How Licensing and Innovation Drive Success in Toys: The CreateOn Story with Steve Rosen

EP012_04-12-24_Steve Rosen

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. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “Major retailers.” “Yeah, yeah.” “We think this is cool.” “The thing with Amazon is just, It become more and more complicated over the years.” “Yeah, maybe you can also consider to create more online resources.” will guide you through the enchanting world of toy design, marketing, and manufacturing. Now let the unboxing begin!

Jason Hsieh: Welcome to another episode of Toy Business Unbox. In today’s episode, I’m thrilled to introduce our special guest today, Steve, the president of CreateOn with over 17 years of experience in product development, entertainment, and gaming. Steve has been at the forefront of innovation in the toy industry. Join us as we dive into today’s conversation, discovering about his journey, collaborating with [00:01:00] major film studio in the past, and also creating engaging toys for kids and adult alike.

Thank you for joining the podcast today, Steve. 

Steve Rosen: My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Jason. I appreciate it. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you first share the founding story behind CreateOn and what inspired its inceptions? 

Steve Rosen: Absolutely. Four years ago, my son was in preschool at the time and one of his first friends was a little boy named Reed, and Reed’s father and I took our boys on a play date. And for the next four years, he hasn’t stopped talking. Which was an amazing thing. Aaron told me this idea he had, which was he wanted to print family photos on magnetic tiles. So he showed me this idea, he had asked me if we had magnetic tiles at the house and we had tons of them, the kids have been playing with them there.

I would say they’re this wonderful [00:02:00] STEM based toy, probably one of the first STEM based toys that were introduced to the States, probably give or take 25 years ago. He showed me his idea and I thought it was super cool. At the time I was working at a company called scientific games, making slot machines. I had been there about 15 years and I worked mainly on our licensed products. We had everything from Top Gun, Willy Wonka, Wizard of Oz, Monopoly. We had hundreds of brands. In fact, we were just finishing up this James Bond license as well. I was deeply entrenched in the world of licensing and I was going to this licensing show every year, which is actually coming up in about a month now for about 15 years. It’s called the Lima, which is the licensing show expo. I immediately saw what he wanted to do with the tiles and I said, look, this is Lego and Lego Star Wars. I had read this article years ago about how [00:03:00] Lego in 1999 was like, people forget that they were struggling for a long time and then, lego did a deal with Star Wars and I believe probably at the time it was Lucasfilm and it changed their business forever. Licensing is a great way for a consumer to enter a product that maybe they’re unaware of, right? I always looked at it like, I didn’t really play slot machines at the time, obviously. I was in the industry, but like my intro when I was interviewing at scientific games was this sit down at this top gun slot machine. One of my favorite movies, it had all the sounds, the music, all the iconography from these amazing films can be put into one package.

I saw this opportunity that Aaron had and I was like, look, come to the licensing show with me. I was going as it was to promote scientific games and to look for new brands and connect with partners that we had and he [00:04:00] said, fine. He just on a whim came with him and his dad, Aaron’s business was printing and document security. So he had a family business for 40 years and they were doing very well, but he was looking to pivot because he’s an innovator by trade, Aaron is an innovator. I had a friend at a licensing company called the Jostra L’Orea group. Jostra L’Orea is a third party licensing agent. They had the rights to Eric Carle. World of Eric Carle is an amazing brand. They still sell a million Very Hungry Caterpillar books a year and brown bear. Everyone has them if you have a child.

I said to this guy, James, give us some assets. Let us make like a box top and we’ll show it to this company we were going to do business with, this other magnetic tile company. And they showed it to a couple of retailers and one giant retailer saw the box was already doing a big thing with Eric Carle. Before we even knew what we were doing, we had a pretty sizable order from a major [00:05:00] retailer and we were off and running and that was the beginning of sort of our long winding journey that has been fraught with it I would say a lot of sliding door moments that as I look back because right now with our Crayola magnetic tiles, which is our brand new venture, our PIP tiles, which are mini magnetic tiles that we came up with are the number one most wished for product in toy on Amazon and that journey to get to that place even though we still have a lot to do, had a lot of I’d say hurdles along the way and a lot of adversity from a lot of different outside forces, but we continue to push forward. 

