Storey Time

Look Mom, I Can Mouse!

2009-04-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

As I watched the NCAA basketball tournament this weekend, I was subjected to television advertising (you don’t realize what a wonderful creation the DVR is until you have to suffer through a sporting event in real time). As I waited through a commercial break during Syracuse’s drubbing of my poor Sun Devils, I saw an ad for Microsoft’s Live Photo Gallery in which an adorable four year-old girl called Kylie was showing us all how easy it is for her to load photos and send them to her Mommy and Daddy. It was a fantastic way of demonstrating how easy the software is to use, but for a moment I had a chill similar to the one I had when I read an article about how the cigarette companies used animated figures to encourage kids to take up smoking in the early 20th century. It’s probably important to state that I’m not implying that Microsoft software is going to cause cancer and I am both a shareholder and an unapologetic user of their software, but I just wonder whether it is entirely responsible to be encouraging kids to plant themselves in front of a computer at the age of four? Microsoft isn’t alone in appealing to increasingly younger and younger audiences. The examples are endless:

Apple has been at the forefront of putting digital products in front of kids and has specifically targeted advertising at children under the age of ten.
Mattel’s barbie.com has a “Barbie Kids” section that includes games, videos (and the occasional product promo). Their Fisher-Price site has online games to support their Little People line.
Dreamworks’ shrek.com has a games section as part of their site.

At 41 years old, I want to make it clear that I am a digital immigrant. When I graduated from college and officially joined the work force, fax and telephone were still the dominant forms of digital communication. Email was something for “computer geeks”. I understand that people born after 1980 were born in the digital age and are exposed to computers, cell phones and other electronics almost from the moment they leave the womb. I’m certainly not naïve enough to believe that we can stop or slow the evolution of the digital age, but I do wonder about the long-term impact of exposing kids to all of this technology from the time they are physically able to click a mouse or press a keyboard.

First, what does this do to the physical health and well being of our kids? Active play is not only critical to the physical development of children; it is the cornerstone for an active lifestyle that prevents obesity and other problems that come along with being sedentary. There is a balance to be had, but to a certain extent digital exposure and active play are in competition with one another. It becomes increasingly more difficult for open, active play to compete with the bells and whistles of the internet, software games and other forms of digital entertainment. I don’t think the correlation between the epidemic levels of childhood obesity and the trend towards exposing children to technology at younger and younger ages is a coincidence.

Secondly, is all of this digital exposure suppressing the imaginations and creativity of our children? Two years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Sir Ken Robinson speak. Sir Ken is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity and innovation and has written several books including Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. During his speech, he spoke about the benefits and challenges facing people born into the digital age. On the plus side, children born into the digital age are much better at multi-tasking and are much more adaptive to changes in technology. On the negative side, they tend to have significantly shorter attention spans and more importantly, their immersion in watch-me activities, even those that have some educational value, appears to inhibit their creativity.

Childhood, particularly preschool years, is when we develop the foundation for our creativity. Watching a three year-old child playing with a dollhouse or a toy car is awe-inspiring. When they are not encumbered by pre-established scripts, their capacity to create their own unique and fascinating story lines is infinite. A few weeks ago, Chris Clemmer had his daughter Corah in the office on a Saturday afternoon while we had a founders meeting. While we sat around talking about various issues of the day, Corah played with a Sprig Hollow farm mixed with a couple of competitive product samples that we had lying around. While I tried to stay completely focused on the topic at hand, I couldn’t help but stray into Corah’s world of talking bugs, wild adventures and enchanted lands. If these tales are brought to our kids courtesy of the World Wide Web, how do we realistically expect kids to be able to have the creative capacity to find solutions to the issues facing us when they are adults?

The companies that are pushing our children towards digital entertainment at earlier and earlier ages are not inherently evil. They don’t have a complete disregard for the well-being of our children and they can probably make a pretty good case that technology from the crib has its benefits. However, I think there is plenty of evidence to show that we need to balance this technology with some good old fashion open, active play. I would encourage you to research the effects of technology on kids before you put your child in front of that computer. Books like Jane Healy’s FAILURE TO CONNECT: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds – and What We Can Do About It and David’s Elkind’s The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally are both excellent and sometimes startling reads about how technology impacts the development of creativity in our children.

