Episode #44: When Kids Invent Their Own Toys with OctoGifts
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Currently, the People of Play Young Inventors Challenge is in full swing. Kids from all over have submitted their toy inventions and game ideas for a chance to be named Young Inventor of The Year. Which makes this week the perfect week to celebrate young inventors. And what better way to do that than to have my first kid inventor on the podcast? I have two guests today, kid inventor Sebastian Flores, and his supportive mompreneur Melanie Flores, the creators of the patented line of greeting cards, OctoGifts. Octo Gifts offers DIY, 3 dimensional, functional greeting cards that dispense candy.
While we may be discussing the story of a kid inventor today, I don't want you to underestimate the immense value you'll find in this episode. We cover important topics like the value of having customer discovery conversations, cost-reducing your concepts, re-investing in your business and so much more. If you're ready for a, "how I built this" kid edition, then pop year earbuds in and listen to today's episode.
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Azhelle: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 46.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you know your host, Azhelle Wade.
[00:00:37] Azhelle: Hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here. And welcome back to another episode of making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. For today's episode, we are joined by kid inventor and toypreneur, Sebastian Flores, and his super supportive mompreneur Melanie Flores.
[00:00:58] And 2017, Sebastian was inspired by his friend's love of candy to create a functional candy dispensing birthday card. A few years later, Sebastian put a Valentine's day version of his invention, honestly at T shot, which sold out in hours since then, Sebastian has been featured in Atlanta
[00:01:19] Melanie: in those 25,
[00:01:21] Azhelle: under 25 lists and is the youngest toy, preneur and adventure
[00:01:25] Melanie: to be
[00:01:25] Azhelle: featured on this show.
[00:01:27] So I want to welcome to the show Sebastian and his mom, Melanie, welcome to the show guys. Thank
[00:01:33] Melanie: you for having us. Thank you so much for having us. It's an honor to be here.
[00:01:37] Azhelle: You guys are here. I want to tell you the real reason that I got excited about Octo gifts is because when I was a kid, one of the things I love to do was I love to take just all of my mom's printer paper and build little houses and villages out of paper.
[00:01:55] Then I went on to paper dolls. Then I was building full body boat suits. It was, it got out of hand. So I saw with Sebastian was doing, and I'm like, Oh my God, kid after my own heart. So I'm curious a bastion before you made your paper cards. Did you make other paper crafts when you were growing up? Oh,
[00:02:13] Sebastian: absolutely.
[00:02:14] Yeah. My favorite, actually, this was probably started by my mom as a way to keep my brother and me busy. We have probably two dozen different origami books and this whole drawer full of origami paper,
[00:02:27] Azhelle: because whenever
[00:02:28] Sebastian: we would sit on planes and in car rides and we would just be folding anything, we would just use the books.
[00:02:33] I think I've gone through all
[00:02:34] Azhelle: that explains so much. That's it? That's the whole reason that answers all the questions. Oh, it's totally portable
[00:02:41] Melanie: to swim meets. You can just, I can just throw a book and then a stack of paper in my backpack and you're
[00:02:47] Azhelle: all set for a couple hours was totally. So you're growing up, you're playing with origami.
[00:02:52] What happened? What, how did Octo gifts come to be? Tell the listeners
[00:02:57] Sebastian: what started with the origami. But after that, I stopped, I started wanting to make my own things. So I would take like what you were saying with the printer paper. And I would do stuff with that. And then I was building things with cardboard and Popsicle sticks.
[00:03:10] So I already had all these, like my hot glue gun and all these different supplies to make things. So one of my friend's birthday who loves candy, like whenever he would come over. He would always find some excuse to go into the kitchen and then have his hand in the candy jar. So when his birthday came around, I knew I wanted to get him his own kind of candy jar to keep it home.
[00:03:30] But I couldn't find anything either online or in a book on how to do that. So I had to do it myself. So I just used an empty candy box,
[00:03:40] Azhelle: paper towel, roll some
[00:03:41] Sebastian: paper, water bottle, and obviously like scissors and a hot glue gun and tape. And I threw something together. And then I put a little piece of folded card stock on the back
[00:03:52] Azhelle: and wrote, uh,
[00:03:52] Sebastian: the words have a sweet birthday and then gave it to him the next day of school.
[00:03:57] And he loved it.
[00:03:58] Azhelle: Now, hearing your story from your perspective, like straight from you, you said that you made things with paper, then you went into Popsicle sticks. I'm curious. Did you ever go into Lego? Oh yeah.
[00:04:10] Sebastian: The Legos were at the same time as the origami, it was like, I still like Legos.
[00:04:17] Azhelle: So now I want to know what's your favorite thing to build with Legos versus popsicles sticks versus paper versus cardboard?
[00:04:26] I
[00:04:26] Sebastian: actually have a 3d printer.
[00:04:28] Azhelle: Oh. So
[00:04:30] Sebastian: I can, I've been learning how to build the robots with our now. So
[00:04:35] Azhelle: wait robots out of, are you like 3d modeling and then you're printing.
[00:04:39] Sebastian: It's pretty simple right now.
[00:04:40] Azhelle: So just
[00:04:41] Sebastian: learning how to wire up with the Arduino platform. And then I can design pieces to go with those, like the motors and
[00:04:50] Azhelle: things.
[00:04:52] Octo gifs is just the beginning for you. And seeing something big is brewing in this little one right here. So tell me where you came up with a name, Octo gifts. Where'd that come from? But that
[00:05:04] Sebastian: was actually the name of. My Etsy shop that I had started, like maybe six or seven months before
[00:05:12] Azhelle: the
[00:05:12] Sebastian: first card that I published there, it was, I was usually, I was looking for a way to make money so I could buy my own drum set.
[00:05:19] So I tried selling, making, I tried making these postcards out of carved blocks of linoleum and in stamping them. So the name Octo guests came from. The ink like octopus and then gifts that, and also it was available.
[00:05:38] Azhelle: It was very smart. I see a lot of people they'll have an idea and they don't care that the names are unavailable.
[00:05:44] They'll take the names idea and put shop at the end of it. But then it's no, but then if people are searching for you, they're going to find the other person, so smart marketing. So mom, how did you feel when he told you? I want to sell these to people we don't know. Like,
[00:05:57] Melanie: I wasn't sure where it was going to go, but I never liked the squelching, their ideas.
[00:06:03] So I just know. Yeah, just try it. Why don't you figure out what's involved and put it online and then let me know what you need me to do. And he said, I did put online, can you just share it on Facebook?
[00:06:12] Azhelle: Oh, really. So
[00:06:14] Melanie: I said, okay, sure. I had no idea where it was going to go, but I put it on Facebook and all these people, all of our friends looked at it and they bought it.
[00:06:23] And then, so he sold out. He put more in there. And then the second batch sold out. And then we started getting email messages from people. Wondering if, when we would get more in stocks, I was surprised and happy. I didn't know where it was going to go, so I didn't have any expectations. I was like, maybe he'll put online and no one buys, but I'm not going to say no.
[00:06:41] Let's just see what happens.
[00:06:42] Azhelle: Okay. Can I ask you how many pieces you sold in those early days? I think
[00:06:46] Sebastian: the first batch that I put up there was like five. Then after that, I put up five more. And then after that, all of the hours between school and swim practice were spent down in the basement, maybe. And then eventually I figured out that most of the time I spent making these machines was actually just cutting out the paper.
[00:07:05] Azhelle: So I found
[00:07:06] Sebastian: a machine on Amazon to do that for me and skip the money that I, it was actually a silhouette. I spent the money that I had made so far on that machine, which actually meant, let me like, make them about two times as fast.
[00:07:18] Azhelle: Look at him, reinvesting in his business wisely. This is amazing. I'm so impressed.
[00:07:23] Do you have an Excel sheet where you figure out your cost for goods? Do you have that? Yes. Yeah, well done. I'm so proud. This is beautiful. Did you do that for him, mom, or did he do it on his own? She didn't
[00:07:39] Melanie: get it together.
