inventRight Coach Licenses Toy & Shares How Her Prototype Evolved

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hello and welcome everyone to the InventRight TV show. My name is Andrew Krauss. I'm one of the co-founders here and we have one of our amazing InventRight coaches April Mitchell on and she's going to talk about a product she licensed. Hey April. Hey Andrew how are you doing? Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. You know we just don't have coaches on as often as we should talking about some of the products they license so thank you for coming on. Yes happy to be here. So you know we were just talking before we went on here and and I think it was interesting you know your evolution of your prototype on this one is very interesting and it probably was one of the reasons for the reasons why you ended up licensing it like do you think you would have licensed it if you just went with what you initially were thinking as opposed to what you ended up with do you think it was better and do you think that helped you close the deal? I definitely think it helped me close the deal [00:00:55] Speaker 2: because it was more it was close to manufacturer ready right and I think I I had a good chance of licensing it without it getting so far but when companies can see how how far it is and they think oh wow I just have to do a couple things make a couple tweaks and it's ready to go I think that helps them out a little bit now I can't do that with all my products but when we can [00:01:17] Speaker 1: I think it's a beneficial it's been yeah you you probably don't do that with most of your products but um in addition to that the fact that you had kind of a cool fairly refined prototype um it changed quite a bit and so um why don't why don't you show the the the product for well do you want to why don't we play the video let's do that yeah so let's go ahead and play the video guys here we go [00:01:43] Speaker 3: hooked on hoops the court is anywhere you imagine it's easy to hook this hoop anywhere the fun never has to stop you make the court you make the rules no shot is too tough no excuses no limits you will shoot faster trickshot master the game goes wherever you go team extreme take that shot [00:02:12] Speaker 1: all right we're back so that's a really cool product april can you hold it up too you have [00:02:17] Speaker 2: one right there right yes so this is the the end result hooked on hoops and it's a nice uh big rim with uh it's metal we've got the the grippy arms in the back here so it can wrap around just about anything you know um a fence a chair a tree a person all kind all kinds of you know i don't know if [00:02:39] Speaker 1: that's going to work april kids aren't that creative on figuring out how they want to attack and of course they're super creative they're going to have a blast with that they're going to come up with all kinds [00:02:48] Speaker 2: of places to put this and that's the thing too i mean often we're limited of where we can play basketball right so we we have a a hoop on the back of one of the boys doors and we we play out in the in the front but you don't always have one where you can go so the idea is you know you could put this on a boat you could put this on a tree while you're putting your you know riding your skateboard by like all kinds of crazy fun stunts you could attach it to your arm and hold it up on the back of [00:03:17] Speaker 1: a chair on i feel like i'm a dr zeus uh i'm gonna do some dr zeus stuff here in a minute back of a [00:03:23] Speaker 2: chair in your hair on yeah on a bike on a trike exactly well and that's exactly it is the whole thing is is trick shots right my kids are always trying to do trick shots with the basketball anyway so not only now can you do trick shots but you can do trick shots anywhere in all kinds of different locations and weird places and different ways so that's really what we're trying to bring in that [00:03:46] Speaker 1: whole fun trick shot yeah yeah yeah that's cool okay but the evolution you know really cool product and i think your earlier versions are cool too but i think you're the one you licensed is better can you [00:03:58] Speaker 2: show us some of the earlier versions of your prototype so my first prototype i got one of these simple little hoops i think i probably got it like at one of the dollar stores dollar general and i literally um glued some velcro and on the back of here and put it double-sided so then you could kind of can you put it in the center of the screen so there you go yeah sorry oh no no that's okay so the idea here was you could wrap it around your arm your leg um and then we had a clip on the top so you could like kind of clip it to your shirt or your pants and this was when i first started pitching it it was a wearable basketball hoop and so the idea would be someone would have to put this on and then there would there was a deck of cards that would give you your the challenge so maybe you're marching maybe you had a spin and everyone else would try to make the basket while you're doing these challenges wearing the basketball hoop so i actually had um pitched it to a couple companies um while my kids were doing this live so that was fun um and you know if people thought it was fun it was funny but i also thought well how can we bring this to be something where you could tailgate so i'm thinking how can we put it on a table what can we do so it can hook on to other things because just velcro wrapping around it isn't going to do the trick uh and so that's when i then got my handy dandy um uh camera uh piece here that literally moves and wraps around and what i had done was i literally just wrapped the velcro around this a bit and we used this and so it was more like this and um the legs would wrap around the banister of the stairs and hook onto the vehicle the car yeah you're just trying to find something that you knew [00:05:46] Speaker 