On a completely unrelated note, Chris, Steve and I were out of town last week for some meetings, including a great discussion with our friends over at Green Toys (www.greentoys.com ). While our families and coworkers were treated to a foot of brand new snow combined with 30+ mile-per-hour winds, we slogged through the misery of life in San Francisco. I thought I’d share one of the many intolerable moments during our trip. Chris and Steve were troopers, but if you look closely you can see the pain in their faces:

Toy Fair and the Launch of Sprig Hollow

2009-03-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

Once again, I must start this blog by apologizing for the lack of consistency. I think about the importance of it often, but between my Twitter posts, Facebook status updates, LinkedIn networking, My Space correspondence and responsibilities to straighten out the misinformed masses on various message boards, my time is so limited! I’m kidding of course. My Space is so 2007.

Where to begin? Let’s start with Toy Fair. We had another great show. As you can see, the team did another great job with our booth and we had a lot of attention. Virtually the entire booth was made of recycled and recyclable materials.

To add to the attention, Sprig sponsored the first ever recycling program at the New York Toy Fair! We had recycling bins next to virtually every trash can at the Javitz Center and got a lot of thank you’s from the folks in attendance. We were a little concerned that our new booth location was too far in the back of the hall, but it didn’t seem to slow traffic. Once again, we were the busiest booth in our area and somehow appeared to have even more traffic than last year. Tami Kelly, our PR Rep, managed to get us some terrific media attention, including interviews on ABC News and Fox Business News and a mention of our Eco-Trucks line in a CNBC “Hot Toy Trends” interview with a woman from Amazon’s Merchandising group.

On the first night of Toy Fair, we all made our way to Chelsea Piers for the Toy of the Year (“TOTY”) Awards. Our Discover Rig was nominated in three categories (the most of any toy): Most Innovative Toy, Best Boys Toy and Best Specialty Toy. While we realized as a new company we were fighting an uphill battle, we held out hope that we would win in one of the three categories. Despite our best efforts to keep our expectations low, I must admit we were all a little disappointed at being three time losers. It could have been the deliciously dry chicken, the soggy veggies or the stale rolls but as you can see, our spirits didn’t remain down for long. We managed to salvage a fun night and it was fun to hear the Sprig name mentioned three times alongside the biggies of the industry.

Later in February, Justin and I spoke to Professor Dawn DeTienne’s Entrepreneurship classes at Colorado State University. It’s the second time we’ve been invited to speak to her class and it’s always a great pleasure. The students are much more engaged than I remember being at their age and asked some really terrific and challenging questions. There was the kid in the third row that slept through the presentation, but I’ve spoken with Justin and I’m sure the next time he’ll be able to match the mirth and charm of my contribution.

This month we’re adding Sprig Hollow to our already terrific lineup of products. It’s another terrific product from the team. Great active indoor/outdoor play, engaging characters, plantable seed disks and vehicles with multiple uses at a great price. The reaction from retailers and toy testers has been fantastic and we can’t wait to see kids playing with it. Check out our store locator to find out where you can find it!

Well, I think I’ve just been “Facebook Friend-ed” by an old BFF and there are a few people on the Arizona State Sun Devil basketball message board that need some straightening out! Thanks for reading and for your continued support of Sprig.

Rave Reviews, Awards, and Evel Knievel

2008-11-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

I can only imagine how excited you must all be to hear from me after such a long drought of “Storey Time”! Here are some of the rave reviews from my last blog:

“There sure were a lot of words.” – Bette Storey, Mom Monthly

“Honey, maybe you should bring in a guest blogger, you know, to mix things up.” – Erin Storey, Wife Digest

“Dude, we need a marketing department.” – Justin, Chris, Dave and David, Co-Founder Gazette

So, with that inspiring feedback, I respectfully submit my October entry. With a little more than a month of product on shelf, we seem to be getting rave reviews! Re-orders have been terrific, even in this crazy economy, and the overwhelming consumer feedback is that they love the product. We’ve seen fantastic support from a lot of retailers, including catalog covers and store front placement. Main Street Toys in Franklin, TN had a particularly impressive display.