[00:07:41] Azhelle: After those first
[00:07:42] Melanie: few sales, then we started getting the emails from people. And then, so then I just
[00:07:46] Azhelle: took them as private orders because
[00:07:47] Melanie: it just got too stressful.
[00:07:49] I'd put them on there and someone would say, Oh, it's sold out again. Can you just say once? So finally we just said
[00:07:54] Azhelle: SERE, we're just going to set up as a private
[00:07:56] Melanie: order. So I had people who had private orders. Cause it was
[00:07:59] Azhelle: otherwise,
[00:07:59] Melanie: it was like this people would have to select it before someone
[00:08:03] Azhelle: else did so.
[00:08:05] Wow. That's incredible. Okay. So how do you guys split up the work? Who does, what.
[00:08:10] Sebastian: She does all the like adult stuff, like the paperwork and, uh, handling like the finances. And then I put together the different products that we sell.
[00:08:21] Azhelle: Okay. So you're doing all the research and development, right? Yes. Is that right?
[00:08:27] Melanie: So he's the idea guy. You're
[00:08:28] Azhelle: the idea guy. You guys go and talk to your audience and figure out what your market really wants before you release a new product. Yeah, that's one. We did do customer
[00:08:40] Melanie: discovery.
[00:08:41] Azhelle: Okay. We talked to. A hundred plus
[00:08:46] Melanie: people. We went through the startup incubator at Georgia tech called the ATDC advanced technology development center.
[00:08:53] And most of the people there,
[00:08:54] Azhelle: when did you decide to do that? At what point?
[00:08:57] Melanie: We actually decided to do that several months after he launched and sold all those hearts because, um, I know, normally you do that before you start selling anything. We decided let's
[00:09:07] Azhelle: just make sure
[00:09:08] Melanie: we're going in a direction that will actually result in people wanting what we've made.
[00:09:13] So we went to the ATDC program and they had this
[00:09:16] Azhelle: customer discovery program
[00:09:17] Melanie: and they told us that so many entrepreneurs try to skip this step, but you need to talk to just as many people as you can. Ideally strangers. Who you think would be in your market? Just talk to them about their pain points in the area where your product could provide a solution.
[00:09:36] Azhelle: So
[00:09:36] Melanie: we ended up doing that. We've talked to people at swim meets. Actually I told Sebastian every weekend, we're at a swim meet and you have all these parents just sitting around for hours, just killing time. So they have a captive audience right there.
[00:09:52] Azhelle: That's so smart, because that is definitely something that I'm always pushing to.
[00:09:56] You have to talk to your target market. So many people, they get excited about the idea and they're like, I know this is a good idea. I don't need to talk to anybody, but then you could spend a lot of time and money investing in the wrong direction. Sebastian, have you ever had any ideas that you were like really excited about and then your mom went and did her customer discovery?
[00:10:12] And she was like, no, that's not going to fly, man. And you had to drop them. No, I don't think so. No, it's pretty much a genius and everything I want the people want. So
[00:10:26] Melanie: some customer discovery too.
[00:10:28] Azhelle: I did do a lot of it, but
[00:10:31] Melanie: I did have him do some too. I wanted him to know, you know, though the process,
[00:10:36] Azhelle: how many people did you guys talk to to find out if your idea your product idea was viable?
[00:10:43] Oh, over a
[00:10:44] Melanie: hundred. He talked to two and I talked to 98. We went over that
[00:10:49] Azhelle: too, but
[00:10:50] Melanie: I definitely, I know we definitely hit the minimum.
[00:10:53] Azhelle: So you did all of this customer research and you asked all these great questions. What are the top questions that you asked your customers that you felt gave you like the most information that you could apply to your product that made your product successful?
[00:11:08] Melanie: And we asked about how do you normally celebrate. Birthdays in your family. And I would ask that and just see what people said. And how do you like to spend your, how do your kids like to spend their spare time?
[00:11:25] Azhelle: Just, I would ask those
[00:11:27] Melanie: and when I would ask those, I don't know how many times parents would say, I don't know, but whatever it is, I just try to get them off their phones.
[00:11:36] That's so tired of them, you know, being on screens. So when I get my tab, people say, I love when we can just do something like Legos or puzzles together, because it's something that's not electronic. So that, by asking that question about what they like to do, often people would start volunteering information about what they, not, what they liked to do, but what they also didn't like that their kids constantly did.
[00:12:01] And the whole thing about screens and the passive things that didn't involve using your hands. It kept coming up.
[00:12:09] Azhelle: Interesting. Did any of those comments influence how you marketed this product?
[00:12:17] Sebastian: They definitely made us realize that this would work better as a DIY kit instead of a fully assembled
[00:12:22] Melanie: thing.
[00:12:23] Azhelle: Ah, and why is that?
[00:12:25] Sebastian: Because then what also ties into like our statement about bringing people together, because then when you give someone this card, instead of just saying here, I bought this for you, or I made this for you.
[00:12:37] Azhelle: Oh, that's good. And then it's
[00:12:40] Sebastian: also something that parents and their kids can put it together as something to do instead of just being on electronics all the time.
[00:12:48] Azhelle: So I've done customer discovery. And at first you're scared and you're like, I don't want to do this because what if they hate it? And then I have to stop everything I'm doing. And then when you get into it, you're like, Oh, this is nice. First of all, I'm meeting people, making friends. Second of all, I'm talking about something I love and people are excited about it.
[00:13:05] So I find it gets hard to stop yourself. Once you get into customer discovery mode, you just want to live there. So at what point did you realize, okay, I have enough data, I guess we can just proceed with the product development now, probably I
[00:13:20] Melanie: think after the hundredth, the Hunter, after the hundredth or so getting the hearing the same thing that's we said, okay, we're not getting it additional new insight and stopped at that point.
[00:13:30] Cause that we kept hearing the same things over and over again. So I didn't see a reason to.
[00:13:34] Azhelle: Strive for 200. No. So that's a good point. It wasn't about the number. It was just once you started getting that repetition, once you weren't hearing new stuff anymore, that's when you stopped. No.
[00:13:45] Melanie: Yeah. I did want to make sure we at least hit the minimum of a
[00:13:47] Azhelle: hundred.
[00:13:47] Gives them kind of a rules follower that way. Well, they
[00:13:50] Melanie: said to talk to a hundred, so I'm going
[00:13:51] Azhelle: to talk to a hundred, but I got you
[00:13:54] Melanie: people 80 number interviews, number 80 through a hundred. They all were telling me the same thing. So
[00:13:59] Azhelle: he felt
[00:13:59] Melanie: comfortable. Stopping after a hundred. That's awesome.
[00:14:03] Azhelle: That sounds great.
[00:14:04] You guys are doing it the right way. What is the best part of working together? I guess
[00:14:10] Melanie: the
[00:14:10] Sebastian: best part is just, we don't have to go to an office cause we already live together.
[00:14:16] Azhelle: What do you say Melanie? I would say
[00:14:19] Melanie: they compliment each other because he I'm a very detail oriented person, but when it comes to being creative with physical objects and just trying to figure out how to.
[00:14:30] Azhelle: Convert
[00:14:31] Melanie: something transform something physical he's much stronger at that. And he doesn't. Yeah. So he, and he loves doing that, but he doesn't have much interest in going in here and like typing different numbers in the spreadsheet to see how that changes. I still still show him, but there's some things he just, he's just not into.
[00:14:51] So we compliment each other in terms of our skill sets.
[00:14:55] Azhelle: So what's the most challenging part about working together. Hi. No, it
[00:14:59] Sebastian: goes, as I said before, it's hard to separate
[00:15:03] Azhelle: working
[00:15:04] Sebastian: and just living because
[00:15:06] Azhelle: yeah.
[00:15:07] Sebastian: When everything, when your job is in your home, it's hard to not be doing that all the time. A
[00:15:13] Azhelle: hundred percent.
[00:15:14] That's so true.
