Episode #110: Why You Can Only Sell A Toy Idea When It's R.i.T.E. with Dan Klitsner
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Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of an award winning toy inventor? Ever wanted to know how iconic toys, like BopIt, got their start? Today you will get that chance! This episode is so helpful if you dream of creating the next big thing, if you want to learn more about pitching, or just want to hear about why you should be marketing their products on Tik Tok.
Today’s episode features an incredible interview with the amazing Dan Klitsner, the inventor of BopIt, Simon, and Hyper Dash, and a co-creator of the Perplexus Line. Dan shares how the mistakes he made on his first licensing deal taught him a lot, how he pitched BopIt, and why he likes to share some of his ideas on Tik Tok and Instagram instead of keeping them a secret.
You will learn ways the toy industry has changed in the past 25 years, what R.i.T.E. stands for (and how this acronym can help you), and why there are no right answers when pitching, but there are wrong ones. This interview is so informative and packed with useful details.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Learn the similarities between industrial design and toy design [00:03:10]
Find out what prolific toy Dan actually invented that became “shareware” [00:06:15]
Learn the everyday household object that was the inspiration for BopIt [00:19:12]
Find out the feedback from a Parker Brothers executive that made Dan’s blood boil, but ultimately led him to create BopIt [00:26:23]
Learn why a foam core model worked for pitching BopIt [00:29:36]
Find out why there is no right way to pitch something, but there are wrong ways [00:33:30]
Find out how Toy Far was different in the 90s [00:35:26]
Learn what R.i.T.E. stands for and why it’s important [00:40:01]
Find out why it could actually be a good idea to share your ideas on social media [00:47:47]
Learn how brainstorming is different from collaboration [00:50:12]
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Donate to bopitforgood.com
Connect with Dan on Instagram @bopitinventor
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 110.
[00:00:05] Before we get into today's episode, I've got to tell you that we recorded this episode live and shared that live stream inside of our Facebook group. If you want to be notified, whenever a live stream option is available, head over to thetoycoach.com/community to join our Facebook group of aspiring toy creators, toy retailers, buyers, everyone that loves this toy podcasts are in there.
[00:00:42] Hey there toy people, Azhelle Wade here. Welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. Today on the podcast, we are going to welcome Dan Klitsner known Tik TOK wide and worldwide as the inventor of Bop It. Dan is an industrial designer and creative director of KID Group based in San Francisco. He has created three number one toys, including the infamous Bop It, but also Simon Air, Hyper Dash and he's also the co-creator of the award-winning Perplexus line. Dan has received two idea awards and four toy of the year awards. That's major.
[00:01:26] Okay. Currently Dan and his wife, Alicia are focusing on developing bopitforgood.com to launch crowdfunded games and toys that donate profits to support charity programs for kids and underserved communities. Now, Dan doesn't know all this, but in today's conversation, we're going to learn about his entire toy journey, his invention process. What happened when he first pitched bop it. And in the end, I hope Dan is going to share with us his perspective on what it takes to make it in the toy industry. And we talked about it already, and it's all about getting your idea right. We'll learn what that's all about later on in this episode. Dan, welcome to the show.
[00:02:03] Dan Klitsner: Thank you Azhelle. Really, really happy to be here.
[00:02:06] Azhelle Wade: I'm happy to have you here. I'm excited. I know the Bop It inventor. I know a Tik TOK star.
[00:02:11] Dan Klitsner: I think the oldest tick-tock star.
[00:02:13] Azhelle Wade: Oh my God. Do you get trolls talking about how you shouldn't be on Tik TOK?
[00:02:17] Dan Klitsner: I get all sorts of things. It's a lot of fun. Just to jump in what the best one, they don't get sarcasm when they're very young. So when you say something sarcastic they say, you don't get it a hundred year old man. And so I responded with a video that said, technically I'm on the 86. But, and then I went on thinking that that would really, really be funny. And of course, half of the kids are like, you're not 86. You know, and then there was this whole debate on how old I really was. So yes, you have to go way big to exaggerate.
[00:02:48] Azhelle Wade: Wow. Oh Lord. The children these days. Okay. To kick off this conversation, I just want to hear about how you started in the toy industry. Did you start in the toy industry? Did you start somewhere else? Like w how did this all begin for you?
[00:03:01] Dan Klitsner: My life kind of began when I discovered industrial design because I was miserable. It didn't know what I wanted to do, and actually had gone into engineering at UC Davis and was really unhappy. And luckily my father had heard about art center, college of design and, and thought it might be from the photographer he was working with thought it might be something I would like. And when I opened the brochure, I pretty much cried. I was like, that's what I want to do. And I didn't even know it existed. I didn't know what industrial design was in high school. I liked making things. I like drawing. I like doing all the things that an industrial designer might do. I just didn't know what it was called. And so that was when I started to kind of understand that you could make things for, that weren't art, they weren't just for self-expression sake. I needed this whole thing. Just appealed to me, functional, problem solving, artistic, aesthetic, all of it. And I love making models. I loved the drawing. I loved everything about it. I just love.
[00:04:01] And so that's really where it started and to cut head. I got into toys because I used to collect them. I used to collect 10 toys and I loved the sort of old things like that. That were very like the painted metal. It's sort of how I got into it. I loved playing games growing up. And I just answered an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle many decades ago that said toy designer, freelance toy designer needed for a new toy company. It was a company called discovery toys and as an industrial designer went in and started, got work with them and probably for the next five years design, most of discovery toys, product that was not imported like all that custom stuff. So that's really how it went from not knowing what I wanted to do to, you know, within a few years working on toys and that that's really where it started.
[00:04:54] Azhelle Wade: That's pretty cool. I wanted to say I also wanted to study industrial design. I studied toy design, right. I remember I was applying to the toy design program at fit and the Savannah's college of art and design program. And I got in to the scat program and the toy design program, but it's just, it was like time and money. I'm like, do I want to essentially start over four year industrial design program after having two years in college or go into toys? What I love about industrial design is there's like fundamentals that you learn there that I feel like with toy design, we go into the visual aesthetic so much that we kind of gloss over like the fundamental sometimes. So what was your favorite part about like just studying industrial design?
