How Flashing Toys Illuminate the Market: Insights from Matthew jacobs

Jason Hsieh (00:44)
Hi everyone, welcome

to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh. Today’s guest is Matt, the founder of Blinkee.com What started out as a light up earring has really grown into a striving e-commerce brand building on novelty toys, party accessory, and even custom flashing items. And he have quite a bit of flashing items that he’s going to show today. And he have an amazing journey over the last decades.

in both sourcing to design and he have created hundreds of products that really bring energy and fun to parade, to concert and even corporate events. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today,

Matthew Jacobs (01:21)
Hi Jason, thank you so much for having me on here today.

Jason Hsieh (01:24)
Yeah. So first, can you take our audience back to the very beginning? Where does this business idea even came up for you? I think over a thousand products now, but where did it all get started for you?

Matthew Jacobs (01:35)
yeah. this is my favorite story to tell my friend. so, you know, back in around 2000, I was caught up in the.com bubble. was a web web developer. was freelance web developer building websites for folks. And, I was also going to San Francisco giants games, trying to catch a Barry Bonds home run, you know, very bonds was hitting all those home runs. I was in San Francisco Bay area.

And I went to a crazy party and a guy there sold me a little earring that lights up and he put it on your ear with a little magnet. And, I thought it was pretty cool. And I paid him 10 bucks for it. And, and then, you know, next time I went out for fun dancing and I wore it and people started asking me about it when I’m out. And then I said, you know, after a short time, thought.

this seems like a pretty good product. And I went and found them not for $10 each on the internet, but you know, for a dollar each or something. And then I bought 100 of them. And then the next time I was out and someone asked me, said, Oh, this is my product. I sell these for $5. You know, several at just out having fun. And that paid for my night out. And it was great. You know,

After a little while, I thought, this is so good. I could take it a little bit further. And so I was already going to the Giants games. So I started selling these lights, these little teeny lights at the Giants games. It walking around the park at night games. And people love them. They love them. And I was even going out in the bleachers, like, you know, the guys that go peanuts, peanuts, and I’m walking around.

you know, with these lights and people would stop me and buy a lot of them. And I would have to watch out for the security and I would, if I saw the security, would just, I would just give them the light.

Jason Hsieh (03:26)
Were you telling it illegally?

Matthew Jacobs (03:28)
and they would leave me alone. then I started doing this on the streets of San Francisco at Fish and Wins Wharf in the financial district all over the place. And then when the season ended, I started going to the Golden State Warriors games and doing the same thing at the Golden State Warriors games. And then I thought, you know, this is good, but I have to worry about the police and security. And what I’m doing isn’t…

Exactly legal. I didn’t have permission from the stadium to do it. And so I thought, let me make this a little bit more legitimate and see how far I can take this. Okay. And since I was a website builder myself, I made a website for it. And the website caught on right away, pretty much. And I started selling a lot all over the world. And then before long I went on Amazon, et cetera. And

expanded the product line.

Jason Hsieh (04:18)
Yeah, and I know how many products do you have in your product line now? I know you have a huge catalog right now.

Matthew Jacobs (04:23)
About about 1500.

Jason Hsieh (04:25)
That’s quite a bit of a product. How do you manage all the different skew properly? Do you have like a local warehouse here in?

Matthew Jacobs (04:34)
But yes, we have our warehouse and it’s all, AI helps a lot nowadays. AI helps us with everything, with our systems. And I’m able to run it with basically a fairly small staff because of AI really helps so much.

Jason Hsieh (04:50)
I see, I see, I see. And I see you have some of your product with you today on the show as well. Would you mind sharing some of the product and like some of

Matthew Jacobs (04:58)
the expandable lightsaber. So I’ll open it up here. I can open it up properly. this takes AA batteries and the sword expands. This is great.

Jason Hsieh (05:01)
Okay.

okay, that’s a fun design.

Matthew Jacobs (05:16)
you know, to help with packaging because it takes up less space and it has the protector for the batteries that I pull. And then when I press it, you know, we get this, these light effects and it shoots the light out the back. So it makes patterns all over the place.

Jason Hsieh (05:22)
⁓ okay, okay, okay.

the

That’s a fun Christmas party item. see. Yeah. What else? Yeah.

