115: How to Become a Toy Designer and Launch Your Invention

115: How to Successfully Design and Launch a Toy Invention

February 23, 2022

With Dan Klitsner, Inventor of Bop It

115: How to Successfully Design & Launch a Toy Invention

Dan Klitsner is the inventor of the super-popular toy Bop It, along with over 300 other toy inventions of his that are out on the market. Bop It alone has sold more than 30 million units. Dan has been in the product game for over 25 years with over 500,000 followers on social media. Today Dan is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use best practices from his success in the toy industry to build and launch a successful toy product, and how those lessons can apply to success in any hardware product vertical.

Today you will hear us talk about:

  • Failures are the best way to lead to success
  • Toys blended with industrial design
  • Toys are generally creating opportunity, where products solve a problem
  • Don’t just think of products as a problem solving tool
  • Everything is RITE (a formula for how to evaluate your idea)
  • Relationship, Idea, Timing, Execution
  • Meetings that are failures, they can be learned from
  • A great idea is only one part of the puzzle
  • Pretend that your idea is only a 5 out of 10, then improve it
  • Timing is not luck, you can gauge this via research
  • Relentless listening to everyone and everything throughout your product journey
  • Knock on the right doors, and enough doors, to find a good fit
  • Listen to your prospective buyers

The Product Startup Podcast
115: How To Successfully Design & Launch a Toy Invention
With Dan Klitsner, Inventor of Bop It

00:00 | Kevin Mako (KM): Hello product innovators. Today, we learn from a toy and venture with tens of millions of its units in the market, on how to use best practices from the toy industry to make your product a big success.

00:14 | Voice-over: You’re listening to the Product Startup podcast. The show that helps bring your product idea to life, by chatting with successful inventors, product developers, manufacturers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your product on store shelves. We’re taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America’s leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, on to the show.

00:49 | KM: Welcome back, today I’m very excited to introduce Dan Klitsner to the show. Dan is the inventor of the super popular toy Bop It, along with over 300 other toy inventions that are in the market today. Bop It alone as sold more than 30 million units. Dan has been in the product game for over 25 years, with over 500,000 followers on social media. Today, Dan is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventor startups and small manufacturers can use the best practices from his success in the toy industry to build and launch a successful toy product and how those lessons can apply to success in any hardware product vertical. Now out onto the episode. 

01:24 | KM: Hey Dan, welcome to the show.

01:25 | Dan Klitsner (DK): Hey Kevin, thanks for having me on.

01:27 | KM: Great to have you on, I must say first and foremost, you’ve got like 50 of your toy products sitting behind you. For the listeners out there that can’t see this, you’ll have to turn to YouTube one day when we put these live, because that is one of the most spectacular backgrounds of your many accomplishments. And I know that’s only a drop of the bucket for all of the things that you’ve done over your 25 year career.

01:46 | DK: Thanks. It is. For those who can’t see it, this is actually my home studio and it’s also a music studio and those are guitar hooks that my wife one day said, Hey, those things you hang your guitars with, you should put your Bop It and Simon’s because I do a lot of products that are three dimensional and have done a few toy guitars. 

02:04 | DK: So I started to put them on the wall and what’s great about them is you can just pull things on and off if you know how guitar hooks work. It’s turned out to be the perfect product to hang my products up behind me.

02:14 | KM: Very cool background. Appreciate it. It’s a great eye candy for me anyways on this recording here. Let’s jump into it. Give the listeners a bit of a background of your 25 year history and the 300 plus products that you’ve had licensed over the years. How did that all start and how did you get to where you are today?

02:31 | DK: Well, I have always loved to draw and build stuff since I was little. And I think that I’ve always connected to people through play, starting with friends and family, just to shortcut all that. I became an industrial designer, loved it. And then somehow combined industrial design with games and that sort of describes most of the products I’ve created. 

02:54 | KM: Amazing. And like even just Bop It itself as sold over 30 million units. And that’s just one of many of your product lines.

03:02 | DK: Yeah. I can’t believe it it’s been 25 years this year and had no idea. I can’t believe it’s been 25 years, but also that it is a product that kind of combines my passion so perfectly, that I’m just so excited that it’s lasted and that industrial design, games and music become something that I’ve done a lot with since then. 

03:25 | DK: I think it’s taught me a lot of lessons that I then could apply to a lot of the other products that I then created after it. And that’s some of the things I think would be great to share with everyone. It’s one thing to have a hit and have that be a great thing, but what could you learn from it? 