[00:15:16] Melanie: And, uh, one thing he has said is sometimes, sometimes he just wants me to be in mom mode and not
[00:15:22] Azhelle: partner mode. Like
[00:15:23] Melanie: he'll be sitting on the couch and I'll
[00:15:25] Azhelle: say, Hey,
[00:15:25] Melanie: we just, we have an order. We need to fill that. And sometimes he just wants me to interact with them just as mom and son. And
[00:15:33] Azhelle: that's
[00:15:34] Melanie: nothing to do with an order or the
[00:15:36] Track 7: business.
[00:15:39] Azhelle: So, how do you separate it? Do you have like, all right, when I'm wearing this hat, this is business mode. What do you like, or do you have a time? Do you guys give a time slot to business?
[00:15:47] Sebastian: It was more of just if I wasn't at practice and I wasn't doing something to my friends, I was doing this.
[00:15:54] Melanie: It's a work in progress.
[00:15:55] I'll admit. I think one thing that I've definitely learned to do is.
[00:16:01] Azhelle: And I guess
[00:16:02] Melanie: the old me might've gone out to him while he was, while he had his headphones on, was playing some video game with his friends. I realized quickly that is not cool. I definitely steer clear of him when he's socializing
[00:16:17] Azhelle: with his friends.
[00:16:17] I realized
[00:16:18] Melanie: that the equivalent of walking into
[00:16:20] Azhelle: your
[00:16:20] Melanie: son's room, when he's got his friends in there and saying, Hey, you need to take care of this
[00:16:24] Azhelle: order and realize that I
[00:16:26] Melanie: wait until he's not engaged than when he doesn't have
[00:16:30] Azhelle: that. Do you guys think you're going to hire any help anytime soon to help you with all of these orders, even if it's virtual health, virtual assistant,
[00:16:40] Melanie: that is something that I'm starting to look at because as we grow it's right now, we're handling everything ourselves.
[00:16:46] Azhelle: I have. Farmed out.
[00:16:48] Melanie: We have hired people on Upwork to
[00:16:50] Azhelle: help us with things.
[00:16:52] Melanie: And as we grow, I see us needing to do more of that. And eventually having people coming in part-time
[00:16:59] Azhelle: to help us. But right now it's
[00:17:01] Melanie: just us
[00:17:03] Azhelle: the best part. The thing about hiring people, it's like everyone wants to wait, cause everyone's, I don't make enough money to hire anyone, but it say like next week you guys get on like a major television show.
[00:17:13] And your Octo gets just takes off. Like you get so many more orders, like maybe you get back orders and you're like, what are we going to do? It's always harder from my perspective, to try to hire and build a system that new hires can live in while trying to fulfill your orders and do your day to day business.
[00:17:33] So you're really smart for starting to look at hiring little by little, because at least when you hire one or two people, you're building out that system that allows other people to work with you. So then it's easier to scale, but if you just keep it with you too, then it's going to be hard to scale if you get the opportunity.
[00:17:48] But now I have a thousand orders and what am I going to do? Like,
[00:17:51] Melanie: yeah. What are the things we did actually is? So Sebastian's older brother, TJ actually spent helping behind the scenes and he wrote an SOP.
[00:18:00] Azhelle: Oh, wow. So that
[00:18:04] Melanie: I asked him to write some things that someone who was not in our family could just pick up and read, maybe get a quick training session on, but then they could actually do what we do.
[00:18:14] So that's, that's something we're starting to lay that kind of groundwork and putting in systems, setting up the infrastructure to
[00:18:22] Azhelle: help us. Bring
[00:18:24] Melanie: other people on board and not have all this info just residing in our heads.
[00:18:27] Azhelle: Exactly. So what made you know that this was a patentable product? First of all,
[00:18:33] Sebastian: original.
[00:18:33] When I was just telling them as the fully assembled,
[00:18:38] Azhelle: I
[00:18:38] Sebastian: wanted to make them into kits like DIY kits that we wouldn't have to do as much work putting together. First one.
[00:18:44] Melanie: But
[00:18:45] Azhelle: the
[00:18:45] Sebastian: issue with that is. If there are pieces in there and we're selling it as a kit, that means anyone could just find the thesis and then photocopy them or whatever.
[00:18:53] My mom found a patent lawyer to talk to you about that. And he found some density.
[00:18:59] Azhelle: That's awesome. So where are you guys at with your patent?
[00:19:03] Melanie: It's pending.
[00:19:09] We said it takes a while and I know it could take a year and a half
[00:19:13] Azhelle: to five years and it just depends
[00:19:14] Melanie: on. The patent itself and the backlog.
[00:19:18] Azhelle: What advice would you give people? Because one of the big questions for most aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs is like, should I get a patent for my idea? And what was it that made you really look into the concept and what made you confident in investing in it?
[00:19:33] Because I know it's a huge investment.
[00:19:38] Melanie: Okay. What made us decide to go for first? We did a provisional patent.
[00:19:43] Azhelle: Oh, okay, good.
[00:19:44] Melanie: So we did that. Our attorney recommended you could do that and then see if we, if we still wanted to pursue it after the year, then we could go for a utility patent.
[00:19:54] Azhelle: And we did do
[00:19:54] Melanie: that route because I wanted to just want it to buy some time.
[00:19:58] But what made us decide to go ahead and go through with it was that. Just because there were two things. One is I wanted to protect this because we work with paper. It's something that would be easy, relatively easy compared to other things to copy. I wanted to protect Sebastian's idea. And the other one, because part of me was like my mom instinct thinking, okay, wait a second.
[00:20:21] If there is something that is patentable. When my son has some, an idea why wouldn't I want to protect that this is like a real, and this is a real, it would be a real
[00:20:29] Azhelle: accomplishment for him. How
[00:20:32] Melanie: many kids have something that is potentially patentable? And I felt like I would be remiss and it's likely a, slackard try to try to help him protect his idea if I could.
[00:20:45] Azhelle: So
[00:20:46] Melanie: that's why we did it. And you could argue it either way. I know people like that's a lot of money to spend. That's the way, that's the reason I decided let's go ahead and see what we could do.
[00:20:56] Azhelle: I think having a patent it's two things like, yeah, on one end, it's protecting your product so that you can develop it.
[00:21:02] But the other part of having a patent is the credibility that it now gives you your company, your son, like that credibility is going to take you further, I think, than even just the patent itself. Kudos. That's fantastic. Well done. How long does it take to put together one of your cards,
[00:21:20] Sebastian: maybe an hour to two hours.
[00:21:22] Azhelle: Sebastian, do you have any advice for fellow young, aspiring inventors?
[00:21:28] Sebastian: As a kid, obviously you have insight that adults are not going to have. So if you know that there's a product idea that you have, that doesn't exist. That's definitely something you could make. Cause if you like it, I'm sure other kids would like it just as much as you do.
[00:21:42] Azhelle: I like that. That is good. Solid advice. Mom, do you have any advice for the parents of these aspiring inventors?
[00:21:51] Melanie: I think the fact that my husband intentionally didn't buy a lot of. Sophisticated toys for them when they were young, we just had them play with simple things. And by doing that, they actually were able to re-imagine things into, into what could be like I could've gone out and bought them a marble run toy.
[00:22:11] I think those are great, but I didn't. Instead I would save things like paper, towel, tubes, and gift wrap tubes and all that. And the boys would end up making marble runs. By just propping up these gift wrap tubes in the family where they basically, if you constrain their resources and ask them to what can you do with this and see what they come up with, even when they were young.
[00:22:38] One other favorite things to do was just at school. We had one of my teaching colleagues. He would break out the garden and we would move everything out of the sandbox and just, he would put the garden hose in there to form all these rivers and valleys. And then the kids would have spoons and shovels and they would build these elaborate.
[00:22:59] Cities just at a San and it's, so that's a
[00:23:02] Azhelle: dirt cheap game, right?
[00:23:03] Melanie: All he had to pay for was the
[00:23:04] Azhelle: water.