Sure, what else you got?

Matthew Jacobs (05:38)
for your favorite president, you either love him or you hate him. And these are a deck of cards, Donald Trump playing cards. And these are actually gold plated. So this is another product line I have with a lot of gold plated items. I have, it started off with some fake gold plated $100 bills and then I expanded it. And these are very, very shiny, very pretty looking gold plated.

cards. They’re actually real gold from what I understand. Everything indicates that. It’s a thin film. It’s thin film technology. So it’s a very thin plating of gold. So they’re not super expensive or anything. Yeah, that’s a nice one. That’s a nice item. They’re good playing cards too. They’re very slippery. This is a ball, a bouncy ball that lights up. when you bounce it,

Jason Hsieh (06:20)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Jacobs (06:25)
the ⁓ the

Jason Hsieh (06:27)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Jacobs (06:32)
no real monetary value. It’s just for collectors, people that like Bitcoin. And then this is more of a challenge coin, like a military style challenge coin. Okay. Celebrating the current 250th anniversary of the United States. And these coins is something that we’ve lately, that are very popular and something I have about 50 different types of coins now. have- okay.

crypto ones. many different cryptos like Solana and Ethereum and XRP. And then also the other other coins we have are religious themed ones like a Jesus Last Supper armor of God, that type of thing. then also military ones, Army, Navy, Air Force Marines.

Jason Hsieh (07:15)
I see, I see, I see, I see. And I think you also have some custom design lapel pin as well.

Matthew Jacobs (07:20)
That’s right. That’s right. So we custom, we custom make lapel pins. That’s a very popular product you see on my shirt. For those of you that are watching, this is blinky.com. We also have a website known as logo blinky.com. So logo before the blinky. And then that’s our custom flashing lapel pins that we make for large companies. This one we did for the Grateful Dead. So that’s the Grateful Dead.

Jason Hsieh (07:34)
Thank

Matthew Jacobs (07:46)
of ⁓

Jason Hsieh (08:00)
Now.

Matthew Jacobs (08:09)
a casino known as Little River Casino. Because this one I’ve tested the batteries so I know that this one is actually lighting up.

Jason Hsieh (08:16)
Oh yeah, he also light up. Okay, okay, okay. Very cool.

Matthew Jacobs (08:19)
So the way that these work is the back is a twist. If I twist the back, that’s what turns it on and off.

Jason Hsieh (08:25)
Where’s the battery in? Is the battery also inside?

Matthew Jacobs (08:28)
Yeah, the battery’s inside here. And then it has this military clutch clasp to pin it on. So I can pin it using this clasp. Just a moment. Here we go.

Jason Hsieh (08:30)
okay.

okay, okay, okay. I see.

Matthew Jacobs (08:41)
Yeah, let me see. There we go.

Jason Hsieh (08:43)
Yeah, so you have like really two very distinct business model. One is more like direct to consumer. One is more like direct to businesses. Like as far as marketing goes, like how do you target those corporate like client versus the end consumer?

Matthew Jacobs (08:58)
Okay. Yeah. So, you know, we’re using Google ads. And I think that targets both the retail and the business clients. We achieve sales that way. Our Amazon store is mostly, you know, targeting the consumers. Mostly through the Amazon store, we’re selling one at a time.

Through our website and using Google, we’re usually doing multiples. Someone might buy, if they’re ordering the custom-made ones, the minimum is 50. And we’ve sold up to 50,000 at a time.

Jason Hsieh (09:34)
Oh, I will say, kind of adding back to your conversation about manufacturing, one of the biggest struggle that we all face in industry this year is definitely the tariff. How do you navigate that since I assume a lot of your product is also manufactured in China? Or do you have some actually here is mainly in the United States?

Matthew Jacobs (09:51)
No, everything is made in China. And the tariffs has been sort of hit or miss. Like sometimes, you know, when Trump might put out a tweet and then I get a message from my supplier the next day or later that day saying, I’m sorry, your new orders are going to have 100 % tariff. And then Trump puts out another tweet where he cancels it. And then the supplier says, forget it. Don’t worry about it.

It’s been hit or miss. And for some reason, much of what we import is not subjected to tariffs. I know.