03:38 | KM: Well, I appreciate it. I’m sure we’ll jump into some of those lessons today. I’m really looking forward to that. I find it amazing that you put together three passions that you had essentially into one and created this phenomenal product and then leverage that to continue pursuing the passion that you had, the creativity that you had. So let’s talk not just about how to help startups that are in the toy street succeed, but I know that you’ve got a lot of lessons from what you’ve learned in toys that can apply to anybody listening. 

04:06 | KM: Now of course this episode is primarily about toys, but because there’s so much that anybody in a hardware product can learn from you, I’d really love to hear some of those tips and tricks right from you of how you’re able to be so successful, not just with one, but with many, many, many product along the way. So where would you like to start because that’s a big subject?

04:24 | DK: That is a big subject. One caveat for anyone who’s in the toy business or any idea business, is nobody has multiple successes without 10 times as many, I’ll call them failures. Failure to me is a great word. It is, I like to say, and maybe the only way I can survive this kind of business where you have to have a lot of ideas, you have to iterate a lot, is to not think of failures as things that were a mistake or a wrong turn. They are a building block. 

04:56 | DK: If you think of every failure as one more building block to success. One, it makes you be able to do it again because otherwise you’d just say, I’m 10 times better at being a failure than a success and you would identify with that. But I really rather than just sounding nice. I really believe that it’s the way that you have to learn from everything and continue to return to it and go back to it. So I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably have things that they fell in love with and tried and failed and can relate to what they learn that made the next one successful. 

05:29 | DK: So that’s part of the cycle of innovating for me. But there is a kind of a formula that I created for myself. The overall feeling is maybe we’re saying how to think like a successful toy inventor, even if you’re not inventing toys, what are the lessons you learn from inventing toys? One of the things that’s so important or the difference between toys and other products, is that other products often in industrial design or product startups, they are solving a problem or a pain point. And that’s the main focus. 

06:01 | DK: What toys are, often are things that disrupt a behavior. There are things that entertain or that get people to connect, that let people escape from problems they’re trying to solve. So right off the bat, the toy world is really kind of the opposite of the product startup world. So that in itself lets you know that there’s probably lessons in there. They’d say, why don’t you try to apply something completely opposite from your thinking, that idea of disruption versus problem solving.

06:34 | KM: It’s a really good observation. One of the things that we’ve actually talked about on show is, you’ve got either opportunity or pain points and those are the two ways to look at a product. But something that maybe you can derive from what you just said there, is looking at your product, if it is a non-toy product and trying to think about it as not just solving a pain point, but where’s the opportunity? Where can you add a little bit of pizzazz to this, to make it interesting or entertaining or connect with others? 

07:01 | KM: Looking not just at the pain point, but looking at the opportunity as well, because when you get both of those, you can sell on both edges. Some edges sell more to somebody who’s looking for that opportunity, looking for something interesting or something that’s creating new value to their life. Others are looking to solve a pain point. Some are looking for both. It’s quite interesting how you notice that toys are very extreme on one side and industrial design products are very extreme on the other, somewhere in the middle is probably the perfect blend.

07:27 | DK: That’s right. I like to say, it’s the things that you didn’t have any idea you needed until you saw them. They weren’t necessarily solving something, but once you see them, I need that. That’s the emotional side that I think you could put into any product, just making sure you’re not just thinking of it as a problem solving tool. That there’s always something, whether it’s just a little bit of flare or something that entertains, something that makes someone feel really good about using it. 

07:55 | DK: I think I’ve learned a lot of that from making toys where that is all that it’s judged on, is that entertainment value. So that’s definitely something I’m very interested in. When I work on projects that aren’t toy, is how to bring that in. And I have this, it was a talk I gave at a college once where I had to sound smart. So I wanted to come up with an acronym for how do you know and I thought, how can I tell these students who are in design, what’s the secret to selling an idea or to pitching an idea or developing an idea that’s successful? 

08:28 | DK: How do you know when it’s right? And I thought, oh, how do you know when it’s right? What could right stand for? And this is basically really the thought that I feel you can’t really sell an idea, at least in the toy area and probably others, until everything is R-I-T-E, RITE. And this is not a formula for how to create things. It’s really a formula for how to evaluate whether you’re picking the right idea at the right time with the right people, with the right execution. 

