How Education and Technology Intersect in the World of Toys with Parker Lynch

EP005_02-07-24_Parker Lynch

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert in the field, will guide you through the enchanting world of toy design, marketing, and manufacturing. Now let the unboxing begin. 

Jason Hsieh: Welcome back to Toy Business Unboxed. Today, we’re excited to introduce Parker Lynch, the CEO of Hedgehog, a pioneer in education, technology, and wellness for children with ASD and ADHD. With a rich background in education and special education especially, Parker is reshaping how we support learning and development through innovative play.

In today’s episode, we’ll dive into intersections of toy design and educational technology, uncovering how toys can actually make a difference in the lives of children with developmental disabilities. And join us, please join us as we explore the future of play with Parker. And thank you so much, Parker, for having you on the show today.[00:01:00] 

Parker Lynch: Oh, thank you, Jason, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here today. 

Jason Hsieh: And this is actually my really passionate topic of mine because with a few business that we operate, special education is huge. And some of the audience that’s listening, we’re watching us. My background, my oldest son have Autism and ADHD. So special education has been a huge part of my life. And also myself, I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was an adult, which unfortunately is really common for adults to get a diagnosis once they are much older, because I think the school just doesn’t provide enough resource on that.

So I want to start off today’s interview talking about your own journey in special education and founding Hedgehog, which is truly inspiring. So if you want to share with the audience on how your experience has been and like, and kind of start with that. 

Parker Lynch: Yeah, sure. So I’ll do an abridged [00:02:00] version of my background and like how it led me to Hedgehog.

So I actually, I changed careers. I used to do search engine optimization, meaning I was behind the computer. Didn’t love that. My parents have always been pushing me to be a teacher and I resisted for a long time. Finally the the accounting got really bad in 2007, especially in Detroit where I live and I ended up just taking a big chance and moving to Thailand and I got lucky enough to be hired by the school called Wells International School. I taught kindergarten there at international school and it was great. It really made me expand my mind and, they didn’t have a huge budget and, fancy materials in the school. So it was a lot of gamifying education creating educational games and everything like that.

So that really hooked me. I love teaching. I love like, being creative and trying to find creative ways to make learning more fun. So [00:03:00] that really started me on the path of where I am today. And then, after teaching there for a couple of years, I realized that I wanted to further my education.

I ended up being lucky enough to go to NYU to get my master’s degree. And that was a fantastic experience. At NYU, they really move you around a lot to experience, but their student teaching program is great. Moved around to a few different schools around Harlem and the Bronx and Manhattan.

And I saw a lot of different learners, a lot of different tech in the classroom, which I’ve also been super interested in and how people learn differently and how some of this tech can support it. But yeah, basically the thing that led me to create the Hoglet is the story I like to tell.

It was really my first job after graduating NYU, I worked at a prep school and I was shadowing a student. I could tell just from my experience that he was on, probably on the [00:04:00] spectrum somewhere. He had a fidget device and needed to bring it with him. And he wasn’t able to bring it into the computer lab.

He ended up having, having a meltdown, unfortunately. And the first thing I did after the school day was over I went home, I looked online. I was like, I’m going to buy him a fidget computer mouse. And there was no such thing. I couldn’t find it anywhere on the internet.

Jason Hsieh: If you don’t mind showing the audience for those of you that are watching, because Parker have a really interesting and it’s hard to describe. So for those of you that are listening on the podcast, please watch the episode from our YouTube channel as well. But for the listener, can you also describe the device to the listeners if they couldn’t see it?

Parker Lynch: Yeah, absolutely. So this is called the Hoglet. It’s the world’s first fidget computer mouse. Inside the box when you order this, you get everything. You get batteries, you get the connection to the computer, you get the mouse. A lot of people think it’s just the cover, it’s the entire thing. [00:05:00] So this cover is removable.

As you can see, super easy to remove. A lot of thought went into the design of this mouse. It feels really great in your hand. It’s really good for fidgeting. It’s a silent fidget. It’s a functional fidget. So while you’re on the computer or students on the computer, they can quietly fidget with this, it makes little to no noise. It’s made of food grade silicone and just really easy to connect. and that’s why I like, When I created this I wanted something that would not be distracting but at the same time it’s colorful. It light, it livens up the normal, drab computer lab or even a lot of adults have been purchasing this as well. I’m also, like you Jason, I have a DH ADHD and I was diagnosed late in life, so I use my hogwood every day. And now we’ve even developed more products, like we have this the fidget key [00:06:00] chain here.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. I actually have one in my, key as well. . 