Jason Hsieh (10:21)
Okay, well you got lucky or you planned it correctly.

Matthew Jacobs (10:24)
Something. think it’s mostly luck.

Jason Hsieh (10:27)
Okay, okay. Well, that’s yeah, well that you’re extremely on the good side on that one. I know I’ve been interviewing a lot of people, their business is being affected tremendously because of the terrorist situation that really have a huge impact overall. But what are some of the the trend you’re seeing because I know you have been operating this business for a few decades now. It’s like I know some of your product because it’s kind of like a trendy item, but based on your experience,

What are some of the latest trend that you’re seeing?

Matthew Jacobs (10:57)
We’ve

gone through so many different trends. There was the fidget spinner trend. Yeah. And I sold so many fidget spinners. It’s amazing. And then Amazon for some reason thought they were dangerous and started banning fidget spinners. I don’t know why. And right now, one of the trends is these coins, these 250th anniversary coins that I showed you. Because all the, because

This next 4th of July will be the 250th anniversary of the United States. So those are very popular right now. Those coins. It’s Christmas time. So a lot of Christmas items. This is another Christmas item I have. This is a wand. It’s a snowman wand. And what I like about it is it’s not very typical. It’s very unique in that, it has snow inside of there.

It actual snowflakes. when you turn it on, it lights up and then the snow moves all around. So it’s pretty cool and it sounds…

Jason Hsieh (11:53)
see, okay.

you even have some music, okay, okay okay yeah pretty cool

Matthew Jacobs (11:59)
So yeah,

Yeah. So Christmas is the big thing right now. And I’m trying to think what else trends. I also have these slingshot helicopters. Have you seen?

Jason Hsieh (12:09)
No, I haven’t, no.

Matthew Jacobs (12:10)
Okay, so these are pretty trendy right now. They’re for the summer. They’re big in the summertime less so. It’s an outdoor toy. So yeah, this is this is a slingshot helicopter. They have different different names. They’re also called aero copter. And this is is it’s something you shoot up in the air. And then it flies down. It flies down like an airplane.

Jason Hsieh (12:33)
you kind of pulled on it then you will yeah

Matthew Jacobs (12:35)
It has it has this piece which is the slingshot. Okay, this piece here is the slingshot. Yeah, and you pull it back like this, right? Yeah, and this is the part that goes up in the air. And first you have to you have to bend the wings.

Jason Hsieh (12:44)
Yeah, yeah,

Matthew Jacobs (12:50)
That’s right, like this. Yeah, and then it spins around. So then it also lights up. If I turn on the light there.

Jason Hsieh (12:56)
you also light up too, okay.

Matthew Jacobs (12:57)
that

lights up and then I can take it and I can hook it on like this and then I’ll

Jason Hsieh (13:02)
okay, then you will spin. Okay, okay. Yeah.

Matthew Jacobs (13:05)
And

then, but you aim it straight up in the air and then it spins down slowly.

Jason Hsieh (13:09)
okay, very, very cool.

Matthew Jacobs (13:11)
the

Jason Hsieh (13:11)
That like a fun game for sure. So, and I can imagine with the catalog of your size, it must be hard to try to identify the trend ahead of the times. Like what is your strategy to know, okay, this is the trending item, time to order them because by the time you order it, it take a few more months for it to arrive in US where you can start selling.

Matthew Jacobs (13:31)
Yeah, I like to scope out different websites. I like to look at AliExpress and see what’s trending there to find new things. And then I can order a couple samples from AliExpress and just list them and see what happens. I don’t like to make a large commitment of merchandise.

Jason Hsieh (13:48)
See what happened? Okay. Yeah.

Matthew Jacobs (13:53)
Yes, thank you. like to just list it. I might only have a couple and then if I sell 100, I might have to go to the customer and say, I’m sorry, there’s going to be a delay. I can refund you if you want. But if you have an extra two weeks, we can deliver it in time. And that usually works out okay. So my advice is to just put things for sale, make it for sale.

and see what happens. You can always refund the money if you have to. But most times I found the customer can wait. People oftentimes order ahead of time.

