Episode #115: Making It Into Retail: Getting Your Product Into Specialty Stores with Nicole Hawthorne
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Wondering what toy entrepreneurs like you do to get their product placed in retail? In this episode, The Toy Coach sits down with Nicole Hawthorne, student of Toy Creators Academy and co-founder of Jaylas Heirlooms dolls. Nicole is a researcher at heart, and her devotion to the craft of Googling helped her find the roadmap that she so desperately wanted.
Nicole shares how she devoured the podcast way back in season one, enjoying episode after episode. A few years and a few grants later, Nicole Joined Toy Creators Academy to get the full picture of what it takes to take her toy product to the next level.
If you are a toy entrepreneur who is curious about what Toy Creators Academy can do for your toy business, then this is an episode you want to dive right into. We focus on the importance of research, and the steps one entrepreneur took from concept to prototype to in store. Pop your earbuds in and give this episode a listen.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Buy Jayla’s Heirloom Dolls here: https://www.jaylasheirlooms.com/ -
[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 115.
Hey, there toy people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. Toy people you may have heard that toy creators academy is officially open for enrollment. If you have a toy or game idea that you would like to develop with me by your side, then please head over to toycreatorsacademy.com and join us inside this program. Now the night of March 1st at 7:00 PM Eastern, we opened enrollment with a launch party. It was an incredible [00:01:00] event. A great number of new toy creators showed up. Thank you so much for being there.
For today's episode, we are going to talk about the topic of research. And we'll touch a little bit on relationships in this conversation too. But research is going to be our primary topic today because it is the way that today's interview guest made her toy idea a real thing. With the help of her research and some borrowed relationships from the TCA virtual pitch event her doll line is now in a toy store. So at the beginning of this episode, I've got a little announcement to make that I'm thrilled about. I'm going to dive into a little bit of a teaching on the importance of research and what kind of research you should be performing. And at the end, we're going to have an interview between Nicole Hawthorne, student of toy creators academy, who now has her incredible product placed at a toy store. You ready?
But before we get into [00:02:00] all that, I have got to say a huge thanks to women in toys, because in the midst of getting ready for the toy craters academy launch party in the midst of just everything blowing up balloons, building my presentation getting the website, ready for people to register in the midst of all that I found that. That I won the storyteller wonder woman award for 2022. And I just replied in all caps to that email. So Mary Kay, if you're listening, thank you. Hope I didn't freak you out with my reply of, oh my gosh. Are you serious? But it honestly I was thrilled, you know, I remember last time. When I think it was last year. No, no, it was, it was two years ago. Wow. So I remember two years ago going to the wonder woman awards dinner, and I I'd been nominated [00:03:00] for, I think it was rising star. I think I. I'd been nominated for rising star and I'd been campaigning quote, unquote, campaigning through LinkedIn.
So if you're a listener of this podcast who received a LinkedIn message for me two years ago, trying to campaign for to win rising star. I apologize. I didn't know what I was doing but I, I really wanted to win that award. I remember going to the wonder woman awards dinner, and thinking like, wow, this is huge. This is amazing. Look at all these people in the industry. And then they had Stephanie McMahon was there. And I mean the whole event was just blew my mind and. At that event that I wanted to get more involved with women in toys. I wanted to be a bigger part of the story. I really wanted to win the award that night. But I remember when I lost, I felt like it's okay, this is just the beginning. You know, this is just the start. And so now, you know, fast [00:04:00] forward two years later to be the recipient of the storyteller award. While as I tell my story to you of the path, this is very meta.
But two years later to find out that I received the storyteller award this took my breath away. I gasped, I was so excited. I had a chocolate martini to celebrate, and I just want to say thank you to the women at women and toys who, you know, made this all possible. But also you guys supported the toy coach from day one. I mean, maybe you didn't know about the toy coach from the day one. Cause I had no followers, but you supported it from like episode six. Once I started posting more, you know, Mary Kay specifically, and especially, thank you, thank you, thank you for the, just the encouragement to keep doing what I've been doing. You don't know how much that means to not only me, but the people that have been positively influenced and impacted by the [00:05:00] lessons given here on this podcast by me and by the guests that come and join us on the show.