Jason Hsieh: It actually is a perfect segue to my next question because I know licensing plays such a significant role in your business model and in your product development. Elaborate a little bit more for the listener on how do you actually secure those licenses? What is your [00:06:00] secret sauce? 

Steve Rosen: Yeah, there’s a couple of things. I would say number one, is very simple in my brain, which is networking, and network. Anytime I go to one of these trade shows I can sit down and talk to a customer and sell, but I think for me, I’d rather talk to the other vendors or the other toy innovators and just hear their journey because I think it helps me along my way. You meet people at events and I think it helps connect dots. That’s one of the things over the last 15 years that I feel like I have been able to help other people do. Just make introductions and connect dots. Now, licensing in my mind, it’s a partnership and a marriage. If the partnership is not going well. The product is going to suffer and I’ve dealt with that a ton, but I’ve also seen the success of it. When I was at my prior company, we had this wonderful relationship with Warner Brothers and we had Willy Wonka and Wizard of Oz. At the time I was there, those were the two biggest slot machines on the casino [00:07:00] floor. It was for a few reasons. But number one, I had this amazing relationship with my licensing contact there she’d give me all the assets I needed there was never any arguing. They helped us through multiple problems and I feel that same way with Crayola. Crayola today, Daniel Tiger, the world of Eric Carle. These are all just great, they believe in what we’re doing so they try and help support us. If you have a licensor who just wants a minimum guarantee and is going to throw you some assets and expect you to come up with something great that’s not always the case. The licensing space has changed over the years, right? There are evergreen licenses like the world of Eric Carle is a perfect example, Sesame street perfect example, 50 years of content, right? 99 out of a hundred people that you talk to will know that IP or that intellectual property and then there’s new stuff and that’s hot. I would say Bluey is right in that space where right now. Coco Melon went through this really great spurt and you have different brands along the way [00:08:00] then you have all this new stuff. Every time I go to the licensing show someone’s trying to hawk some new intellectual property that they think is going to be massive. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. And then you’ve got the keys to the kingdom with Disney and everything that they have but look, some products will work and some don’t. We’ve been lucky enough to just have great relationships, that’s always been my key. 

Jason Hsieh: How do you navigate this ever changing landscape of not just licensing, but just toys market in general? What kind of strategy does you employ to stay ahead of the curve?

Steve Rosen: I’d say licensing and toys they’ve really gone hand in hand. We’ve seen that, this summer with Barbie, right? I think that Barbie’s always been a massive brand. That movie catapulted it into the stratosphere and it was already almost there, right? And now Barbie has taken this massively forward and it’s changed Mattel and Hasbro and MGA and spin master, all these amazing companies into entertainment companies. Which [00:09:00] is really what they are. They licensed some things and they’re amazing juggernauts, all of them. But they are entertainment companies. I think the other big piece for the toy landscape for me is really understanding retail and also understanding Amazon. 60 percent of all toys last year were sold on Amazon, which is incredible, right? Like we’ve got this, yeah, we’ve got this product peptiles which I had shown I think last week. I do this deep dive every month into the top 100 toys on Amazon, because I think that gives you really good insight into what’s selling, what brands can be hot and what are the good price? 

Jason Hsieh: You can look at a mover and shaker.

Steve Rosen: That’s all the time. I try and look for most wish for movers and shakers every day just to see what’s moved. And our product got up to like number 3,400 out of I believe it’s close to a half a million toys on Amazon. So like magnetic tiles [00:10:00] in general right now. 

Jason Hsieh: It’s funny you mentioned that there’s a status I don’t know, maybe some of the listener might not know actually the number one place people start searching for any physical product right now is Amazon. 

Steve Rosen: Yeah, 100%. There are 350 unique magnetic tile sets on Amazon, right? And I think the, manufacturers are getting in on this themselves, right? Because in a lot of cases, they can make their own product. Slap a name on it and they can put it up on Amazon or Alibaba or all these other places. The competitive analysis that I try and stay ahead of the trends. Also listen to the licensors, right? Like I give you a perfect example, crayola does an amazing job of branding color. They own color, been able to make up colors. They have a color called Mac and cheese, right? They make color, which is once again, it’s incredible. One of their big products they’ve done over the last couple of years, they’ve called colors of kindness, right? [00:11:00] So for us to create a product with magnetic tiles called colors of kindness, we’re really just taking their lead. Their colors are life is Gouda, breathe deep, seize the day and nurture nature. It’s incredible, but it’s because Crayola is a trusted brand. I would say that one of the things that we have fought against in the toy space is can you start a brand or do you need a brand to start with? I would say starting with a license. If you’re just trying to start any brand of, Jason’s tiles, it’s easier to start with Sesame street or Daniel. 