Jason Hsieh (14:28)
I see, I see. Thank you so much for sharing that. please educate me if I’m wrong. But I understand because most of your product have electronic in it, because there’s a battery involved, there’s also lighting involved. Isn’t there additional regulation for importing purposes that you also need to kind of navigate that? How do you usually navigate this?

Matthew Jacobs (14:47)
Yeah,

that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So there’s different standards of material safety that we have to contend with. You may be familiar with CPSIA, which is a material safety standard. And also the latest thing that we had to deal with is so many of our products have cell batteries.

you know, they’re like lithium cell batteries, the type that are like a coin. Yeah. And I think it was last year, there was a new law that went into effect about cell batteries. Reese’s law, it’s known as Reese’s law. Okay. Because there was a young kid. Swallowed?

Jason Hsieh (15:28)
Did he swallow it?

Matthew Jacobs (15:30)
Yeah, a kid went into a coma or something like that, you know, maybe died. Yeah, I don’t know the exact what happened, but they passed some very strict laws about that. And there are new labeling requirements and imported and labeling requirements. And we had to we had to go through and label everything. We had to label everything to make sure it all met those requirements. I see everything with cell batteries.

Jason Hsieh (15:52)
Yeah, that’s tricky. That’s tricky. And with the catalog of your size, like when is the time you figure out this is a time to discontinue certain product from your inventory or from your catalog because you’re dealing with thousands of skew all the time? Like what is your cadence? you review that once a quarter, once a year and see, those products no longer trendy, so to speak, to kind of liquidate and try to get rid of them? Yeah.

Matthew Jacobs (16:16)
It’s basically just once a year because when we do inventory at the end of the year, that’s when we reevaluate what we’ll be doing for the following year. ⁓ if you have so many stuck on the shelf, you’re not going to want to reorder.

Jason Hsieh (16:25)
I see.

Do you also go to the Kentown Fair in China, try to identify products in person by walking the show, some of the big trade shows in China as well?

Matthew Jacobs (16:41)
No, I haven’t been to China yet.

Jason Hsieh (16:42)
you haven’t? Okay that’s surprising with the catalog of your size.

Matthew Jacobs (16:46)
Yeah. Not yet. Not yet. I’ve been able to do it from here. have two kids and my wife, so it’s difficult to do that. But I wouldn’t mind visiting China. I would like to.

Jason Hsieh (16:57)
Yeah, usually my experience, if you visit your manufacturer in person, usually negotiate a much better payment terms, sometimes at lower cost too. especially you can have a drink with the factory boss. That always helps. That’s kind of like a Chinese culture thing. Like having a drink in the business setting, that’s usually how you negotiate a much better price or a much better payment term, much better everything pretty much.

Matthew Jacobs (17:23)
Oh, wow. I’ll have to make it out of priority then.

Jason Hsieh (17:26)
Yeah, because personally, because I, as you know, I also run a toy business myself. I’ve been to China a few times, you know, just trying to build that relationship with my manufacturers, try to negotiate better payment terms. that, especially if you’re already doing a significant value with certain manufacturer, they will give you like VIP treatment as well. know, they’ll give you the bring you to restaurant, you know, wherever you want, and just show you around as well. And they can also help you trans usually most of the manufacturer I talked to.

They speak pretty good English, so you don’t really need a translator neither. So yeah.

Matthew Jacobs (17:59)
OK. I see. Yeah.

So I can only imagine if I went to China how what it would be like.

Jason Hsieh (18:07)
Yeah, I would recommend it. Yeah, if you haven’t been there, definitely visit and have that conversation face to face with some of your top manufacturers. Looking ahead here for 2026 and beyond, what is some of the goal or some of the new project you’re working on for your brand?

Matthew Jacobs (18:25)
Well, the custom flashing pins is what we’re focused on the most. Yeah, we have, I really enjoy doing those because I get to be creative and I get to help with the design and I…

Jason Hsieh (18:30)
okay.

okay. You also help with the design. Okay, got it.

Matthew Jacobs (18:42)
That’s

correct. So oftentimes, like sometimes someone will come to me and say, you know, I want an eyeball. No, here’s the classic example is a gentleman. He wanted a hand. He wanted a, like one of these pins. Yeah. But he wanted it to be a hand with the, with two fingers cut off. And it had some text on it. And also had his name and some other.