[00:05:39] Dan Klitsner: I think I've probably in hindsight realized that one, the drawing I love, I still sketch and draw as much as I can. And the thinking with. But the other part that I didn't realize at the time was the tactal ergonomics of it. That I really love designing three-dimensional things or making things that aren't three-dimensional I would say. Like, if you look at a lot of the work I've done Perplexus, Bop It, these are all things that would have been flat. And I sort of liked to make them more three-dimensional and it was more intuitive. So I think it appealed to me and that these are all things you hold with your hands. I wasn't interested whatsoever in architecture. I didn't relate to the world. It's how am I fitting into the space? I seem to really love things and I love touching them. So I'm very sensitive to that. Over time when I look back that's the consistency.
[00:06:30] Azhelle Wade: What was the first thing that you ever invented?
[00:06:33] Dan Klitsner: Well, speaking of ergonomics I don't know if it's first thing I invented the first thing I licensed you know, I designed a lot of toys, but I actually came up with shovel as a concept for discovery toys at the time. And they thought it was too weird. So I went in and that's when I found out you could license toys to other toy companies. Since I was a freelancer, I didn't work for them. Right. And this shovel that many people say they've seen or a pad it's now 30 years old, at least 30 years old. And it was this idea for a very simple blow molded one piece, if you know what blow molding is, it gets puffed, you know, and it makes it all at once. It's not pieces that have to be assembled. And I just had this idea from playing in the beach, watching dogs, digging, having your fingernails scrape on the sand when you're digging in the sand. And I just came up with this ergonomic thing.
[00:07:23] It's designed for a kid, but if you're it's a designed, right, and you put it in there, you know, your hand grips here and this brace is against here. So when you're digging you can put two of them on, you can dig and it got knocked. I licensed it didn't understand about patents at the time. Didn't the toy company was a very small toy company in the Midwest. They didn't patent it. So I made royalties on it for a few years and then it just started getting knocked off everywhere. So now it's shareware, but I'm kind of proud of it being probably one of the most prolific things I've ever invented. It's probably sold more than bop it in its knockoff forms, what I can be in other countries and see it. So I'm kind of proud that the first thing I ever really invented is actually still out there 30 years later and growing. Pretty validating.
[00:08:12] Azhelle Wade: I love like simple solutions to complex problems and it's a simple solution, but it's also a really simple design. How did you come to that first idea? Where you like intentionally knowing you had a problem? Did you travel to the beach a lot? And you were like, this is a problem I need to solve it. Or how did that come to you?
[00:08:27] Dan Klitsner: Yeah, it was the project was design a set of sand tools that they wanted discovery towards, wanted me to design something. And I ended up doing a very simple set for them eventually, but it was just conceptualizing in like an industrial designer. You kind of go back into the ergonomics of something first and thinking of digging rather than thinking of let's redesign a shovel. Right? The classic thinking is let's think about digging and what is the pain point of digging and how do you make it more fun? You know, with toys, it's not solving a problem as much as how do you make it something possibly novel. You haven't tried before a new way to do something that engages people. But in this case it was how would a kid want to dig in? And by watching kids, they get on their knees and they dig like this, you know? So it was that very simply, I think, many problems when you have a problem to be solved, it's actually easier than when you're just trying to create something fun for fun.
[00:09:23] Azhelle Wade: I agree. I designed within limitations so well, as soon as someone's like, whatever you want, sky's the limit. I'm like, oh my God, I don't know.
[00:09:31] Dan Klitsner: Yeah. And price, I knew this would be very inexpensive to make. And compared to a lot of ideas that are so complicated, most people think of things, but they don't think of the price and you know, all of that and the durability. So it just came out of that, you know, probably have a bunch of ideas. I have the sketches still have a lot of the early ideas and then built one out of foam, like surfboard foam fitted around trucks. You know, Mader made some vacuform prototypes of it and eventually got at licensed.
[00:10:03] Azhelle Wade: So I want to talk about that licensing process a little bit. Did you know what you were doing? Did you just walk in with your prototypes and say, Hey, I heard there's this thing where you might make this for me and pay me for it. Can we do that?
[00:10:14] Dan Klitsner: Well I had done a little research on it and I actually had, at the time I was doing a pretty well with illest architectural illustration. I didn't like designing buildings, but I was really good at drawing them. And there were no computers at the time to do it. So I was pretty Doing some industrial design designing some toys. I sorta took on any jobs I could. And in San Francisco, there were a lot of architects there that I did their renderings for. So I would just they'd give me plans and I would sketch what it should look like. And eventually I hired people to help me do that so that it would sort of, keeping people busy and keeping the cashflow coming in. So I didn't have to rely on, I'm just going to go invent things and hope I make money two years from now when the royalties come in. So I had a good business model. So the downtime in between it was when I would work on things like this. And I actually hired someone who was an ex Fisher price marketing executive, who someone had connected me with in the area. And I said, can I hire you to come over tell me a little bit about this and evaluate my ideas and tell me if you think they're ready to pitch to toy companies.
[00:11:24] So he said, sure. And I sort of had them come in once or twice a week. I did that before I really ever approached anyone. And it was my way of sort of finding out, how do I do this before? And I also was hoping for some connections that if he thought the ideas were good, he'd sort of connect me to some of the people he knew, which he did. I pitched this to a lot of companies actually at the time.
[00:11:44] Azhelle Wade: How many people did you have to pitch to before I got picked up?
[00:11:47] Dan Klitsner: I probably showed this to 15 to 20. It wasn't that they didn't like it. Like Fisher-Price, they just thought they couldn't really make money on it. A lot of times you'll pitch ideas and see, well, it's a good idea. Nobody thought it wasn't a good idea. They just said, it's only going to be a few dollars. How much can we make on it? It's not really worth that and paying you a royalty. So some of the ideas just aren't the right company, which we'll talk about. Right idea, right company, right time, right execution. It was maybe only one of those or two of those, the right idea and the right timing and the right execution. But not for that company, not for that relationship. So that it's about finding the right company that this fits their model and fits their line and that they needed something innovative.