Parker Lynch: Yeah, this little guy is my companion. I have it always in my pocket. Social situations, I do get anxiety at some times and it’s great to have in your pocket. So I can fidget while I’m talking to someone and there’s a lot of studies that have been done that show.

Some certain people need to fidget to focus. It increases your focus capability. So for me, that’s what I found. I’m that type of learner. So when I created this I wanted my products to speak to that learner who needs something tactile to help them remain grounded and focused. So that’s what we specialize in creating products that are tactile, useful, can be discreet, don’t make a ton of noise and super easy to clean, super durable. You can wear these things out. That’s what [00:07:00] we’re focused on at Hedgehog.

Jason Hsieh: Thank you so much for sharing the product. I know you’ll have a few more product idea in the future that you’re going to launch and I seen a lot of the Learner is going to definitely benefit from it. So I want to kind of transition talking about this is more for a listener that’s looking into launching a product like you did, and I know you had a lot of success when you launched the product on Kickstarter. Which of course Kickstarter is a whole different platform, but can you walk the listeners through the challenges and some of the success that you have experienced doing the Kickstarter campaign and how does that shape the whole trajectory of Hedgehog as a company?

Parker Lynch: First off, if you have an idea and you think it’s a good idea, I really encourage you to pursue that. I’ve had many ideas in my life. Some were great and I just slacked on it. I didn’t go ahead and try to make it happen. Basically an iteration of that idea ended [00:08:00] up coming to market and I was kicking myself. And if I can do it, anyone can. The great thing about Kickstarter, it’s not easy, but the great thing about Kickstarter is anyone can do it. You can start with essentially, little to no money and raise enough money to make your dreams a reality.

And in that case, that’s what we were able to do. The first thing that I suggest that you do is if you have a great idea, you want to perhaps bring to market is number one. Talk to people that you can find in and bounce the idea off them, let them know please, give your honest opinion.

 I made a lot of different prototypes to actually get in people’s hands. As I said, a lot of thought went into the texture of it. So we did a bunch of tests with people of all ages to see like what people really liked. So it’s not like we just rushed it to market.

And with the Kickstarter, it’s awesome because as I said, costs not much money. It’s really like word of mouth is how [00:09:00] we started to, amp up our campaign. I put it all over my social media. I really encouraged all my friends that tell their friends. 

Jason Hsieh: How was the total amount you were able to raise at the end? I know you raised quite a bit of amount just from Kickstarter. 

Parker Lynch: Yeah, good question. So, I found like basically through my research, I was like, okay in order to create a line of these products, I’ll have to at least raise 65, 000. So that was our goal is 65 K in 30 days. We ended up raising just about 75, 000 in 30 days.

So we surpassed our goal, which is awesome. There, definitely were a lot of times where you’re like, crossing your fingers, hoping it’s going to happen. There are a lot of tense moments are looking at the calendar and just like counting down the days. But luckily for us, we were able to get there just with a combination of really trying to get the word out, pounding the pavement. It’s easy nowadays to create your own, [00:10:00] PR release, trying to basically like just contacting local.

This is during COVID too, I should add. So like when we were running this Kickstarter, a lot of people were at their computers often, cause what else was there to do during COVID? And, I think we also benefited because the news cycle. It was always pretty doom and gloom, right? But Especially during COVID, people wanted to hear something good and so we reached out to all the local news stations and we ended up getting carried by a bunch. Also getting the Detroit News and everything like that. That boosted us big time. So the one thing that I would caution about Kickstarter or any of these crowdfunding Websites is a niche industry where you should do some research before you enter into it. It is not just simply, if you’re great at marketing, it may not necessarily translate exactly to [00:11:00] kickstarting marketing because that there’s a whole cottage industry for that 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, I think that’s definitely a certain type of buyer that tend to buy more often on Kickstarter than other platform.

Usually based on my experience, people that’s more, a little bit more techie is always looking for the latest and the greatest gadgets, so to speak. And your product is definitely one of the very trendy kind of a gadget that the people would love to try. 

Parker Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. If, you have a kind of a product that doesn’t have many competitors, I definitely encourage a crowdfunding type of thing like Kickstarter because like you said, they’re like nerdy people like myself check out Kickstarter, and they wanna get the deal. They wanna have the newest product and also get it for cheap. And that’s like if you got in early, you were able to get the best deal on the Hoglet and also maybe get a hat and some other stuff.

Jason Hsieh: I find a lot of successful campaign is usually either some kind of like latest technology, [00:12:00] like innovation product or a lot of board game actually raised a lot of money on Kickstarter as well.

