Is your toy idea begging to see the spotlight? Do you have a game idea swimming around in your imagination? You may be a burgeoning toy inventor! However, if you are ready to fully flesh out your toy idea, brand, and marketing, you may be a toy entrepreneur. What is the difference between these two toy industry tracks? You will find out that and more on today’s episode of Making it in the Toy Industry.

Today’s guest is Toy Creators Academy alumni Chrissy Fagerholt. After a career as a floral designer for 17 years and a short stint as a school lunch lady, she now has a successful game out with Goliath, Friend or Faux. She has two more games coming out soon: Lunchroom and You Who. In today’s episode, Chrissy tells us about making the jump from toy inventor to toy entrepreneur. She explains a bit of her inventing process and tells listeners all about how she came up with a key element in one of her new games that makes it really fun.

She explains why the shift to toy industry entrepreneur happened, and where in the process of inventing a toy she starts to come up with marketing and branding ideas. She also describes a bit of the process of working with other artists to make her vision for her games come true. You will also find out how the Toy Creators Academy helped Chrissy to make more toy industry connections which led her to figure out how to make toy industry entrepreneurship work for her.


EPISODE CLIFF NOTES

• Find out how Chrissy included “The Puzzle of You” in her latest game, Lunchroom. [00:07:25]
• Learn about a money-saving toy manufacturing technique that could help you save on your next toy design [00:11:27]
• Find out how Chrissy injected pop culture references into her game to make it even more amazing [00:14:40]
• Learn how Chrissy puts together her toy inventor and toy entrepreneur sides in the product development process [00:18:08]
• Find out the smart and daring thing Chrissy did at Target to see if her product would fit in [00:19:53]
• Learn just how many times game inventors play their own games against themselves before bringing it to playtesters [00:20:56]
• Find out the number one thing you want to hear from game playtesters [00:22:46]
• Learn about the Astra toy show and why you should attend, especially as a first-timer [00:26:33]
• Find out the benefits of being an entrepreneur and doing manufacturing, marketing, and branding yourself [00:34:53]
• Learn why Chrissy partnered with a distributor as a toy industry entrepreneur [00:36:41]

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

For the links and resources mentioned in this episode, head over to the episode page at www.thetoycoach.com/131

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