So, yes, so that's my short little. Diverge away from the topic today, but I had to say a huge, thank you for everybody that voted for me for this award, because this time around two years later, I didn't have time to do the campaigning that I did before individually messaging people. But I did post about it on my social, every chance that I got. And if I have not yet responded to your email of congratulations, I just want to let you know it is on my to-do list. And you will get a response for me, it's just so happened. All good things seem to happen all at once. And there's just not enough hours in the day to capture and respond and appreciate every single moment, but I will do it and I will get back to you all so, so soon. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of the congrats that you've been emailing me. Thank you for the [00:06:00] voting that you did for me. I mean, I didn't think I had a chance, so. Thank you. It means the world. And I will be posting a photo of me with my Cape, the moment, the moment that I receive it.
Okay. Let's dive in to the lessons we're going to talk about today. We are going to talk about the importance of research and relationships. And the reason that I want to talk about the importance of research and relationships is because not doing research and not building relationships are some of the biggest mistakes that new toy creators make when they jump into this industry you know, just wanting to do what you want to do and not wanting to take cues from the market, not wanting to redirect your energies and your efforts where they're most needed is, you know, it's a natural flaw that we have because we believe in the industry of play. [00:07:00] It's hard to realize that you do have to. Really buckled down and do the work. It's not all fun and games. I mean, how many puns can she fit into like one minute of speaking? Let's see. But talking about the area of research now, inside of toy creator's academy, I teach a very streamline Taipei style method of research, right?
And that method of research it's just built off of my entire career of doing, you know, every season, whenever we would start a new season of product development at any company that I worked at, we would plan out a research trip and I actually still have to this day still have map that I built out in Google maps of stores to visit for research trips. And I remember my very first research trip at horizon group USA. I remember telling my boss at the time, like we've got to go on this research trip and he was like, yeah, we have to go on this research trip. And he was like, I'll let you [00:08:00] plan it Azhelle. You seem like you want to do that. And I planned, I planned the bejesus out of that research trip. We went on this research trip and we had an itinerary. We had a focus for every store that we went to. We had a timeline, I jam packed our trip. And I remember by the end of the day, my boss and my team that I work with they were exhausted.
And they never wanted to let me plan a research trip again, because I, I had us traveling all around the city going to different stores to find inspiration for all categories of play all product, even in and outside the toy industry. So since that time I've learned how to simplify my research process a little bit, streamline it a little bit more. And that's what I teach inside the program. But what, what some people don't realize is. There is planned research that you do when you go out and you look at toy stores and you look at non toy stores. You [00:09:00] can do planned research to intentionally inspire an idea for a toy or a game, or to give you a new mechanism concept. But at the same time, there is something about you in your life and in your world that can actually act as the research in itself. There might be a game that your kid seems to play that is not meant to be played when your kid gets their hands on UNO cards, they might create a whole new game out of it. That's not the play pattern that's meant to be played with those cards.
You want it to be a doll that stays with your child for entire life and maybe become something that's passed down and you realize there are no options for your black child to have this heirloom doll. There are times where your research will look like this, where your research will essentially just be you living your life, experiencing your life. But when you [00:10:00] come at your life with this mindset of a problem solving toy person who sees that the industry is missing the mark in some areas. That's when you turn your everyday life. Into a market research session. And that's when you can say, oh, you know what? There is a huge missing segment here that it seems like nobody's filling because I, the parent or I the sister or I the child themselves. I want this product and it doesn't exist. I want to be able to do this function and I can't with the products that are out there. And once you get that, that is essentially your great big idea.
And that is when I encourage my students to then go and do the research to make sure that this idea does not already exist in stores to figure out what stores you want, the I, the idea to be in. So you know what buyers to connect with. To go out and do that research to see who your competitors are and toy [00:11:00] industry. Are they direct competitors? Are they indirect competitors? Is there a way for you to be inspired by their line to make yours better? Can you get lessons and feedback from the people? That have problems with their product, the customers that complain about your competitors product, what can you learn there? The data is there. The data is all around us you just have to look for it. You have to see it. So when we go to our toy trend research trips when we go out into the world and we're trying to see if our idea already exists, we have to go out with a focus mind, we've got to go to toy stores to specifically find somebody trying to do like what our idea is.