Jason Hsieh (19:02)
Okay.

Matthew Jacobs (19:08)
text. And it was because he was sort of well known because he had an accident where his fingers were cut off, etc. And that’s what people knew him for. So I designed the hand, you know, I was able to make a drawing and with the fingers and everything. It was crazy. It was very crazy of an idea. But I was able to make that drawing and so

Jason Hsieh (19:19)
I see, okay.

Matthew Jacobs (19:32)
When someone comes to me and they want a custom Blinky Light, we include an hour of artwork if they need help with the artwork.

Jason Hsieh (19:39)
⁓ okay.

Can you walk us through how long does that typically take? They just say you have a new customer that just ordered this crazy design. Does it take a few weeks? Or how long does this whole process take for an idea to finish product?

Matthew Jacobs (19:54)
Okay, here’s another example. I had the New Orleans ballet company ⁓ come to me for a blinky light and they wanted a nutcracker like from the Nutcracker Ballet, the toy nutcracker. Yeah. And I had done, I had, I had a nutcracker as a stock item long, long time ago. Okay. But it wasn’t very nice. And so when they came to me, what I did was, is I actually used

Jason Hsieh (19:58)
Okay.

Matthew Jacobs (20:20)
AI for this one. I used I I’m blanking out on the name. It wasn’t chat GPT. It was a different AI. I guess it’s not important. no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t mid journey. Shoot. It’s not a well known one. But anyhow, so I you know, I told it to make me a nutcracker.

Jason Hsieh (20:30)
Mid-journey maybe.

Matthew Jacobs (20:40)
with a certain color motif and with the letters N-O-L-A. And I was able to get about five variations that I liked designed by the AI. And I sent them to the customer. And they chose one of them. And then after that, now the next step is to outline the design. Because you have to give the factory the shape.

Jason Hsieh (20:53)
I see.

Matthew Jacobs (21:04)
of the blinking, because they’re going to make a printed circuit board and cut it to the proper shape. And then we also need to choose where to put the LEDs.

Jason Hsieh (21:17)
and what colors and what colors.

Matthew Jacobs (21:18)
Colors to use. So

on my website, Logo Blinky, I have a lot of examples of these diagrams that I make. So I make two things for the customer next. The next two things I make, once we’ve established the actual print artwork, is we make an LED diagram that shows the shape of the Blinky, and it indicates where and what color the lights were.

Jason Hsieh (21:41)
that’s actually super cool. Yeah, my consider only ordering one for you for toy lunch.

Matthew Jacobs (21:46)
And then the next step after that is I make a virtual sample. So I make an animation of the blinky light, you know, where you could it actually shows shows the design and it has the lights blinking around that that where where this is what it’s going to look like as a finished product.

Jason Hsieh (22:03)
amazing.

Matthew Jacobs (22:04)
the

IC

Jason Hsieh (22:05)
I see, okay that’s really cool and how long do you say this process usually take? Like a month? okay.

Matthew Jacobs (22:10)
So it takes a couple days to figure out things with the customer and to establish a design. And then it’s three to four weeks of production and delivery. from the time of usually we’re paid upfront, from the time of payment until delivery is three to four weeks.

Jason Hsieh (22:30)
That’s actually really quick. Not too bad. Yeah, that’s really quick.

Matthew Jacobs (22:34)
Now,

on the other hand, we also have our lapel pins that we keep in stock here in the United States. Like we have some stock ones. Someone bought a dollar sign one today. I had a customer ordered a hundred dollar sign blinky lights. If you want one of those customized, the ones that we already have in stock, we have the facilities to print on top of a pre-made one.

And that takes less time because that’s done here in the States. That’s only about one to two weeks turnaround.

Jason Hsieh (23:03)
I see, I see, I see. Got it, got it. So looking back at your journey of building this business to where you’re at, what was one of the biggest struggle or challenges that you have faced over the years building up the business?

Matthew Jacobs (23:17)
Amazon is very tricky. It needs to be a larger percent of our business. you know, we, you know, for example, we sell light up, NFL, NBA, NHL, and NCAA flashing fiber optic caps. Okay. So it’s a licensed item and right here where the logo is, it has fiber optics that poke through.