[00:12:32] So I found this little company, after many companies, this company thought they might like to do it. I started talking to them. I didn't really use an attorney. I did have someone that I talked to who had a contract and helped me do it, but I knew I wanted to just make it. It was my first thing I didn't want to over-complicate it. I just remembered negotiating. One tip I will give is even if you've never done it before, the best word you can use is normally cause you're not lying, but you're saying when someone says, they should say, well, normally I get 6%. And 6% of what and when, and maybe it was something else. Anyway, I just sort of joke about, I think I remember sort of tossing out some normally. And These guys were not big negotiators they just wanted to do it. And we came up with it and unfortunately they were kind of new. I don't know if they'd ever licensed something before, so we didn't do the patent searching. We looked to make sure it wasn't done before, but I thought they were going to apply for a patent and they thought I was going to apply for it. And so it was never patented either way.
[00:13:32] So they wrote me a nice letter at some point. We really sorry, but we don't think we can pay a royalty anymore because everyone's knocking it off. And eventually they stopped making it, but that, of course in the big scheme of things, taught me a few things about what not to do. So at that point, everything I've done since then was about making sure it was clear, the company I was licensing to agreed that they would apply for patents if it was needed or, there was other things like that. And then the deal. Every deal you do, you learn a little bit more. And I think that over time I developed relationships with a better attorney that I could sort of not charge too much, but kind of make sure that the templates I got from toy companies weren't just the bad one, but the better one, because that's everyone knows in any business, if you get what's called a boiler plate, it might be something that's very much to the toy company's advantage or that company's advantage.
[00:14:30] Versus when you have your here's, the standard things that I've learned are negotiable. So I think that's just a lot of work. Even if you could hire someone to say, this is what you want, you kind of have to go through it. To understand why certain things aren't important in a contract, like termination. What are the biggest things I think you learn in the beginning and I know for a lot of people who are making it in the toy industry, the most deceptive thing, isn't about all the money and all this and how much you're going to make. It's actually kind of like a prenup tool. How are you going to get out of this? If it doesn't work. You are getting married to accompany with this child, your product. And if you don't think about, what happens if we split up. You don't know who gets the baby, that's a bad thing. So you have to make sure that the most important thing is if you're going to license a concept to someone, literally the most important thing is the termination clause.
[00:15:23] What happens when it's not selling enough? What triggers that? Do you get back the improvements they made to it? Do you only get back what you started with? There's just a whole lot that I think, you know, not to get too much about contracts, but that is a thing I remember learning a lot about in the beginning and then eventually I have a partner Gary, maybe eight years later when I started. When he became a partner, he sort of takes on a lot of that because he's a very more patient with it and good at it, but I still know what it all means, and I still really understand what the key points are so it really helps your inventiveness to you kind of want to understand what you're really offering and how to value all those things.
[00:16:05] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. I know everyone might be waiting for us to finally talk about bop it. Most iconic invention of yours that's touched so many lives. So I have something to share with you. I got a really special video from a friend of mine named David Wallin who actually dressed up as a Bop It for Halloween. He was yelling bop, bop it, twist it. And then he was acting as like the timer.
[00:16:30] Dan Klitsner: Can I use the voice? That's so much easier than putting electronic today. I've actually seen people with electronic versions. That's brilliant because it's much more interactive and funnier. Like there's some people that built some crazy things with bop at burning man. In the 25 years, I'll have to say there's been some of the most amazing attributes that I've never even met the people I just kind of see them posted, which is kind of amazing.
[00:16:54] Azhelle Wade: Okay. We got to talk about this invention. So first off, like what inspired the idea? Number one?
[00:17:00] Dan Klitsner: Well, it is the shortest version I can say about that. Looking back the real trace of it a lot of people have heard this, it started as a remote control, but how, why did it start as remote control? It's kind of interesting because the remote control is something that of course controls the TV, right? You, you push a button and it tells the TV what to do. So how did it turn from that into a thing that tells you what to do, right? It literally reversed itself and it turned the person into the thing that, not the TV. And I've always looked at how did this happen? Because it definitely started when one of my freelance clients was Memorex, they were known for audio tape, but they were also doing some products and someone had connected me with them.
[00:17:48] And they wanted to show the future of Memorex and have me work on totally cloud nine concepts that weren't possible yet. In fact I designed an air bud, this really cool earing headphone that wasn't possible yet, but it was really cool. It looked like this little silver clip on your ear. And it had the whole idea, I don't know how we're going to do this, but this was the future of audio and it was this beautiful silver line. And, oh, just an aside from invention standpoint, the guy who hired me was I thought really, really good at sort of empowering others to think outside the box. He said, I want you to envision the future of Memorex audio equipment. And I don't know what it is, but I'm going to tell you it's it's going to be called project Monet.
[00:18:40] Azhelle Wade: Oh, interesting. Okay.
[00:18:41] Dan Klitsner: So it made me make these sparely beautiful, serene, artistic looking electronics, things that were like that. And part of it was remote controlled. And so I started designing remote controls. And after that project, it was actually at CES, won a bunch of awards. They hired me to do real remotes for them, remote controls for the TV, which were just starting to be universal. The ability to do a universal remote, each TV came with its own remote each device. There was no such thing. So they were jumping on this thing of universal. So I was really into designing all these remotes and it occurred to me while I was still doing toys as well. I was doing toy design and toy invention. And I thought, well, what about a remote for kids? If they're universal, that means a kid could use them on any TV. And came up with a bunch of ideas, actually using the concept of Nickelodeon with it's crazy at the time, that was very much a 95 94 Nickelodeon, had this whole new more irreverent feel to it. Right. About the sounds. If you think about that Nickelodeon cartoons more of this sort of colors and things. So I designed a few remotes that were kind of crazy looking like a Nickelodeon remote, and one of them was a hammer, like a clown hammer looking thing with bopper on both sides.
[00:20:01] I called it the channel bopper and you bop that on the table to change channels. One way was channel left. You turn it around and you bopped it the other way, channeled down. So channel up and channel down where the bops and there was a twist knob, but since I wanted to make things three-dimensional and physical, I didn't want to do anything like it was already on remote. So you bopped to change channels. You twisted a knob to turn the volume up and down, because that was more tactical than just a an arrow button. And you pulled the bottom to turn it on and off. I was just thinking how to make it as three-dimensional as possible. So those were kind of the XYZ axis. So I took a remote that normally is a thing you hold in your hand that is completely sort of, you don't see any movement in the person. And I did have this mantra. Make the person move to interact with the product. It was something I'd heard. Someone mentioned, watch watch the person, not the product. And so I was trying to actively make a remote. That would be fun to watch the person use rather than just have it sitting in their hand.