Board game is like a big kind of category in that crowdfunding space. And actually that will be one of the upcoming episodes I would love to interview someone that raised a lot of money using board game with a Kickstarter, which is a whole different kind of marketing. And with our in house brand, LakiKid, we also tried to do a Kickstarter with crowdfunding, but I think our product is a little bit more niche. It was like a writable weighted lap pad. And we ended up raised about $10,000 at the end for that particular campaign. But I totally understand how much work it was behind that campaign because I remember spend hours and hours getting everything ready and get everything uploaded and they’re talking to all the backers and make sure all the product get delivered on time It is a lot of work.

Parker Lynch: Yeah, one of the things that you just mentioned struck a chord with me is Communication with the backers is huge. [00:13:00] Especially during that time, again I mentioned during COVID, I was also, totally new thrust into this new industry where it’s okay, now I have to figure out how to manufacture this and all that stuff.

On top of all of that, there was a supply chain crisis, everything was super delayed, so I had to really be clear with some of my audience who I can’t really assume that they all are clued in with the news about shipping and the containers that are sitting off the coast of California.

I was very clear, I sent an article expanding on what we’re dealing with right now. Luckily all the supporters there, they’ve been awesome. They continue to support Hedgehog like we have a really good core of fans and everything. To everyone out there listening from Hedgehog, thanks from the bottom of my heart for staying with us from the beginning, trusting us that we’re going to deliver on our promises. And that’s one thing that we’ve done. Super excited about that. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much about sharing [00:14:00] your experience. 

I want to kind of transition to the next kind of sections. After your successful race with Kickstarter, I see you also look into launching your product yourself.

Amazon, how was your experience dealing with the Amazon platform yourself? 

Parker Lynch: Oh, wow. Yeah, it’s something I thought would be very easy. I consider myself to be with it, like fairly smart. So I was like I can figure this out, I’m tech savvy and went on Amazon. Tried to list, I followed the instructions I thought to a T and I was like, yeah, this will be up and running in no time and I’ll be able to figure it out, that was not the case. Unfortunately my listing was suppressed, for various reasons.

I have to say Amazon and Jason is better than I. Amazon is Particular with certain things. Unfortunately for us right now, actually two [00:15:00] two of the colors of Hoglets you can’t buy them right now because they’ve been suppressed for some strange reason.

There’s a variety of things that happen. Luckily, since I’ve worked, I’ve gotten advice from Jason for about four years. I was luckily put in touch by a mutual friend named Brian. And so I knew that Jason had experience and we actually worked with Jason’s team Seller Fuel, and they ended up really quickly being able to get our products actually set up properly. Like the page looked beautiful. It didn’t look anything like my cobbled together, really messy page that I created. They did it like very professionally and also they made it work for us. thank. Thankfully, Seller Fuel came in and saved the day for us and it’s been great working with Seller Fuel this whole time. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. And I think the [00:16:00] thing with Amazon is it become more and more complicated over the year. When I first started back in 2016, it wasn’t as simple. Many different options when you go into Amazon, go back to the seller central backend.

Now there’s like hundreds of options of the stuff you can do. Just on advertising alone over the year, they also introduced more and more advertising options. Before, it was mainly like sponsored product. Now you have sponsored product, you have sponsored brand, you have sponsored display. Then you have 10 different targeting options, 10 different settings you can do in the backend.

It tends to get very overwhelming, especially for the entrepreneur that’s new to the platform. But thank you for mentioning that. 

What are the things that make you consider when you are working with an agency like us versus doing it on your own and with your in house team?

Parker Lynch: As an entrepreneur, and the entrepreneurs out there who are listening they know what I’m talking about. You have [00:17:00] so much going on, you have so many things to worry about. Like you’re worried about making sure your product is quality. You’re worried about the financials, making sure you can live day to day here. There’s so many other things on your plate if you have employees as well, like trying to make sure that you’re hiring the right employees and that they’re doing the correct things.

There’s just a myriad, like an endless list of things to do every day. So having Amazon and the intricacies of Amazon also added to your day, for me, it was just like, I can’t do this. I don’t have the time and it’s driving me absolutely insane. So that was like a saving grace to have Seller Fuel jump in and I don’t have to worry about it anymore, because Seller Fuel let me know okay we need this and this and then boom they’re on it and they take care of it. So I strongly advise people, if you want to [00:18:00] try it on your own, go ahead, but I will warn you that I’m sure it hasn’t gotten any easier since I tried about three years ago to set up my own Amazon page, just random things like trip. And Jason, again, you know better than I do. But like certain words you may use which you wouldn’t think would stifle your page, end up like totally shutting everything down and it’s so hard to get it back up. Amazon is such a huge company. To be honest with you, it’s hard to get great customer service through there. Like I don’t want to talk poorly about Amazon, but it is really hard to get an actual person to walk you through steps. 