We’ve also seen some terrific online reviews of the product and a couple of amateur filmmakers who have shared their experiences with our product (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao9z_WQrYt8).

The “toy guys” in the group were sitting around on Friday and talking about how this is the most rewarding product line we’ve ever been associated with. Given that a couple of the founders have designed past Toy of the Year Award winning products, that says a lot. Whether it’s the most creative product ever produced by our collective team might be debatable, but the satisfaction of knowing that we worked hard to find as many ways as we could to minimize the amount of virgin material used and to reduce our total carbon footprint adds another level of joy to seeing the Adventure Series on shelf. Now we just have to bite our nails and wait to see if the Holiday Season will still come this year!

Speaking of awards, we’ve started to receive some very nice ones! Today we found out we were selected as a winner of the coveted Oppenheim Platinum Award (www.toyportfolio.com). Stephanie Oppenheim was one of the first people that we showed the line to and we’re happy that she thinks we’re on the right track. We have also received the Creative Child’s 2008 Preferred Choice Award and been named to Dr. Toy’s “Best 100 Toy Products”. We’re also going to be featured in a lot of upcoming holiday gift guides and product features coming in November and December. For updates, check out the “News” section of our web site.

Finally, one of the great joys of working for a toy company is the fact that most people who are drawn to this industry are in a suspended state of adolescence. This year has been an incredibly tough year for all of us and every once in a while, things happen that remind us how important play is to our sanity and creativity. Last weekend, David Monahan, his wife Teresa and daughter Kate invited us all to their annual Halloween Bash! It included a fantastic haunted house, tremendous food and amazing costumes. We managed to break away from the fun to take a Sprig and Family group picture.
You may note that even Rudi Tootin’ was there (bearing a striking resemblance to Chris Clemmer). And today we pulled out a childhood favorite, the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. We set up a jump, lined up some Sprig vehicles and tried to see how far Evel could go. Here are some exciting action shots.

Riveting, I know. I can hear the next round of blog reviews coming in now! Have a Happy Thanksgiving and I’ll talk with you soon.

Sprig Store Locator, New Eco-Trucks and The Spriggest Loser

2008-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Lots going on in our little world! First, our product should be hitting your local toy store this week. If you need help finding out where to buy our product, just head over to our handy-dandy store locator! If your favorite toy retailer isn’t found on our store locator, we strongly encourage you to march right in and tell them you want to see Sprig Toys in their store. As a matter of fact, we think daily reminders and picketing are perfectly acceptable.

You might also notice a couple of additions to our web site. First, in the products section you will see an icon called “In the Making”. It’s a video tape of the assembly process from our manufacturers in Canada. We’ve added some music and sounds that we think add some flavor to the clip. Secondly, about two months ago we were sitting in a staff meeting lamenting our expanding waistlines and double chins. Being a company founded in part on the idea of getting kids up and running, we were a bit ashamed at our lack of fitness. Introducing the “Spriggest Loser”, a three month competition among the Sprig Team to lose weight and get healthier. You can find our profiles, current weights and target weights along with our individual attempts at “before” pictures in the “Our Tale” section of the site.

We just had the pleasure of showing the Sprig toy line at the Green Frontier Fest, a sustainable living fair held in Denver in advance of the Democratic National Convention. What a terrific event. Lots of great companies from all over the country (and the Front Range) showing their wares.

Thanks to the team, the booth looked great and we had lots of visitors including a ton of kids who by all appearances loved both the Adventure Series and our spring line of Eco-Trucks™, which we premiered at the event. The Eco-Trucks line includes indoor/outdoor construction vehicles and a sandbox, all made from Sprigwood and manufactured in Europe. We should have more about Eco-Trucks and our other spring products up on our web site in the next month.

