Episode #63: How To Make A Toy, The 5 Steps of Product Development
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The Toy Development process can seem big, scary, and overwhelming if you’ve never taken it on before, but today’s episode is going to eliminate any uncertainties you may have about what that process looks like. There are 5 key steps of the toy development process that we cover in today’s episode, while touching on the differences between working as a toy designer in the corporate toy world, versus working as a toy entrepreneur.
There ARE some areas of the toy development process that an independent toy entrepreneur might spend more of their time and resources on than a big toy company. And that’s because as a toy entrepreneur, your focus is narrowed to just a few key items, while a larger toy company may be putting out hundreds of products a year.
If you’re new to the toy space, you’ve chosen the perfect episode to get started with. Let’s dive into learning the best next steps to making our toy ideas into toy products.
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Grab your toy development checklist by clicking here.
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Azhelle 00:00
You were listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 63.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 00:07
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you. And now your host, Azhelle Wade.
Azhelle 00:16
Well, 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 thetoycoach.com. Today's episode is a process oriented one, if you are a creative person, and you're interested in knowing more about how this whole toy thing works, or if you're a creative person who already has a toy or game idea, but you're not sure where to start, this is your much needed overview of the entire toy development process. So if you're an aspiring to a creator, or just a creative person who loves toys, this episode is going to give you the bird's eye view of the steps you need to take to make a toy attic and marketable toy idea a real thing. Now, in my time as the toy coach, I've met so many people outside of the toy industry with incredible ideas for toys, and their varied expert level backgrounds in fields like technology, baking, kids, entertainment, authorship, even education, all has given them this unique perspective on toys that they could create, to bring to the toy industry. But so many of these people stop before taking that first step in the toy development process, simply because they don't know what to expect. And they're afraid of that. So I want to clarify all of that today. Now as I go through the steps of toy development, I want you to know that I've created a downloadable checklist that outlines these same steps I'm about to walk you through. So if you're taking a walk, or you're cooking a meal, or you're occupied doing something else right now, and you can't take notes, don't worry, I've got you covered. But you're going to have to stick with me to the end to find out how to get that checklist. So today, we will cover essentially the toy development process that I've used throughout my entire 10 year toy career to turn an idea that I sketched out on a piece of paper, or pulled together with images on my computer into a physical product that was ready for production. What's great about the steps that I'm going to walk you through today is that these steps apply to big toy companies all the way down to independent toy entrepreneurs like you might be or if you're not there yet, like you might become. Now there are some areas of this process that independent toy inventors might spend more of their time and resources on than a big toy company would because instead of developing hundreds of items a season like a big toy company, as a toy entrepreneur, you're usually focusing on a few key items. So as we go through these steps, I'll be sure to point out some of the differences in what you might really invest your time and resources in that toy companies small or large, might not. And of course, I'll touch on the benefits of hyper focusing on those areas as a toy entrepreneur. Okay, are you ready? Let's dive in. Now, as always, I'm going to kick this episode off with a definition, I like to make sure we're on the same page. So let's start by defining what the toy development process is. The toy development process encapsulates the key design and development steps that you should take when turning a toy idea into a shelf ready product. The toy development process does not include things like branding, marketing, production or distribution. Instead, we're focusing solely on the actual development of the product or of the toy. Now, when you're talking toy development, it is always important to talk timelines. Most big companies in the toy industry work a year in advance, meaning that they're developing a product line this year that they intend to pitch and eventually get into the stores the following year. And there are a lot of logistics that go into why that timeline is so long, some of it being the red tape of just being at a large company, some of it having to do with getting set up as a vendor, some having to deal with the complexity of the product or the pricing Or even the number of products that they're working on at any given time it goes on and on. But it is true that you could develop a simple toy or game product in the space of three to six months. Now, again, that depends on the complexity of your product. The shorter the development calendar, the less custom your toy product will be. And the more open market pieces, you're going to likely be incorporating into that product. Okay, so let's get into the step by step stages of toy product development. Number one, we have market research. Market research is the backbone of any successful toy product. You could spend months gathering market research data, or just