Jason Hsieh: Unfortunately, that is the reality when we are working with Amazon because we’re in the same box and sometimes we are at the mercy of their customer support and the level that we can get just to troubleshooting, like one simple issue, like a listing suppression sometimes take weeks, if not months, just to get that one issue resolve. So it tends to be [00:19:00] frustrating and having someone to offload that kind of task is definitely going to help open up the bandwidth for the entrepreneur. 

For the next session of the today’s interview, I want to kind of transition back to a little bit more about your background, which is in education and special education and ag tech.

What kind of trend do you foresee in the intersections of between technology and education especially for the individual with learning differences. Do you have any trend that you’re seeing based on your experience? 

Parker Lynch: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. One of the things I hearken back to is back at NYU, almost every single class they really hammer this into you. It’s teaching to all the senses like your lesson plan as a teacher should really involve a visual learner and auditory learner kinesthetic. You have to think about all these learners because you’re not going to have a entire classroom of kids who learn the same way.

[00:20:00] I would argue every single person learns the same way and uniquely. I think companies are starting to see this they’re hearing the pleas of teachers, the pleas of parents that we want some solutions for our children who are unique learners. So that’s what we’re trying to do at Hedgehog. One huge trend I’ve seen also, Is actually I met with a very cool new company called immerse, which is, they’re creating some cool products that help with this is the community, the flow of communication between the learning institution, the teacher as well and the child. That is one thing when I was a teacher, I was constantly frustrated by this because if you’re a homeroom like any teachers listening would probably resonate with this comment. I’d be a homeroom teacher and have a student who would go off, let’s say for science class, and they come back and I don’t really know what happened in that [00:21:00] classroom. I don’t know how they’re doing overall. It’s just really tough, as a teacher too, like you have so much on your plate. It is hard to let all the different teachers of different subjects know.

You know how Johnny did in this class versus this class on a day to day. Usually all that stuff is learned at the end of the semester. And maybe it’s like too late, maybe some actions could have been taken to improve results. So that’s a new trend as well, it’s not really a new trend, but I think it’s something that technology can really help with facilitating the communication breakdown as the flow goes from like top to bottom.

Jason Hsieh: Thank you for mentioning that. And also I know you have a lot of deep connection in your local area Detroit through some of your involvement with different foundations. 

and, How do you envision the role of the business like Hedgehog in contributing back to the [00:22:00] communities, especially the local communities?

Parker Lynch: So with Hedgehog first off, I should shout out my nonprofit that I run and we have a meeting this evening to talk about like the upcoming year here, but yeah, I run a nonprofit called Born and Raised Detroit Foundation. We’re a 501c3 nonprofit and we’re a hundred percent volunteer and we’ve given over a million dollars to youth programs in Detroit.

So that’s been a really cool thing to be a part of. Started this about 13 years ago, but to answer your question about hedgehog and how we can assist the community, I have one great example, actually in Detroit we have ally bank, I believe they’re, nationwide and they actually invited me to come speak about neurodiversity in the workplace. So really had an awesome time going to their office fielding a bunch of questions talking about hedgehog. And [00:23:00] after that, they ended up purchasing a bunch of Hoglets for their workplace. So like they’re catering to unique learners in the workplace. I think it’s something that’s super important that you’re adapting to the worker and you’re trying to make their life a little bit easier. Work is tough, days are long. If there’s any way that you can accommodate different learners in the workplace I think that’s something that if you’re a CEO, any sort of a company, that’s something that you want to to address for sure. And I know with the Hoglet too, part of our Kickstarter actually we ended up raising a good amount of money to basically fund Hoglets going into a couple of charter schools locally in Detroit.

So all the kids ended up having. Basically, we effectively were able to give away about 200 Hoglets to a couple schools in Detroit. So that was awesome too. I [00:24:00] try to merge as best I can without getting, I guess overlapping too much. Born and raised Detroit with the work we do at Hedgehog because I think we work with the youth to born and raised and the Hoglet, it’s a product for people of all ages, but there are some definite overlap there and we’re always trying to make our community better with a hedgehog. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s actually a great transition to my next question. I know Hockley is not just a product, but really a solution to a very unique challenge that you just mentioned.