[00:21:05] Azhelle Wade: You know, what's really funny. You design like the final design of bop. It is very arrogant, even your shovels ergonomic, but the, the way that you came up with his idea was almost the opposite of like making a product efficient for people's use. Right. Cause it was like taking her controll.
[00:21:22] Dan Klitsner: That's an upgrade insight. You're absolutely right. It's the opposite. An ergonomic approach to industrial design would be, how can I solve this problem? And make it as ergonomic and easy to use as possible, right? Oh, I'll put it in someone's hand and make the thumb fit exactly the right distance. And instead I have never thought of it that way before I went for what's the most fun. Yeah. What makes this the most interactive and the most interactive was to make it as three-dimensional and physical as possible.
[00:21:49] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Challenging as possible. It's so funny.
[00:21:52] Dan Klitsner: Funny. I think the irreverence of bop it sort of comes from that DNA of I'm going to bang a thing on the table to change channels. I don't like this show. Bam, bam. So that's what I thought was funny about it was that you could go through all the channels by just smacking. So that's where it came from and I showed it to a lot of companies. In fact, I did a line of silly remotes called remotes out of control for micro games of America, MGA. They licensed it and there's a few of them out there. And there was a pizza, there was a surf board. Funny things that were shaped, like things other than remote, they were all though based off of remote with buttons on it. So those were easier for them to produce. I kept trying to tell him, you should do the hammer remote. They said no. And literally he says, I want to do the pizza instead. It was a slice of pizza that looked like a remote control with a pepperoni.
[00:22:41] So I always think if not for the pizza remote, he might've done the hammer and bop it never would have happened. So the hammer remote the channel bopper I was convinced, this is cool. It's a whole new thing, remote controls that are toys. And so I pitched it to probably eight or nine companies. I can't remember a couple really liked it, but said it wasn't for them. And eventually it was pitched to Parker Brothers a couple of times. And in one time Tom Dusenberry at the time at Parker Brothers, just sort of sat there I remember him and he goes, maybe it's not a remote. And this is the lesson I've always liked to say is, take anything someone says. I think we all know the yes and principle, but you know, really understand or ask questions. What do you mean? What do you mean what's not remote? And he was like, I don't know maybe it's not a remote.
[00:23:31] And it was just that inkling. He didn't know what it would be, but it was just the fact that hesaid that, a trigger in the meeting. It triggered me thinking, my first impulse was, of course it's a remote that's innovative about why would it be like, let me think of 10 reasons why you're wrong. Right. I could just feel my blood curdling, like this is my invention and you're telling me maybe, you know, and I'm stead hookah breath. Let it sink in is what I say, really think about it and try it. So you can sort of see it's easy in hindsight with inventions to go where, but those little things about paying attention and letting your mind jump and trying it out, those are really important. And luckily, I sort of thought, well, maybe not. So the next journey for really good, an Intuit of what, you know, it wasn't direct line thinking, but sort of work was experimentation. There's something here. Let me mock something up, literally with foam core and a soundtrack.
[00:24:28] Azhelle Wade: Wait, hold on. We need to talk about that. Cause I have seen this video that you pitched it and inventors today are like, are you serious? They would not let that fly. How did you sell this thing with that like initial foam core? How'd you do that? Teach us your ways.
[00:24:44] Dan Klitsner: I will teach you, but it is very misunderstood as to why that video works. So I'll tell you it's very specific why it works. If you're trying to pitch an idea in a video, there's a bunch of things you can't pitch in a video. Like if I'm pitching you a drone, that I fake in a video and it's made a foam core and I say. Imagine if this drone could work on no batteries and hover and you go, yeah, imagine that'd be amazing, but you haven't proved it. I could think of all these things that you can't really prove, or here's a game that has four dice and when you roll it, look, isn't it fun. Will you buy it from me? It's an amazing game. That doesn't work because you can't really play it. Right. The secret to bop it was an audio game where it tells you what to do and you have to do it. And it speeds up. So that video wasn't just a video to pitch it. It was the soundtrack to try it. So when I sent it in and when I pitched it in front of the guy, Bill Dorman, and eventually I had him with the video I said now don't look at my video, just listen and try to play it while you listen.
[00:25:48] Azhelle Wade: Oh, so the soundtrack was the meat of the play pattern. So.
[00:25:53] Dan Klitsner: Of course, and the physicality, having a prop that you had to do actions to quickly as they fired at you and sped up, I said, until you experience it, you don't know, it might be funny to watch, but most people said that's too easy. Going back to my invention process, that was my first impression. That'll be too easy. It needs to have memory like Simon. I kind of did another, mock-up trying to mock up with memory and I could just tell that that's too hard. Tried it with four moves. And it was really that moment of going, what if it was just one move at a time? It really is probably the biggest epiphany of that was a thing that if you don't try it, you're going to say, oh, that's too easy. No one will ever get it wrong. It's just a stupid thing. And the surprise was, I mean, again, it's just whether it's intuition it was this concept that physical actions like rub your tummy, pat your head are exponentially more complicated than pushing buttons.
[00:26:51] Like on assignment where there is no physical challenge to Simon, it's simply totally cerebral. Can you remember this pattern? Bop it is the exact opposite. It's no memory. Can you keep the physical XYZ straight in your head when someone's giving you audio processing of which I just sort of had this hunch. So trying it out with that video was the first thing that convinced me. Oh, that is kind of challenging. It, literally, the sound said to twist it and I could feel myself on this phone call model hesitating. And those are the moments, right? Just paying attention to that little voice that says, I think there's something there. The fact that it was so simple that I could prove it with a soundtrack and a prop was that is also one of the great tests of an idea you might have.
