Welcome to another episode of the Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. Jason sits down with Maxwell Bogue, co-creator of the 3Doodler and co-founder of WobbleWorks, to unpack how a ruined 3D print on a client project turned into one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in toy history. Maxwell walks through the scrappy PR push that got 3Doodler onto the front page of Reddit, the four months he spent living in Hong Kong to get manufacturing right, and the patent lessons that came from building more than a dozen products since. He also shares what he is building next with Air Builders and MindFrames, and the advice he wishes someone had given him before he started.
#189: The 3Doodler Story: From Broken Print to Toy Empire – Toy Business Unboxed
Episode Highlight
- 00:40 The original 3Doodler spark
- 02:31 Naming the 3Doodler
- 03:52 Reporters and the Kickstarter push
- 04:55 Hitting the Reddit front page
- 09:31 Manufacturing in Hong Kong
- 13:47 Turning down Toys R Us
- 19:45 Testing MindFrames quietly
- 21:44 Patent strategy and timing
- 27:44 Launching Air Builders and MindFrames
The Broken 3D Print That Started It All
Maxwell Bogue and his business partners at WobbleWorks were deep into a project for Meccano, building a robot dinosaur line, when a 14-hour 3D print of a robot leg missed a layer and kept printing anyway. Instead of throwing away two ruined pieces, his business partner Peter Dilworth wondered aloud why they couldn’t just pull the print head off and fuse the pieces together by hand. That question led the team to rig together a rough prototype with an Arduino and far too much power, just to save the meeting with Meccano. Once they realized the tool itself was more fun than the print job, they refined it into what became the 3Doodler.
Convincing the Toy Industry (and Themselves)
Maxwell said the team was the opposite of confident when they first showed the 3Doodler to toy companies they had worked with for years, including WowWee, where Maxwell had built toy robots earlier in his career. Every company gave the same response: they didn’t get it. Maxwell and his partners kept describing it as Harold and the Purple Crayon come to life, where you draw an object and it becomes physical. When no company wanted to bring it to market, they decided to bring it to market themselves through Kickstarter.
Winning Reporters Before the Campaign Even Launched
The team added a fourth partner, Daniel Cohen, for his writing skills, and spent three months building the Kickstarter campaign. Their sharpest move was picking 14 reporters who had covered both 3D printing and Kickstarter, then hand-drawing portraits of each reporter and their company logo with the 3Doodler itself. They mailed each reporter a personal packet with a handwritten note and a pre-written press release, and asked them to hold the story under embargo until launch day. Four reporters published within hours of the campaign going live, eight more followed soon after, and the coverage pushed 3Doodler to the front page of Reddit, which Maxwell credits as the moment the campaign took off.
Half a Million Dollars in 24 Hours, and No Email List
The 3Doodler Kickstarter pulled in around half a million dollars in its first 24 hours and eventually raised more than 2.3 million dollars from 26,000 backers in 2013, when most backers still needed the idea of pre-ordering explained to them. Maxwell said the campaign had no pre-launch email list at all. The team stayed quiet until the reporter outreach, relying entirely on PR instead of the audience-building tactics considered mandatory for a Kickstarter today.
Four Months in Hong Kong to Deliver on Time
After the campaign closed, Maxwell spent four months living in his business partner’s apartment in Hong Kong, riding the bus to the factory every day to work through production issues in person. He wrote the product’s firmware himself and sat on the line with employees to show them different approaches when a process wasn’t working. That hands-on approach is a big part of why 3Doodler shipped on time, unlike other high-profile campaigns from the same era, including Coolest Cooler, which raised 15 million dollars but struggled because the team hadn’t planned for how expensive it would be to ship a bulky product.
Building a Kids’ Version Only When It Was Actually Safe
When Toys R Us approached WobbleWorks wanting to sell the original 3Doodler, Maxwell turned them down because the pen ran at roughly 220 degrees Celsius and was not safe for children. Rather than compromise on safety, he told the retailer to wait two years for a kid-appropriate version. That promise became the 3Doodler Start, a low-temperature pen for ages six and up that launched in 2016, alongside an ecosystem of doodle pads, silicone mats, and interchangeable nozzles that Maxwell had planned for from the beginning.
Testing Ideas Quietly Before Anyone Knows What They Are
Maxwell said he never shows a new idea to friends or family for honest feedback, because people who care about you will tell you they love it no matter what. Instead, he tests concepts by putting them in front of colleagues without any explanation at all. For his newest product, MindFrames, he set the pieces on a conference table during an unrelated meeting and let people pick them up and fidget with them for hours before anyone asked what it was. Only when the group stayed engaged without knowing the purpose did Maxwell decide the idea was worth building.
Air Builders and MindFrames: The Next Chapter for WobbleWorks
Two new products are launching: Air Builders, a system of interconnecting air-filled tubes kids can use to build forts and obstacle courses, then deflate and store away at the end of the day, and MindFrames, a construction system rigid and flexible enough to build wearables, set to be commercially available in the fourth quarter. Early reception to both has been strong, with excitement building around where they go from here.
Advice for Newcomers in the Toy and Game Industry
Maxwell’s first piece of advice is to go work for someone else before starting your own company, the way he spent four years at WowWee learning manufacturing and exploring the toy space while living in Hong Kong. His second piece of advice is to never build a product for yourself, a lesson he learned the hard way after building the RoboSapien RS Media, a feature-packed device that nobody actually wanted. He also warns that friends, family, and even children will tell you a product is great no matter what, so the only way to get an honest read is to test it on people who don’t know what they’re looking at or why.