Jason Hsieh: I think the major difficulty for the starting brand is so hard to secure license. Yeah. 

Steve Rosen: Not only is it so hard, it’s very expensive to start a brand. With our photo tiles. To pay for SEO and Facebook and Instagram marketing, to get that customer is [00:12:00] super expensive. When we started, we didn’t have those dollars. 

Jason Hsieh: It also depends on what type of audience you’re going after. For example, for our own in house brands, since we design sensory product for kids with special needs, it’s a little bit too niche for a lot of the licensors. They are really looking for mass like consumer product type.

Steve Rosen: Yeah, definitely. If you get a smart licensing agent or a smart licensor and they see some potential, I would say that look, you get on shark tank or any of these other products, they’re going to throw themselves at you even if you don’t have the sales per se, the world of Earl Carl they took a chance on us and it panned out massively for them. But they didn’t know once again, for me, that was simply about a relationship. 

Jason Hsieh: I wonder, which one is your first license that you ever secure?

Steve Rosen: Their car. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s your first license? Whoa. 

Steve Rosen: That first license got us into target, just that brand alone and we went from there and then once the dominoes start to fall, once we got from Eric Carl, Sesame street was next then [00:13:00] Daniel tiger. You got your evergreen brands and then you got your new stuff and you can take shots at other things. We have a license with this book called chicka chicka Boom, boom. The book is everywhere, it’s ubiquitous. They’ve been selling that book for 20 plus years, and we’re just creating a product with the book, right?

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, with the rise of the e-commerce and the digital platform, how has your company adapt your retail strategy to meet with the evolving consumer preferences? 

Steve Rosen: So I would say when we started with different magnetic tile company they were massive in retail. We really followed on what they were doing. Unfortunately that relationship did not pan out for a multitude of reasons, but then we had to pivot and go on, really just go on the offensive and get on Amazon. Use the direct consumer strategy. We pivoted pretty quickly to Crayola magnetic tiles, They’re a brick and mortar brand, right? We’re, once again taking their lead. They’re a [00:14:00] licensing company too. They probably have 50 licenses and they’ve got a license deal with Playmobil and they just did one with LOL. But Crayola unto themselves has to be one of the most trusted parent brands on planet earth. They have built that and people trust Crayola for the right reasons, right? They make quality products. Majority of their products are affordable for the average family. As we continue to see what’s transpired in the economy, that price point is pushing down and we’re learning that from retailers. Every retailer we speak to 25 and under, you gotta be there. If you’re not there, you’re not getting on a shelf unless you’re a massive brand. Going from direct to consumer and brick and mortar and you said it, Jason, I would say the Amazon piece is actually fueling brick and mortar a little because people are looking 

Jason Hsieh: for it

Steve Rosen: and then they see it and then you know, maybe they’ll pick it up.

Jason Hsieh: There’s also a branding strategy as well. A lot of the brand owner I talked to, they didn’t realize that [00:15:00] because it’s the number one place people start searching for it. So if your brand is not being very well represented, let’s just say your listing is not really well optimized. You don’t have all the images, you don’t even have the videos or you have bad review on it. It just make your brand look really bad. So a lot of toy brand I talk to they don’t realize that and they focus so much on retail, but their Amazon presence is lacking. And that also affect, and we might have a negative effect on their retail sale as well. Because when I’m doing any kind of shopping in the physical store, the number one thing I do is barcode using my Amazon app and try to find review for this exact product I’m trying to, before I buy.

Steve Rosen: Absolutely. Yeah. That happens all the time. We’re very cognizant of that so we will try and sometimes we had taken this strategy at some point that we do certain exclusive products for exclusive retailers, which retailers love. And I think takes you out of what you’re doing, right? So then they can’t trace that back to. But in the same sense we’ve [00:16:00] had instances where we’ll sell to discount retail, right? And there is a whole cottage market of people that go into discount retailers, scan the barcode and from the discount retailer, purchase it. It’s on Amazon within 30 seconds, right? Which then fights against the manufacturer, us. So that pushes our price point down. 