a few days, but the quality of your product is going to hinder on the research that you collect and understand about the industry as it is today, as well as how you apply that research to your toy idea. Have you heard the term whitespace? Well, whitespace is what you're looking for in your market research, you're looking to figure out what the whitespace or the opportunity is. An example of whitespace might be retro toy kitchens, you might do a ton of research trips, or interviews with potential customers and realize that your ITM really wants a retro toy kitchen. Now, if you're like, hold up Azhelle, what's an ITM? Well, if you're a student of toy creators Academy, you know this term well, ITM is our ideal target market. Okay, so maybe your ITM is interested in retro kitchens because of a newly popular Netflix show. Or maybe being cooped up at home on zoom calls all day has got them feeling nostalgic for simpler times when the internet wasn't the primary form of communication. So you decide, you know what, I'm going to fill this whitespace with a retro toy kitchen. And once you finish that step, that's when you move on to step number two. Step number two in the toy product development process, is concept development. And this is the part that I know most of you want to skip. I've been there. I used to want to skip this part too. But I'm telling you don't do it. Because step number two is where the magic of brainstorming happens. Usually, after the market research phase, you're feeling really good. And you feel like you know, the toy industry like the back of your hand, you're a pro, you know your ITM and you're just at this point where you're just ready to serve up what they need. And you're telling yourself, I am good with concept development. I've been doing the research and the thinking, it's time for me to create this thing. But I want you to hold your horses, my friend, concept development is where the real magic happens. In the concept development stage, you're taking that idea of a retro toy kitchen, and you're expanding on it. You're hyper focusing on why your ITM wants that retro kitchen, you're analyzing past retro kitchens, from other toy companies, and figuring out what worked and what didn't. you're figuring out the ideal price point of that retro kitchen, and you're going deep, okay, you're going really deep into why that price point was ideal, or why it didn't work. In this phase, it's really important that you focus on one idea at a time. And I'm telling you even when I worked on 50 products a season at a toy company, I would focus on one item at a time in the concept development stage. Now, I might not have months to focus on one product at a time or one item at a time. But I would give myself time to just hyper focus on one item and make it the best it could be looking at it from all angles. What would it be like if I added this take took this away, added a new color added a new texture. And yes, it takes a long time. But by the end of it, you will have something that has a very well thought out play pattern and that meets your ITMs needs in the most strategic and surprising way possible. A good idea is one thing, but you want to have that toy idea that when you presented at a pitch meeting the person On the other side of that zoom color at the other end of the table says, Ah, why didn't I think of that? That is the goal of what you're going to achieve in the concept development stage. Okay, so let's move on to step number three. Step number three of the toy development process, okay? Now at this stage, you've already figured out what the opportunity is, you figured out what the product is going to be, and what the product is going to do. And this third step is design development. And design development is the area that every single toy company no matter how big, or how small, spends the majority of the toy development cycle on. Now, when working for a toy company, this process, or this stage of the process might include, you know, me, or a designer sketching out ideas, bashing together product mock ups that have pieces of other toys, creating plan drawings, testing prototypes, with their ITM ultimately hiring freelance help or working with someone internally in the office to build out a 3d model. Or if it's a fabric item, work with a pattern maker for sample making. The design development stage is several steps within itself. And there are many levels of approval, when you're working at a toy company for you know, say you're designing a doll, you'll have to prove the body and the articulation, the sculpt of the face, and the hair and the eyes and the Pantone colors. And all of those steps of approval are happening in stage three, and stage three of the toy development process, which is designed development. Now, as a toy entrepreneur, you don't have as much red tape to get through, it's a lot easier to get a yes, because you're giving it to yourself most of the time. But I do want to encourage you to hold yourself to some high standards. And make sure you give yourself a day, at least to make decisions on the design of your product. I know it can be so tempting to say oh yeah, I have this great idea for this bedtime doll. And leave the decision making at that. And whatever the designer you hire gives back to you, you just want to approve because you want to move forward and you want to get it done. But it's really important at this stage to be as objective as possible. And look back to the research you did in stage one, and be honest with yourself and compare side by side your product next to your potential competitors. As a toy inventor or entrepreneur, this design development stage is where you should really spend most of your time. And aside from production, this is going to be the biggest investment in your funds to bring your toy idea to life. Now you want in this stage to create and develop the most perfect toy