Conclusion
Maxwell Bogue’s path from a ruined 3D print to a multi-product toy company shows how much of inventing comes down to persistence, honest testing, and being willing to show up on the factory floor yourself. From the reporter outreach that launched 3Doodler to the patent strategy protecting more than a dozen products, his approach stays consistent: build for the end user, not for yourself, and get real feedback before you commit. With Air Builders on shelves and MindFrames launching later this year, WobbleWorks shows no signs of slowing down.
Connect with Maxwell Bogue
If you’re interested in learning more about 3Doodler or connecting with Maxwell Bogue you can reach out through the following channels:
- Website: Visit 3Doodler’s official website for the latest news, game updates, and more
- Company Website: Visit Wobble Works’ official website for the latest news, game updates, and more
- Retail: 3Doodler Pens also available at major retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Target
Transcript
Jason Hsieh (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast and your host Jason. Today we have a very special guest, Maxwell, the co-creator of 3Doodler, a 3D printing pen that have been bringing a lot of creativity into the classroom, makerspace, studios and home around the world. And he has launched several different other products since that original product, which was extremely successful when he first did his Kickstarter, which raised more than 2.3 million.
So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and sharing your journey with us.
Maxwell Bogue (00:30)
Thank you, Jason. I’m delighted to be here.
Jason Hsieh (00:32)
Yeah, so take our audience back. What was the original spark that become this whole businesses that you have?
Maxwell Bogue (00:40)
So originally WobbleWorks, which is the company, we were creating, concepts and inventions and then selling it to the toy industry. So
Jason Hsieh (00:48)
Yes.
Maxwell Bogue (00:48)
We were actually in the middle of working on a project for, it was Meccano, before they were purchased by spin master. We were
Jason Hsieh (00:53)
Okay. Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (00:56)
Developing a new product line for them of a robot dinosaur series. And
Jason Hsieh (01:00)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (01:01)
We were 3d printing one of the robot legs, one of the shell pieces.
Jason Hsieh (01:04)
Okay,
Maxwell Bogue (01:05)
And it was like
Jason Hsieh (01:05)
Yeah
Maxwell Bogue (01:05)
A 14 hour print. This is way back in 2010, no, 2011, 2012. So 3d printers are not, you know, the greatest thing at this point. And the printer missed a layer and it just kept on printing as they did at the time. So
Jason Hsieh (01:12)
Whoa, that’s a long time ago. Not good yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (01:19)
We had two perfectly good pieces and my business partner at the time, Peter Dilworth was like, man, I wish you could just take the print head off and like, join those pieces together. You know, why can’t
Jason Hsieh (01:29)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (01:30)
You do that? And we were kind of like, wait a minute.
Why can’t we do that? like that’d be much faster. So we quickly
Jason Hsieh (01:33)
Okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (01:37)
Cadded had something up. We printed
Jason Hsieh (01:39)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (01:40)
Out, pieces. We dismantled the 3d printer. We kludged together this really rough, ugly thing with an Arduino and everything and way too much power. And then we did fix the robot leg and we went, okay, meeting is saved.
Jason Hsieh (01:53)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (01:54)
We can present the robot. And we’re
Jason Hsieh (01:56)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (01:56)
Like,
This is more fun. So you know, but when we went
Jason Hsieh (01:58)
The
Maxwell Bogue (02:01)
Through and we reiterated on it and we, turned it more into a pen like thing and, and, know, we eliminated the stepper motor, which is just way too much. So at the time, print heads for 3d printers were way more than like a hundred to $200. And so we had to
Jason Hsieh (02:16)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (02:16)
Find a path to make that a more accessible price point, not needing as much tech, inside of it. And so we had to find a.
Unique path to make a product, a capable product. And so we named it 3Doodler, because we thought it was kind of a cute, fun name.
Jason Hsieh (02:31)
And what make you confident that this could be a real product, not just a cool, like a gadget of some sort. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (02:37)
Nothing. We were quite the opposite of confident. Took it around to quite a number of our clients that we had been working with over the years. And
I used to work at a company called Wowee doing toy robots and stuff like that. So that was really our focus. But we took it around to a number of different toy companies and they all
Jason Hsieh (02:58)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (02:58)
Kind of said the same thing, which is I don’t get it.
Jason Hsieh (03:01)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (03:01)
And we were like,
Well, we don’t get it. It’s Harold and the Purple Crayon come to life. You draw an object and then it’s a physical thing. And now like, you know,
Jason Hsieh (03:07)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (03:08)
I have an object, you know, like this is my phone case. I’m like, drew my phone case.
Jason Hsieh (03:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (03:14)
And so we were like, so it’s either them or it’s us. And then
Jason Hsieh (03:17)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (03:17)
We were like, well, what do we need to, actually like kick it forward? said, well, we could kickstart it. So
We added on an additional partner, Daniel Cohen, who
Jason Hsieh (03:27)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (03:28)
Has much better writing and language skills and whatnot. And we started working on a Kickstarter campaign. And we
Jason Hsieh (03:34)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (03:35)
Took about three months to do the Kickstarter campaign. And one of the keys that really told us that we were heading down the right road is that we picked around 14 reporters that we had.
Sourced that had written about 3D printing and they had written about Kickstarter and that those two things had crossed. And we
Jason Hsieh (03:52)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (03:54)
Took their Twitter photos
Jason Hsieh (03:57)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (03:58)
And their company logos and we doodled them. So we made portraits of the reporters and we made logos for them and we videotaped it all and we put it on YouTube under a hidden link and everything. And we wrote handwritten notes to all of them. And then we made a copy of our press releases and everything like that.