[00:23:04] Melanie: All we paid for was the water, but they were able to just get so much value out of that and to transform grains of sand into. Structures and buildings and that's all because we didn't provide them with anything sophisticated.
[00:23:18] So they were forced to use what nature already provided for us or what your recycling did already has for us. And that actually, I think that actually develops kids creative muscles
[00:23:28] Azhelle: a hundred percent. Yes, I agree. I agree. I was like, so in the summertime, I was very much like with the paper, for my mom's printer and like paint and watching Bob Ross and just doing random things with like random things in my house.
[00:23:42] And I, my focus in the toy industry has been arts and crafts. I think that's why. And you're inspiring another question, because now I'm thinking back to, I know that. Um, from reading your bio, that Sebastian had this idea to make this card, because you looked, you actually looked online for something like this and you couldn't find it.
[00:24:02] And I couldn't help, but wonder, like, what if he did find it? Like none of this would have happened.
[00:24:07] Melanie: That's probably true.
[00:24:08] Azhelle: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Melanie: But there are some videos, but I don't know if they were there then,
[00:24:13] Azhelle: but that goes back to what you're saying. Melanie just restricting their resources because. I know a lot of times the inventors want to like research and see like, how does this idea have been done before and all that.
[00:24:24] But even if it had been done before, I'm sure if there had been something like Octo gifts before and Sebastian just didn't see it, he would have come up with something unique anyway. And then maybe if he had seen it down the line, he would have been like, Oh, it's similar to mine. And
[00:24:38] Melanie: that would have just pushed him to make it his a little
[00:24:40] Azhelle: bit more different, a little bit better, a little bit this or that.
[00:24:44] So I don't know. I love that idea that you're saying restrict their resources and like maybe even restrict their YouTube access because you can feel as though everything's already been done before. Why do I even bother? And I don't know. I just, I don't know. That's a really interesting thought. And I, it makes me sad to think if a kid saw that was already existing, maybe they wouldn't have explored it and they wouldn't have done this business and like opera.
[00:25:06] It's just interesting. Okay. So I want to know about the future of Octo gifts. Are you going to license it? Are you going to mass produce it yourself? What do you want to do? What is the big goal for Octa gifts?
[00:25:20] Sebastian: Eventually what I see is you're seeing those little kids, like the metal earth. Where they have these like little models, like buildings and cars that you can make out of sheets of metal.
[00:25:30] Azhelle: Now
[00:25:31] Sebastian: they sell them in a lot of museum gift shops
[00:25:33] Azhelle: and bookstores.
[00:25:35] Sebastian: I see Octa gifts being sold, like alongside those. And maybe like in museums with the museum's logo on it, or like in bookstores. Or even just that target.
[00:25:47] Azhelle: That's a great idea. I would love to see Octo gifts in the museums. That's fantastic.
[00:25:52] And I would hope that you guys get to put it in yourself. Yeah.
[00:25:56] Melanie: There's definitely a lot of, a lot of different directions we could go in.
[00:25:59] Azhelle: Yeah. You could license some of it. You could manufacture something, you could just do so many different things. Tell us Sebastian, what were your favorite toys or what are some of your favorite toys?
[00:26:10] Sebastian: Obviously, the Legos used to have this whole, these whole shelves full of little bins of Legos. It was this time when I was in fourth or fifth grade that I really liked Rubik's cubes
[00:26:21] Azhelle: really combined. Rubik's like lewd
[00:26:24] Sebastian: Legos to a Rubik's cube to make it a Lego Rubix
[00:26:27] Azhelle: cube. I'm loving your parenting mom. I got it.
[00:26:31] I'm really loving it. I didn't know that they could still make the kids like this. I didn't know. That's so great. I'm so excited that you were on the show. Cause I feel like you are going to be on like Lego masters. I don't know, but I feel like having your name Sebastian Flores on my podcast. Is going to be fantastic for me in the future.
[00:26:50] So I'm so excited to have you on the show today. If you guys have any questions for me before we kick off
[00:26:57] Melanie: to know what is the toy you've made that you are most proud of?
[00:27:01] Azhelle: Oh, to the toy that I was most proud of. Oh, it's such a toss up. I okay. The toy I was most proud of and I probably regret not buying it was this.
[00:27:10] Arts and crafts desk that I built for toys R us, it was $29, but it was like bright and like pink and blue. And it was made out of these little like tubes and friction fit corner ends. You had to put it together like an Ikea desk. And then the whole desk was made out of these tubes. And then there was a lid that snapped on.
[00:27:31] But what was awesome about it is that it was organized to fit all of your specific crafts. So there was a place for your beads and there's a place to measure and a place to put all of your paints and your, your paint brushes and your pencils and your ceramic pieces. And everything had its own little place.
[00:27:47] And it was just like this little L-shaped desk. So a little girl had her own like craft studio and it was really affordable and it had like little shelves to display your finished work. And it took a lot to get it to the right price, but I was so proud of it was this huge, heavy, awesome box and people's comments on it were just like, Oh, my daughter has a table and she loves it.
[00:28:08] And all of her crafts go here and it was just the best. I love that product to this day. You
[00:28:13] Melanie: wish you'd had bought, so it's not even available anymore.
[00:28:15] Azhelle: Toys R us went out of business and I didn't buy one because I live in New York city and I don't have a ton of space. And it's a big box. It's a big box.
[00:28:23] So I've looked for it online. I think I saw one on, on eBay once, but it was like complete ridiculously marked up. So I wish I had bought one, but I don't think it exists anymore. But it was a great item. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. You guys, it was great learning about Octo gifts. Where can people find you and learn more about Octo gifts and buy your product?
[00:28:45] Tell us
[00:28:46] Sebastian: number one place is Octo gifs.com. That's O C T O G I F T s.com. Our Facebook page is at Octo gifts. One. Our Instagram account is@octo.gifts and a phone number. (
[00:29:01] Melanie: 404) 594-1272.
[00:29:05] Azhelle: Ooh. Get ready for those orders to roll in. All right, everybody check out Octa gifs.com. I'm going to put all of the links in the show notes.
[00:29:13] Thanks again, you guys for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Thanks for sharing your story and being so open.
[00:29:19] Melanie: Thank you. And thank you for having us. Thank you.
[00:29:21] Azhelle: Take care.
[00:29:22] Azhelle: How inspiring was that episode toy people. The reason I wanted to have Sebastian and his mom, Melanie on the show was to highlight their accomplishments, but also inspire you with their journey. As a teenager, Sebastian came up with a simple but better solution to greeting cards. What was once a gag gift for a friend, evolved into an online business with the help of Etsy.
[00:29:49] The most important lesson from this conversation is that you need to be listening to your market and testing your ideas. Sebastian and his mom, Melanie did just that. And they created a focused product line that really resonates with their target consumers. If you look at their online assortment, it is a very focused on major occasions.
[00:30:13] They didn't jump to hit every single holiday right away. They asked what their market needed and started slowly. And started slowly and deliberately serving those needs one holiday at a time, Sebastian combined his passion for building with paper and a market opportunity for functional greeting cards.
[00:30:36] And now they're on their way to having their very first. And now Sebastian is on his way to having his very first patent as a teenager. So I want you to take this time to look at what special skills or interests you have to offer and try to find that overlap between your interests and the white space in the toy market innovate jet.
[00:31:02] Innovate that, just that now to learn more about OktoGifts, head over to the toy coach.com forward slash 46. I'll link you to their website and social channels. To learn more about Octo gifts, head over to the toy coach.com forward slash 46, where I will link you to their website and social channels as always.
[00:31:27] Thank you so much for joining me here today. I know there are many podcasts out there, so it means the world to me that you listened to this one. If you love this podcast and you haven't already left me a review, then please do that right now. Where ever you're listening to this podcast, I get an email alert every time a new review comes through and I love reading your positive reviews.