[00:27:46] Because the learning from that whole thing was the right method pitch for the right product. Yeah. There might be seven ways to pitch a product. Should you do a prototype? I don't know. What's your product, you know, should it be a sketch? Should it be this? And who's your audience? So there's a lot that in hindsight you can say. That was the right way to pitch that product because you could test it. You could try it with an audio tape now that might not work at all. It won't work at all for anything that isn't, I think testable unless it's such an amazing visual that in three seconds, you've convinced someone it's the best game in the world. It also though has to be the technology in the thing you're pitching is obvious.
[00:28:27] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. You're making me think back. One of the first few items I invent and I love it because it was so simple. It was called Zip Screens and it was like a tearaway screen printing packet. And I remember we made the mock-up in the office with like a heat seal machine and some tape in. We created a paint packet and we had to fake, the way that you would open it with like cutting a hole in an Exacto and then putting scotch tape over the hole and pretending like it would be like a tearaway open. But what I'm realizing now is like, it was the heart of what this was, was like an easy to use one time squeeze, like you squeeze out the paint, the squeegees attached to it. And it's like a one-time fast use screen printing situation. Like the heart of it could be explained in that simple, like take together mock up. Whereas like I've had people pitch things that are like, you know, interactive dolls and they want to do it with like a sell sheet or with a foam core or something. But the heart of that product be shown with foam core.
[00:29:24] Dan Klitsner: There is no right answer, but there are wrong answers, you know. And there may be four right ways to pitch something, but that's part of the fun and the creativity is how am I going to pitch this quickly with repeat success to really attract the right person and the right thing and including yourself, right. A screen test or whatever you call it is like, I need to see if I'm convinced. So before I invest more time, can I convey this idea and quickly and convincingly and visually? Like you did with that product, it sounds like it was very intriguing to see at work.
[00:30:01] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. It was amazing. We were like, oh wow.
[00:30:04] Dan Klitsner: This works That is a really important now if we do nothing else today, but talk about that slow down and think about that aspect. What is the best way to convey it as simply as possible and convince yourself that it's doable and it's worth it.
[00:30:21] Azhelle Wade: Before I get into your the right way to create and pitch your product, I want to ask what do you see if anything that's different from inventing and pitching concepts now than it was when you first pitched a bop it?
[00:30:35] Dan Klitsner: Some ways it's the core thing is the same, right? At the top of the pyramid is if you happen to have something that's just, people get right away and you've presented it the right way.
[00:30:46] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Dan Klitsner: A few things though. It used to be, if you want to know the old days Toy fair was a little more fun because one, it was in person, which we haven't had in a couple of years. But the other being that I had a lot more meetings with the decision makers, like the guys at tiger, the presidents of companies for smaller companies. There was a lot more in-person pitches with someone who could just say, we're doing it and they'd literally pay you, or write you a check at toy fair. We're taking this idea off the table. And it was a lot of fun because you're like, wow, I just came up with that. And somebody just wrote me a check for it. That's motivating, you know, so those days seemed there was a heyday there in the I'd say, in the nineties where that did happen. And I had everyone kept saying to me, you should have been here 10 years ago. So I was on the tail end of the once you've got great relationships and great ideas.
[00:31:40] Really, I think be successful if you worked hard and had really, really good ideas and the right people to show them to, and you would get a lot more. Today I think there's a lot more process involved in the inventor relations departments and the sophistication of how you submit things and whether they've seen it before and who has to approve it. So that's probably the biggest, true difference to me from my experience. There's some better things about it and some harder things about it. And so I'd say that's the bigger thing. The better thing might be that it's well, one, it opens it up to more people, a little more democratically. I think that the use of video, I was one of the first people to use video. Honestly, you would not believe I had a little Sony video player with the small cassette tapes that small version of it, not the VHS, whatever the next, you know, compact. Oh VHS or something.
[00:32:32] I don't even think. I know that one.
[00:32:34] Digital video. Yes. Small. They looked almost the size of tape and they were digital. So I had the idea, no one apparently had seen anyone do this before. I found this little thing in probably mid nineties. And I would put a cassette. I put my products on video and pitch them from a little screen that flipped up. I would pitch them on this thing. Oh my gosh. And so I would have more people in the meetings go, come in here and take a look at this. It wasn't the idea. It was look at this little cassette, this guy, look at that. Look at that. Can you believe that? I was like, yeah. Yeah. What about the idea? It's like, no, but look at that screen. How much the thing costs? Wow. And then the next time I'd come in, they go, oh, you got to see this. And it was like, okay, can we look at the ideas now? Because there's a lot of old school kind of.
[00:33:23] Azhelle Wade: All lead to start pitching in the metaverse. Now that's what we need to do so we can get attention.
[00:33:28] Dan Klitsner: I don't knoww or maybe go back to retro and find one of those things. Have everyone be just as amazed today as they were then, because they still never seen one before 20 years. But that, also though got me too. So that changed in a way, but I think I was always thinking, well, if it looks good on video, it's actually more convincing. Sometimes then in person, because you can prove that in 15 seconds it can be.
[00:33:54] Azhelle Wade: Like a commercial. So now they can think marketing, they can think we can sell this. Got it. Okay. Wait, I have to say something. Cause you made me so many light bulbs. So when you were saying, you have to think about how you are pitching your idea, and then you were saying something about the experience, like you're thinking about the experience for the person. So I'm looking at Bop It and I'm like, okay. So the experience that you had to make sure your pitch could convey was this like unexpected, mental, physical challenge, like that is the height, what you had to focus on, making sure that pitch could convey to somebody. And that's why the foam core model with a soundtrack worked. Cause what you had to make them feel was this like mental, physical challenge. And that was the focus. And then I started thinking with my own product and like, so for me it was, I didn't know this at the time, trying to convey this unexpected thing where a messy craft could be easy fast and clean. Like that's like the unexpected experience that would sell that idea. So I love that. Love it. Just wanted to summarize it. Okay. Now let's talk about getting it right. If you don't mind. Can we tell the story of how you came up with it?
[00:34:59] Dan Klitsner: Yeah. I don't remember what year, but I was asked to speak at a class I think it was academy of art or California college of arts, perhaps in San Francisco, a design class about invention. And on the way there on my bike I thought I don't know quite what I'm going to say. It would help if I had some sort of acronym so that people could think that I knew what I was talking about or just make it easy. I was just trying to structure my talk and it just popped into my head. You can't sell your idea till everything's right. Or I don't even know if I thought of it that way. So like what's words live by right. This idea of right. I thought of idea. I was trying to think of an acronym for the word idea. And I was like idea design and I knew it was about the people that I wanted to talk about. How really knowing your audience, the relationships and outside of the real relationship. So I came up with right sort of fitting it in to that relationships idea, timing and execution.