Jason Hsieh: There is a program you can look into is called Amazon transparency. How it works is once you enroll every single product you ship into Amazon require a dedicated Amazon barcode per product. So no one else that doesn’t have that particular barcode can list against your Amazon listing. You get rid of all the other unauthorized reseller. 

Steve Rosen: You would be surprised at how much that still happens. It doesn’t matter, we’ve tried that multiple times. How’s this? We on Amazon, because we control our packaging on about 75 percent of our products, we made different box fronts. Different hero images would go into [00:17:00] retail versus Amazon. So it would be a different looking box and people were still listening against our product. 

Jason Hsieh: Huh? Are you currently part of the transparency? 

Steve Rosen: We’re 3P. 

Jason Hsieh: Okay, 3P, that’s another program that’s additional on top of that. 

Steve Rosen: FBA, yeah.

Jason Hsieh: It’s called Transparency. The actual name is called Amazon Transparency. 

Steve Rosen: Okay, that’s what’s in there. 

Jason Hsieh: It’s an optional program. You can look into it. I think it might help you. 

Steve Rosen: Thank you, Jason. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, no problem. The next question I have is, out of all the different licensing deals, which you got a lot of, which one’s the most memorable one that you’d like to share with the audience?

Steve Rosen: Wow, that’s a tough one. Licensing deals, which didn’t really work out, I would say in the end, when I was a scientific games, I guess there were two. Number one was the Simpsons. So we got the license for, that show has been on 30 plus years and we had fought to try and get that brand for a long time. And we finally we’re able to make a deal, we met with their team. There may be no bigger [00:18:00] entertainment property, they may be one of the biggest on planet earth, right? The Simpsons is on, there was a stat one time that every minute of every day, the Simpsons show is playing somewhere in the world. 

Jason Hsieh: I didn’t know that. Whoa. 

Steve Rosen: And especially now with Disney taking that over and it being on Disney plus. So we ended up getting that brand and I remember just the joy that we had all felt that we were going to make this amazing product. I thought we made a great product, it just didn’t resonate. I would say with consumers in the end. But they were amazing, we got to have voiceover sessions with Hank Azaria, Dan Castellaneta. Listening to these guys switch from voice to voice was just incredible. And then the James Bond license. We’re all big fans of the brand and they did not want to be in the space. We were able to convince them to get in the space and we made some amazing products with that. Those are two really proud moments for me. But then also, I think that create on side the Sesame Street license, [00:19:00] every kid grows up watching Sesame Street. I don’t care who you are. They know who these people are. When we got that brand and made that first Elmo product, that was like one of those seminal moments for me and my career because I respect what they do for kids all over the world, the way they’re inclusive, the way they are creative, the characters, the iconography. Just for me and what we did here at CreateOn that was like one of those massive moments for us. 

Jason Hsieh: Have you considered reaching out to Japanese animation companies and try to get license for animations as well?

Steve Rosen: Yeah, we’ve talked about and I don’t know if Pokemon is considered in that vein but every year, Pokemon is like the number one licensed product in the space. I just have never really believed that our product is in that age range, I look at our product like three to six or seven and then one of the [00:20:00] things we tried to really latch onto a couple of years ago was this idea of adults who want to buy Funko or whatever that stuff, so we ended up doing a licensing deal with the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, and we made magnetic tile sets. Utilizing those properties and it did fine. We made great products. One of our Beatles sets was nominated for a Toadie, which I think was like a really proud moment for the 13 of us here at CreateOn to even be recognized against. We were up against Lego, we were up against the big guys and we didn’t win, but I think just knowing that we could create these amazing products that would resonate in some way and they don’t always lead to sales, right? Even though it doesn’t sell well, it could lead to the next opportunity, which a lot of our products have for us. 

Jason Hsieh: For sure. Just to educate the listener and even for myself because I never get any licenses yet. What is the [00:21:00] minimum requirement those licenses I usually look for is like one year. Is it certain volume that they require as part of the contract? 