The highlight of the event was an unannounced visit from actress and activist Darryl Hannah. David Monahan did a great job of walking her through the line and she spent several minutes asking about Sprig and watching kids play with our vehicles in the sandbox. Before she left, she said some very nice things about both the toy line and our mission. We also had a few media outlets stop by, including idealbite.com. I guess you can say we made quite a “Splash” at the event! Sorry.

While the general mood of the event was enthusiastic and most everyone was supportive of all the companies participating, I did notice a minority of grumbling that seems to be a growing more present at events like this (as well as on blogs, message boards and web sites). There seem to be a vocal minority who feel obligated to point out the flaws in any sustainable initiative or enterprise, regardless of how ambitious or sincere the effort. Gengreen (www.gengreen.org), a sustainable living web site based in Ft. Collins had the booth directly behind us. I must have heard at least three different people approach them to ask about resources for calling out products that “aren’t as green as they claim to be”. In addition, I experienced a walk-by attack from a woman who shouted at us that if our product was in packaging, it “wasn’t green”.

I’m not denying that there are lots of companies taking advantage of the increasing spotlight on our global environmental crisis. Greenwashing is very prevalent and there are always going to be companies looking to make a quick buck on what they view as a trend. However, rather than focusing our collective energies on pointing out why something is less green than it should be, isn’t it in our best interest to support what companies are doing right? Every industry faces challenges and unfortunately compromise is sometimes a necessity. My friend at the Green Frontier Fest who called out our use of packaging has a point. Ideally, we’d love to put our product on shelf without packaging. Aside from the elimination of additional paper products, it would cost us less money to make the product! However, the majority of consumers still rely on packaging to find out things like product features and origin of manufacturing. Retailers rely on packaging to hold product on shelf, prevent theft and to display important data like UPC codes.

We could stand our ground and tell our customers that we refuse to use packaging because it is the right thing to do. Of course, we’d severely diminish our ability to sell product. Our compromise is to use recycled packaging with the least amount of material we possibly can. Perhaps in the not too distant future, as consumers become more aware of the impact discarded packaging has on our environment, we can reach a point where it can be eliminated. I hope so. In the meantime, there are lots of us out there that are constantly evaluating ways to reduce our footprint and push the envelope with materials, design and process. The Green Frontier Fest was a terrific example of that and I firmly believe there is a groundswell building among US consumers that we will see grow exponentially in the next few years.

Sorry for my rant. It’s probably the lack of food consumption as I try to become the Spriggest Loser. Hopefully the next blog entry will more full of the life fulfilling commentary that drives all of you here in droves of tens! Now, go out and buy a Sprig vehicle (and be sure to recycle the packaging)!

Sprig Toys Hit The Shelves

2008-07-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

Right now, I’m looking at the first production unit of the Sprig Adventure Series to come off the assembly line! It’s a beautiful bright yellow Sprig Baja Scout with Miki Flinders sitting anxiously in the driver’s seat. The product is gorgeous and we couldn’t be happier with the packaging. It does such a great job of conveying all the coolness of the product in a definitively unique color palate. The first shipment of product will be sent on July 30 to support Popco Ltd., our UK distributor; the rest will be shipped early the following week to our distribution center in Alsip, IL to support our customers in the US. Baytech, our Canadian manufacturers, have literally been working non-stop to get the product out in time to meet customer demand and we are grateful for all of their hard work and collaboration.

The last six months have been an emotional rollercoaster as we’ve worked through all the issues of developing and putting into production a very ambitious product line that uses new materials, technologies and manufacturing partners. At times it seemed overwhelming, but the commitment of the entire team has been incredible and I am so proud to be part of this. I just can’t wait for all of you to see the product for yourselves. To help you find it, we’ve added a store locator that should point you to the closest retail outlet to find our product as well as a few online retailers that are supporting the product line. Happy hunting!

