Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy
childsown.com
childsown.com
Boy, I can't believe I'm thinking about strategies of how I would improve a toys' business. Eh, just 2AM rant.
First of all, who is they? It seems like this is an individual woman. That's part of the appeal, that this isn't a mass market product, but a work of love made by a real person for a real person.
The uniqueness of the toy is part of the appeal as well. If other people order the same toy, first of all, what is the point? You can buy stuffed toys anywhere. What you can't do anywhere is order custom stuffed toys. But more importantly, what does duplication do to the appeal of the original toy?
Adding competition would be equally disastrous I think. It makes the whole process a game, and anything that can be gamed will be gamed. If there is any reward at all in having the most popular toy, even just recognition, then you can bet that adults will start making drawings and saying they were from children. Further, the competition will distract the children who draw from focusing on the specialness of having their drawing come to life and instead turn their focus to how well their drawing is performing.
Your ideas may make a popular and profitable business, but it would be fundamentally different from the business here. You can't scale personal connection, and you can't duplicate uniqueness.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you thought up all these ideas. I just don't think this woman should apply them. What she has is special, profitable (probably even enough so to live on), and makes a positive impact on the lives of her customers.
I had to institute a "slot" system where I'd open up orders for a short time, get a bunch, then knit my way through them. Once they'd all been shipped out, I'd open up for more orders (if I wasn't sick of knitting the damned things by that stage ;). It worked pretty well and kept me in pocket money through the last stages of my PhD.
One thing I decided was that I'd never compromise in quality - I used very fine wools (malabrigo for those who know) and each hat was made to order from a "menu" of options. Throughout the process I'd keep the customer up to date on what I was doing and where they were in the "queue".
It worked really well, but I wouldn't want to do it for a living since I was underselling my time as far as labour costs go. And I got sick of knitting so many hats. :)
You wouldn't necessarily want to set the standard price significantly higher, since at some point you'll trip a large number of people's thresholds for "too much for a hat". However, you could leave the price and queue system in place as it currently stands, and introduce a higher "queue-jumping" price. Effectively, that would make the slot a coupon, but the concept of a queue seems much more appealing (especially to a gamer audience).
If I were to do it again I'd definitely charge more, because a) I'm not desperate for cash, b) I have better things to do, and c) the exchange rate to the US dollar is not very favourable ;)
I like the idea of a "queue jumping price" though. I think I might use that next time! I actually also got pretty good tips (which I'm not used to, not being American), which was flattering :)
Why's that? What if she's happy doing what she's doing now (sewing, turning fabric and stuffing into something amazing for a kid), and doesn't want to be a business woman?
In other words, if she wants a lifestyle company, why should she turn it into an enterprise?
Of course, I agree it's her choice.
Tho if you are willing to take it down a notch (or two) on quality, china can probably produce them at >10$
If you outsource to China, you take all those Pros away and the product will turn into another toy factory.
And most manufacturing operations are geared for bulk. Going this way you would lose the uniqueness of each item, which is sort of the whole point.
And with scares over the recent years with lead in paint and so forth, I'd be careful going to China for kids toys. Definitely don't go with the cheapest, and definitely have some strong QA provisions in your contract.
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Also, noticed this was posted on Reddit and a few other places so its probably being hammered.
Plus, I doubt they could turn a 3 year old's drawings into something. My kid's drawings aren't that recognizable yet... (just lines and squiggles)
My daughter was almost 3 when she drew this. Most of her stuff doesn't come out like this, but I saved this one since it was weirdly real.
But I like the idea.
Also, the potential for building brands seems pretty spectacular. Stuffed toy is just one step, you could add stories, games, episodes...this could be to disney what 99designs is to graphic designers :)
In the meantime, a 99designs for people with time, knitting needles and sewing machines seems like a lovely idea, and easy to achieve.
The little brats (well, my own), are already the center of enough attention. If they want to make their own stories, they should go outside, play and invent them themselves.
It's obviously not something you can send off to China and press the button on an assembly line. Some things just can't be mass produced, and we should be grateful for that.
Franchising perhaps? Quality control would be an issue once you start farming the job out like that, but it would be a good way to better cover international markets. They could keep the designing local to the current HQ, hiring designer types there to supply demand and farm out the physical work.
Though I suspect a project like this might be a personal one, they they don't particularly want to scale massively.
That way customers from any country go to the same place (saving each member of the co-op on advertising budget/time) but get the work done by someone more local to them so hopefully pay less due to local delivery and lack of customs charges.
You migth find many peopel who are capable of making something like that from a pattern but maybe no capable/comfortable making a good pattern from the kids' designs - there would be a value add" there having that stage done for you. I know a few people who make things (and make them well) as a hobby but who do not make their own designs - I could imagine one or two of them being interested in getting involved at that level just to make the hobby pay for some of itself.
Obviously any controlling company would have to give some quality assurance to the customer, which would be part of how they justify their cut (as well as providing the design stage if they are) though could be a bit of a nightmare. This assurance might be why people go to this hypothetical cooperative rather than one of the smaller groups (or individuals) that try under-cutting them.
The work is done on an individual basis by an artist who not only takes great pains to interpret what the child has drawn, but also above and beyond to transform it into a personalized, and near perfect, piece of art.
Just ask any offshore worker to reinterpret a set of well-documented requirements and you'll see what I mean.
Reminds me of My Machine, an organization that takes children drawings of machines and make them come to live.
This is great!
R. I personally prefer to work with children’s drawings, but occasionally, I have worked with the adult’s (inner child’s) drawings. The best thing to do is contact me with the drawing and I will let you know what I think.
My daughter's drawings things are her interpretation of real things but I'm not convinced she'd want a real interpretation of her artistic interpretation of a real thing. After all, her drawings are often down to her limited skills rather than an intentional artistic choice.
I don't think the site is around anymore, though. I believe it was just one person making them.
On an unrelated note, how about adding a rapid prototyping lab so that you can create plastic as well as plush toys from kids' drawings?
Absolutely brilliant.
tl;dr: give this guy a child's drawing, and he sprinkles "awesome dust" on it.
http://www.yeondoojung.com/artworks_view_wonderland.php?no=8...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/childsown/3465520257/in/photost...
The before and afters are great. I love the ones that were a scribbly mess in the drawing and end up looking nice but still reminscient of what the kid sketched.
They got school kids to send in drawings of creatures and then these guys actually rendered them in colored glass in front of the kids. They had the pieces and the kids' drawings on display. Very cute and often hilarious.
I could have sworn he did custom work, but I can't seem to see it listed on the site anywhere now. Still an awesome present for a mathematician though.
I have some great ideas for toys I want to make, gonna give them a try!
I'm in no way saying she would want to do any of this, and I'm not talking about scaling to mass production or anything, but I imagine she could easily offload some of the more common tasks.
Particularly, you've completely nailed that her rare skill is in the translation and design. However, as long as she's capable of reliably communicating her vision and design to a decent seamstress she could easily offload the actual creation to others. She could focus on meeting with clients, translating their design and communicating to the people who will actually put it together.
If she wanted to go in a little further, she could work on apprenticing a few designers as well. She could still sit in on most or all meetings with clients, communicate broad ideas to the designer, check their design before it gets sent to production, etc.
Basically I think her company could scale just as well as any decent IT consulting firm (or really more appropriately any advertising agency) might.
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