How Less Becomes More in Award-Winning Toy Design

Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Hi, welcome to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. Today we are joined by Ken, the brilliant mind behind Doren Toys and the creator of innovative games with his experience in the toy industry. He combined his passion for design, education and playful experiences to create products that appeal to all ages. And in today’s episode, we will talk about his philosophy behind the toys that he have created over the years. And we also talk about the stories and different games. So thank you so much.

Ken for being on our podcast today. So first of all, can you kind of start sharing with our audience your journey into the toy industry and what really spark your passion for toy innovation?

Ken Scheel (01:20)
Sure. Well, when I was in college, I was working at a summer camp with high schoolers. And one of the traditional activities they did was trying to play ultimate frisbee as a group, which is a great game. But if you take just the general cross-section of the population, people in general don’t have enough frisbee skills to be able to complete the throws and catches. So the games never went very well.

And one day in desperation, took a long sweat sock. that point, socks were longer. And I put a clump of dirt into a red wrapper. And we’d swing that around and throw it and catch it. And it turned out to be very fun and easy to throw. And before long, people didn’t care about playing Ultimate Frisbee. They just wanted to throw this sock around. And it looked really weird flying through the air. And it was just old white sweat socks.

But then that just became a thing. That’s what everybody wanted to do. So I would just keep getting all of my socks out and ruining them as we play this game. And after a while, people would say, Ken, you ought to market that thing. Everybody loves playing with it. And then I got out of college and there’s a bit more of a story to that. But eventually I decided after everybody telling me I should market it, that I didn’t want to be rocking on the porch when I’m an old man thinking I had this idea for a toy. It was really fun, but I never did anything with it.

So I decided to do it. And so with that one, it turned out there were things about it that could be patented. Actually, I have, this is a fling sock right here. It’s got like a bag at the end and then it’s got a knob at the end here. And so you swing it and the bean bag makes it easy to catch because it doesn’t bounce out of your hand and the knob, you can catch it as it slides through your hand and it gives you

Jason Hsieh (02:54)
Yeah, thank you.

Ken Scheel (03:07)
a consistent point of revolution. Anyway, it’s very easy to throw and catch. And so I patented it, and then I licensed it to a toy company, and it’s still being made today.

Jason Hsieh (03:17)
I see. that’s how you started. Okay. Right.

Ken Scheel (03:19)
I call it a classic toy since it’s 25 years and it’s still going but Nobody else calls it a classic toy But I do because it’s it is unusual to have something a toy that’s still being made 20 or 25 years after it comes out

Jason Hsieh (03:31)
That’s true because sometimes it could be like a trend. go like really well for a few years and they kind of died down and people don’t really play with it anymore.

Ken Scheel (03:40)
So once I started with this, that’s what started to get me to Toy Fair as I was helping the company. It was licensed to Saturnian 1. And so I would go work their booth and just got embedded into the toy industry. And once you get one product from idea to marketplace, it’s really addictive and then you have other ideas and you just want to keep doing it.

Jason Hsieh (04:01)
Yeah, and can we also talk about some of your current product? I know you have a lot of different product that you have designed over the year right now. Can you mention a few of them as well? Sure.

Ken Scheel (04:11)
Well, the latest one is called Foros. And actually, I have that right here. It’s essentially like a three-dimensional four-in-a-row game. the pieces are very physical. You stack those to try and get four in a row. The concept is very simple, but the gameplay can be very complex. And it’s very quick to learn, and you can play it fairly quickly. So that’s our latest game.

I’m also the founder of Keva planks. And so that’s where we invest most of our time. This is a new non Keva product that we’re coming out with now with Foros and but we’re excited about this. There’s actually a lot of crossover and some of the things we did with Foros with Keva planks

Jason Hsieh (04:51)
our listener that’s not familiar with Keva Planks, can you also have some sample or kind of explain how the system works?

Ken Scheel (04:57)
I have one here. There’s a Keva plank. They’re all exactly the same size and shape. And so it’s very easy to stack those into almost any sort of structure you want. If you see in the upper corner, right about there, that’s a glued structure. Normally you don’t glue Keva planks, but since we have them, we’ve made some wall decorations with that. normally you never glue a Keva plank. And Keva planks are so simple, but since they’re made out of wood,

The things you build out of them tend to be beautiful and it appeals to all ages like Foros does. And Keva Planks has been around for years, so that’s really the foundation of our company and Foros is just our next item that we’re launching.