09:00 | DK: To visualize this, think of R-I-T-E as the four legs of a table. Each one of them has got to be supporting your idea, your product, and you want this table to be as tall as possible because there’s a lot of other people out there doing the same thing. So you want to have the tallest table with the best chance of succeeding and those four legs, I call relationship the R, idea, timing and execution. And you can kind of divide any product into those four categories. 

09:34 | DK: And to ask yourself, is this leg of the table tall enough yet? Because if not, what happens if the table has a leg that’s not as tall as it needs to be? It falls over. So it’s this very simple visual. And so the reason I put relationship as first, is it sounds like people say, well, how do you know who to pitch something to or who to go to?

09:57 | DK: But it isn’t just who, it’s how you develop relationships. And that you accept the idea that even meetings that are failures, you are literally building all of this, these tools that often are the future of who you sell an idea to later. So you have to think that this part is when you have an idea, are you showing it to someone that you trust, that you know how to deal with, that you’ve had history with? 

10:25 | DK: That’s often something, if you try to go in cold, you’ll find that it’s a lot harder to sell an idea than someone that you’ve been developing a relationship with. So that’s example of the R. There’s a lot there, the research into who that relationship is. There’s so much more than just, I’ve got this great idea I want to show it to someone. Who’s the someone and make sure you really understand that person, that partner or the business that you’re selling it to. 

10:48 DK: The I for the idea or innovation, it seems like the easy part where people say, oh, I’ve got this great idea, but they forget that there’s three other they need. But often when people say I have a great idea, I would like to say that almost always that leg at the table is way too short. Meaning that the idea is you think it’s great because it’s yours and you think you’ve thought of everything, but until you really pretend that it’s a 5 out 10, what do I do to make it a 10 out of 10? You probably haven’t explored enough. 

11:21 | DK: So I like to test that, is assume any idea you ever come up with is a 5 out of 10 at the very best before you settle on it. And is it, tall enough? So when you see a visual, you can imagine these legs at the table are crooked and you’re trying to make them fit. And so the T is for timing, which is not luck because timing, you should be able to gauge, is this the right time for this product to come to market? Am I behind? Am I too early? Am I too late? What similar products were like it that might make this, a “me too.” 

11:58 | DK: There are things like that that are very important in timing to really gauge your timing and whether it is the exact right time. And E is the toughest one for designers, execution. You could have 10 people say, oh, I had that idea. I showed that idea of that same thing. They didn’t like it. I showed it first, all these kind of things. And the point is if 10 people showed the same idea, executed 10 different ways, it’s really a different idea. And so it’s the part that says, try a lot of executions before you say, that’s my idea. It’s done. 

12:32 | DK: Make sure that leg of that table is good, if you’ve got the relationships, you got the idea and you’ve got the timing’s perfect. Don’t fall short on not exploring why you may fail because you just didn’t execute your idea in the best possible way.

12:49 | KM: That is brilliant. The right acronym. I want to talk about each of those for a moment relationship, idea, timing and execution. I love that you put relationship first because that’s such a powerful and overlooked concept. I even think about it with our clients at the design firm, when people come in, it’s amazing how few actually spend the time to get to know the team that they’re working with and get to start building that rapport. 

13:13 | KM: Obviously there’s a transaction that’s happening, but it’s so much more than that. And if you can build a strong relationship, that allows such an easier flow of information and ideas and outside the box thinking, and it’s one of those things, where is the designer on the weekend thinking about your project while they’re having a shower? Because you’ve built this great relationship with them and you’ve got something great going on, some magic being built out, or are they thinking about somebody else’s because you are very transactional.

13:37 | KM: That’s just one small example. Obviously relationships can be anything. It could be with your patent attorney, with somebody you’re looking to license with you. With your investors, with your other business partners, with employees, et cetera. There’s all kinds of things there, but relationships can be so powerful. And I can tell you, it doesn’t take a lot of effort. It just takes a moment to think about them as another human being. They also have some stuff that they have to do. They also have busy schedules and just building that over time and solidifying that to be something that can really work for you. 

14:05 | KM: So relationships are so powerful. The next is the idea. I love that you mentioned that it’s only one piece of the puzzle. What I like about ideas is that unlike you, most people don’t come up with thousands of ideas in their lifetime. And one of the most amazing things.

14:20 | DK: Let me just say, they’re the lucky ones. 