And then we
Jason Hsieh (04:14)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (04:14)
Sent out 14 packets to all these different reporters.
Jason Hsieh (04:18)
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (04:20)
And so we thought maybe three or four would like write a story about it.
Jason Hsieh (04:24)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (04:25)
And what actually happened, and several of them contacted us beforehand and said, this is really cool. And I’m like, okay, so there’s something here. We’ll probably do okay. But of
Jason Hsieh (04:33)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (04:33)
The 14 reporters that we reached out to, I think four of them published within the first few hours of the Kickstarter launching.
Jason Hsieh (04:41)
Whoa, okay,
Nice.
Maxwell Bogue (04:43)
And then eight
More piled in after that. And then after that, basically
Jason Hsieh (04:45)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (04:46)
Everybody wrote a story because they were all like, we can’t miss it. Which
Jason Hsieh (04:50)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (04:51)
Helped us to then get the front page of Reddit, which is what then shot us through the stratosphere. Yeah. Like we had a whole strategy.
Jason Hsieh (04:55)
You got to the front page of the reddit. Whoa. Okay, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (04:59)
I know what to do with the red. We’re to do this. And then when we went to Reddit front page, I was like, don’t touch Reddit. Just it’s done. We don’t want to do anything else. Like just leave it be.
Jason Hsieh (05:04)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (05:08)
And then, yeah, we did around half a million dollars in the first 24 hours. So it was quite insane
Jason Hsieh (05:12)
Incredible.
Maxwell Bogue (05:14)
At the rate at which were doing it. So yeah.
Jason Hsieh (05:16)
And it’s such a long time ago. Was 2013. The
Maxwell Bogue (05:19)
2013. Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (05:21)
Kickstarter platform, think, is still fairly in this early infancy. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (05:25)
It was still relatively new. Still had to definitely
Explain to a lot of people that they were pre-ordering for lack of a better explanation, that they weren’t
Jason Hsieh (05:29)
How did it work? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Maxwell Bogue (05:35)
Getting shares in the company, that they weren’t, you know, all these different things. You know,
Jason Hsieh (05:40)
Different scenes.
Maxwell Bogue (05:42)
She’s not my wife, but at the time she was my girlfriend and she
Jason Hsieh (05:45)
Mm.
Maxwell Bogue (05:46)
Saw what was going on and she actually went to her boss at her company
Jason Hsieh (05:49)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (05:50)
And she’s like, I’d like to take a sabbatical.
Jason Hsieh (05:52)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (05:52)
To help
My boyfriend out for like a month because he’s just like so overwhelmed that he needs someone helping
Jason Hsieh (05:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (05:57)
Him out. And I was like, that’d be great. And explained the whole thing and like what was going on and yada da. And then said like, I’d like to take the sabbatical. And her boss was like, okay, great. Yeah, you can take sabbatical. I thought you were gonna quit. I just have one question. What the heck is Kickstarter? And she’s like, okay, you just didn’t, it just all went straight over her head, this whole explanation of what’s going on and how does it work.
Jason Hsieh (06:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I
Maxwell Bogue (06:21)
So yeah,
Jason Hsieh (06:21)
See.
Maxwell Bogue (06:22)
It definitely, we were one of the higher campaigns at the time.
Jason Hsieh (06:26)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (06:26)
What I’m more proud is that we delivered on time and we did a delivered successfully, which is not a
Jason Hsieh (06:31)
Yes.
Maxwell Bogue (06:31)
Common thing for a lot of Kickstarter campaigns. And then, I mean,
Jason Hsieh (06:34)
Kickstarter campaign. Yes, unfortunately. Yeah
Maxwell Bogue (06:36)
You look at some other ones like coolest cooler, which was around like a year or two after us. And that was $15 million campaign.
Jason Hsieh (06:43)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (06:44)
But they were unable to deliver the goods at the end of the day.
Jason Hsieh (06:46)
To fulfill and deliver
Maxwell Bogue (06:48)
Largely because they not calculated shipping properly.
Jason Hsieh (06:51)
Yeah, so they didn’t charge it.
Maxwell Bogue (06:52)
And they were like, in fact, they even called us and they
Said, you know, how are you doing it? We’re like, well, our product is this big and your product is massive. It’s a cooler and you’re shipping air. And it’s like, you know, the reason
Jason Hsieh (06:58)
Their product is much bigger. They didn’t think about shipping. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (07:03)
That most coolers are actually made in Mexico is because of the shipping costs. Yeah. And so, but they’re very, exactly one really like key thing there.
Jason Hsieh (07:06)
Yeah, because of shipping. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They forgot one very, very important element.
Maxwell Bogue (07:16)
And we had, I mean, get it. If you’ve never done that kind of thing before, you don’t know those things, but I had worked
Jason Hsieh (07:21)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (07:21)
For a toy company. I had brought product from concept to the market. And so
Jason Hsieh (07:26)
Thank
Maxwell Bogue (07:26)
We were aware a lot of the pitfalls, that were in front of
Jason Hsieh (07:28)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (07:29)
Us in order to do that, which is why we were able to deliver the product on time.
Jason Hsieh (07:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously you’re such an early mover I mean, back in 2013, there’s not a lot of seven figure campaign on the Kickstarter platform yet. So yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (07:41)
No, I mean, there’s still not a huge number of them, but they
Do happen a little more often now than they used to.
Jason Hsieh (07:47)
Yeah. But besides like being on the homepage of Reddit, which is definitely help any other specific things that you did looking back that make it so successful. Oh the reporters. Okay. Okay. That’d good. Yeah. It’s the biggest.