And we've got to figure out what the manufacturer is that makes it, and then we've got to know what their customers think about that product. Now, this is a quote by a Nobel peace prize winner from 1937, who has an [00:12:00] incredibly difficult name to say, but I'm going to do my best. Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said this quote. Research is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought. I'm going to say that one more time. Research is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought. So when you go out and do your research, I want you to see everything and then come up with a creative solution or innovation or opportunity that nobody else is realizing. So now I want to introduce you to a student of mine named Nicole. Nicole has a product called Jaylas heirloom dolls that she made with her daughter Jayla and her dolls are now placed in learning express Lake Zurich for a test run. She saw something that nobody else saw so I'm going to share with you a conversation I had with Nicole recently, and then we'll pop back in and we'll [00:13:00] talk relationships.
Hi, Nicole. Thank you so much for being here today to talk about your experience with toy creator's academy.
[00:13:08] Nicole Hawthorne: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. This is amazing opportunity. I love it.
[00:13:12] Azhelle Wade: So first I want to start off and just talk about who you are. What do you do? What's your story?
[00:13:18] Nicole Hawthorne: Okay. Absolutely. Well, my name is Nicole Hawthorne and I'm co-founder of Jaylas heirlooms with my five-year-old daughter Jayla, and we create handcrafted, diverse timeless dolls because we believe every girl deserves a doll that represents her and she feels good about. So yeah, that's where we started. We did a soft launch back in 2020 and November, and we've been kind of crushing it ever since, and it's been amazing and like 90% of that is due to you. So you definitely need to be like have stock in our company in the future, because this actually has a lot to do with starting with [00:14:00] you. So that's why I'm so glad and honored to be here.
[00:14:03] Azhelle Wade: Oh thank you. I do want to talk a little bit about that because I know you took, you took notes from the podcast before even joining the course. I mean, even though this is about the course, I'd still love to hear how you started, how you took notes from the podcast, what you applied and what happened for you after doing that?
[00:14:19] Nicole Hawthorne: Yeah. Yes. So I am a master researcher and I like Googled for weeks and weeks. And I finally came across your content and I was like, oh my goodness, this is life. This has given me life right now. So I binged like all your episodes from your first season, you, you were, I believe maybe halfway through your season at that point. And then I, the one that was the game changer was your interview with Terry and I shell for brown toy box. And she went in on getting grants from your local communities and support groups and resources and things like that. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I need to do this now. And that led us to applying for our [00:15:00] first grant that we won for $10,000.
And we've won two other three other grants since then for a total of $35,000 in our first year of business, which was like insane. And I've never written a grant application ever before. So that, that podcast sent me down the path of like success and financing and I mean, we're still bootstrapping, but we don't have to bootstrap so hard because we've been getting these grants and everything else that you, your podcasts have since put out, including TCA toy creators academy, put us to the right path where we're at now, which is graduates of your program. And and starting to do a test pilot with an actual boutique toy store. So we're like beyond excited. We. When you're in and I'm like, I can't believe we're here.
[00:15:52] Azhelle Wade: I can't believe it's only been one year. I feel like I've been seeing your name pop up longer than that, so, okay. First you [00:16:00] started Jaylas heirloom dolls because you wanted adult for your child that was like durable and like one that would be with her for lifetime, maybe passed down right to your family.
[00:16:11] Nicole Hawthorne: And made of cloth, you know, obviously there's so many plastic dolls out there. There are some, and some of them are diverse and very nice. And there's nothing wrong with that. I you know, consumer of many different types of products, but I just wanted something that I thought was very extra special. And when I found the cloth dolls that were out there, unfortunately they had black and brown people not depicted as we really are. You know, we're beautiful and, and it just didn't have that. Yeah. It didn't give me that vibe. I'm like my baby needs to see she's gorgeous. You know, I'm not, not a typical like stereotypical old school. What we would traditionally say ragdoll. I'm like, no, we need a high, a high end, like beautiful doll that really depicts how we are in real life. But it's also [00:17:00] accurate to our natural features. And did it have us looking last?
My mom would say to grown, you know, so it's like, I was like, Nope, don't all are two grown. Like she needs to look like her natural little self she's, a little girl, you know, you got time to grow up later. And so when my friends started to see the custom ones, I curated a collection with women artisans around the world. And I just started going in on the design and I would have someone else make them on our behalf. And when that was it, once our friends or family saw them, they were like, oh my goodness, you have to sell these. We need these. These are so beautiful. And they actually look like my child or similar. Cause we have some that are a little fantasy. My daughter's in the mermaids right now and she loves princesses and ballet. And so, you know, there are some like that. With beautiful hair, like yours and different colors. But yes, we, we wanted to at least have the features be authentic to the real, you know, black and brown experience.