14:25 | KM: You’re doing a lot of work for yourself, that’s for sure. The idea is the starting and what’s amazing is I don’t like discounting the concept of idea. I know there’s a lot that floats out there that ideas are a dime a doesn’t, but that’s not actually true. I don’t believe that. I think that really good, really well thought out ideas are once or twice or maybe three times in a lifetime. And then of course, as you’ve done, you can turn it into a lifelong career. 

14:47 | KM: But most people really, realistically speaking, your average person is going to come up with a few. And of those really only a couple, maybe one, is really going to be something that is revolutionary. That will be a very successful product. So I do like to put some value on the idea, but also with the understanding that is just one piece of it, which really is powerful, especially in products, industrial design, whether it’s toys, whether it’s inventions all the same.

15:11 | DK: Yeah. But as you said, it’s intentionally number two, meaning the idea with no sense of who your audience is, which is the relationship you have to the end user as well. You can go on and on about relationship, it’s really the same. If you don’t love people, you shouldn’t be doing product development because you’ve got to be enjoying the interactions you have and get to know people. The most successful people are the ones that aren’t just doing it because, oh, you got to work these relationships. They actually enjoy it. And they know that they’ll be successful and enjoy their path by really finding the people they want to work with and want to build a product with. 

15:51 | DK: So I can go on and on about it, but it’s become throughout my career more and more important and more valued. And it sounds kind of cliche or whatever but even if you fail on certain things, if you built great relationships. At least you, you look back and you say that was wow. I really got to know that person on that project, even though it didn’t succeed. But usually there’s another project later that comes around and is of value. Anyway, I won’t interrupt more on the relationship side. You could literally do a whole hour on that.

16:21 | KM: And it’s a small world, especially in the product development space. It’s surprisingly small. People know each other, like you and I were talking before the show, you’re such a well known individual in the toy space and warm my heart to hear that you’d heard of us in Mako Design a few times before. Just that sort of thing, it’s no longer surprising, but every time you hear it, it really does catch you off guard that we have one or two degrees of separation from most of the major players in any given industry and products is no different, especially as you get into niche, parts of markets. So it’s really important to be not just a transactional individual, but be a part of the scene. And the more successful you become, the more that you can integrate that if you are focusing on relationships.

16:59 | KM: So jumping forward to timing. I find that amazing that you mentioned that timing isn’t luck because that’s so true. You can do your research. You can really try and figure out market trends. Google has tools now that allows you to see what keywords are trending, but you can just see what out there and spend your time researching and understanding where you may or may not fit into the market. I find that so applicable to your final point, which is execution in my industry, that all comes down to prototyping. 

17:25 | KM: You say try and try and try on your toy ideas. And it’s very similar in any kind of hardware product where that means that you want to break things. All of these I find amazing that you bring back to this concept of failure and using that as a stepping stone, because one of the most important things for any industrial designer, mechanical engineer, electronic engineer, product manager, you name it, is breaking prototypes. That is where you find your best value. 

17:52 | KM: That is really where you take a product from being okay to being great, from being somewhat workable to being robust. And if you can focus on finding failures, looking forward to failures, trying to discover failures, trying to create failures that allows you to further and further improve the quality of the product and the quality of the output.

18:12 | DK: Yeah. What you just described there, is a thing I sometimes call relentless listening, meaning you can’t be a passive listener. You have to aggressively listen. Everything informs you. On all those steps, whether it’s in the relationship, idea, time or execution, someone’s going to say something at some point to you that you have to make sure everything. You’re the editor of your own movie here. And you’ve gotta be able to aggressively listen and decide, is that a keeper or throw it out, but don’t be the person that says, I know what I want. I’ve got my vision and this is my vision. 

18:49 | DK: And I think that you see that that could work. But often even people who claim to be, this was my vision. They probably were really good at picking up little cues from other people and not being afraid, like you said, to break a prototype, to say this is my vision, but let’s see how it measures up and let’s assume it can always be better. And the hardest thing is probably that moment where you go, it’s ready. And that why I say I use this R I T E, it’s just sort of a gauge. It’s more are all my legs equally good. And what’s the weakest one. 

19:18 | DK: Even if they’re all good, still what’s the weakest one. And I just find it a really valuable way to check yourself on if you’re really thoroughly listening to everyone and looking at it because the worst thing is to move forward with something before one of those things is right. And it’s a lot of failure. You can turn the failure in success, if you really pay attention to those things.