[00:35:58] And there's been some other letters people have added over the years. I can't remember right on stands for something. I can't remember it, but people try to add more. You can add more that are important, but usually things fit into one of those four categories. And the way I explained it, and honestly, this came to me a few minutes before the talk was that it would be like a table where each of the legs of the table is one of those things. So the R the I, the T and E, I think of them as a table and your invention has to sit on top of the table and not fall off. And it has to be really tall and higher than the other invention tables of all the people trying to make you see their idea. And if you don't have those four things you can't sell your idea oneself. And the idea was you need relationships first before the idea you have, everyone knows you need a good idea, but if you're showing it to the wrong people, it really makes no difference at all.
[00:36:54] So how do you get those relationships? So I believe, from like I've described, I went out and thought them out really understanding it's not just having relationships, like who do you know that can get me in? It's like you need to know about them. What do you know about them? What are they looking for? What, what did they do last year? What failed for them? So you don't pitch them the same thing. You can go on and on about the, what goes under are really research and relationships. You might call them the same but I like to just say relationship to you and relationship to the people you're collaborating with it. It's people and building that relationship because over time I've had many relationships I've invested in where it literally was easily 10 years before I ever sold them any.
[00:37:37] And we all know that we know that there's no shame in showing things that aren't right for that company. You're just waiting till the right thing pops up and hyper dash was one of those things. I can tell later. So think of this table, it's got a R.i.T.E what happens if you had an idea and that leg of the table, you think this is the best idea I've ever had, right. But you don't have the other things. It means that, I didn't come with the prop here, but I'll use my phone. It means that instead of here, it's going to the table be crooked and things will slide off, but so just a nice visual metaphor. You say well, so how do you make them all equal the idea? The relationships? Idea of course, the timing, which is same thing. You may have the great idea, the great relationship, but you pitch it at the wrong time, which you can affect by your research as well. Timing isn't luck. Oh, you had lucky timing. A little bit, but if you think about it, you might be able to predict that.
[00:38:31] And execution is if I was in a design class and gave 10 students the job of create a fun remote control. I'd get 10 completely different solutions. Yeah. That's the execution often or 10 different price points or 10 different companies like you think about so many people go, I had that exact idea five years ago and I pitched it to that company and they ripped it off and they didn't do it. You know, you'll hear all the stories. Did you really have the exact same idea? Let's look at the execution. Let's see whether you really did ended learn from that. So those are just sort of the general reason. But what I say is that's not a way to predict or invent something. This is a way to evaluate your own. Are you ready yet to pitch it? Yeah. I think I mentioned to you earlier, think of the i, when you spell right, as a lowercase, i and the rest of the letters as capitals, so that you really focus that on what you're trying to do is basically make each of those legs a 10 out of 10, because most people fall in love with their ideas and they think that's what an amazing idea.
[00:39:37] And they try to convince everyone how great the idea is, but they don't pay attention to the other three things. And so what I advise is, and for myself, which I don't follow as often as I should. Yeah. If you say, this is the best idea I've ever had. My leg of the table is as tall as it could be. Pretend that it's half that pipe. And what would you do to make it twice as big? It's really important to say, no, it probably isn't yet as good as it can be so strengthened. And then you do the same thing with each of those legs. Oh, I know who exactly who to show this to, but do you know, how would you make the R as tall as it can be? How is the timing improved execution? You go, I love the way this came up. Well, maybe you should see if you can make it twice as tall. And so it's this process of it won't sell it until it's right. And right to me is when you have these four legs of the table taller than you ever expected.
[00:40:34] So that it's up above all of your other ideas, not just other people's because you know what, if you're like me, I have a lot of ideas. You just gotta be careful where to invest time. And if you're really honest with yourself, you have to sort of go through that process a little bit to say this one's worth it, because I really believe every leg of that table. It's really better odds that I can pitch it and sell it. It's actually, I didn't miss something like maybe it's not a remote you're right. When someone says that, and that's the execution I thought was perfect because who wouldn't want to remote you slam on the table and someone says something, you have to be honest. They, well, that just changed everything. So, and like I said, it's not real wisdom of process, except the help check yourself on being honest with how do you really push yourself to make everything as strong as possible before you go out and pitch it?
[00:41:25] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. My favorite part is that you have that lowercase. Because I get people all the time saying, Azhelle, I've got this amazing idea. I want to talk to you about. And if you don't have the wherewithal or the belief or the time to execute that idea to develop those relationships then it might as well have never existed. You might as well just hand it to somebody else. The execution, the relationships, the timing, everything great. I love it. I love it. Love it.
[00:41:50] Dan Klitsner: And on Tik Tok, a lot or Instagram I'll throw out ideas. I had an idea that's really great. That's this game that Goliath did that failed. It did not fail people who got it loved it. It just didn't sell very well. So I put it on Tik TOK and said, what do you think it should be? Should it be themed differently? Should it be this? Tell me what you think. And it did really well, like one and a half million views very quickly, and it was people and I was amazed. Maybe I had 500 comments of pretty good ideas of what they would do with it. And it just shows how everyone sees things kind of different. It was, it was not maybe mostly about execution or ideas. Like they made comments, but you get a few comments of people saying, I've got something. Can I contact you separately? I know what you should do with this. And I'd say, no, I'm sorry. I can't collaborate with people like that on this. The train's left the station, you know, this is just for fun of getting people's minds working. And then they posted something that said, don't give this guy any ideas.
[00:42:45] He won't work with you. He's just baiting you. He's just trying to steal your ideas. And my response was that's interesting. Cause I thought I'm the one posting my ideas. So this is a public place. Anybody here can take any idea that anyone suggests and do whatever they want with it, but you know what, that's the hard part. Like I pretty much say, look, these ideas, as you can see by 500 people having great ideas, go for it, everyone, you know, because you'll find that like, what you say is you got to pick which idea you're going to go for. The idea itself it's important, but not as important as I'm going to get those relationships, I'm going to figure out the time and the execution, like, okay, that's what I'll usually do to people. When they go, I got an idea, I'll split it with your 50, 50. I'll go, I got an idea. I'll brainstorm with you for 15 minutes, give you all my ideas and you can have a hundred percent of it and my blessing to go for it because you're in for a couple of years of work.