[00:31:50] It just puts a huge smile on my face and motivates me to come back each and every week with more valuable toy insights. And by the way, did you know that making it in the toy industry has a Facebook group? Yeah, well, we do head over to Facebook and search for the, making it in the toy industry podcast group and join the fun.
[00:32:14] Okay. Until next week and join the fun. I can't wait to see you inside and get to know more about you andAzhelle: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 46.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you know your host, Azhelle Wade.
[00:00:37] Azhelle: Hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here. And welcome back to another episode of making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. For today's episode, we are joined by kid inventor and toypreneur, Sebastian Flores, and his super supportive mompreneur Melanie Flores.
[00:00:58] And 2017, Sebastian was inspired by his friend's love of candy to create a functional candy dispensing birthday card. A few years later, Sebastian put a Valentine's day version of his invention, honestly at T shot, which sold out in hours since then, Sebastian has been featured in Atlanta
[00:01:19] Melanie: in those 25,
[00:01:21] Azhelle: under 25 lists and is the youngest toy, preneur and adventure
[00:01:25] Melanie: to be
[00:01:25] Azhelle: featured on this show.
[00:01:27] So I want to welcome to the show Sebastian and his mom, Melanie, welcome to the show guys. Thank
[00:01:33] Melanie: you for having us. Thank you so much for having us. It's an honor to be here.
[00:01:37] Azhelle: You guys are here. I want to tell you the real reason that I got excited about Octo gifts is because when I was a kid, one of the things I love to do was I love to take just all of my mom's printer paper and build little houses and villages out of paper.
[00:01:55] Then I went on to paper dolls. Then I was building full body boat suits. It was, it got out of hand. So I saw with Sebastian was doing, and I'm like, Oh my God, kid after my own heart. So I'm curious a bastion before you made your paper cards. Did you make other paper crafts when you were growing up? Oh,
[00:02:13] Sebastian: absolutely.
[00:02:14] Yeah. My favorite, actually, this was probably started by my mom as a way to keep my brother and me busy. We have probably two dozen different origami books and this whole drawer full of origami paper,
[00:02:27] Azhelle: because whenever
[00:02:28] Sebastian: we would sit on planes and in car rides and we would just be folding anything, we would just use the books.
[00:02:33] I think I've gone through all
[00:02:34] Azhelle: that explains so much. That's it? That's the whole reason that answers all the questions. Oh, it's totally portable
[00:02:41] Melanie: to swim meets. You can just, I can just throw a book and then a stack of paper in my backpack and you're
[00:02:47] Azhelle: all set for a couple hours was totally. So you're growing up, you're playing with origami.
[00:02:52] What happened? What, how did Octo gifts come to be? Tell the listeners
[00:02:57] Sebastian: what started with the origami. But after that, I stopped, I started wanting to make my own things. So I would take like what you were saying with the printer paper. And I would do stuff with that. And then I was building things with cardboard and Popsicle sticks.
[00:03:10] So I already had all these, like my hot glue gun and all these different supplies to make things. So one of my friend's birthday who loves candy, like whenever he would come over. He would always find some excuse to go into the kitchen and then have his hand in the candy jar. So when his birthday came around, I knew I wanted to get him his own kind of candy jar to keep it home.
[00:03:30] But I couldn't find anything either online or in a book on how to do that. So I had to do it myself. So I just used an empty candy box,
[00:03:40] Azhelle: paper towel, roll some
[00:03:41] Sebastian: paper, water bottle, and obviously like scissors and a hot glue gun and tape. And I threw something together. And then I put a little piece of folded card stock on the back
[00:03:52] Azhelle: and wrote, uh,
[00:03:52] Sebastian: the words have a sweet birthday and then gave it to him the next day of school.
[00:03:57] And he loved it.
[00:03:58] Azhelle: Now, hearing your story from your perspective, like straight from you, you said that you made things with paper, then you went into Popsicle sticks. I'm curious. Did you ever go into Lego? Oh yeah.
[00:04:10] Sebastian: The Legos were at the same time as the origami, it was like, I still like Legos.
[00:04:17] Azhelle: So now I want to know what's your favorite thing to build with Legos versus popsicles sticks versus paper versus cardboard?
[00:04:26] I
[00:04:26] Sebastian: actually have a 3d printer.
[00:04:28] Azhelle: Oh. So
[00:04:30] Sebastian: I can, I've been learning how to build the robots with our now. So
[00:04:35] Azhelle: wait robots out of, are you like 3d modeling and then you're printing.
[00:04:39] Sebastian: It's pretty simple right now.
[00:04:40] Azhelle: So just
[00:04:41] Sebastian: learning how to wire up with the Arduino platform. And then I can design pieces to go with those, like the motors and
[00:04:50] Azhelle: things.
[00:04:52] Octo gifs is just the beginning for you. And seeing something big is brewing in this little one right here. So tell me where you came up with a name, Octo gifts. Where'd that come from? But that
[00:05:04] Sebastian: was actually the name of. My Etsy shop that I had started, like maybe six or seven months before
[00:05:12] Azhelle: the
[00:05:12] Sebastian: first card that I published there, it was, I was usually, I was looking for a way to make money so I could buy my own drum set.
[00:05:19] So I tried selling, making, I tried making these postcards out of carved blocks of linoleum and in stamping them. So the name Octo guests came from. The ink like octopus and then gifts that, and also it was available.
[00:05:38] Azhelle: It was very smart. I see a lot of people they'll have an idea and they don't care that the names are unavailable.
[00:05:44] They'll take the names idea and put shop at the end of it. But then it's no, but then if people are searching for you, they're going to find the other person, so smart marketing. So mom, how did you feel when he told you? I want to sell these to people we don't know. Like,
[00:05:57] Melanie: I wasn't sure where it was going to go, but I never liked the squelching, their ideas.
[00:06:03] So I just know. Yeah, just try it. Why don't you figure out what's involved and put it online and then let me know what you need me to do. And he said, I did put online, can you just share it on Facebook?
[00:06:12] Azhelle: Oh, really. So
[00:06:14] Melanie: I said, okay, sure. I had no idea where it was going to go, but I put it on Facebook and all these people, all of our friends looked at it and they bought it.
[00:06:23] And then, so he sold out. He put more in there. And then the second batch sold out. And then we started getting email messages from people. Wondering if, when we would get more in stocks, I was surprised and happy. I didn't know where it was going to go, so I didn't have any expectations. I was like, maybe he'll put online and no one buys, but I'm not going to say no.
[00:06:41] Let's just see what happens.
[00:06:42] Azhelle: Okay. Can I ask you how many pieces you sold in those early days? I think
[00:06:46] Sebastian: the first batch that I put up there was like five. Then after that, I put up five more. And then after that, all of the hours between school and swim practice were spent down in the basement, maybe. And then eventually I figured out that most of the time I spent making these machines was actually just cutting out the paper.
[00:07:05] Azhelle: So I found
[00:07:06] Sebastian: a machine on Amazon to do that for me and skip the money that I, it was actually a silhouette. I spent the money that I had made so far on that machine, which actually meant, let me like, make them about two times as fast.
[00:07:18] Azhelle: Look at him, reinvesting in his business wisely. This is amazing. I'm so impressed.
[00:07:23] Do you have an Excel sheet where you figure out your cost for goods? Do you have that? Yes. Yeah, well done. I'm so proud. This is beautiful. Did you do that for him, mom, or did he do it on his own? She didn't
[00:07:39] Melanie: get it together.
[00:07:41] Azhelle: After those first
[00:07:42] Melanie: few sales, then we started getting the emails from people. And then, so then I just
[00:07:46] Azhelle: took them as private orders because
[00:07:47] Melanie: it just got too stressful.
[00:07:49] I'd put them on there and someone would say, Oh, it's sold out again. Can you just say once? So finally we just said
[00:07:54] Azhelle: SERE, we're just going to set up as a private
[00:07:56] Melanie: order. So I had people who had private orders. Cause it was
[00:07:59] Azhelle: otherwise,
[00:07:59] Melanie: it was like this people would have to select it before someone
[00:08:03] Azhelle: else did so.