1: of these tripods for and then you sort of wrap it around and and and so how did that work how did that [00:05:53] Speaker 2: it worked pretty well actually i mean these were are a little thick and they're not very long but it worked pretty well um enough to at least shoot some video um and show the concept right the proof of concept like hey this works it's a lot of fun um what can we do with it so after i shot some video got some fun footage and i linked up with my friend matt anderson who is another inventor and does great prototyping as well as some videos and so i said hey can you shoot can you take all this footage and make me a killer video with it because i had was working on lots of projects um and so he he took a look at my footage and my my pro my prototype he's like this is an amazing idea um but april i can make you a better prototype than that and i said what okay so um yeah did you yeah let's talk about this because [00:06:46] Speaker 1: and you know as a coach you see your students do this sometimes you know you you kind of make a prototype or you have envisioned what it is and then you're just very resistant to changing it at some point i don't think you were but a little bit you're like what do you mean i know i did all that work [00:07:03] Speaker 2: right yeah but i knew his work and i knew he could uh could make it better so we actually what this is the box that it comes in right now but this blue um hoop right here this plastic one he made um the backing for it and we took this hoop and he used the same backing so the backing that is it's that's used today on the actual product is the prototype that matt made so he made this prototype um and made it phenomenal uh did a great job so he put this backing on a bit sturdier hoop than i had shown you know already and so then we used that um and he filmed that got some good footage of it i got some footage of it on a boat last summer and things like that so this what is now on the actual product was what he [00:07:55] Speaker 1: prototyped um to work and i like it the the arms are a little bit longer people are familiar with those whatever you call those things right right so what's the what's the what's the lesson here that i mean but it some inventors go too far the other way they keep well it's not quite right it's not quite right so what do you experience with your students people go too far they constantly refine some people don't refine enough or think about how it could be a little bit better how do you know how [00:08:25] Speaker 2: do you know right well the the thing is is it you you don't want to always wait until it's perfect because otherwise you'll never pitch it right um and so i i pitched it like i said to a couple companies got some good feedback there was excitement but it seemed like there needed to be more right so okay then i added the the the bendable arms to it and my my footage was decent it was good who knows where i would have gotten without it but then i partnered with matt to make even a better prototype and sometimes it takes that but it doesn't have to be thousands and thousands of dollars to get it to where you can pitch it i would have pitched it um with with just this how i had it with the video and i would have pitched it like that if i didn't have someone to make me a better prototype and that's okay that would have worked and i could at least have gauged to see it and we i got some interest from a few companies and then you know how it is andrew it kind of whittles down and then you decide what you want to go who you want to go with what you want to do and so um we landed a licensing deal and then it came out um this well i i guess early early fall it came out i think september august [00:09:33] Speaker 1: september time frame where could people so people get on amazon wayfair some other places too that's [00:09:39] Speaker 2: pretty cool amazon wayfair and then uh the company website which is bouleball.com and then they're in the works of getting into some retailers um okay we'll make sure to put the links down in the [00:09:50] Speaker 1: description so you know so you you did pitch the other version and you you were getting a feeling like you weren't getting traction you weren't quite sure and you might have changed it anyway you might have not you might have kept pitching it um have you pitched other products with fairly crude prototypes and still got interest and you were you were good so it's it's not like you're saying you always have to have this more refined prototype but and it's not necessarily even about refinement i just think the interface if that's not the right word probably but i think the mechanism the attachment mechanism [00:10:27] Speaker 2: is better oh definitely definitely but no i've i've pitched things with cardboard prototypes with uh prototypes that i've made you know spending ten dollars at the local hardware store um and one of those products will be coming out in in the new year and you know i i'm excited to show that prototype too because you're like april that's it that's all you did yep that's all i did so sometimes if we can get our point across and spend the least amount of money possible but get it to a spot where companies understand it and they can see the vision then that's that's what we want to do because i i'm you know i'm pitching a dozen ideas at least at a time i can't spend tons of money on every prototype or or any two i really want to spend lots of money on right so it's important to be able to show the product in use whenever possible especially in the toy game industry they want to see people playing it they want to and use that's really important to show a sizzle video so you can have a really beautiful virtual prototype on the sell sheet and then show a kind of a crude yeah type video just to show hey this is how it works and it is fun right and that's that's i think the way to go with it right