Maxwell Bogue (07:56)
The reporters. Yeah. Writing, doing, getting the reporters on board, making it
Jason Hsieh (08:02)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (08:02)
The, you know, the thing when dealing with reporters, if you’re introducing a new concept or new idea, a lot of tech reporters
Jason Hsieh (08:07)
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Maxwell Bogue (08:08)
Will be open to it.
Jason Hsieh (08:10)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (08:10)
But some of the keys of doing that are pre-writing the story.
Jason Hsieh (08:14)
Pre-writing, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (08:16)
Because a lot of these reporters have five or six stories they have to get out a day. So if you can make their
Jason Hsieh (08:20)
Yes.
Maxwell Bogue (08:21)
Life easier by providing them.
With a sample story, they’ll use that to base their story off of, and therefore it’ll make their life a lot easier. Having
Jason Hsieh (08:29)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (08:30)
Links on your web page with a copy of the press release,
Jason Hsieh (08:33)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (08:34)
Reaching out to them months before, not days before, not the day of, not five days after you’ve launched it, but months before, and putting them
Jason Hsieh (08:37)
Before, yeah, they have enough time. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (08:44)
Under something called embargo. So when you say, I’m putting you under embargo,
I’m requesting that you don’t release this information until this date. And that’s part of what we did is we sent these stories declaring
Jason Hsieh (08:52)
Eight, okay. I see, I see, I see.
Maxwell Bogue (08:56)
That they were under embargo.
Jason Hsieh (08:57)
Way back then, were you also building a pre-launch list, like a popular strategy people nowadays, like building a huge email list? Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (09:03)
That’s a popular strategy now. We did not have a pre-launch
List. We were in silent dark mode, through the whole thing. We, yeah, we did other than reaching out to those reporters, we were not going around and showing it to people. Weren’t getting an email list or anything like that together. Now you have to do that. Now there is just no
Jason Hsieh (09:16)
Okay. People to sign up. Okay, Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (09:22)
Way that you can do a Kickstarter successfully without doing that. But at the time,
Jason Hsieh (09:24)
Will allow the email list yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (09:26)
What we were primarily relying on was a PR push.
Jason Hsieh (09:29)
Okay. Okay. Got
Got it. Thank you so
Maxwell Bogue (09:30)
So, yeah.
Jason Hsieh (09:31)
Much. So after the Kickstarter, like campaign finished, what was the toughest part of manufacturing and delivery at that scale? Because I seen you have like 20,000 backers, which is an insane number. Yeah, that’s a lot. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (09:41)
Yeah, 26,000 backers. So of that, that’s like 20,000 pens.
I mean, the hardest part is having to go to the factory and sit there and,
Jason Hsieh (09:50)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (09:51)
Make sure it happens. You know, like, there wasn’t one specific issue I would say, but you know, basically I spent four months, in Southern China working with our manufacturing partner to get it ready.
There were numerous times that I would even go sit on the line and like show some of the line employees,
Like, you know, is this a better way of doing this? And we would have discussions. Yeah. Yeah. I was at the factory Yeah. Like I,
Jason Hsieh (10:12)
So you actually flew over there in person. Over. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (10:18)
You know, was shuttling back and forth every kind of every day. I
Used to live in Hong Kong, so that was a big advantage. Yeah. So,
Jason Hsieh (10:25)
Ah, you just live in Hong Kong, okay, okay, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (10:27)
And
My business partner who’s still with us, Dan, had
Jason Hsieh (10:31)
Mm.
Maxwell Bogue (10:32)
An apartment in Hong Kong still. So I was just staying at his apartment in Hong Kong and going to the factory every day on the bus to sit there all day and then work with the factory to figure it out. And I ended up doing all the firmware code myself. So,
Jason Hsieh (10:35)
I see. I see. See. Back and forth. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. To make sure they do it right. Oh. Whoa. Okay. Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (10:53)
I mean, this is kind of everything. Then, you know, it was brand new.
Jason Hsieh (10:57)
Yeah, yeah,
Maxwell Bogue (10:57)
Product.
And nothing’s ever as simple as people want to make them out to be. There were
Jason Hsieh (11:01)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (11:02)
Lots of little tricks that we discovered in the development process that allowed a final product to come out.
Jason Hsieh (11:06)
Yes, yes, yes.
Maxwell Bogue (11:08)
And as always, you make your first one, then you’re like, all right, now how do I make it better? How do I make the next one? Where do we go from that?
Jason Hsieh (11:14)
Well, I think
That’s actually your huge advantage because not all the entrepreneur can go there in China and actually oversee the production like you did. So yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (11:24)
I suppose that’s true. I would
Encourage most people that if they expect to take a product from concept all the way through, that they’d spend some time with their manufacturing partner a lot of time. It doesn’t matter
Jason Hsieh (11:35)
A lot of time, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (11:38)
Where that manufacturing partner is, you still need to spend a lot of time with them.
Jason Hsieh (11:41)
Well, especially
For a product as complicated as yours is like a brand new concept never has been done before.
Maxwell Bogue (11:46)
Right.
Jason Hsieh (11:47)
It’s a lot of like trial and error to to figure out what is going to work.
Maxwell Bogue (11:50)
There was, and there was a lot of stuff where,
You know, one of the common phrases you hear in manufacturing is like, that’s not possible. And then you have to do it and then show it to the manufacturer and say, see, it is possible. You just, you’re not thinking about it the right way.