attic version of your toy that you possibly can, so that it has the highest chance for success. You want to create the right play pattern, which means mocking up various iterations of your toy, testing it yourself testing it with friends and family and mocking it up all over again, you want to create the right styling. So if you aren't skilled in sketching or 3d modeling, you've got to hire the right people to be on your side. This is not where you want to cut corners, I want you to think about this. This product that you're developing is going to be the thing that you make 1500 pieces of to get started. So you've got to be sure that it stylistically is on par with the competitor product that's on the market. Now this stage can go on and on. But you're going to know when you're done with this step when you have a final product specification packet and or folder of files that details exactly what your product is and how it works. Now by the end of this step, you'll have a functioning prototype as well. The colors may not be final, the materials may not be perfect, but it should very well be a working and to scale prototype. And you should also have a preliminary BOM or bill of materials. Now, one thing I do have to say here That will differ greatly for any new toy entrepreneurs versus bigger toy companies is the pricing process of this stage. Now, when you work for a toy company, there's usually a sourcing team or sourcing partner on the other side of the world that works in tandem with you, as you're developing the product to help you make sure that you maintain a certain targeted factory cost. But when you're developing a product independently, most new toy entrepreneurs forget to consider price. So what you have to do is just be really careful with your design process. Before you make the big investments, which would be investing in someone to do a 3d model, or investing in someone to do full turnaround drawings of an idea. It's a really good idea to do some preliminary sourcing exercises to figure out if you're developing an item that can even meet your desired price. And I do not want you abandoning that price. It's so I see so often, that inventors will have an idea. And they'll discover that the price is expensive. And instead of trying to find solutions to lower that price, they say oh, well, you know, the ITM will or my ITM will pay more for this product. But that isn't the case, you really have to be careful and strategic with your product development and your product design to maintain your desired price point. Now, it does take some experience to design with price in mind. But over time, as you work with factories, you'll learn to develop and design within price restraints, which is an important skill to have and develop. But if you don't have it yet, you can hire help for that. So I don't want you to let that hold you up or prevent you from creating your amazing toy idea. But please be aware of it. The more experienced of a toy creator that you become, you'll start to develop the ability to estimate your own pricing on a product as you're building it, which will really help you make smarter design decisions early on. Okay, let's move on to step number four in the toy development process. Now, once you have this amazing functioning prototype, it is time to think about how you're going to package it. Now I've said before, that the toy industry is a very if and business. So there are occasions where you might actually think of packaging first, when let's say the play of your toy is actually led by its packaging, like a surprise unboxing style toy. But let's go forward with the idea that your toy itself that we're creating is the main focus. And once your toy is complete, now you're going to think about the packaging of it. What you want to achieve with your packaging is a certain level of perceived value. Now I did an entire podcast episode on perceived value, and how that relates to packaging. So I'm going to send you back to that episode to dive into this topic more. So when you're done here, just head to thetoycoach.com forward slash 27 to listen to that episode. Now in step four of the toy development process, you're going to look at your toy and look at the place that you intend to sell it and determine what is the best way the best size and the best material for it to be packaged in. Depending on your own skill set or your budget, you may decide to design the packaging yourself. Or you may hire a toy industry Freelancer or a design studio to design the package for you. Now how this might differ if you're working at a toy company. If you're working as a designer at a toy company, typically you're actually designing a product to live within an existing line. So your focus is planning the size of the box and another team would actually take on the work of applying the existing brands graphics to that box. But when you're working on a product on your own, it's all your responsibility to not only figure out the size of your box, but the graphics and visual And branding that are going to be put on it. Now, by the time that you've reached step number five, you have a finished packaged prototype of your product, you've got design files, your initial BOM, or bill of materials. And now you are ready to start working with a factory to have a pre production sample made. So that is what Step five is all about working with a factory to finalize the pricing and develop your pre production sample. Expect this process to take more time, depending on how complicated your item is. And the time of the year. If it falls on Chinese holidays like the Chinese New Year, you're going to be waiting a little while to hear back from the factory. Now, that is if your factories in China. And in that case, it could also take two to three weeks for anything you order to arrive to you. And don't expect that your first sample is going to be 100%. Right? It most