[00:08:05] Wow. That's incredible. Okay. So how do you guys split up the work? Who does, what.
[00:08:10] Sebastian: She does all the like adult stuff, like the paperwork and, uh, handling like the finances. And then I put together the different products that we sell.
[00:08:21] Azhelle: Okay. So you're doing all the research and development, right? Yes. Is that right?
[00:08:27] Melanie: So he's the idea guy. You're
[00:08:28] Azhelle: the idea guy. You guys go and talk to your audience and figure out what your market really wants before you release a new product. Yeah, that's one. We did do customer
[00:08:40] Melanie: discovery.
[00:08:41] Azhelle: Okay. We talked to. A hundred plus
[00:08:46] Melanie: people. We went through the startup incubator at Georgia tech called the ATDC advanced technology development center.
[00:08:53] And most of the people there,
[00:08:54] Azhelle: when did you decide to do that? At what point?
[00:08:57] Melanie: We actually decided to do that several months after he launched and sold all those hearts because, um, I know, normally you do that before you start selling anything. We decided let's
[00:09:07] Azhelle: just make sure
[00:09:08] Melanie: we're going in a direction that will actually result in people wanting what we've made.
[00:09:13] So we went to the ATDC program and they had this
[00:09:16] Azhelle: customer discovery program
[00:09:17] Melanie: and they told us that so many entrepreneurs try to skip this step, but you need to talk to just as many people as you can. Ideally strangers. Who you think would be in your market? Just talk to them about their pain points in the area where your product could provide a solution.
[00:09:36] Azhelle: So
[00:09:36] Melanie: we ended up doing that. We've talked to people at swim meets. Actually I told Sebastian every weekend, we're at a swim meet and you have all these parents just sitting around for hours, just killing time. So they have a captive audience right there.
[00:09:52] Azhelle: That's so smart, because that is definitely something that I'm always pushing to.
[00:09:56] You have to talk to your target market. So many people, they get excited about the idea and they're like, I know this is a good idea. I don't need to talk to anybody, but then you could spend a lot of time and money investing in the wrong direction. Sebastian, have you ever had any ideas that you were like really excited about and then your mom went and did her customer discovery?
[00:10:12] And she was like, no, that's not going to fly, man. And you had to drop them. No, I don't think so. No, it's pretty much a genius and everything I want the people want. So
[00:10:26] Melanie: some customer discovery too.
[00:10:28] Azhelle: I did do a lot of it, but
[00:10:31] Melanie: I did have him do some too. I wanted him to know, you know, though the process,
[00:10:36] Azhelle: how many people did you guys talk to to find out if your idea your product idea was viable?
[00:10:43] Oh, over a
[00:10:44] Melanie: hundred. He talked to two and I talked to 98. We went over that
[00:10:49] Azhelle: too, but
[00:10:50] Melanie: I definitely, I know we definitely hit the minimum.
[00:10:53] Azhelle: So you did all of this customer research and you asked all these great questions. What are the top questions that you asked your customers that you felt gave you like the most information that you could apply to your product that made your product successful?
[00:11:08] Melanie: And we asked about how do you normally celebrate. Birthdays in your family. And I would ask that and just see what people said. And how do you like to spend your, how do your kids like to spend their spare time?
[00:11:25] Azhelle: Just, I would ask those
[00:11:27] Melanie: and when I would ask those, I don't know how many times parents would say, I don't know, but whatever it is, I just try to get them off their phones.
[00:11:36] That's so tired of them, you know, being on screens. So when I get my tab, people say, I love when we can just do something like Legos or puzzles together, because it's something that's not electronic. So that, by asking that question about what they like to do, often people would start volunteering information about what they, not, what they liked to do, but what they also didn't like that their kids constantly did.
[00:12:01] And the whole thing about screens and the passive things that didn't involve using your hands. It kept coming up.
[00:12:09] Azhelle: Interesting. Did any of those comments influence how you marketed this product?
[00:12:17] Sebastian: They definitely made us realize that this would work better as a DIY kit instead of a fully assembled
[00:12:22] Melanie: thing.
[00:12:23] Azhelle: Ah, and why is that?
[00:12:25] Sebastian: Because then what also ties into like our statement about bringing people together, because then when you give someone this card, instead of just saying here, I bought this for you, or I made this for you.
[00:12:37] Azhelle: Oh, that's good. And then it's
[00:12:40] Sebastian: also something that parents and their kids can put it together as something to do instead of just being on electronics all the time.
[00:12:48] Azhelle: So I've done customer discovery. And at first you're scared and you're like, I don't want to do this because what if they hate it? And then I have to stop everything I'm doing. And then when you get into it, you're like, Oh, this is nice. First of all, I'm meeting people, making friends. Second of all, I'm talking about something I love and people are excited about it.
[00:13:05] So I find it gets hard to stop yourself. Once you get into customer discovery mode, you just want to live there. So at what point did you realize, okay, I have enough data, I guess we can just proceed with the product development now, probably I
[00:13:20] Melanie: think after the hundredth, the Hunter, after the hundredth or so getting the hearing the same thing that's we said, okay, we're not getting it additional new insight and stopped at that point.
[00:13:30] Cause that we kept hearing the same things over and over again. So I didn't see a reason to.
[00:13:34] Azhelle: Strive for 200. No. So that's a good point. It wasn't about the number. It was just once you started getting that repetition, once you weren't hearing new stuff anymore, that's when you stopped. No.
[00:13:45] Melanie: Yeah. I did want to make sure we at least hit the minimum of a
[00:13:47] Azhelle: hundred.
[00:13:47] Gives them kind of a rules follower that way. Well, they
[00:13:50] Melanie: said to talk to a hundred, so I'm going
[00:13:51] Azhelle: to talk to a hundred, but I got you
[00:13:54] Melanie: people 80 number interviews, number 80 through a hundred. They all were telling me the same thing. So
[00:13:59] Azhelle: he felt
[00:13:59] Melanie: comfortable. Stopping after a hundred. That's awesome.
[00:14:03] Azhelle: That sounds great.
[00:14:04] You guys are doing it the right way. What is the best part of working together? I guess
[00:14:10] Melanie: the
[00:14:10] Sebastian: best part is just, we don't have to go to an office cause we already live together.
[00:14:16] Azhelle: What do you say Melanie? I would say
[00:14:19] Melanie: they compliment each other because he I'm a very detail oriented person, but when it comes to being creative with physical objects and just trying to figure out how to.
[00:14:30] Azhelle: Convert
[00:14:31] Melanie: something transform something physical he's much stronger at that. And he doesn't. Yeah. So he, and he loves doing that, but he doesn't have much interest in going in here and like typing different numbers in the spreadsheet to see how that changes. I still still show him, but there's some things he just, he's just not into.
[00:14:51] So we compliment each other in terms of our skill sets.
[00:14:55] Azhelle: So what's the most challenging part about working together. Hi. No, it
[00:14:59] Sebastian: goes, as I said before, it's hard to separate
[00:15:03] Azhelle: working
[00:15:04] Sebastian: and just living because
[00:15:06] Azhelle: yeah.
[00:15:07] Sebastian: When everything, when your job is in your home, it's hard to not be doing that all the time. A
[00:15:13] Azhelle: hundred percent.
[00:15:14] That's so true.
[00:15:16] Melanie: And, uh, one thing he has said is sometimes, sometimes he just wants me to be in mom mode and not
[00:15:22] Azhelle: partner mode. Like
[00:15:23] Melanie: he'll be sitting on the couch and I'll
[00:15:25] Azhelle: say, Hey,
[00:15:25] Melanie: we just, we have an order. We need to fill that. And sometimes he just wants me to interact with them just as mom and son. And
[00:15:33] Azhelle: that's
[00:15:34] Melanie: nothing to do with an order or the
[00:15:36] Track 7: business.