Jason Hsieh (11:58)
Show them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s
Also my experience with sound manufacturing in China since, you know, with our own toy line. Sometimes the Chinese manufacturer is really good at copying idea, but they are really
Maxwell Bogue (12:12)
Right.
Jason Hsieh (12:12)
Bad at coming up with brand new idea from scratch. So if they have never done that before, will say, it’s not possible without you showing them how is it going to be done.
Maxwell Bogue (12:19)
It’s not possible. It’s not possible. Yeah. Well, yeah, you have to actually, which is one of the reasons
Being there physically is often a big advantage because we’d, you know, we’d ordering the parts. It’s Susu.
Jason Hsieh (12:27)
Did you also speak Chinese yourself or do you hire a translator?
Maxwell Bogue (12:30)
The, does it, what’s the, so like it’s my, have some bad Mandarin. But, yeah, enough to have a conversation at a factory and be able to do that.
Jason Hsieh (12:33)
A little bit, okay. I see, I see. But, okay, they have… I see.
Maxwell Bogue (12:40)
But you know, most factories have people that can speak English. It’s yeah, it’s not too difficult.
Jason Hsieh (12:43)
Have people that can speak English. See, I see, I see. So, okay,
Fast forward a few more years. So now you launched the product, it’s all delivering into people’s hands. And I believe later on, initially this product was designed more for a doll, correct?
Maxwell Bogue (12:55)
So
There are three 3Doodler products. There’s
Jason Hsieh (12:58)
Huh.
Maxwell Bogue (12:58)
The 3Doodler Start, which is
Jason Hsieh (13:00)
Yeah?
Maxwell Bogue (13:00)
For kids 6 plus that uses a low temperature material. You can, 2016 is when we launched that one. Started with a 14 plus product. So it’s like
Jason Hsieh (13:05)
But do you have that way back then when you kickstarted it or that’s later on? that’s later on. Okay. 14 plus. Okay. Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (13:14)
The same rules as a soldering iron or a hot glue gun. It’s ABS and PLI. So we’re in 220 degrees Celsius land, which is, don’t
Jason Hsieh (13:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes.
Maxwell Bogue (13:22)
400 And something Fahrenheit. Forgive
Jason Hsieh (13:25)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (13:26)
Me. I do Celsius more than I do Fahrenheit. So
Jason Hsieh (13:28)
Sure, sure. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (13:30)
It was definitely not a toy. And we were very clear about that to people that it was not a toy. At that time, Toys
Jason Hsieh (13:33)
Okay, okay, we’re getting with you. It’s a tool.
Maxwell Bogue (13:36)
R Us approached us and wanted to sell it. And we said, hey, we’re really flattered. We’d love to work with you. But it’s not a toy. And so you can’t actually sell it
Jason Hsieh (13:42)
But it’s not a toy. It’s not a toy, yeah. Okay.
Issue.
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (13:47)
We’ll
Like find a way around the safety issue and all this stuff. We were like, if you just wait two years in
Jason Hsieh (13:53)
Okay. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (13:55)
Two years, I will have a kid’s version for you. And then you can sell the kid’s version. And so
Jason Hsieh (14:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (14:01)
That’s where, you know, we ended up doing that, but we’d always intended on a kid’s version, a middle of the road version, a professional version, a food version.
Jason Hsieh (14:11)
Yeah,
Maxwell Bogue (14:12)
Kids food version and so forth and so on, which is where we ended up. So yeah, we use sugar.
Jason Hsieh (14:15)
You do have a food version which is very, very interesting as well.
Maxwell Bogue (14:20)
We use that, sorry, Isomalt, which is a sugar substitute. So it doesn’t spike your insulin levels and you can use it to, draw in candy.
Jason Hsieh (14:28)
That’s super cool. Okay. Okay. So you already have all that idea in mind when you first. Wow. Okay. Like an ecosystem almost. Okay. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (14:30)
Which is super cool. Yeah, so I had the whole thing in mind, the whole ecosystem.
And it was very evident also all the support material, doodle pads, silicon mats that have grooves in them so that you can do repeatable parts, nozzles, like decorating
Jason Hsieh (14:49)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (14:50)
Kit, different shapes and sizes of nozzles that can be done. So it’s…
Jason Hsieh (14:54)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (14:55)
It was quite expansive and we are off the bat. We’re like, yeah, this is where we’re heading. This is the path to get there. And so we didn’t start
Jason Hsieh (15:02)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (15:03)
Right away with the kids. When we first went from the three doodler start or the three doodler, the original one, and then we created what we called the three doodler 2.0 and then the three doodler create. And
Jason Hsieh (15:13)
Yeah, yeah, I saw it. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (15:14)
Then we did the create plus, and then we did, the flow and so forth and so on.
Jason Hsieh (15:19)
I see,
I see, I see. And I think you also make a special version for Star Trek. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (15:24)
We did. We did a Star Trek version. We did a license
For Star Trek and we did a Power Puff Girls version of the 3Doodlers start. Yeah,
Which were fun. Not particularly great sellers, but they were fun. Yeah.
Jason Hsieh (15:34)
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I see. I see. I see. I
I see. It. And I think over the year, obviously that is your hero product. That’s kind of put your company into the map. I know over the year, you also develop other product over the year as well. Like, what is your
Maxwell Bogue (15:53)
Yes.
Jason Hsieh (15:54)
Vision for the company going forward? Are you launching more product going forward?