Steve Rosen: Everyone is different. I can tell you that I’ve had some licensing deals where we had a minimum guarantee of no dollars, it was just a straight royalty deal because they saw the potential opportunity to get in the magnetic tile space and the toy space and they took it. Some licensors are looking for massive minimum guarantees that is a dollar amount that you will throw at them that in some cases work out and in some cases can put you under water. And then I think every licensor that we’ve worked with and had a licensing deal with, 99 percent of them have been beyond fair. I think when I go into these negotiations, I have a baseline of what I think we can do sometimes we go above it, sometimes we’re able to get below it. But you can always negotiate and if they want to be in business with you, they’re going to make a [00:22:00] deal happen. That’s always been my philosophy. If I can create a relationship with the person that I’m negotiating with, which I always generally have been able to that also helps in negotiations too.

Jason Hsieh: What is the typical range of the percentage of the royalty here? 

Steve Rosen: I would say most commonly It’s a three year term. In a lot of cases now we’re a year out in selling cycle. So it’s not technically a three year term, it’s a two year term. You got the first year to try and get online and get into retail and then you got two years after that. I would say standard licensing royalty rates range anywhere from 10 percent on wholesale to 5 percent direct to consumer, which should normally be that the same dollar amount because you’re selling it for more on direct to consumer sites or you’re making more and then minimum guarantees range from $2000 a year where you just owe them that check and then the gravy is anything above and beyond that and you have to earn that out or there are [00:23:00] certain companies looking for six figures a year. They’ll get it in most cases because the brand is hot and they know that. But we’re not at that scale yet. Every brand, even Sesame Street, that work with it has been fair and they want to help and make you succeed because truthfully, in most cases, if you’re at a $10,000 minimum guarantee, that’s great cause they know they can book that revenue. Any licenser, but they wanna help you get above and beyond that, right? 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, of course. 

Steve Rosen: Some of the licensers, I give a lot of credit to most of the licensers we have worked with. They bet on us, and our creativity and the market that we were in. I would say for 90% of ’em it’s worked out. Sometimes it doesn’t, but there is no harm, right? If it doesn’t work out and you have a massive guarantee with a certain licenser. It hurts the company, right? That’ll end up hurting us because we owe them a check irregardless of if the product works and that’s happened to us.

Jason Hsieh: What kind of [00:24:00] challenge have you encountered in bringing licensed product to the market and how have you overcome them in the past? 

Steve Rosen: There is no barrier to entry on Amazon, right? You got to get the product safety tested and then you can test it. We also have another great partner in, this online retailer called Mason net, who’s been a big supporter of us and we saw a lot there. But there is no barrier to entry on Amazon. It just, it either works or it doesn’t, but you got to advertise. You got to put money behind it to get keywords on Amazon with licenses and if a licensor has their own storefront that helps because it pushes things to the top of certain pages, but with brick and mortar you got to have a brand that’s going to resonate with customers. One of the things I try and do at least once a week is I walk target and Walmart, I watched the toy section and I look and see, who has what? How much space to certain things? Look, Barbie’s got an entire aisle now. Lego’s got two aisles, but I always look at the competition. What is Lego doing? What [00:25:00] licenses are they looking at? Because they’re normally got a really high hit rate, let’s just be honest. And I also try and look at the space and footage. If you look at blue, he’s a good example right now. They keep expanding their footprint. Sesame is another great example of this. They did all encompassing deal for their master toy license with just play and just play has just done a fantastic job of reinvigorating the brand. In many cases we’re just small to medium sized company and we’re just tagging along. But if you’re gonna talk to one of these buyers 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. 

Steve Rosen: For instance, if they don’t have any Sesame product, they’re probably not going to take our product in. So I look at that and I know when I am looking at talking to a licensor, Hey, you already have Dr. Seuss, why wouldn’t you put in another Dr. Seuss brand? We’re doing a big deal with Joanne’s right now and we got a big end cap with our Crayola stuff, but I went to Joanne’s last week, Joanne’s has a bunch of Eric Carle stuff, so I’m going to pitch her our Eric Carle sets too. [00:26:00] I’m always very cognizant of who has what. But there is a barrier to entry in retail and that’s why you got to make sure you have the right brand. 

Jason Hsieh: So let’s just say once you secure a new license, how many different variation of product are you trying to develop and what does that timeline usually look like?