This week you might also note we have added our mission statement to the web site. It is simple and straightforward:

“Active, inspirational, fun toys made safely and sustainably”

Eight words. Eight very emotionally and animatedly debated words. Over the past eight months, we have spent numerous hours reviewing, discussing and arguing over our mission, values and culture and it’s probably been one of my favorite parts of our ride thus far. Within the founder group, there is an incredibly diverse range of views about what we are and what we think we should aspire to be. We’ve discussed and debated everything from the perceived and actual meanings of the words used to the order in which they should appear and at times did so at decibel levels that might have seeped onto the street. However, in the end we came up with a mission and values that we are proud of and unanimously agree upon. I ultimately believe we reached agreement because of the integrity of the group. There are no hidden agendas, senses of entitlement or overblown egos (well, except for me but they are quick to put me in my place). Every discussion and decision is focused on the best interest of Sprig Toys and while there may be disagreements, it’s the collective knowledge that we all have the best interest of the “greater good” at heart that has allowed us to find common ground. Now it’s up to us to live up to the lofty values and goals we’ve set for ourselves and I don’t think we could have a better or more motivated group to do that.

Employee ten starts on August 5th! Little Star Wilburn will be jumping on board as our new Accounting Manager. She has a very broad accounting background, including some time with a “Big 4” accounting firm, but really made her mark with a great first impression. A few Friday’s ago, she marched in unsolicited and told us how much she loved what we were doing, how cool she thought the line was and how well she thought she’d fit in. Luckily for us, the strength of her technical competence matched her initiative. Welcome aboard Little Star!

What Price Fun?

2008-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I’ll start this blog entry with an update of what is going on with Sprig. As we speak the tools are arriving at our factory in Canada and the electronic components of the Adventure Series are in production. We are getting some great feedback from the retailers that have seen and played with the pre-production samples. Full production and assembly will begin next month and we will start shipping to customers on August 1^st. It will be a tremendous relief to finally get our product on shelf and see how moms, dads and kids respond to the product line. Yesterday, we had an open house to thank the people who helped us get on our feet. It was fun to watch the kids at the party running with the Discover Rig up and down the sidewalk, on the grass and over gravel with the sound of Cap Faraday’s voice in the background and his headlamp shining from the driver’s seat. I should also mention that we have a few new people on the Sprig Team:

Kim Greenlee has joined us as our Office Manager, Operations Manager, Customer Service Manager, Samples Coordinator, Accounting Manager and basic glue that holds the whole thing together. To be honest, she should probably have my job.
Owen Richard left a very lucrative position as a fast rising engineer with an IT giant to manage the mechanical engineering functions for us. He is also the primary target of office hazing. It’s nice to have some fresh meat around the office and I’m sure he wakes up in the middle of the night wondering what he was thinking.
Elizabeth Fountaine is a junior Marketing and Management major at Colorado State University who is serving as a summer intern. I’m not sure how much she’s learned about marketing or management, but she’s certainly doing a lot of great stuff for us.
Rob Ufer is a teacher who has come on board to help us part-time during the summer on some design work. I’m sure his work with high school students was a good prep for working with the Sprig team.

This will be the most interesting fall in the consumer market in quite some time. Skyrocketing oil prices are having a significant impact on both the price of plastic and the price of transportation. In the US, consumer confidence is at its lowest point in 16 years, market indexes are down over 5% from the beginning of 2008, unemployment is climbing and the value of the dollar is plummeting against other currencies. Sales at retail seem to be holding, but all of the major retailers are acknowledging a “softness” in the market and predicting that the trend will likely continue in the short term.

Over the past twenty years, both toy manufacturers and retailers have tried their best to hold toys at those $4.99, $9.99, $14.99 and $19.99 price points that we know and love. This has been achieved primarily through using cheaper materials, shifting manufacturing overseas and retailers and manufacturers accepting lower margins. Toy companies and retailers have continued to thrive because consumer purchasing power has increased as prices have remained steady which has translated to consumers buying more toys. After years of holding toy prices steady, most toy manufacturer are now significantly raising prices on products. Retailers likely won’t be able to absorb these price increases and will have to increase pricing in their stores.