Maxwell Bogue (15:57)
So yeah, we’ve already launched
Quite a number of different products over there, but this year we are specifically launching something called Air Builders, which has just
Jason Hsieh (16:06)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (16:07)
Gone into the market. It’s now available on Amazon and a couple other platforms, but it’s tubes that you interconnect and then they
Jason Hsieh (16:14)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (16:15)
Share their air. So you can inflate them from any port and then you can
Jason Hsieh (16:16)
Yeah, I saw that in November.
Maxwell Bogue (16:20)
Deflate them.
From any port and the ports have little valves
Jason Hsieh (16:22)
Mm.
Maxwell Bogue (16:23)
On them. So they self-close, but you create
Jason Hsieh (16:25)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (16:26)
Forts with it or you can create obstacle courses with it. And the important part is from a parental standpoint, you get your living room back in the evening because you just suck the air out of the kid’s structure, throw it in the closet. And then at 6 a.m. They can, you know, pull it back out of the closet and use the foot pump
Jason Hsieh (16:42)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (16:43)
To reinflate the whole thing and then just play throughout the day. So I’m very excited about the Air Builders.
Jason Hsieh (16:45)
Hmm, I see Okay
Maxwell Bogue (16:49)
We also just introduced MindFrames, which will be commercially available in Q4, which is a construction
Jason Hsieh (16:55)
That’s another one, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (16:57)
System where you can create wearables very easily. They’re both rigid and flexible at the same time, so I’m very excited about
Jason Hsieh (17:02)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (17:04)
Those as well.
Jason Hsieh (17:04)
I see. I see. See. I see. See. Didn’t see that on the floor. Did you bring a prototype? Oh it was there. Okay. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (17:08)
Yeah, it was there. It was there. The little kid, there was
A kid in the corner that was made out of Mind Frames.
And then some other stuff along
Jason Hsieh (17:19)
Oh, okay.
Maxwell Bogue (17:21)
Those lines.
Jason Hsieh (17:21)
I see. Okay, okay, okay. Got it. Well, sounds very, very excited project for you and for the upcoming years to come as well. And as far as all those, the new product that you just mentioned, how is the market reception so far with the people you are talking to?
Maxwell Bogue (17:37)
I mean, we just started out into both of those and we’re seeing a very good reception so far. So we’re very excited to see where the products go from here.
Jason Hsieh (17:45)
Mm-hmm. I see. See. I see. Well, got it. Yeah. But congratulations on all the success that you have so far. And as we’re kind of wrapping, I know you have a flight to catch, so I’m going to try to
Maxwell Bogue (17:55)
Of course.
Jason Hsieh (17:57)
Wrap it up. Looking back at your own journey, you have been doing this for more than a decade now. If you have to share one piece of advice with someone that’s also just getting started in the toys and game industry, what would that be?
Maxwell Bogue (18:08)
Go work for someone else first. You know, I spent four years working at Wowee.
Jason Hsieh (18:19)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (18:19)
I’m eternally grateful for everything I learned there and how
Jason Hsieh (18:23)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (18:23)
They allowed me to explore the toy space, learn how to do manufacturing, because I was living in Hong Kong at the time.
Jason Hsieh (18:30)
Yeah, yeah
Maxwell Bogue (18:32)
I could never emphasize enough to people, like if you have some great idea, that’s great.
Jason Hsieh (18:36)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (18:37)
Keep it to yourself and then go work
For someone else that’s doing something similar so that you can
Jason Hsieh (18:42)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (18:43)
Understand all the pitfalls and the problems and you get paid for it. So you get paid to learn what the problems are going to be and how to do it. And then once you feel comfortable doing it or you feel
Jason Hsieh (18:46)
True, true, true, true. True. Okay, that’s a idea. Yeah. Yeah. How do it before you actually do it? Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (18:57)
Like you’ve learned, then, you know, then there you go.
Jason Hsieh (18:59)
You can try it.
Maxwell Bogue (18:59)
The other thing is to never make product for yourself.
Jason Hsieh (19:03)
Okay. End Consumer.
Maxwell Bogue (19:02)
Always make product for the end consumer. Now, the first time I made a
Product, was the Robo Sapien RS Media.
Jason Hsieh (19:10)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (19:11)
And it was this crazy, kludge thing where we put an ARM 7 chip inside of this dancing robot and found these LCD phone screens and had Java
Jason Hsieh (19:22)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (19:22)
Running on it and it was programmable and it had Linux embedded in it and all this crazy stuff. Nobody wanted that.
Jason Hsieh (19:25)
Fancy. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (19:30)
Nobody wanted it. It was this insane like thing. And I’m like, I built this for me. My bad. So yeah, that was definitely those are the two biggest things is don’t build product for yourself. Build it for the person that it’s intended to.
Jason Hsieh (19:45)
Don’t fall in love with your own idea without getting feedback.
Maxwell Bogue (19:49)
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And that you can’t trust your friends and relatives to give you truly honest feedback. You know, if you have a child and you have a toy and you put it in front of them, they want to
Jason Hsieh (20:01)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:02)
Please you. They want to make you happy as their parent. So they’re going to tell
Jason Hsieh (20:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:06)
You it’s great, probably no matter what. And your friends and family are also going to tell you it’s great no matter what.
Jason Hsieh (20:10)
That’s true.
Maxwell Bogue (20:11)
So you have to really be sneaky about how you do it.
And see how you can get people’s true reaction. Cause you also don’t want to like
Jason Hsieh (20:18)
To, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:18)
Go tell the world about it because then someone’s going to take the idea. So, you know, I had a meeting one time with some colleagues and I actually put mindframes on the table.