[00:43:40] Azhelle Wade: So the first time we talked and you told me about, right, I told you about Gail, who put on a Tik Tok, I think she'd broken up with a boyfriend and she's like, I need an idea for a song. And somebody said why don't you do a song, a breakup song with the letters, ABCD, electrons the alphabet. And then she came up with a song, a, B, C, D E F you and your sister. And it's a huge song, but the idea was a tiny part of it. She had to execute it and get it out there. So I am excited that I feel like for some reason, Tik TOK is this catalyst for sharing ideas. And I'm hoping that it will help loosen up the toy industry a bit in that way. Maybe not with companies, but with individuals, because I feel like everyone's so tight and so afraid to share, but it stifling creativity in some areas.
[00:44:25] Dan Klitsner: I'm planning on showing ideas first on Tik TOK. Like somebody can do this if they want, or I'm going to take how much people like it or don't like it and go to a toy company and say, I just put this on. I got 2 million views. I think there's something here. Right? What can I lose? If you're quick to an idea, again, if this is your only idea you've ever had and you've been saving it for 10 years, I don't advise that you. This is saying if you're in the business of coming up with ideas quickly and test them out. Be willing to say I'll gain more from exposing it than I will from hiding it for the next five years.
[00:45:00] Azhelle Wade: We've got our repeat that he says, you will gain more if you're in the business of coming up with many ideas, you will gain more from exposing it than hiding it. And the next five years, that is such a great point. I've students with great ideas that are those kinds of ideas where they're afraid to share it. But the only way it can really grow until they have like an investor is if they share it.
[00:45:21] Dan Klitsner: I'm sold on it. And I'm not saying again that you won't have someone very much take an idea and run with it, you might inspire them, but they will probably execute it different than you. And I absolutely know the pain of if I do that and someone figures it out first and does it, and it's successful, it will hurt. It's not that I think it's a great, you know, but I'm just interested because of that. The amount of times you have ideas. If you do this, as long as I have in many of our vendor peers, where you can have great ideas, sit there for a year and a half of the company and they drop it and then you're back. Like I'm just wanting, maybe I would say more accurately. I would take a certain percentage of the ideas that lend themselves to this, throw them out there, get from what I've seen, get the most incredible feedback from people. And, you know, really just sort of those either just for the processing of it or not to say, I'm not collaborating with anyone. This is just an open forum. And literally anyone on this forum can run with this idea. That's the only that can offer.
[00:46:22] I'm not stealing your idea. I'm the one that come up with a here's what I got. So I'm already offering a free idea to bounce off. If anyone else wants to contribute, go for it. I think that's a model that really puts the power into the person that decides to do. And the pitch it, and someone might say something and they don't have the relationships you have. Well, if some kid gets to say, I gave this guy an idea and that was mine I could show you in the thing. I don't know legally what this means but I do know that maybe I'm too optimistic, but in the grand scheme of things, if I was eight years old and I could say one of my ideas help this person create that toy, that's successful. That's a pretty nice credential to have. And maybe it gets them into inventing and maybe it gets them this. So I'm gonna just sort of throw it around there. I just think it's a really disruptive new way that things that get barrow have a better chance for the creator, I think to possibly sell them. Then when you slog it out for a number of years.
[00:47:22] Azhelle Wade: Okay. Before I let you go, you mentioned Tik Tok and I know you have a massive Tik TOK following. A lot of people that listen to this podcast have been wondering should they get involved with Tik TOK? Where do they begin? Would you apply the same right principles to developing Tik Tok concepts? How did you like get a following there?
[00:47:39] Dan Klitsner: Tik Tok it's simply pandemic related. I didn't even answer emails and still don't really, I'm very bad at social media. Never had an Instagram. I just wanted to try it because I've always loved film and video. And I come from a family of actors. My both parents were Broadway actors. Sort of have it in my heritage to be a ham. So I just wanted to try funny stuff, but it was also a way to celebrate the 25th year of bop it, just to see what would happen and engage people in stories. And it was also because I want to launch some of my own products, little games and things. And I thought if I have an audience, I can try them out and maybe sell them directly or do a Kickstarter with people that know that. So it really started as a combination of that. And I just think boy, there's people who have millions of followers that simply don't follow right whatsoever.
[00:48:30] They just do stupid videos, as we all know. It's better not to think of the followers at all, but what are you doing? Why are you doing it? Does it serve you? I love the creativity of it. I like trying stuff out and knowing within a few minutes, if people like it or not. The big one I just did was a machine gun kelly. It's an advantage to have bop it as a thing that I created because everyone knows it. So he just did a thing at Christmas where he broke a bop it by accident and it happens to be on Tik TOK. You could see Megan Fox in the background. You can see her saying, shaking her head and one of her sons off screen is like, you broke it, you broke it. The whole story within a few seconds, went viral. He had 20 or 25 million views on it. So I decided that morning to make him a bop it, an unbreakable machine gun Kelly pop it and put it on as a response video.
[00:49:21] So I actually made it's right here, this bop it, cause he broke the twist knob off and it was literally stuff in my garage that, you know, I wasn't in my office or anything. So I just sort of made this thing where I found anything metal, my philosophy was whatever I have that silver, I will clamp but I did the live video of me making it. So as I made it, I cut one second cuts, you know, screwing and doing all these things on it. And I actually did it with my lips because I didn't have any way to turn the camera on and off. So if you imagine I had like a tripod, with my camera on it, looking down as I was doing this and I was tapping it with my lips, turn it on and off. It's probably the most viral video of that. It went 5 million, 6 million views because it was me responding to him kind of a joke like, oh, I got you, you know, you're welcome. I'll save Christmas for you. And people like in that case scene, the inventor of bop, it create a Bop It for a celebrity that was sort of making fun of them.