You are now probably saying, “thank you for simultaneously boring me, depressing me and making me wonder whether you have a point.” Here it comes (although I won’t promise it will resolve your boredom): I think this is ultimately good, not just for toys but for the consumer market in general. We have become a disposable culture. On the whole, we make most of our purchases without thinking about the long-term ramifications of what we are buying. How many times have you purchased a cheap toy or article of clothing for your kids, knowing that it will be a short-term pacifier? They will play for it for a day, wear it for a month, and then it will be forgotten (if you’ve read The Velveteen Rabbit, this will make you particularly sad). Where does this stuff go after the immediate satisfaction of the newness of the product wears off? Well, if you are anything like me, in the short term it gets shoved into a corner, a cabinet, the garage, a closet, under the rug or if I’m going to be perfectly honest, in the middle of the floor. Eventually, there is a tipping point where all of this stuff gets raked into a pile and thrown into the trash, which ends up at the local landfill. Even if you look beyond the ecological impact this has, think about all the money that is wasted on “stuff” that provides literally minutes worth of value.

My hope is that these long needed price increases force all of us to look hard at what we are buying. Does my wife need that “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt in both red and blue? Is the three minutes of silence achieved from buying that rubber ball or vinyl doll really worth the money spent? Here at Sprig, we are making products in the hope that children play with them for a long, long time. We want to make toys that are fun this afternoon, tomorrow and next week. We want to make toys that parents put in their cupboards and keep so that they can give them to their grandkids and say, “your Mom/Dad used to play with this”. We want to make toys that inspire kids to run, develop stories and learn a little something about the world around them. And if they happen to be made of materials that we can feel a little better about using in a manufacturing facility that’s a little closer to home, then all the better.

On a separate note, I’d like to mention how lucky we are to have found such a supportive group of investors. From the initial “angels”, who took a very high risk on a completely unproven product concept to Brand Journey, the venture capital group that has provided the bulk of our financing, we have been very fortunate to have investors that not only support our strategic plan and mission, but have expertise that we can tap into on a regular basis. Thanks to all of you.

Sprigwood™ Comes To Life

2008-05-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

First, I’d like to apologize to the four of you (two, if you exclude my mother and my wife) who keep up with my blog. I hope to post at least once a month and I just realized that it’s been nearly three months since my last post. I will try and do better going forward.

This week our tooling manufacturer shipped us the first colored samples of the bodies of the Sprig Adventure Series™ vehicles. For those of you not familiar with how plastic (or in our case, Sprigwood™) becomes an actual product, small pellets of material are dropped into a very hot metal cavity, also called a tool or a mold, and melted into the shape of different product parts. Those “molded” parts are then assembled to make the end product. Because we were working with a new material, we were very nervous about how the finished product might work. Would it retain the color palate we had hoped? Would the product retain the rich wood smell, texture and warmth? Would the parts all snap together tightly?

To our great relief, the answer was an unqualified YES on all counts. It was a tremendously emotional experience to see the fruits of our hard work and the design genius of Dave, Chris and Justin. The product looks and feels great and snaps together perfectly. It looks like we are right on track to get the product manufactured and shipped in time for Fall!

Two weeks ago, Dave Bowen and I went up to visit with our manufacturing partner in Canada, Baytech Plastics. We have developed a wonderful partnership over the past several months and it’s refreshing to work with a manufacturer that shares a passion for making products in a more responsible way. They have worked tirelessly with us to ensure that the product will meet our expectations and have really been instrumental in ensuring that we didn’t need to compromise the initial design of the product.

Baytech’s facility is spotlessly clean and tucked right near the town center of Midland, Ontario, a beautiful, charming lake town about 80 miles north of Toronto. The Sprig product line will be manufactured in much the same way real cars are made, relying heavily on robotic assembly manned by the dedicated staff at Baytech, a team that has an average tenure of over 15 years! We plan on including a videotape of the assembly process on the web site because we really think all of you will be impressed with the facility and the process.

We’ve also developed a great relationship with our Sprigwood provider, JER/Envirotech. Ed Trueman and his team have bent over backwards to help us test and tweak the product so that it meets our high safety standards. They have also been our best cheerleaders, promoting Sprig and our new line at every opportunity. We are working with them right now to develop other responsibly made materials that we can incorporate into future products.