right right okay [00:11:40] Speaker 1: good well thank you for sharing your experience i i just your first version with the velcro was kind of cool but i could see it maybe slipping down or things like that and that that spidery you know those those whatever you call those things we've seen them on other people you can buy them right whatever you call them um it just you look at it and go i could put that thing anywhere [00:12:01] Speaker 2: you know exactly exactly and you can tighten it and put it all different directions in all different places so it really is the key to having like limitless fun and trick shots anywhere with with basketball so but you're right the velcro would have slipped down it didn't work on everything i wanted to put it on so then you have to think okay what can what can work what will do this now so so what are some [00:12:24] Speaker 1: lessons here you you can start showing a product you can get some feedback or get a certain vibe and make a change now sometimes people one company says one thing they're like i gotta change everything up that can be a bad idea too right but um other times it'd be good to adjust and change and a lot of inventing is as we say at invent right is done after you're reaching out to the companies i'm not saying you half-ass what you send out i'm saying you make adjustments like you did you know right i i think [00:12:55] Speaker 2: that's important right gauge it i mean if we if we changed every product from each each you know valuable feedback that we get yeah then we'll have 10 different products at the same one right or 10 different versions and we don't want to do that and so i usually take that feedback and kind of sit on it for a little bit and see what makes the most sense or if you're you're getting that same kind of feedback from several people then i may address that then i will decide okay there's so many people interested but they want to see a prototype or they want to see this a step further so do i want to invest in that or not um and so that happens often but if until i've shown it to a good amount of people i'm not gonna typically i'll say typically i'm not going to typically do something special for just one company but if i see that that one thing that they're giving feedback to could benefit and appeal to multiple companies then then maybe i'll i'll consider it as well so if it's something specific for just one company i'm going to wait a little bit because there may be other companies that are interested exactly exactly how it is now the other tip that you gave that i really like is you [00:14:02] Speaker 1: could have a cell you got a beautiful 3d rendering virtual prototype you're like okay that's what it's going to look like and you're saying it's okay now i did a video too especially with toys and games it's nice to show kids playing it or adults if it's an adult type of toy or something like that and that's gonna it could be cruder they're like oh but that's what it looks like but oh i'm showing the play factor i'm showing the fun and i'm glad that you said that because i think sometimes and sometimes you know you can shoot it from kind of further away and you don't see the duct tape on it or maybe if you touched it a certain way it would fall apart but you you shot it three times so it didn't fall apart and you showed the fun and that's okay you're not lying to them you're showing them what it's going to be so i really like that you gave that tip as well right well and just to add on [00:14:50] Speaker 2: that too andrew you can really have magic in your videos right you know like you said you know don't don't show the duct tape right you can make it appear that some things um you know are tweaked a different way or maybe they work another way but you're not capable of doing that exactly with your prototype you can create sound on the video even if that prototype doesn't really make sound yet right but it has the capability when the company gets their hands on it or maybe it spins well yours doesn't spin but maybe you show different views of it and you make it look like in your video it does spin so we can add that magic to it our video to really show things that it can do um which is some simple [00:15:28] Speaker 1: which is which i'm glad you said that which is okay so just because you can't do as an inventor you know that they can do it so you're not lying to them when you're using some movie magic i mean when you watch a movie and they have cgi all this stuff are they lying to you or are they showing you the fun you know i mean they're not lying and it's okay and then inventors oh no i need it to be perfect and working i'm gonna spend six grand on a prototype it's like oh god don't don't don't do that um you work on a lot of products when you work on a lot of toys and games and god if you spend a ton of money on each prototype you know most of the time you spend just whatever the materials cost [00:16:06] Speaker 2: right right exactly and um once in a while i might work on something where i hire something out um i think i just hired some i don't know laser cut woody would to be um done for for something but it was under 200 for samples right so to me that's doable um you know but but if it were thousands then i would [00:16:31] Speaker 1: i would definitely think twice right right well april congratulations on licensing your product thank you for sharing your experience um i'm glad we talked about the prototyping that was fun we were we're very spontaneous guys we weren't actually completely sure what we talked about we just kind of jumped on we were kind of like you know let's let's maybe let's talk about the prototype um but we just like keeping it real here at invent right um april thank you so much thank you for helping all your students as well and remind everybody to take care and keep inventing and we'll catch with you guys next time see you bye [00:17:30] Speaker ?: you