Steve Rosen: I would say we’re an outlier in some of this because we built capabilities in Chicago to prototype, print, pack, and ship our products out of our facility. We invested in production here, we believe in what we can do here in the States with a lot of art, like the perfect example, we did a, we did this deal with camp, which is a big experiential toy shop, and we made a white label magnetic tile set for them and we can do that. It sets us apart a little bit because we have very low minimum order quantities. We can make somewhere between a thousand sets a day packaged. We’ve done deals with SeaWorld, [00:27:00] we’ll do stuff with them where we’ll make a set. We can basically go from concept to approval, to shipping and anywhere from 30 to 45 days, which is unheard of, right? 

Jason Hsieh: That’s unheard of, yeah. That’s super fast. Oh my God. 

Steve Rosen: But that took an upfront capital investment on, my business partners to say, look, this is what I believe in. This is what I want our company to be. And we use a just in time inventory where we’re getting the tiles in from overseas, but then we’re doing everything else here. We wanted to be able to turn quick on a dime, which really helped us during COVID because there was a, I believe it was either 21 or 22 where nobody had anything.

Jason Hsieh: Yes. 

Steve Rosen: We ended up getting into Meyer and a couple of these other places where we probably wouldn’t have gotten in before, but because we had production capabilities in the States, we were able to really be nimble and get product out. We’re doing a set right now with Cirque du Soleil. If they went overseas to try and get, I don’t know, just a [00:28:00] bag you’d have to get a more minimum order quantity of 10, 000 units. You’d have to wait 90 days to get everything shipped over. But like with us, they want 250 units. Great. We can knock that out in a day. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s very unique selling proposition. Not a lot of company I talked to have that. 

Steve Rosen: They’re relying to get it from overseas and look, we do too. And that was a whole other thing finding new manufacturer, which has been look, sometimes you get it right sometimes you get it wrong. We got it right. And we just got lucky. I get emails every day from manufacturers overseas. I’ve got this toy, that toy, you want to buy this, we can make this for you and it’s all fine. And we try and make connections with all these to have and try and diversify our manufacturing portfolio. But we just got really lucky. There’s no other way to say it. Once they made the first product, the Crayola product for us, we saw it, touched it, felt it. We were like, this is the right place for us. And they’ve been a phenomenal partner overseas. 

Jason Hsieh: [00:29:00] Besides just in time inventory and like having that capability in US, what other strategy are you using to really differentiate yourself in the crowded toy marketing space? 

Steve Rosen: For us, we’re probably, our reps, we have amazing reps. But it’s very hard for them to keep up with us because we productize so much. Sometimes it’s a plus for us and sometimes it’s a negative. But one of the things that, I think we’re just wonderful at here is productizing. When we make. Sesame said we would do three of them, right? Maybe we didn’t need to do three of them and maybe only one of them sold. But because only one of them sold, we only made two others. So it was really like. I don’t have any other inventory of it. If they wanted it, we’d make it, we’d sell it. We’ve been able to really prototype and test and we build capabilities here in the States to prototype. That has been like this saving grace for us because a lot of [00:30:00] these retailers want to see samples quickly and that’s not going to happen from overseas. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Steve Rosen: We have purchased machinery to make boxes for us here to print on boxes for us here to print the tiles. We can do it and we do it fast and we’ve got an amazing production team here at Create On that is able to turn on a dime. The only thing consistent about here that we do is change. And if you can’t handle that here then it’s not going to suit you but I think changing in the toy space and the licensing space really in any industry is paramount and you have to be able to do that quickly. We have been able to set ourselves apart by productizing and productizing fast.

Jason Hsieh: 45 day turnaround is really unheard of in a toy 

Steve Rosen: with safety certifications. 

Jason Hsieh: with certification? Oh my God. That’s super fast. Usually the certification itself is take like a few weeks. 

Steve Rosen: Yeah, we have just found all these great partners to work with. Am testing is our testing facility. We love working with them. They’re an extension of our [00:31:00] team because they have the same goals to speed quality. We would never send out anything that didn’t pass safety certifications. And that’s just the way it is, that’s the way we run things. 

Jason Hsieh: Got it, And I think you mentioned it a little bit earlier during today’s interview, but can you share your insight about the main target demographic that you are trying to reach? I think it’s an age group that you’re trying to reach? 