For more information, visit the Sprigwood website at: www.sprigwood.com

Speaking of future products, we can’t wait for you to see the Spring line for 2009! The guys have outdone themselves again, with some durable products suitable for indoor and outdoor use that are true to our mission of providing fun, active and open play using responsible materials. The retail buyers and store owners that we’ve shown the line to thus far have given it a big thumbs up so were hoping that you’ll be seeing it next to the Adventure Series at a local store near you in January or February of next year!

On a more personal note, my wife Erin and I are now officially Colorado residents. We are living in a wonderful home just southeast of Ft. Collins in a town called Windsor. The view from our back window is stunning, with the city of Ft. Collins bleeding into the surrounding foothills and the powerful Rockies serving as a towering frame to the dramatic picture. Every moment is a different postcard and a reminder of how important it is that we do everything we can to reverse the damage we are doing to our planet.

The move was hectic, as all moves are, but the Sprig team has been wonderful in helping us feel at home. It’s a true family environment in every sense of the word and I look forward to going into the “Shedquarters” on Maple Street every day.

Finally, a big thanks to all of you who have e-mailed and written us to offer words of encouragement and support. It’s easy to let the collection of mini-dramas that occur every day cloud our collective outlook on life, but the steady stream of supportive communiqués serve as a great morale booster and we read and share them all. Please keep checking back to our site; we plan on some exciting new updates in the not-too-distant future!

Sprig Hits One out of the Park at Toy Fair

2008-03-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

I just got back from American International Toy Fair in New York City. Toy Fair has always been one of my favorite weeks of the year, and I look forward to the annual event each February. It’s a great chance to catch up with old friends, observe trends, admire hot products and to be part of the overall frenzy. This year, I accomplished all of those things from the comfort of our very busy booth. Sprig Toys had an amazing week.

Thanks to our sales guru Steve Markey, we showed our toy line to an army of sales reps two days prior to the show. These seasoned veterans have seen so many products come and go that they have developed an unnerving level of cynicism over the years. They can often spot a dud toy in one discriminating glance. We all took a deep breath, and Chris and Justin presented our Adventure Series.

The reps listened to the story, they smelled the Sprigwood, they grabbed the product and they smiled. They got it. Our team was assured that we’d be very busy during the show, and the reps promised to send everyone they knew to our booth.

Well-positioned in the Specialty area of the exhibit hall, the Sprig booth reflected our company philosophy – from the soy ink in our handouts to the smart exhibit design, right down to the Sprigwood used to build our demonstration tables (thanks, Chris!).

On Sunday morning, we eagerly waited for the doors to open. It reminded me of a moment several years ago when I temporarily lost my sanity and decided to “Run with the Bulls” in Pamplona – it seemed like an eternity as I held my breath in anticipation of facing the chaos.

After about a minute and a half of anxious looks back and forth at our booth, we watched as a herd of buyers briskly rounded the corner. To our great relief, they all slowed, looked and stopped! From that point forward, we experienced a non-stop flood of buyers, distributors and media folks jockeying for position to talk with us about Sprig Toys. As we dealt with the crush of people – often 4 to 5 deep – at our booth, I couldn’t help but reflect on my good fortune to be a part of Sprig.

First, I was reminded of how lucky I am to be working with Sprig founders and creative geniuses Dave B., Chris, Eric and Justin. They were amazing at expressing the magic of the line in such an honest and passionate way. The buyers couldn’t help but get excited, and the excitement was contagious. Even David Monahan and I – well out of our comfort zone – soon found ourselves approaching customers, confidently pitching the product line with gusto.

Secondly, we always knew we were on to something big, but to receive industry validation at Toy Fair was absolutely incredible. Comments like “home run” and “best thing I’ve seen at the show” were commonly heard. A senior vice president of one the largest toy retail outlets in the world looked at the line and said, “The best part is, even if this line was made in China out of virgin plastic, it would still be a terrific product.” Wow. We also found our way onto Stephanie Oppenheim’s terrific Web site, into a lot of toy-related blogs about hot trends at Toy Fair, and received great reviews in various other publications. Thanks to Tami Kelly for helping us generate a constant buzz.