Jason Hsieh (20:29)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:30)
And I didn’t tell them what it was. I didn’t say, this
Jason Hsieh (20:32)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:33)
Is a product I want to explore launching. Nothing like that. We just had
Jason Hsieh (20:35)
Yeah. Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (20:36)
Our standard meetings and they naturally
Jason Hsieh (20:38)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (20:39)
Picked these things up and started putting them together and fidgeting with them.
Jason Hsieh (20:42)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (20:42)
And they were fidgeting with them
For several hours until finally one of them broke down and said, all right, what is this and why am I playing with it? And I went,
Jason Hsieh (20:49)
Hahaha!
Maxwell Bogue (20:50)
We call them Mind Frames. They’re, you
Jason Hsieh (20:52)
Ha
Maxwell Bogue (20:52)
Know, this really fun construction fidget toy that you can make wearables and do all this crazy stuff with. And they’re like, so what do you want to
Jason Hsieh (20:58)
Hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (20:59)
Do? I’m like, I want to make it and sell it. And they’re like, okay,
Maxwell Bogue (21:03)
We’re convinced because we’ve been sitting here playing with it for hours.
And I was like, there you go.
Jason Hsieh (21:06)
I see, I see, I see.
Maxwell Bogue (21:08)
It’s one of the ways that you can.
Both convince someone but see. Now, if they hadn’t played with it, or they played with it for two minutes and then put it down, I wouldn’t have even brought it further than that. I would have said, OK, it’s probably not
Jason Hsieh (21:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (21:18)
A great, it’s not as great an item as I thought it was. But the fact that these two older gentlemen were playing with it, I’m like, they can find the fun in it. I know kids can find the fun in it much easier.
Jason Hsieh (21:29)
Okay.
Very good point. I want to hear your opinion about this because you’re also a very prolific inventor. Let’s just say you have another new product idea. When is a good time to actually start trying to get patent for it, like utility design patent, because that’s also a very long and expensive process.
Maxwell Bogue (21:44)
It’s a very long and expensive
Process. Have a lot of, I have a number of patents, over a dozen patents, uh, to date.
Jason Hsieh (21:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (21:50)
And. You know, when you have the solid concept, if you want to patent, if you decide
Jason Hsieh (21:56)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (21:56)
That it makes sense to patent and remember
Jason Hsieh (21:59)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (21:59)
A patent is the right to Sue, not the guaranteed that you’ll win. So even paying and going through the
Jason Hsieh (22:01)
Yes. Yes, that’s true. That’s true. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (22:07)
Patent process.
Doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to then have this piece of paper that’s going to be successful. Have to make sure that you enforce it. You have to go through it all. But
Jason Hsieh (22:09)
Yeah, you can still get copied. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (22:16)
I try to patent as early as possible once
Jason Hsieh (22:20)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (22:20)
The idea has been pretty solidified in our heads. I mean, and
Jason Hsieh (22:22)
Okay. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (22:25)
We have a proof of concept kind of prototype. That’s when I start talking to a patent attorney.
Jason Hsieh (22:31)
Do you do both
Design and utility?
Maxwell Bogue (22:34)
I generally do utility patents because they’re utility or the stronger ones. If I was doing a design patent,
Jason Hsieh (22:36)
Utility, okay, you don’t do design. True.
Maxwell Bogue (22:40)
Then I would wait all the way till, you know, we’re, about to hit go on production. So like at the time that you’re about to do tooling, that’s when
Jason Hsieh (22:45)
Oh, okay, that’s an interesting strategy. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (22:49)
You do a design.
Jason Hsieh (22:50)
It’s unpadded because the scenes is still kind of changing too, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (22:52)
Right. There can always be shifting here. You may, you know, a button
Moves there or something like that. So design patents, want to do all of the design patents are effective, but they’re not as effective as utility. It’s hard. Yeah. Cause you know, if you change, right. I changed 20 to 30 % is like the rule of thumb or the, know, the roundabout
Jason Hsieh (23:03)
It’s hard to enforce. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of very easy way to get around it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (23:12)
Rule in order to get around the design patent, but a utility patent is very different. Cause it’s like, I am patting.
Jason Hsieh (23:18)
Yeah. Yeah,
Maxwell Bogue (23:19)
The concept of it, the mechanism of it, the way that it works. And therefore it doesn’t matter what shell you put on it, it’s still gonna do that. I mean,
Jason Hsieh (23:19)
The idea, concept, yeah. Yes, yes. Put it on, yes, yeah, it’s the same concept.
Maxwell Bogue (23:30)
We have the patent for 3D pens, it’s
Jason Hsieh (23:32)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (23:33)
Been a very effective patent for us,
Jason Hsieh (23:36)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (23:36)
But that’s not always the case. So you really do have to decide whether it’s worth it. I mean, a patent from start to finish is…
Jason Hsieh (23:38)
Yeah. Did you mostly
Focusing on getting it for US or do you try to get pattern internationally?
Maxwell Bogue (23:46)
No, no, no. If you want,
There’s a whole world to sell to. So you do
Jason Hsieh (23:49)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (23:49)
Want to major markets. So it’s called a PTC. You can do a, patent highway to get it and other things. You know, EU,
Jason Hsieh (23:54)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (23:58)
We often, you know, EU, the rest of North America, Canada, Mexico. I highly recommend you Japan, China, because then you can
Jason Hsieh (24:04)
To fan up. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (24:06)
Take actions within China to try and prevent things from leaving China.
Jason Hsieh (24:11)
Okay.
Maxwell Bogue (24:12)
So
There’s a lot of different Australia’s are relatively easy one to add onto that. There are some people
Jason Hsieh (24:14)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (24:17)
That are really big on doing patents for Israel. Because there are a lot of no, tech companies that have offices in Israel.