Jason Hsieh (05:37)
I see, I see, I see. Okay, thank you for sharing that. And we can definitely put more information in the show notes for people that want to kind of check out as listening or want see how both of the game look like as well. So I think even for Foros it’s a very kind of a unique spin to like a classical games like the four in the road that has been around. What inspired you to design the game differently? Are you trying to tailor to different play?

personalities or what is the main kind of reason behind the creation of that particular product?

Ken Scheel (06:08)
When I started it, and this has been in the works for years before we finally got it to the point where it is right now, but I made the game that I want to play where I love the tactile nature of traditional coffee table games. They’re often made out of wood. They’re beautiful. It just looks intriguing and I want to play it. But then usually I actually don’t want to play them. I like the idea.

But then I will never take the time to play it. They always have a set of rules that you have to cut. They’re kind of often oddball rules. You do this, but then when this happens, the whole board shifts or something. And so they all have more rules and more requirements of my time that I ever wanted to put into it. And so I like the idea. So I was trying to build a, make a strategy game that I would want to play that you can play quickly that you don’t, that

this one you can learn it in 10 seconds. It’s sort of concepts that people already know, but nobody’s ever done this before. And so people can start playing right away. And ultimately I wanted something in my house that when people come into the house, I have an instant social icebreaker where we don’t have to just talk. can play a game or kids come in and maybe they don’t have anything to do.

Because the adults are talking, I say, why don’t you guys play this game over here? And so they’re playing a game together rather than being on their phones or something like that. So that was my starting point. And then a lot of other things with the game evolved out of that basic concept. But I usually start out with a concept is something that I think is fun and something that I want to play with. And then it rolls from there as to the different variations that it might take into.

Jason Hsieh (07:54)
I see. Thank you for elaborating on that because the product is definitely the 3D concept is very unique and not a lot of people have done that. And I also want to ask a follow up question. When you’re designing something unique like that, you also try to get a utility patent and design patent to really try to protect your idea around the concept as well.

Ken Scheel (08:15)
No, not really with games I haven’t with the fling sock this this one did qualify for a utility patent Okay, and there’s a lot more power in a utility patent than just a design patent of design patent is really easy to get around Yeah, but with most of the games My belief is that you could spend a lot of time doing that a lot of expense it would be really difficult to

to enforce it because there’s so many ways you could change the game just a little bit and it becomes a different game. so you could feel like you’re protecting yourself and spend a lot of time on attorneys and everything and you really don’t have that much protection. So my philosophy is to do it well and to try to get it out into the market. So this is the game you want to play. This is it. We do copyrights and trademarks and that sort of thing, but not utility patent.

Jason Hsieh (09:01)
I see.

I see, okay. Thank you for clarifying as well. As part of this kind of the design process, do you also do a lot of play testing to kind of figure out how big it is and how, I understand the rule is fairly simple, but do you do a lot of play testing for this particular product as well?

Ken Scheel (09:24)
Yes, for this product and anything I’m coming out with my first thing I do with an idea, I try to make a prototype as soon as I can, something that’s cheap and easy to do and then and see if that works the way I think it’s going to work within me playing it with a few close friends and family. And as soon as we get some of the details worked out like that, I make a slightly better prototype and then I start playtesting it to find out.

whether other people think it’s as much fun as I do. Usually, I think I have a pretty good instinct. That’s one of my skills for figuring out what are people going to find to be fun. And a lot of that is just instinct. But I’m not always right. So I want to take something that I think is fun and then put it in front of people and watch them play. Sometimes I watch them play. Oftentimes, I give it to them.

especially once I’ve worked out the rules and I want them to read the rules, play the game, and tell me if you could figure it out from the rules and tell me if it was fun, if you have any ideas for a twist, what were some tough parts where you didn’t quite understand what to do. And you just learn so much from that. And also you learn whether people are kind of lukewarm where they say, yeah, we played it a few times. We kind of like it.

I don’t want to hear that. want to hear, we loved it. This is really good game. And when is it coming out? That’s what I want to hear. so I usually try to test it with either friends who I know will give me their honest opinion. then eventually, I try to get it to people that I don’t even know and just to hear what they’re going to say.

Jason Hsieh (10:59)
For sure, for sure. And I think one thing you mentioned before the interview, the last time when we spoke, you also mentioned that children’s toys doesn’t have to look childish in order for it to be engaging. Can you also kind of explain on your philosophy on that as well?

