each year to make room for the next film or TV show.”
“The toy industry is one of the last and greatest frontiers for the independent
inventor. It’s a fashion industry that cannot afford to get caught with
its trends down. It has an insatiable appetite for innovative product,”
says Levy, who also wrote 2001’s excellent The Complete Idiot's Guide®
to Cashing in On Your Inventions. “This having been said, it is no
cakewalk. Inventors face all kinds of obstacles ranging from the vicissitudes
of the marketplace, technical barriers, costing issues, and at some companies,
the “Not Invented Here” syndrome.
"When I got into the business 25-plus years ago, it was pure innovation
that drove companies, not entertainment licenses,” he says. “Today, the
industry almost totally relies on the equity of brands, i.e. marketing
products under classic or entertainment licenses. This is why products
do not last long. There can be no evergreens when the forest is cut down
each year to make room for the next film or TV show.”
Cashing in on your inventions requires new skills and new ways of dealing
with the toy industry, but the only way to succeed is with preparation,
hard work and a determination bordering on obsession, Levy and Weingartner
say.
“Amateur toy and game inventors become pros the same way amateur athletes
do: through training and competition,” they write in the Handbook.
To learn more about the Handbook, including purchasing information,
please go to www.greatideagear.com/toybook.
Top Tips for New Toy and Game Inventors By Richard C. Levy and Ronald O. Weingartner
From the book The Toy and Game Inventor’s Handbook: Everything
You Need to Know to Pitch, License and Cash-In on Your Ideas
Don’t
Don’t hire up-front-fee invention marketing services. Most
are confidence schemes, carrion birds that feed on innocent and
unsuspecting inventors.
Don’t think everyone is out to rip you off. There are two kinds
of amateur inventors: the paranoid and the more paranoid.
Don’t freak out over signing corporate nondisclosure documents.
Sign whatever is fair.
Don’t be deterred because you calculate the opposition is too
great. You’ll miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.
Don’t turn technical disagreements into civil wars. Where elephants
fight, grass will not grow.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Keep your ego under control.
Don’t think you need to make every deal. Sellitus
can be hazardous to your mental health and your invention.
Don’t bring the artillery until you bring up the ammunition.
Get your act together before you make a pitch.
Don’t just pitch ideas. Show fully operational prototypes supported
by technical and marketing data. They are called “looks-like/works-like”
models.
Don’t be nervous. Trust yourself. Most of this is common sense.
Do
Do a patent search to make sure your idea can be protected,
and that it does not infringe another invention.
Do your homework on potential licensees. Match your invention
with a company’s capabilities.
Do market research. Know your market, how to reach it and what
need.
Do networking. Get business references, especially from other
inventors who have licensed concepts to your prospects.
Do ask questions. Asking dumb questions is easier than correcting
dumb mistakes.
Do honest preparations. Nothing astonishes like the truth.
Flaunt it.
Do trust yourself and your instincts. They are anchors in a
storm.
Do take risks. The biggest risk is not taking one.
Do learn to take rejection. Remember that the finest steel
goes through the hottest fire.
Do look at the big picture. Frequently you may have to trade
short-term security for long-term goals.