Can you share some of the success story or moments in your journey, creating a product that truly have a positive impact with either families or the kids that was using your product.

Parker Lynch: Yeah, I have a bunch. I guess the first one that comes to mind is if you go to our YouTube page for Hedgehog Health our first video we ever created for our Kickstarter. I was lucky enough to meet a mom named Julia and her daughter [00:25:00] Isabel who is non verbal on the autism spectrum. And this is all during COVID. I was lucky enough to like You know, to have her allow a film crew into the house with the Hoglet and everything. So her daughter had never used a computer mouse before and this is the first time ever using a mouse. She ends up loving it. And now she uses it all the time. So that was really cool to see basically if you think about using a computer mouse, it is like a bit of a foreign thing from going from like an iPad to a laptop where you’re actually manipulating things on the device go into a mouse, which is an appendage, right? It’s something off to the side of a computer, but you’re affecting things that are happening on the computer. So it can be a bit of a step and especially for someone who is a unique learner. So it was really cool to see how easy it was for her to use it and understand how the mouse works.

So that’s one example that jumps [00:26:00] to mind. Other really cool things is, I was actually just in London for a show the bet UK ed tech show. And I had a couple of people come up to me that had different applications to my products that I had never really thought about before. For instance for the key chain here, I had someone who, he represents the prisons in the UK. They were interested in my products to to give to some of their inmates who are actually in classrooms who have learning differences. So that was really cool that’s something I’ve never, never thought, never considered that population as as being a potential need for my product as well as also as approach was from someone from the military there same thing. They have new cadets, these cadets have either diagnosed or undiagnosed learning differences. And they were [00:27:00] interested in my products as well. So those are really cool applications. We’ve also had people who have arthritis and use the Hoglet and they say their arthritis is gone because of the fact that they’re using the Hoglet every day. It really challenges you to actually move some muscles in your fingers that you normally wouldn’t when you’re just sitting there like death gripping your mouse during meetings and zooms and everything. So that’s been a really cool application as well like it that use for it. Yeah, a bunch of really cool things have come with it. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing those very cool and awesome story. so as well, Winding down on today’s interview. The the last question I usually ask all the guests is.

If you had to share just one piece of advice with someone that who is just getting started in the toys industry, what would that be?

Parker Lynch: Great question. Great question. I would say go for it. Obviously think it through a lot. Bounce [00:28:00] your idea off of trusted people. Like I said before that was huge for me. My personal network of people who I really trust and then I would say Go for it.

If your personal, I guess if your personal circle doesn’t have enough knowledge, I did this as well as I went outside of that. And I, went to people who are in education and people who have dealt with toys. And you have them sign a nondisclosure agreement and bounce the idea off them, see what they think.

Usually people are very kind and very open. So I give feedback like both positive and negative, I wouldn’t let it hurt your feelings. Like I’ve heard a lot of both, right? You’re going to get a lot of Negative stuff your way, but you develop a really thick skin. But I think like number one, just go for it. There’s so many. Life is short, there’s like very few opportunities that come at you. When you have an idea that you think is like [00:29:00] gonna somewhat change the world to make things better, I’d say go for it. This is my number one piece of advice.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, that’s a really good advice.

And for the audience that’s listening, or watching today’s interview. What is the best way to find out more about you and connect with you? 

Parker Lynch: Yes. So apologies for the dog barking here. But yeah, the best way to connect with me and please do, if you have any questions or anything about products or if you want some advice, offline here my website is http://www.hedgehoghealth.com I can be contacted there. Also our socials are at Hedgehog Health. So just Hedgehog Health and Instagram and Facebook. If you message any of those sites or socials, it’ll come to me and my name is Parker Lynch. Also, you can get to me at parker@hedgehog.com. Happy to email you back and schedule a call or anything like that. 

Thank you, Jason, for having me on. I [00:30:00] really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing your story and experience with the audience. It was my honor to have you on as a guest. So for those of you that want to find out more about all the podcasts with the link we’ll publish all the link on our new website, toy-launch.com that’s the new website we’re launching this year, and you will find all the show notes, all the resources, and all the kind of summary of today’s podcasts on that website here shortly. Thank you so much for, and we’ll see you later. 

Parker Lynch: All right. Thank you. Take care.

Outro: You’ve been listening to Toy Business Unboxed, hosted by Jason Hsieh. Thank you for joining us and exploring the fascinating world of toys and the ingenuity behind them.

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