19:39 | KM: I like to, kind of looping back to the timing and making sure that you’re getting it right first before you go to market. Too often, folks are trying to hit some sort of arbitrary deadline. And I don’t mean arbitrarily in a mean way. We want to hit this Christmas schedule or this particular trade show. I find that’s one of the most dangerous things you can do because you’re essentially sedating that we must do what we can within that time, regardless of the quality of output, which is almost in any situation, unless there is some timing scenario which it’s make or break, which I can understand.

20:14 | KM: But if it’s not an absolute make or break, the cost of short cutting anything along the discovery process is probably going to far outweigh the benefit of hitting that Christmas season. In fact, there’s another Christmas season happening 365 days after that one. So your business, which is a lifetime business, should not be looked at in terms of a particular month or week or whatever else.

20:39 | DK: Sometimes if you hold your cards and wait for the right moment, then you’ve preserved your resources until it is the right time. This is a long term business like you said. Many ideas I have I’ve had for 10 years, until the right moment, the right company several success stories that I’ve had were just knowing there was something there. And it would be the R and the E in that formula. It was a great idea, even the timing seemed right. It just wasn’t the right company, in my case to license it. All you need is the one company that needed what you had at that moment. And that has happened to me several times where, including Bop It where seven to eight, nine companies see it. It just doesn’t hit them. It’s nothing else you’re doing wrong, it’s just not right for them. 

21:28 | DK: And so on the licensing side, it’s a lot about making sure you knock on the right door. So there’s your research into the relationships and really understanding what someone wants. So a lot of people try to pitch ideas to someone who have already told them, we don’t do games. We only do dolls on the toy side and you’d be surprised how often people will try to push something at someone who it’s not right for. So the right applies to just a very simple check valve.

21:58 | KM: Well, and that’s a good tip as well. I wanted to lead into that. If you’ve done, let’s call it, the everything’s right. And you’ve built your prototypes. You’ve got it to a point where you like the product. You believe everything else. The timing’s good. You like the idea now and you want to start building those relationships on the licensing side or even through sales, through wholesalers distributors or even direct to retailer online, whatever it might be. Some way to actually execute on taking your product to market. What advice do you have for those folks who are re ready to go? And now are trying to get into the market

22:33 | DK: After many years, having built a lot of relationships going through them, calling them, making sure it’s the right timing for them, is probably the biggest thing is, what is your schedule? What are you guys working on? Are you working on 2024 yet? You certainly don’t want to show an idea to someone or even if it’s perfectly finished, if it’s just going to sit there for too long. 

22:57 | DK: And you don’t want to show it to them if they’re so busy finishing up their line for 2022, that they really want to do you the favor of, oh, sure let’s have a meeting. So you have to really understand in that case for licensing. And it’s the same with retail. I know it’s making sure you really are in the right timing. Timing is the most important part of that. Once you think your product is done, is be really careful that you don’t push it to someone who isn’t an open door at that moment,

23:27 | KM: I guess this comes back to something you said earlier about really listen to everybody along your journey because these people will generally give you that feedback. And if you can try and really collect and listen, then you can figure out in conjunction with them when that right timing might be. 

23:43 | DK: And that said, I’m sure there are plenty of people listening who have a story where they had something and sometimes you do everything opposite of what we just said, and it still works. The fact is you do have to know that sometimes you just go for it. It’s fine. But keep in mind if it is a rejection, why, but it’s not to stay. Don’t give it a try when you have something, that you can push of someone that you have a gut feel. But I do think that’s most people who’ve developed something are probably researching where they’re going to sell it. 

24:15 | DK:  A lot of what I’m focusing on currently is social media connections with direct to consumer. And that’s where I started as kind of a celebration of Bop It 25th year and a way to give back. Actually, my wife and I have started a thing called Bop It for good, where our sole purpose is to create fun products using the Bop It name or other inventions that I’ve done and figure out ways that they can connect people through play, which is sort of what I love to do is to connect people through play. 

24:44 | DK: And that has been really interesting because I’m doing what you’re saying, trying to figure out, okay, these are direct to consumer. I’m building a lot through TikTok, Instagram connections to people who love Bop It or other games I’ve created. So what can I do that’s going to engage them. And when is the right time to sell things that they might engage with? I’m actually using the consumer in that case as the brainstormer because I’ve got maybe 500,000 followers who are pretty engaged, they’ll tell me 30,000 ideas.