[00:15:39] Azhelle: So, how do you separate it? Do you have like, all right, when I'm wearing this hat, this is business mode. What do you like, or do you have a time? Do you guys give a time slot to business?
[00:15:47] Sebastian: It was more of just if I wasn't at practice and I wasn't doing something to my friends, I was doing this.
[00:15:54] Melanie: It's a work in progress.
[00:15:55] I'll admit. I think one thing that I've definitely learned to do is.
[00:16:01] Azhelle: And I guess
[00:16:02] Melanie: the old me might've gone out to him while he was, while he had his headphones on, was playing some video game with his friends. I realized quickly that is not cool. I definitely steer clear of him when he's socializing
[00:16:17] Azhelle: with his friends.
[00:16:17] I realized
[00:16:18] Melanie: that the equivalent of walking into
[00:16:20] Azhelle: your
[00:16:20] Melanie: son's room, when he's got his friends in there and saying, Hey, you need to take care of this
[00:16:24] Azhelle: order and realize that I
[00:16:26] Melanie: wait until he's not engaged than when he doesn't have
[00:16:30] Azhelle: that. Do you guys think you're going to hire any help anytime soon to help you with all of these orders, even if it's virtual health, virtual assistant,
[00:16:40] Melanie: that is something that I'm starting to look at because as we grow it's right now, we're handling everything ourselves.
[00:16:46] Azhelle: I have. Farmed out.
[00:16:48] Melanie: We have hired people on Upwork to
[00:16:50] Azhelle: help us with things.
[00:16:52] Melanie: And as we grow, I see us needing to do more of that. And eventually having people coming in part-time
[00:16:59] Azhelle: to help us. But right now it's
[00:17:01] Melanie: just us
[00:17:03] Azhelle: the best part. The thing about hiring people, it's like everyone wants to wait, cause everyone's, I don't make enough money to hire anyone, but it say like next week you guys get on like a major television show.
[00:17:13] And your Octo gets just takes off. Like you get so many more orders, like maybe you get back orders and you're like, what are we going to do? It's always harder from my perspective, to try to hire and build a system that new hires can live in while trying to fulfill your orders and do your day to day business.
[00:17:33] So you're really smart for starting to look at hiring little by little, because at least when you hire one or two people, you're building out that system that allows other people to work with you. So then it's easier to scale, but if you just keep it with you too, then it's going to be hard to scale if you get the opportunity.
[00:17:48] But now I have a thousand orders and what am I going to do? Like,
[00:17:51] Melanie: yeah. What are the things we did actually is? So Sebastian's older brother, TJ actually spent helping behind the scenes and he wrote an SOP.
[00:18:00] Azhelle: Oh, wow. So that
[00:18:04] Melanie: I asked him to write some things that someone who was not in our family could just pick up and read, maybe get a quick training session on, but then they could actually do what we do.
[00:18:14] So that's, that's something we're starting to lay that kind of groundwork and putting in systems, setting up the infrastructure to
[00:18:22] Azhelle: help us. Bring
[00:18:24] Melanie: other people on board and not have all this info just residing in our heads.
[00:18:27] Azhelle: Exactly. So what made you know that this was a patentable product? First of all,
[00:18:33] Sebastian: original.
[00:18:33] When I was just telling them as the fully assembled,
[00:18:38] Azhelle: I
[00:18:38] Sebastian: wanted to make them into kits like DIY kits that we wouldn't have to do as much work putting together. First one.
[00:18:44] Melanie: But
[00:18:45] Azhelle: the
[00:18:45] Sebastian: issue with that is. If there are pieces in there and we're selling it as a kit, that means anyone could just find the thesis and then photocopy them or whatever.
[00:18:53] My mom found a patent lawyer to talk to you about that. And he found some density.
[00:18:59] Azhelle: That's awesome. So where are you guys at with your patent?
[00:19:03] Melanie: It's pending.
[00:19:09] We said it takes a while and I know it could take a year and a half
[00:19:13] Azhelle: to five years and it just depends
[00:19:14] Melanie: on. The patent itself and the backlog.
[00:19:18] Azhelle: What advice would you give people? Because one of the big questions for most aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs is like, should I get a patent for my idea? And what was it that made you really look into the concept and what made you confident in investing in it?
[00:19:33] Because I know it's a huge investment.
[00:19:38] Melanie: Okay. What made us decide to go for first? We did a provisional patent.
[00:19:43] Azhelle: Oh, okay, good.
[00:19:44] Melanie: So we did that. Our attorney recommended you could do that and then see if we, if we still wanted to pursue it after the year, then we could go for a utility patent.
[00:19:54] Azhelle: And we did do
[00:19:54] Melanie: that route because I wanted to just want it to buy some time.
[00:19:58] But what made us decide to go ahead and go through with it was that. Just because there were two things. One is I wanted to protect this because we work with paper. It's something that would be easy, relatively easy compared to other things to copy. I wanted to protect Sebastian's idea. And the other one, because part of me was like my mom instinct thinking, okay, wait a second.
[00:20:21] If there is something that is patentable. When my son has some, an idea why wouldn't I want to protect that this is like a real, and this is a real, it would be a real
[00:20:29] Azhelle: accomplishment for him. How
[00:20:32] Melanie: many kids have something that is potentially patentable? And I felt like I would be remiss and it's likely a, slackard try to try to help him protect his idea if I could.
[00:20:45] Azhelle: So
[00:20:46] Melanie: that's why we did it. And you could argue it either way. I know people like that's a lot of money to spend. That's the way, that's the reason I decided let's go ahead and see what we could do.
[00:20:56] Azhelle: I think having a patent it's two things like, yeah, on one end, it's protecting your product so that you can develop it.
[00:21:02] But the other part of having a patent is the credibility that it now gives you your company, your son, like that credibility is going to take you further, I think, than even just the patent itself. Kudos. That's fantastic. Well done. How long does it take to put together one of your cards,
[00:21:20] Sebastian: maybe an hour to two hours.
[00:21:22] Azhelle: Sebastian, do you have any advice for fellow young, aspiring inventors?
[00:21:28] Sebastian: As a kid, obviously you have insight that adults are not going to have. So if you know that there's a product idea that you have, that doesn't exist. That's definitely something you could make. Cause if you like it, I'm sure other kids would like it just as much as you do.
[00:21:42] Azhelle: I like that. That is good. Solid advice. Mom, do you have any advice for the parents of these aspiring inventors?
[00:21:51] Melanie: I think the fact that my husband intentionally didn't buy a lot of. Sophisticated toys for them when they were young, we just had them play with simple things. And by doing that, they actually were able to re-imagine things into, into what could be like I could've gone out and bought them a marble run toy.
[00:22:11] I think those are great, but I didn't. Instead I would save things like paper, towel, tubes, and gift wrap tubes and all that. And the boys would end up making marble runs. By just propping up these gift wrap tubes in the family where they basically, if you constrain their resources and ask them to what can you do with this and see what they come up with, even when they were young.
[00:22:38] One other favorite things to do was just at school. We had one of my teaching colleagues. He would break out the garden and we would move everything out of the sandbox and just, he would put the garden hose in there to form all these rivers and valleys. And then the kids would have spoons and shovels and they would build these elaborate.
[00:22:59] Cities just at a San and it's, so that's a
[00:23:02] Azhelle: dirt cheap game, right?
[00:23:03] Melanie: All he had to pay for was the
[00:23:04] Azhelle: water.
[00:23:04] Melanie: All we paid for was the water, but they were able to just get so much value out of that and to transform grains of sand into. Structures and buildings and that's all because we didn't provide them with anything sophisticated.
[00:23:18] So they were forced to use what nature already provided for us or what your recycling did already has for us. And that actually, I think that actually develops kids creative muscles
[00:23:28] Azhelle: a hundred percent. Yes, I agree. I agree. I was like, so in the summertime, I was very much like with the paper, for my mom's printer and like paint and watching Bob Ross and just doing random things with like random things in my house.