Jason Hsieh (23:39)
okay.

Matthew Jacobs (23:40)
And then it has an LED module and batteries in the top of the hat where there’s a little space. and the fiber optics poke through. And then there’s a switch just right here to turn it on and off. And it makes the logo actually light up.

Jason Hsieh (23:54)
okay, cool. Okay.

Matthew Jacobs (23:56)
Yeah, and those are officially licensed. We don’t hold the license, but the manufacturer had a deal with the sports organizations, the licensing. But Amazon has given us so many problems that we don’t even sell those on Amazon anymore. Anything with any type of license, even if we have the license,

Jason Hsieh (24:14)
I think I’m off. Got it, got it.

Matthew Jacobs (24:19)
we just avoid Amazon for it, even if it’s legitimate, because it’s so difficult to deal with them because you’re mostly just dealing with AI.

Jason Hsieh (24:28)
Yeah, or just some random do in Pakistan. So yeah, but okay, but we’re kind of wrapping up today’s interview. Thank you so much for sharing all the different stories and your journey so far. But if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone else that just getting started in the toys and game industry, what would that be?

Matthew Jacobs (24:31)
Yeah, I

My be like Nike and just do it. So, you know, just make the website. Find the item. Just do it. Make it make it happen. Don’t let anything slow you down. You know, like I like I said, I oftentimes will just have a couple samples and I’ll put it up for sale. Yeah. If it sells 100, then I deal with that.

Jason Hsieh (24:51)
Okay.

Matthew Jacobs (25:11)
then speed is key.

Jason Hsieh (25:13)
Hmm, yeah, that’s a good advice to implementation instead of sometimes people over sync or analysis by analysis, they never really take any actions.

Matthew Jacobs (25:24)
You don’t need a website and a logo package and stationery and a Facebook and all that. You don’t have to have all that set up beforehand. You can do that as you go and build it up.

Jason Hsieh (25:35)
Mm-hmm. That’s a wonderful piece of advice. So for those listeners and those audience want to learn more about you and your business, where is the best place for people to find you online?

Matthew Jacobs (25:45)
Well, I would say blinky.com. That’s blinkdoublee.com. And logoblinky.com is our flashing lapel pin custom website. We also are on Facebook at blinky.com. it’s spelled out. Blinkdoubleedotcom is our Facebook.

Uh, our YouTube is, we’re on YouTube. I’m on tick tock my tick tock. If you want to see a lot of fun things that I did on tick tock, cause I had, uh, I did some, um, I I’m going to take your job one day. did a little bit of influencer activities on tick tock where I eat very hot chili peppers. My tick tock is magic Matt’s M a G I C M a T T S.

Jason Hsieh (26:25)
I’m dying.

And thank you so much for your time and energy today to share your story and being with us on the show.

Matthew Jacobs (26:36)
Well, I appreciate you so much. It’s so kind of you to have me and I admire you and I admire how professional and comprehensive your entire world is. You have a whole beautiful world and everything seems so efficient and the way you’ve put it together is very admirable.

Jason Hsieh (26:55)
thank you very much. It’s mostly my team doing all the work. So yeah, thank you so much.

Matthew Jacobs (26:59)
You’ve done a great job, you know, as the leader.

Jason Hsieh (27:02)
Yeah, thank you.

And thank you for our audience for tuning in to this episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. I hope today’s conversation gave you practical insight and fresh inspiration for growing your own toys and game brands. This podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Toylaunch, a leading marketing and growth partner for toys and game companies. At Toylaunch, we help brands scale on Amazon and beyond through full service account management, PPC, SEOs.

creative and catalog optimization, influencer marketing, and even marketing consultation. If you are looking for a proven team that understands both the toy industry and e-commerce marketing, we’re here to help. If you’d to have a personalized marketing breakdown for your brand, your opportunity, and your best next step, you can schedule a free consultation session with us. Just visit toy-launch.com for special schedule. And if you want to connect with other toys and game founders and entrepreneurs, feel free to join our free Facebook group at

toy and games launch pad. You can find it at toy-launch.com forward slash group. So next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joy to the toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off on the toy business unbox. We’ll see you in the next episode.