[00:50:23] I later put Eminem music ended a few days later cause they have a feud going that one didn't go over as well. People are confused. Eminem fans really like it. Anyway, if you know the whole feud, it's a very reason I put the song in it. So some people are like, that's amazing. And other people are like, I'm unfollowing you. That was terrible. So I get to learn all these great words too. Like people call me bruh, which I think is one, you know, thanks bruh. I'm like, okay, little kid. Thank you as well. So I'm just trying to get an idea. Why Tik Tok?? So it'll be a lot of fun. And there's a lot going on. The only other thing I'll share here, like I told you I'm working on this thing called the unit Bop It.
[00:51:05] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, why are you making the unit bot?
[00:51:08] Dan Klitsner: Well, because it had to be done. It was to go on the front of a book that I'm writing called take this book and bop it about the history of Bob It and all the people that helped and sort of did everything we talked about. So the front of the cover, I said, I'm going to put a Bop It on the cover so you can actually bop the book and it will talk to you, but it turns out rather than just a novelty. Now the coolest thing about it is it's the opposite of above it because it's so easy. It's more how long can you do it? And how long can you annoy everyone? So when you hold it down, it gives you high score and you keep holding. So it gives you your high score, but also how many lifetime bops. And the idea is that it goes to a million, which I've calculated is pretty much impossible for anyone to ever get. Cause it would take 10 solid days at 24 hours a day, but it does mean I'm pretty sure finally, it's a game. It's one that you can't beat, but you can get a lot of people trying to set records.
[00:52:04] So this is all for the Bop It for good cause that I'm doing with Alicia, which is donating bop it's to blind community, where Bob has been an incredibly important game for them to connect with kids that can see because they can both play equally. And also the artistic community it's bop it has been really important somehow that has connected people with autism families write me letters all the time. We just want to do something where we can start to get celebrities and people all into this. If you listen, there's lots of different voices in it. So the idea is to see if people will contribute their voice, the simplest possible thing, plus creating maybe a Tik Tok trend on how who's going to set the record and really see if I can raise money with something for these causes by just creating something fun and sort of like a big event. So that's where this came out of, you know, started as a book cover. And now it's like, I think it's very Tik Tok, Instagram friendly.
[00:53:04] Azhelle Wade: It's the mistakes that make the hits, right? And maybe this is another one of those, you know, it was meant for the book and now it's gone this other path.
[00:53:11] Dan Klitsner: Totally. I think that maybe that's probably the classic, I'd say for everyone who's ever invented something probably remembers there was some low. Where the innovation. Absolutely. Wasn't the first thing they thought of it. It was, or it might've been sort of related to it, but there was something that was because can be outside the box. It seems like it's nature. It has to be something that wasn't obvious. So you'll usually think of it in process and pay attention to it. This is just supposed to be a novelty button. Then wait a minute. This is actually kind of like, you could play it then what happens if I change voices? Oh, this could, you know, just the process is a feeling of doing it and then paying attention to the thing that goes wrong. It feels like that's pretty common that you can just let the things that go wrong and go, oh, I better fix that. Or you could pay attention to go that's it.
[00:54:02] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. I love it. We're going to put the link to your bop it for good in the show notes of course. Thank you so much for everything you shared today. This was a great conversation. Do you have anything else you want to share to wrap up or anything?
[00:54:15] Dan Klitsner: I think the biggest thing for me about your audience and making it in the toy industry it isn't just about you selling. I'm here because I love the people I really do. I would've loved to have gone on to just do illustration 10 years ago or something. And even if I could have afforded to, I couldn't get away, I would've missed all the people and all my friends who were inventors, all of the people at companies that I just think it's the most amazing group of people. And that's really why you should be in it. If you love this kind of being part of this community and you open to helping each other and enjoying the good and the bad. And I'd say that's really the most important reason to be here.
[00:54:57] Azhelle Wade: Thank you. That was beautiful. Thank you, Dan. It was a pleasure having you today.
[00:55:02] Dan Klitsner: Well, my pleasure, I really liked to talk, so this was good for me.
[00:55:06] Azhelle Wade: Well there you have it toy people. My interview with Dan Klitsner. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Now, if you are a part of my Facebook group, then you might've already heard this episode when it was unfolding live that's right. We've been going live in the Facebook group to record live podcast episodes. So, if you want to be notified next time, we have a live podcast episode available. Make sure you head over to thetoycoach.com/community. And that will take you to where you can sign up to join our Facebook group. Before I jump into the summary of today's episode, I've got to give a quick shout out to Joe Ciola and my fiance Christian Castro for making this episode possible. If it weren't for you guys, I likely wouldn't have connected with our guests today. So thank you so much for making that happen. Okay. So let's recap some super important points that I want you to take away.
[00:56:05] What was really interesting that we uncovered in today's episode? Number one is how a fun play item could actually come out of doing the opposite of creative ergonomic design. Designing something, a simple and easy for the user to use, to complete a certain task. Dan did the opposite. When he created BopIt he made something more challenging to complete a task, and that actually made it more fun. The second takeaway I want you to pull from today's episode is how mistakes can make hit products. So if you go into a pitch meeting and you're pitching a doll and someone says, what if it wasn't a doll I want you to, instead of, getting upset and wanting to walk out that meeting to really take that criticism in because both myself and Dan, when we had a light bulb moment and one of our big inventions was when somebody said, what if it didn't do the thing you were intending it to do. Pay attention to those moments that might feel like mistakes or changes of direction that you weren't expecting for your innovation and see it as an opportunity to perhaps turn it into a hit product down the line.
[00:57:15] The third thing I want you to take away is depending on the type of product that you're pitching your pitch process, the way that you pitch that invention might need to change, what is most important to show in your invention? Is it the function? Is it the fun? Is it how the user feels? Make sure that whatever pitch materials you decide to move forward with that they're designed to help the person on the other end of the zoom call or at the other end of the meeting room table to experience your game, your toy, or your IP for the joy that, you know, it can bring to kids or adults. Remember toy people. That power is not just in your idea, but it's in your execution of it. It's in the network that you build, the pitch materials that you create and the time that you bring it all together. If you want to grab the links to bop it for change, head over to thetoycoach.com/110 to grab all of the links mentioned in today's episode.
[00:58:21] As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that 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.
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