definitely won't be right but don't get frustrated. It's all a part of the process. Now, when you're working for a toy company, you actually develop the same item with several factories in order to make sure that you get the highest quality product at the best price. And as a toy entrepreneur, you can utilize this very same strategy. So you'll start your initial costing and initial development with more than one partner. However, it's important even when you're working with larger toy companies, or if you're working independently, it's always important not to waste the factory's time, or resources when doing this. So if you send your product specifications, off to factory A, and they come back with pricing that is just 200% higher than factory B, don't waste their time continuing to ask questions or asking for samples, it's it's best to just be honest, and let them know that their price is just too high for you and for your project. But here is where I want to give you a word of caution. So if you send out your concept to let's say, three factories to get pricing, and factory A has a great price, you're like that's perfect for me, and factory B comes back with a price that is let's say 200% higher, and then you send it off to factory C because you're just you want to test the waters, you're curious, since factory B was so high, what the price would be if another more reasonable factory took a crack at it right? So you send your item off to factory C, but they also come back with pricing that is 200% higher than factory A. At this point, you might want to take a second look and actually reassess factory A because they might not be fully understanding the complexity of your product and could very well be underpricing it. Now you might think oh, well, that's great. Let them under price it you know, let me get that discount. But no, no, I'm telling you, when you get your first pre production sample, there, one of two things will happen, you might notice that there is either a feature missing or a paint opps removed, because they might have given you one price to win your attention. But then adjust the materials of the product in that first pre production sample that they want you to approve in order to hit that given price. Or you might find that as you continue to work with them, the price is just keeps bumping up and up and they'll say Oh, I didn't realize you wanted to have an electronic here or that there were two buttons and not one. And you might actually see that price going up and up and it could go above factory B and factory C. So if you get huge discrepancies in your pricing when you're reaching out to factories, that's where you want to take a second look and make sure that you're communicating the information correctly, and that the factory really understands what you're asking for. Now, at this point, you'll continue to work with the factory back and forth until you receive a pre production sample that is so perfect that you can finally approve it for production. I have to say Step five, is definitely where most toy companies spend more time than they'd like to the smaller accompanies orders, the lower on the rung of importance that you're going to be To a factory. So just expect during a major crisis like COVID, or push back, like Chinese New Year where products are being put on hold, you might actually find that your product development process slows way down, because factories are gonna focus on their higher ticket clients, because essentially, they keep the lights on. So it's important to work that into your schedule. Well, there you have it toy person. That is the overview of the five step process to developing your very own toy product. I included valuable tips on the differences between developing a product as an independent, versus what it's like when you're actually in the corporate toy world. Now, I know I promised you a checklist and I always deliver so head over to thetoycoach.com forward slash 63 to grab that checklist right now. I hope that today you take away the value and the necessity of market research and design development stages in the toy development process. Because those are the two stages that I insist that my toy creators Academy students focus on before anything else. Now once your toy is developed and produced, your next big step is to market the heck out of that thing. So I want you to come on back to next week's episode, where I'm going to talk a lot about the next big marketing platform that you need to know about if you're looking to market and sell your toy or game online. If you've seen Netflix's Zumbo's Just Desserts, then you may already know today's alumni listener spotlight, the baking sensation that is known as Pearlie Tasker. Pearlie is a former student of toy creators Academy and she's just announced her doll that is designed to help children with anxiety. When asked about her experience inside of my online course toy creators Academy Pearlie says, I can't believe the initial toy creators Academy is finished. Azhelle provides broad material to specifics so that this course can apply to inventors and entrepreneurs. And you've really gone above and beyond what's included instructions and resources in comparison to other online business courses. You've really done so much more. To me. This course has been invaluable and what you are doing in the toy industry is paving the way for new creators like myself to enter. Ah Pearlie, Thank you so much for that review, but you already know how much I appreciate you and your support. If you want to learn more about Pearlie and the doll that she is creating head over to pearliesprinkles.com.au to learn more. As always toy people. Thank you so much for being here today. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle 28:32
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to thetoycoach.com 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.