Steve Rosen: Yeah, absolutely. I would say magnetic tiles because tiles are have been notoriously three inches, right? Like they’re three inches and we’ve just come out with this brand new one inch tile and we believe that once a child hits between six or seven they’ve graduated a Lego, right? And Lego has Duplo too, which is a product for younger and that’s the clicking. But I think the magnets on themselves, there is something to this force of the magnet and being able to maneuver it around and being able to like, Look, let’s be honest, [00:32:00] I’m in this situation and you have kids too, Jay. You’ve been in a situation where you step on a Lego, you swear and you’re everywhere, but like the magnetic tiles, they just click together and you’re just holding them and you move them. I would say we really look at that three to seven, three to six year old range. I also do believe that one of the things that we’ve tried to do is age it up as well. We have a product that I believe is one of the things that has set us apart because of Crayola, which is called doodle tiles. So doodle tiles are white magnetic tiles that come with Crayola product, right? Markers. You write on, you write off. It’s a writing board, it’s a art projects. The way that we pitched it is you’re putting the A in steam. And this has been a big differentiator for us because, number one, we own the term doodle tiles, we have the Crayola license. People are trying to knock us off left and right, but they don’t have Crayola and they don’t have the [00:33:00] name. So, we’ve been able to productize on this. We’re coming out with a glow set, we’re coming out with black and white tiles and Crayola has just been more than happy to show us they’ve got this gel effects marker, which I think works better on our tiles. So now we’re using this style this marker. We’ve really been able to productize alongside of Crayola. They’re a product development company too. So anytime I see something new that they’re doing I’m always asking, can we get a sample? Can we try it? I think that’s been our secret sauce a little bit. 

Jason Hsieh: Got it. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. 

Steve Rosen: Yeah. No problem. 

Jason Hsieh: Wrapping up for today’s interview. If you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s just getting started in the toy industry, what would that be? 

Steve Rosen: Yeah, it’s two pieces and I think I’ve gone over it a little bit, but I will restate them because it’s simple for me. You got to network, send emails, direct messaging it doesn’t always work, but [00:34:00] LinkedIn is a great way to find people. I’ve, done a lot of connection through LinkedIn. And you do your homework, I think I had said this, right? But like I do store checks at least once a week, I am on Amazon every day looking and seeing what’s hot, what’s new, what the price points things are coming out at, and then my business partner, Aaron who’s the yin and yang between the two of us. He’s always looking at new creative innovations, new printing capabilities, new packaging ideas. So we’ve been able to really utilize our own strengths and mesh them together and create a great company that I hope lives on for a long time.

The toy industry for me with something totally, I wouldn’t say it was like totally different from slots. Cause I believe that it’s entertainment anyway you slice it. I’ve been able to use a lot of my connections from the slot machine industry in toys. Cause it is entertainment, but I love the toy space [00:35:00] because of the creativity. Every night my daughter wants to play Barbies with me and I relish that time for a few reasons. Number one, I don’t know how much longer she’s going to want to do that for, but I also know that it’s keeping her off a screen and she can become creative and I watched my son build Legos for years. There is something to that and the way that it helps the brain. For me, it created a lot of amazing memories playing with him and building these things. And we used to buy like the Lego character heads and we would, build them at Starbucks sitting down when my daughter was a newborn. I remember as a kid having all the Star Wars toys and I remember all these. And I think I am I, am grateful to be in the toy space. I’d love this to be the rest of my career and I would love to continue to build great products. Anytime I see a kid playing with magnetic tiles, either in the summer at my son’s baseball [00:36:00] games or wherever we go at the airport. When I saw someone playing with the PIP tiles, that, that gives me something and it fuels me and I know that we’re doing something right.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. Where can people find you and your product? 

Steve Rosen: We’re all over Amazon, CreateOns on Amazon, create on. createon.Com. You can come and check out everything we’re doing, we do a lot of customization. We believe that at some point the market will be ready for the customization of toys. So we have some of our own products that you can put your child’s face in like our galaxy rocket, we’ve got a bus that you could put kids faces in and we’re just going to continue to make great products. That’s the one thing I’m never worried about with us. I know that we will make great products. That’s something that will never change about us here at CreateOn. 

Jason Hsieh: Thank you so much. It was a very informative and I actually learned a few things during today’s interview as well. Thank you so much. 

Steve Rosen: And Jason, thank you for doing the podcast. I listened to it, I listened to all the toy podcasts. [00:37:00] It keeps me engaged in the industry and to see what’s new. I love what the other toy companies are doing but thank you for doing this as well. 

Jason Hsieh: Hey, no problem. Thank you so much.

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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