Ken Scheel (11:14)
Sure, that philosophy evolved from the Keva plank side of things just because Keva planks they’re all the same color. They’re all just natural wood. There’s nothing flashy about that at all. And yet anybody that starts to build with them is immediately compelled by it. They want to keep doing it. People who are not artistic and sculptural want to build things. And so the foundational play value of the block itself.

is where the fun comes from. And you don’t have to make it special colors. And in fact, we’ve tried some colors, and some competitors have tried putting different colors on it. And it actually just makes it ugly. It kind of muddles up the design process, and it doesn’t look any good. It looks like a bunch of colors that were just thrown together. And so we’ve seen that if you have a really good play concept, children and adults

are the play concept is what is compelling and the colors are not really that important. And especially for young children, they’re gonna play with whatever toy is fun and according to whatever colors the adults put on it. So they may be playing with some wild or sort of standard primary colors, especially for very young children.

It’s so common to just it’s going to be red blue yellow and green and it’s going to be all of those colors mixed together And so it immediately looks like a preschool toy because of that Yeah, and that’s that’s for the adults because they think it’ll stimulate and make it more fun But if you make it more simple you can make it so it has a much better design Feel to it and so it also helps young children be able to

experience what it is to live in a world where things look good in this with Foros by having just two simple colors it has sort of a minimalist design and the game looks like modern art as it grows it’s a beautiful game as it grows and and we didn’t have to put lots of funky wild colors into it to make it fun

Jason Hsieh (13:14)
Yeah, I think you’re also at the same time ensuring your products appealing to both children and also adult alike since, you know, because of the particular design element that you kind of incorporate.

Ken Scheel (13:26)
And actually, with this game, we tried to make the box look very colorful and fun so it would pop out and people would instantly think, that looks like a fun game. I think I want to buy that. once you open it up, then the board is just two colors, two tones of blue. So this looks much more toned down, something that a mom might want to

leave on our coffee table have out in your house because it doesn’t look garish.

Jason Hsieh (13:54)
Okay, okay got it and I also want to switch gear on the marketing aspect of the business a little bit Because I’m pretty sure over the years you have a try a lot of different way to market Can you share some of the success story of like what was working and also maybe some of the scene that you tried that didn’t work as well That would be that would be very insightful for our listeners

Ken Scheel (14:14)
Sure. Our biggest successes come from magnifying people who like the product. And so when we get reviews, sometimes going back to somebody that has given us a written view and we know that they absolutely love the product, and then sometimes we reach back to them and ask them if they would make a video testimonial of

of whatever it is that they like about that. And then we can use those to build on the brand and to convince people that these other people think it’s a good product and that grows. We also, with Keva Planks, we go to trade shows. We market that a lot through to educators. So we go to a lot of education conferences and we’ve developed

ways to use Keva planks within schools educationally. And so I teach workshops on that. So I’m using Keva planks. teach the teachers how to use them. And then ultimately, the teachers then are using Keva planks. So we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of kids playing with Keva planks who might say, that’s what I want for Christmas. And so it can work its way around from within the school into the home for retail sales.

Jason Hsieh (15:20)
Yeah, I like how you share about working with school. I think that’s something I even tried with my own toy company because we designed toys for kids with special needs and a lot of that is also geared toward school in a special So when you’re doing this kind of arrangement with the school, how do you really scale this? Do you just go in and do the demonstration in person or do you send a sample out to the school first?

How does you and your team facilitate this?

Ken Scheel (15:49)
Yeah, it’s only scaled and then I do it at conferences. So, I don’t have enough time or energy to do it one at a time at schools. So I’m trying to, train the trainer. I’m teaching teachers how to use it. So if I go to a conference and do a workshop session, I could have anywhere from 20 to a hundred schools represented that are all seeing me demonstrate how to use Keva planks for teaching

And so then there’s 20 to 100 people going back that can then start using that and share it. And one of the keys with that is that I’m needing to show in my workshops very serious, real ways to use Keva planks in the classroom to teach the subjects that they’re doing and accomplish the goals that they’re doing. They’re very sensitive to thinking that they’re getting a sales pitch to get Kivaplanks.

Jason Hsieh (16:37)
Exactly.

Ken Scheel (16:39)
So

I never mention if they ask questions about how to get Keva planks or something like that, I answer those questions and I have something they can pick up. But 99 % of the session is just as if I were a teacher going through these things of this is how you would teach geography with Keva planks. This is how you could teach history with Keva planks, math, whatever it is.

Jason Hsieh (17:01)
I see. And do you also try to design like specific curriculum that so teacher can follow them and use your product kind of alongside with the curriculum as well?

Ken Scheel (17:10)
Yes, we’ve written lots and lots of curriculum. And so some of our insights into the way schools work, we started to move Foros into schools as well. A couple of months ago, we were part of a large Keva Planks challenge. And we had a Foros challenge room. So we had like 20 games of Foros there so people could come and they could play each other. They could play Strangers. So we had sort of a mini informal tournament right there.