[00:23:42] And I, my focus in the toy industry has been arts and crafts. I think that's why. And you're inspiring another question, because now I'm thinking back to, I know that. Um, from reading your bio, that Sebastian had this idea to make this card, because you looked, you actually looked online for something like this and you couldn't find it.
[00:24:02] And I couldn't help, but wonder, like, what if he did find it? Like none of this would have happened.
[00:24:07] Melanie: That's probably true.
[00:24:08] Azhelle: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Melanie: But there are some videos, but I don't know if they were there then,
[00:24:13] Azhelle: but that goes back to what you're saying. Melanie just restricting their resources because. I know a lot of times the inventors want to like research and see like, how does this idea have been done before and all that.
[00:24:24] But even if it had been done before, I'm sure if there had been something like Octo gifts before and Sebastian just didn't see it, he would have come up with something unique anyway. And then maybe if he had seen it down the line, he would have been like, Oh, it's similar to mine. And
[00:24:38] Melanie: that would have just pushed him to make it his a little
[00:24:40] Azhelle: bit more different, a little bit better, a little bit this or that.
[00:24:44] So I don't know. I love that idea that you're saying restrict their resources and like maybe even restrict their YouTube access because you can feel as though everything's already been done before. Why do I even bother? And I don't know. I just, I don't know. That's a really interesting thought. And I, it makes me sad to think if a kid saw that was already existing, maybe they wouldn't have explored it and they wouldn't have done this business and like opera.
[00:25:06] It's just interesting. Okay. So I want to know about the future of Octo gifts. Are you going to license it? Are you going to mass produce it yourself? What do you want to do? What is the big goal for Octa gifts?
[00:25:20] Sebastian: Eventually what I see is you're seeing those little kids, like the metal earth. Where they have these like little models, like buildings and cars that you can make out of sheets of metal.
[00:25:30] Azhelle: Now
[00:25:31] Sebastian: they sell them in a lot of museum gift shops
[00:25:33] Azhelle: and bookstores.
[00:25:35] Sebastian: I see Octa gifts being sold, like alongside those. And maybe like in museums with the museum's logo on it, or like in bookstores. Or even just that target.
[00:25:47] Azhelle: That's a great idea. I would love to see Octo gifts in the museums. That's fantastic.
[00:25:52] And I would hope that you guys get to put it in yourself. Yeah.
[00:25:56] Melanie: There's definitely a lot of, a lot of different directions we could go in.
[00:25:59] Azhelle: Yeah. You could license some of it. You could manufacture something, you could just do so many different things. Tell us Sebastian, what were your favorite toys or what are some of your favorite toys?
[00:26:10] Sebastian: Obviously, the Legos used to have this whole, these whole shelves full of little bins of Legos. It was this time when I was in fourth or fifth grade that I really liked Rubik's cubes
[00:26:21] Azhelle: really combined. Rubik's like lewd
[00:26:24] Sebastian: Legos to a Rubik's cube to make it a Lego Rubix
[00:26:27] Azhelle: cube. I'm loving your parenting mom. I got it.
[00:26:31] I'm really loving it. I didn't know that they could still make the kids like this. I didn't know. That's so great. I'm so excited that you were on the show. Cause I feel like you are going to be on like Lego masters. I don't know, but I feel like having your name Sebastian Flores on my podcast. Is going to be fantastic for me in the future.
[00:26:50] So I'm so excited to have you on the show today. If you guys have any questions for me before we kick off
[00:26:57] Melanie: to know what is the toy you've made that you are most proud of?
[00:27:01] Azhelle: Oh, to the toy that I was most proud of. Oh, it's such a toss up. I okay. The toy I was most proud of and I probably regret not buying it was this.
[00:27:10] Arts and crafts desk that I built for toys R us, it was $29, but it was like bright and like pink and blue. And it was made out of these little like tubes and friction fit corner ends. You had to put it together like an Ikea desk. And then the whole desk was made out of these tubes. And then there was a lid that snapped on.
[00:27:31] But what was awesome about it is that it was organized to fit all of your specific crafts. So there was a place for your beads and there's a place to measure and a place to put all of your paints and your, your paint brushes and your pencils and your ceramic pieces. And everything had its own little place.
[00:27:47] And it was just like this little L-shaped desk. So a little girl had her own like craft studio and it was really affordable and it had like little shelves to display your finished work. And it took a lot to get it to the right price, but I was so proud of it was this huge, heavy, awesome box and people's comments on it were just like, Oh, my daughter has a table and she loves it.
[00:28:08] And all of her crafts go here and it was just the best. I love that product to this day. You
[00:28:13] Melanie: wish you'd had bought, so it's not even available anymore.
[00:28:15] Azhelle: Toys R us went out of business and I didn't buy one because I live in New York city and I don't have a ton of space. And it's a big box. It's a big box.
[00:28:23] So I've looked for it online. I think I saw one on, on eBay once, but it was like complete ridiculously marked up. So I wish I had bought one, but I don't think it exists anymore. But it was a great item. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. You guys, it was great learning about Octo gifts. Where can people find you and learn more about Octo gifts and buy your product?
[00:28:45] Tell us
[00:28:46] Sebastian: number one place is Octo gifs.com. That's O C T O G I F T s.com. Our Facebook page is at Octo gifts. One. Our Instagram account is@octo.gifts and a phone number. (
[00:29:01] Melanie: 404) 594-1272.
[00:29:05] Azhelle: Ooh. Get ready for those orders to roll in. All right, everybody check out Octa gifs.com. I'm going to put all of the links in the show notes.
[00:29:13] Thanks again, you guys for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Thanks for sharing your story and being so open.
[00:29:19] Melanie: Thank you. And thank you for having us. Thank you.
[00:29:21] Azhelle: Take care.
[00:29:22] Azhelle: How inspiring was that episode toy people. The reason I wanted to have Sebastian and his mom, Melanie on the show was to highlight their accomplishments, but also inspire you with their journey. As a teenager, Sebastian came up with a simple but better solution to greeting cards. What was once a gag gift for a friend, evolved into an online business with the help of Etsy.
[00:29:49] The most important lesson from this conversation is that you need to be listening to your market and testing your ideas. Sebastian and his mom, Melanie did just that. And they created a focused product line that really resonates with their target consumers. If you look at their online assortment, it is a very focused on major occasions.
[00:30:13] They didn't jump to hit every single holiday right away. They asked what their market needed and started slowly. And started slowly and deliberately serving those needs one holiday at a time, Sebastian combined his passion for building with paper and a market opportunity for functional greeting cards.
[00:30:36] And now they're on their way to having their very first. And now Sebastian is on his way to having his very first patent as a teenager. So I want you to take this time to look at what special skills or interests you have to offer and try to find that overlap between your interests and the white space in the toy market innovate jet.
[00:31:02] Innovate that, just that now to learn more about OktoGifts, head over to the toy coach.com forward slash 46. I'll link you to their website and social channels. To learn more about Octo gifts, head over to the toy coach.com forward slash 46, where I will link you to their website and social channels as always.
[00:31:27] Thank you so much for joining me here today. I know there are many podcasts out there, so it means the world to me that you listened to this one. If you love this podcast and you haven't already left me a review, then please do that right now. Where ever you're listening to this podcast, I get an email alert every time a new review comes through and I love reading your positive reviews.
[00:31:50] It just puts a huge smile on my face and motivates me to come back each and every week with more valuable toy insights. And by the way, did you know that making it in the toy industry has a Facebook group? Yeah, well, we do head over to Facebook and search for the, making it in the toy industry podcast group and join the fun.
[00:32:14] Okay. Until next week and join the fun. I can't wait to see you inside and get to know more about you and the products that you're developing well until next week. I'll see you later. Toy people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to the toy coach comm For more information, tips and advice. the products that you're developing well until next week. I'll see you later. Toy people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to the toy coach comm For more information, tips and advice.
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🎓Learn more about how you can develop and pitch your toy idea with Toy Creators Academy® by clicking here to visit toycreatorsacademy.com and join the waitlist.