Jason Hsieh (24:22)
Ok. Inventors in I’ll take something. Ok. I see.
Maxwell Bogue (24:30)
So, you know, if you think Intel would be interested in it, or if you think GE or something like that would be interested in it.
You can, some people do the Israeli patent system and then they can sue most of the major companies through the Israeli court. Yeah, it was a popular strategy. It’s a, it is a bit cheaper than the United States. So that’s it’s an option.
Jason Hsieh (24:45)
I didn’t know that. Okay. Is it cheaper to get compared to US? than US. Okay, okay. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (24:54)
Yeah, it depends on what you’re doing, how you’re patenting it, when you want to patent it. But utility patents are the gold
Jason Hsieh (24:57)
I see, I didn’t know that strategy.
Maxwell Bogue (24:59)
Standard that you want. And you want a nice utility patent that really covers.
As much as possible and as broad as possible to the concept
Jason Hsieh (25:08)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (25:09)
That you’re bringing to market.
Jason Hsieh (25:10)
Got it, got it, got it. Oh, that’s a really good piece of advice and I learned something new as well.
Maxwell Bogue (25:14)
And expect to spend, just to get the patent out of the door, expect to spend in the United States between 20 to $40,000. So it’s quite expensive. And then you have to
Jason Hsieh (25:22)
Yeah, it is not cheap. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (25:25)
Defend, I mean, you have to do a lot of other stuff. By the time you’re
Jason Hsieh (25:28)
Enforce it to
Maxwell Bogue (25:29)
All the way through and done, you’re looking at, you know, 50 to $100,000. So it’s quite the
Jason Hsieh (25:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (25:35)
Capital investment. It’s got to be worth it.
Jason Hsieh (25:38)
Yeah. And I guess for more
Scrappy inventor out there, like when is the stage, what do you actually advise them to, okay, time to spend this 30 K on this product idea. Do you want to do the Kickstarter first? They get a pattern if you don’t have the money.
Maxwell Bogue (25:50)
No, you can’t, you can’t. If you
Do the Kickstarter first, you then can’t patent it. You’ve disclosed. So, so you, you have to be very careful about that. You want to do
Jason Hsieh (25:56)
True true true you need to yeah before yeah
Maxwell Bogue (26:00)
It. You have to really believe in the item, you know, and, do your patent and.
Jason Hsieh (26:02)
Mm-hmm. So you have like a
Year once the idea is out there to still patent it, right? You have like 12 months or something? As arguable. OK. OK.
Maxwell Bogue (26:10)
It’s arguable. It’s
Generally no. Like you’ve disclosed
Jason Hsieh (26:13)
You
Maxwell Bogue (26:14)
It and therefore you have given up your rights. There used to be an inventor’s patent, which is just not
Jason Hsieh (26:19)
Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (26:20)
Effective anymore, where you could like do a write up a descriptive. It didn’t have to be
Jason Hsieh (26:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxwell Bogue (26:24)
In legalese. And then you would submit that as kind of a placeholder.
That was changed in 2013,
Jason Hsieh (26:27)
That’s changed already.
Maxwell Bogue (26:30)
2014.
So it’s not a, as an effective, process anymore. So generally speaking, you
Jason Hsieh (26:36)
You
Maxwell Bogue (26:36)
Have to file a full fledged, patent application, for it to really, to be considered at this point. But if it’s granted, assuming you get through the arguments and everything like that with the patent office, then you have the patent and now you can start enforcing the patent after three years of waiting for the patent to come to fruition.
Jason Hsieh (26:51)
Yeah, to come to, yeah, yeah, to get approved would
Take a while. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you for
Maxwell Bogue (26:55)
They do take time. Yeah, sorry.
Jason Hsieh (26:58)
Sharing all that. And I think that’s also a very important thing to consider for the inventor that’s listening to our show as well. That’s currently working on their own toys, working ideas. So as well kind of wrapping up today, if our listener want to learn more about you, your company, where is the best place for people to find you online?
Maxwell Bogue (27:17)
You can find us at the3doodler.com for all of the
Jason Hsieh (27:19)
Mm-hmm.
Maxwell Bogue (27:20)
3Doodler related product or wobbleworks.net for all of our, product. We sell on Amazon, we sell in Walmart, we sell in Target is also a great place too, if you wanted to actually pick up. So we’re in most
Jason Hsieh (27:31)
I think.
Maxwell Bogue (27:32)
Major retailers in the United States.
Jason Hsieh (27:34)
Okay, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it. I’ll make sure I put that into the show note. And thank you again for your time today, sharing your journey, your knowledge, and your experience with the toy thinking industry.
Maxwell Bogue (27:43)
Well, thank you for having me.
Jason Hsieh (27:44)
And thank you for our audience for tuning into this episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. I hope today’s conversation give you some practical insight and fresh inspiration for growing your own toys or game companies. This podcast is proudly sponsored by toy launch, a leading marketing and growth partner for toys and game company. At toy launch, we help brand scale on Amazon and beyond through full service account management, advertising, SEO, creative catalog, optimization, influencer marketing, and more. If you are looking for a proven team that understand both the e-commerce
Industry and also toys and game as a whole we are here to help if you like a personal breakdown of your brand marketing opportunity and your best next step you can schedule a free consultation session with us just visit our website toy-launch.com if you ever want to connect with other toys and game founders feel free to join our free communities toys and game launch pad you can find more information about that as well at toy-launch.com /group
For more resource update and industry insight, visit us at anytime at toy-launch.com. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys through toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone.
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