Finally, we met a lot of great new and existing toy companies that are making super products in a smart way. Corgi, Sprig’s European distributor, is selling a fantastic remote control car that is completely hydrogen powered. Idbids, a company out of Atlanta, has created a delightful line of plush products, made from a super-soft organic cotton. Green Toys out of San Francisco, is making a nice line of toys and play sets that are manufactured in the U.S. out of recycled plastics. It felt great to see other companies making wonderful products in responsible ways. Sprig is privileged to be in such good company, and I’m proud to be a part of this new generation of green toy makers.

I walked away from the show motivated and energized. It’s rewarding to see a sales rep’s face light up after seeing one of our toys, but we can’t wait to be there when parents and children reach for a Discover Rig on a toy store shelf in Fall 2008. When we manage to make parents and preschoolers smile, then we will truly hit a home run.

Why I Sleep Well at Night

2008-02-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Sprig Toys Web site! I’m glad you’re visiting us online. I encourage you to sit back, relax (that means “make sure your boss is at lunch”), and dive into the wonderful world of Sprig. And if that pesky co-worker barges in demanding the deliverables you guaranteed last week – well, you can blame it all on me.

If you managed to find this blog, then you are a true explorer who has a knack for digging through layers of a site map to uncover the buried treasure within. Well done. This adventurous spirit is the very thing I want to address in this particular entry.

Sorry about the whole “buried treasure” thing. It’s my first blog, so I got a little carried away. I’m not boasting that my thoughts are treasure-worthy, but maybe – just maybe – a small nugget of insight might accidentally find its way to the page as I put pen to paper. You never know – stranger things have happened. I’m not going to tell you how to solve the Rubik’s Cube or anything, but I might shed a little light on some cool new things we’re doing at Sprig. So please check back every so often for more postings.

If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read Our Tale under the site’s Company page. It does a fantastic job of expressing the commitment and passion of our founders. It’s also a good prologue to my own personal story about joining Sprig.

I worked with Dave, Chris and Justin years ago when we were at Radica Games together, and I always felt they were among the more talented people I had ever worked with in the toy industry. By 2007, I was still at Radica, but the guys asked me to take a look at something new they were working on in their top-secret toy lab in Fort Collins, Colorado. Naturally I jumped at the chance.

My wife Erin and I were eager to escape the late-summer humidity in Dallas for the dry, cool air of Colorado. The guys showed me what is now the Sprig Adventure Series line of toys, and not surprisingly, it was terrific – eco-friendly, battery- and paint-free, fantastic-looking and full of great, active-play potential. I was excited for them, and I was flattered when they asked me to lead the team. But the thought of asking my wife to move away from her family, and the idea of leaving my fairly cushy job at a big toy company to launch a start-up in a highly competitive and declining industry, didn’t appeal to me.

We all went to lunch, and started talking about why the initial founders formed Sprig. They spoke of seeking out materials and manufacturing partners that reduce our carbon footprint and increase child safety. They talked about being responsible members of the community in which they live and work. They told me about a commitment to creating toys that engage children and encourage active play. Finally, they expressed a desire to create a work atmosphere that fosters creativity and teamwork; a place where people look forward to spending their day. As we finished lunch, Erin and I were so excited about Sprig that we nearly started house shopping in Fort Collins that weekend! I had been in the toy industry for more than twelve years, and over time had become so consumed with profit and loss statements, financial forecasts and product costs that I lost perspective on why I started my career in toys in the first place. My former colleagues reminded me that it’s important to have fun, and it’s essential to create toys that I am proud to see on the shelves. Needless to say, I accepted the position as Sprig’s CEO with enthusiasm and a renewed sense of hope.

I am so lucky to be a part of Sprig Toys, and I am committed to helping the founders realize their vision. Our vision. This is exciting stuff. We really hope you like our new line, and we can’t wait for you to see new designs as they emerge from our drawing boards. I know Sprig has a bright future in the toy industry, and I am thrilled to be part of the adventure.