Playing At Business - toy & game business podcast with Steve Reece

Rick Derr is a successful toy retailer with a strong social media profile, in fact, Rick puts a lot of his recent success down to his business heavily adopting social media marketing and advertising to drive traffic into store. We also discuss his winning strategy for bricks and mortar retail to work with Amazon not against them. This is a must listen episode.

India is the cause of much hype & speculation recently regarding the speed of growth of the toy manufacturing industry in India. With India being the only country in the world with a comparable population size and therefore potential workforce as China, and with low labour costs, India seems to be the primary beneficiary of the move of some degree of toy manufacturing out of China.

In this podcast episode (Episode 25) we analyse what's going on, how companies can benefit from toy factories in India and what element of toy production is likely to remain in China.

In Episode 24 of our Playing At Business podcast we interview Phil Albritton, founder and host of the Powerkid podcast, the original toy business podcast. Phil has been interviewing the cognoscenti of the toy industry for years now. Phil is also an innovation force in terms of the creative side of the toy business, his company Powerkid Design support toy companies on all elements of the product development process.

It's always a pleasure to speak to Phil, and in this entertaining podcast episode you can find out why!

Billy Langsworthy is Co-Founder of Mojo Nation, a company dedicated to celebrating the creativity of toy & game designers. Mojo Nation offers networking & pitch events for toy & game creators to get in front of toy companies who can license their products. We talk about toy & game inventing in this episode of our podcast. We also discuss Billy's work on their new venture: Brands Untapped, which is a news website dedicated to the business of licensing and brand extension.

The Fantastic Factory create compelling board games. In this podcast we interview David Snow and Steve Evans, the brains behind the business.

'Disruptive' is an over used label these days, but there is no other way to describe the creativity lead approach of The Fantastic Factory. In a somewhat chaotic and occasionally hilarious interview we find out all about how these doyens of the board games business go about their craft.

This is a must listen episode for anyone engaged in the business of creating and selling board games, but also compelling listening for anyone looking to shake up their creative and development processes.

In Episode 21 of the Playing At Business podcast we talk to the creator of smash hit toy product 'Rainbow Loom'. Choon Ng has done something which very few people in the toy business have - he created and implemented a product which started a massive global toy fad. At the peak of Rainbow Loom's success, it was as big as anything out there, selling massive quantities and spurning many multi-million view YouTube videos of how to create with Rainbow Loom. On this episode of the Podcast Choon talks s through his journey in the toy business from start up idea through to what it was like to ride the massive wave of Rainbow Loom, dealing with distributors around the world and a plethora of knock off products. He also talks us through Rainbow Loom's ongoing business, and how the brand is still delighting kids around the world today.

New toy businesses are the lifeblood of the industry. Today's start ups can become tomorrow's corporate behemoths. But there are a lot of hurdles and barriers in the way of success for those starting up a new toy business. In this latest podcast episode, toy industry expert Steve Reece runs through a few key areas which need to be well managed in order for new toy companies to grow profitably and to achieve success over time.

In this wide ranging interview with toy manufacturing expert Michele Bovetti we discuss what's happening in toy manufacturing, we talk about how automation can decrease production costs and efficiencies saving costs for toy factories and their customers. We also talk about Michele's work in setting up numerous new factories in India & other countries. Michele's knowledge is deep and his experience broad, so anyone interested in toy manufacturing should find this podcast episode interesting.

Steve Starobinsky is a true Kid@Heart. His work as a futurist and toy trend expert has made him well known and well respected across the toy business. His work with Diverse Marketing (a leading U.S. sales agency) has given him something rare among toy trend observers - hard earned commercial grounding. In this wide ranging interview we cover anything from what are the top toy items and trends on the horizon, through to how future technologies will affect the toy business down to such toy business fundamentals as how to sell to the world's biggest toy retailer: Walmart.

Amazon is an ever more important part of the toy & games business with growing market share in many major markets, and with new markets rolling out around the world. Selling via and to Amazon though is not the same as selling to a traditional toy retailer. Amazon is as much a platform as it is a retailer, in short, it needs a bespoke approach to be successful versus many thousands of other products. In this episode, we interview Asha Bhalsod of Etopia Consultancy about her work consulting with toy & game companies to help them manage their Amazon business efficiently and to grow revenues. This is a fascinating peak under the hood of Amazon, as well as an insightful introduction to the topic from a genuine expert.