Jason Hsieh (17:37)
⁓ okay, nice. You know, that’s not fun.

Ken Scheel (17:39)
Yes, and and it went really well because it was doing just what I intended it to do where strangers were playing each other because they just they liked the game and they they’d finish one game and they’d look up and they’d want to know who wants to play me next or moving around so they could play each other. And so the teachers can see that that’s part of what they want in school as well things that will bring students together things that have helped them think spatially and

and make use of their time. So the inroads that we have with Keva Planks have also created inroads for us for Foros into the world of education.

Jason Hsieh (18:12)
OK, yeah, I like that strategy. I’m really trying to incorporate and have more kind of showing case like how interactive the game can be. think that’s something pretty hard to duplicate in the digital environment sometimes because it just doesn’t have the same level of interactions from a human being to another human being.

Ken Scheel (18:32)
Absolutely,

and that’s so critical.

Jason Hsieh (18:34)
And can you also share some of the challenges that you face when you’re designing different products over the year and maybe some of the major takeaways that you can also share with our listeners?

Ken Scheel (18:45)
Sure. I would say one of the biggest challenges is trying to make it to the quality that I want at a price that will work. My natural intention is to always, whenever there’s a choice between going cheaper or going better, I always want to go better. I always have this vision of a game that people are going to love and they’re going to want to keep it for years to come.

If you make it too cheap, then they may not want to even play it at all. Yeah. So, but if you do that too much before you know it, you may have something that’s a wonderful game, but it’s so expensive. Nobody’s going to buy it. Yeah. So, so trying to work that out and figuring out whether we can make it in the US or whether it has to go overseas. And so that’s a critical, critical question. and I will say, although

Some Keva planks are made in the US and some are made from overseas. The pricing is so much higher in the US that it’s really difficult to make toys in the US. But we’re one of the few toy companies that is successfully doing that in the mainstream. There’s some that are making like small volumes of wooden children’s toys and things like that, very simple things. But as a mainstream toy company,

that’s in a lot of toy stores and that sort of thing. We’re one of the few that is making a US made product with Keva planks. With Foros, it was absolutely impossible to make it at a reasonable price point in the United States. So that one is important.

Jason Hsieh (20:08)
Obviously. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. definitely cost structures is a challenge for all of us in the toy and game industry as well. Trying to juggle just exactly what you mentioned about the demand. We want to make sure we a higher level quality, but we also want to make sure it’s not cost prohibited that we drive ourselves out of the market altogether.

Ken Scheel (20:30)
Right, right. And so in the course of that, trying to figure out where you’re going to make it for me also, since my natural bent as a toy inventor is to innovate, even when I have Foros and maybe we’ll talk about a little bit later that the many different ways you can play with this one game, I keep thinking of new ways to play that you could do this, you could do that.

Jason Hsieh (20:51)
yeah, can you elaborate a little bit more about like, of the different ways?

Ken Scheel (20:55)
like for instance, the game board, this is the primary where you play it, where it’s a grid of four by four. But I wasn’t happy with that, so we flip it over and there’s two more ways to play. And so you can play on the straight or you can play on the circle that we call Stonehenge. So there’s three different ways to play the same basic game. And then

Jason Hsieh (21:13)
rule still the same on the other side? Do you still need to connect four?

Ken Scheel (21:17)
Yes, it’s always four in a row up across our diagonal. And you just take turns trying to get that and block your opponent before they get it. And so we’ve got all these beautiful game pieces. And there’s only two. There’s the dark cylinders and the natural cubes. so these are just wonderful building blocks. And so there’s so many things you can do.

with that, I can show you maybe just a little bit here on this one page. If you’re doing audio, you’ll have to come watch it. But we showed things like this where you can just build creative things out of the box. It’s totally unrelated to the game, but sometimes there’s nobody to play with, or you’re tired of playing with the game, and you just kind of want to doodle creatively with something. And so.

Jason Hsieh (21:54)
God.

Ken Scheel (22:06)
A lot of people experience that with Jenga, where after they’ve played Jenga for a little while, they just start building blocks. And we wanted to facilitate that same sort of thing. If these are out on the coffee table, it could be that you’re not interested in a game at all, but it would be kind of fun to make some interesting designs. And then we built other puzzles that you can do with them, other challenges and other games and stacking things you can do with the blocks.

It didn’t start out this way. It started out just as the three and a four in a row stacking game. But as I would start to contemplate other things you can do with with building blocks. And since I’m considered a block expert in the world of education because of Keva planks, a lot of those concepts flow right into this. These this is just a different shape block than Keva planks, but you can still do a lot of the same sorts of things.