25:21 | DK: If I’m not careful, I’ll fall throw. So I’m kind of saying, I’m not going to be worried so much about proprietary, ideas is right here as the benefit of what I can get back from, just throwing it out there and saying, what do you think? What is this missing? When would you like to see this? What price should it be? All those kind of interesting questions that often were someone else’s decision, I’m getting those directly now. And I find it fascinating, that you can, you can launch something direct to the consumer themselves if you can engage them.

25:51 | KM: That’s great, really helpful. And a lot of this comes back to relationships. And I really appreciate how you mentioned that as well to the end customers, because that is another relationship that everybody should be thinking about. Who are your prospective end customers, your online community, your followers. Those are easy people to build relationships with because they’re directly engaged with you on these social media platforms. So I love how you’re actually taking that one step further. And you’re almost, let’s say crowdsourcing with your followers to help you figure out what are the ideas or what are the bottles that’s going to be most beneficial to them down the road. 

26:24 | KM: And that is something that keeps coming back to this relationship concept, but you have to think about all these different types of relationships with your business, and then really think about it even just on a weekly basis, what are you doing this week to help strengthen those relationships? Anything you do now will pay dividends down the road.

26:39 | DK: Yeah, absolutely. It’s the social media side, again, I barely answered email a year ago. I was accused of never answer an email, meaning that I had very little time I thought I’m going to let other people do that. I just like to make stuff and do the making part. And then to actually jump in and say, I’m going to start, it’s called Bop It inventor. A handle for coming out there is I invented Bob It and many other products and I’m going to share tips and invention stories and just sort of see what happens. 

27:14 I DK: I was so surprised by how opposite it was for me as someone who wasn’t that engaged with social media of this kind of explosion of engagement, ideas from all sorts of people that really love knowing who’s really behind the creation of some of these games or product ideas and the authenticity of that person reaching out and saying, what do you think, how would you make this better?

27:43 | DK: And I’ve had a few game that failed that I’ve put up to say, why do you think this flopped? Those are by far the most popular posts. You’ll find the creativity and just people and how intelligent they are. I think I had 3 million views, about a hundred thousand responses by putting up an old game that flopped. I really wanted to know, why do you think this flopped? I want to go and try and relaunch it. 

28:07 | DK: And I’m actually going to go back with a lot of this advice and repitch it with some of these ideas. I’d say, oh, sometimes someone will say, oh, do I get a piece of that? Or I say, no, look, this is a public place. Anyone can take these ideas. And I try to make that clear if I’m going to go out there and do this. Anyone can look at these ideas publicly and do whatever they want with them. 

28:31 | DK: I kind of think I’m the one who’s probably going to do it because I have the pathway. But I kind of like that idea as well, that it puts the emphasis on the doers that if you want to throw ideas out there, it’s what you do with them that really is what counts. And so I kind of like it as a model and the chance that something could go viral is so much higher than the chance that someone will rip you off in my opinion. So that’s my future, is to go out and start taking some of these ideas and throwing them out there and seeing which one really pops. 

29:06 | DK: So the one product that I am trying to launch on my own is this product called the Uni Bop. It’s basically a Bop It, if you can see it, you can hear it “insert sarcastic comment here.” It looks like the ease D button or the no button that people may know. But all it is, is a button that says Bop It on the front. And this is a single button interface that was meant to go on the front of my book that I’m writing called take this book and Bob It, which is how to think like a to inventor and this Bop It on the front, when you hit the front cover, “Bop It” “Did anyone see you doing”

29:46 | DK: It says Bop It, and it says one of the funny sayings. So the idea is to create a product that I start on social media. By engaging people, I’ve been sharing this the whole time as I’ve been creating it. I’ve been getting people’s ideas. There’s all these things that it says, the deeper you go, the more it starts saying sillier things. What I find fascinating about this is just the idea of starting a product riffing. It started out on a book, someone said something, and that through social media it’s becoming real. 

30:15 | DK: And I plan to then distribute it or work through that as the audience sort of like a Kickstarter through that media. But I just thought I’d share that, that’s basically my, my next project is how to get people to hit the silly button.

30:28 | KM: Very cool. Well, look, Dan much appreciated for having you on the show and thanks again for all your words of wisdom.

30:34 | DK: You’re welcome, Kevin. I really enjoyed it and it’s really a privilege to be here.

30:38 | KM: Thank you. Take care.

30:39 | Voice-over: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup podcast. The show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you’re looking for product development help on your invention, head over to makodesign.com. That’s M-A-K-O design.com, for a free consultation from one of MAKO Design’s, four design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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