Jason Hsieh (22:55)
I see.

Ken Scheel (22:56)
And some people

have, there’s different play styles with people as far as people that feel competitive or creative and what they think is the most fun. And then there’s variation within an individual as far as what you feel like today versus yesterday. So if you build all of those different options into it, hopefully it’s a game that can be sort of an activity center. So it earns its place to be kept out so people would be able to play with it in some way.

Jason Hsieh (23:21)
Yeah, and I like how you have different products on the complement each other as well. I mean, some of the philosophy is kind of similar. And so it’s also learning some of very important aspect for the kids and for adult alike as well. And also, as we are kind of wrapping up today’s interview, one of the questions I always like to ask my guests.

is if you had to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started within the toys or games industry, what would that be?

Ken Scheel (23:51)
I don’t know if I can boil it down to one. Let me do three quick ones. One would be to take action. I have a reputation with my friends and in the industry as a toy inventor, people often come to me and would say, Ken, I got this idea. What do you think? And very, very few people actually end up doing something with it. I talked to them about what they could do, what would be the next step.

Jason Hsieh (23:54)
Sure.

Ken Scheel (24:13)
Most people who have ideas don’t take action. All they do is talk about, they think it must be somebody else that can take action on these things. if you think you have a really good idea, do something with it, explore it to some degree. the first step in exploring that, this would be number two, is make a prototype, make a cheap prototype very early. So get it from your mind to a napkin sketch to something you can try.

And that is the most important step for starting to figure out whether what you were thinking in your mind really translates into reality. I’ve had so many things where I wake up in the morning and I think I have this wonderful idea and sometimes I can make it. within two days, I already know that does not do what I thought it was going to do. It’s not as fun. There’s some problem with it. And so I can figure that out. And I would have never figured that out until I actually make it. And when you’re making prototypes, especially the first ones,

make them out of the cheapest materials you can find because it’s guaranteed you’re going to have to change it. So don’t invest in trying to make a perfect game the first time. cause you’re, definitely going to need to and want to make changes and improve it. and the last thing would be don’t mortgage your house in order to, to do your dream. it will suck the fun right out of the whole process. If you are really,

on the brink of they’re not selling as fast as you thought they would, which is the case more than not. There are definitely things where they do, but if you have quit your job and mortgage your house and you’ve gone all in for this, which in some ways that’s good, but if you can find a way to dip your toe in the water and, figure out a level of risk assessment so that you can test the idea without putting all of that on the line.

you’ll enjoy the process because you won’t have your heart up in your throat so much thinking this is not going as well as I thought it would. Now what am I going to do? And so when I was starting with the fling sock, my wife and I had this conversation of how much money can we flush down the toilet if this does not work? And so we both came to grips with that and said, if we lose all of this money and we have 10,000 fling socks in our garage, we’re not going to be mad at each other.

and we’ll know we gave it our best shot. And so we had to mentally prepare for that. I’ve had some great successes, but I’ve also had things that were clunkers and did not make any money. And so if I had just started with that, I’d have been really up a crick if I had lost my house on the clunker. anyway, so there’s a bunch of other things to consider, but those are three to think about.

Jason Hsieh (26:41)
Yeah, that sounds really, really good advice. And I remember when I first started, I also started on top of my corporate career. I was just moonlighting, creating toys on the side. But I did borrow some money against my house. I didn’t mortgage my house.

Ken Scheel (26:58)
So yes, have to get the money from somewhere. And if you can do it yourself, then it’s easier because you’re only risking your money. And I would always thought if I would have borrowed somebody else’s money, I would have felt terrible if I lost their money, especially if they were friends or something. So I always like risky risking my own money whenever I could.

Jason Hsieh (27:15)
For sure. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing those advices. So for our listeners, I want to learn more about your company and yourself. What is the best place for people to find you online?

Ken Scheel (27:24)
Well, you can check out the Foros game at forosgame.com and Keva planks at kevaplanks.com. And then if you have any questions or want to talk to me, I love talking about new products or any of these things @kenatkevaplanks.com is where I can be reached out to. And especially Kivaplanks is on most social media. So you can see a lot of that there.

Jason Hsieh (27:46)
Okay, perfect. Yeah, I will make sure we put that into the show note. For our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Unboxed podcast. We hope you enjoy the conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate your support and would love it if you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague. For more resources, tips and the latest update we in the toys and game industry.

Visit our website at toy-launch.com. Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using #toybusinessunboxed. We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joy to 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.