[00:17:56] Azhelle Wade: So many people listen to the podcast and say, oh, I've got enough information [00:18:00] here. I'm just going to roll out the podcast. What made you want to come back and still take the course?
[00:18:05] Nicole Hawthorne: Okay. So in real life, like I say my nine to five, I'm a project manager and I know that, you know, a place. An idea without a plan is just a. You know, so when you go in you're strategic with your plans, your actions align, and you're able to have really good outcomes. Right? So I'm like type a, I was like, I need to sign up. She has a plan, you know, like she has information that needs to come into my brain. And then the, really the podcast was an appetizer. Right. So I'm like, okay. Yeah, I got, yeah, appetizing us and just wining and dining us. I need the main course meal dessert. I need the drinks that come with it. Right. So once I got into your class, that's how I knew that everything that I needed to know was that. Yeah, it was there. So I didn't have to be the Google queen anymore. [00:19:00] I didn't have to go hunting for other coaches. You know, there's 1,000,001 different people that want to coach you. And it's like, well, you're not in my niche. I need somebody that's actually doing things in or have done things. And you know, like, I would like to say you got receipts girl. So wait, receipts, you know, improve that they've been successful in this area. And there's just no one else, at least that I have found personally.
[00:19:23] Azhelle Wade: You know, what's really interesting. I am not a, someone who has like made a toy product and launched it themselves. But instead I come from the corporate side where I've dealt with inventors and entrepreneurs. I know what retailers, what retailers are looking for because I've developed products for companies and launched it for companies. And it's an interesting position to be in, because instead of telling you, this is the one way that I launched my one product, and you should just do this way. I teach you guys like these are all the different routes you can go. Here's the order in which you would do all those different routes. Here's like you choose your best path based on like your [00:20:00] finances, your resources, what your goals are. Do you feel that, did you feel that going through them?
[00:20:05] Nicole Hawthorne: And I think that unique perspective is something. You couldn't get anywhere else. Right? Because unfortunately you can get someone that maybe just knows a lot about one thing. So the, the fact that you actually know a lot about a bunch of things, or, you know, it means that you can give that unique perspective in a few different areas, right? So you don't have to be a toy entrepreneur. You're out there with your own brand. Although you do have your own business, you know, and you have experienced with your own business, but you don't have to be that person for us to glean all that information from you. You know, and especially if you're trying to scale, like we are we need to know what the corporate toy world is looking for.
And if we're on par with those trends, Or if we are making our own waves, if it would be something that they would even pick up on in the future and be interested in.
[00:20:56] Azhelle Wade: What's it toy craters academy help you get unstuck with, did you get that plan? You were [00:21:00] looking for? What what'd you get?
[00:21:01] Nicole Hawthorne: Yeah. So I definitely got the plan. You girls still got the work, the plan, right? So I'm still making sure that I'm doing what you said to do, but I feel like I got the framework. Because the framework is what keeps you honest and keeps you focused. And it, the rest is literally up to you. So in terms of being unstuck like I said, with the toy pitch at the end, that solidified that the idea is wanted on a larger, a potentially larger scale to test out. So I'm really interested in seeing how our test pilot with that boutique toy store works out because that could also help to, you know, give us some more validation. Not that you need a ton of validation, but just the pockets of testing. I'm really big on user feedback and finding out, you know, how things are going. If people are interested, what changes we could make always iterating. That change, you know, China, make sure you're keeping up with what people [00:22:00] desire. So that got us to that point. We've never pitched a toy company or a big you know, store before. And we wouldn't have been able to do that by the way, without this platform. Yes.
[00:22:12] Azhelle Wade: That was my next question for you. Had you ever gotten your product into a toy store or pitch to one before?
[00:22:17] Nicole Hawthorne: Nope. Oh. And then I have made calls Azhelle, like even a local places that are smaller and they're like, oh, I don't know. You know, we'll have to see. So you definitely, this course opened doors that we ha we were not able to open. And potentially now we have in our portfolio to say, Hey, look, we're doing this with this place. You know? You should try us. You should give us a chance to.
[00:22:41] Azhelle Wade: I love that. And honestly, you know doing so well during that pitch and which let's get into that in a little bit. It just inspired new ideas for me, because there were toy makers who were interested in taking TCA last year that messaged me and were like, you know, I'm not sure if it's quite for me. And then when I saw what it did for you, when I was [00:23:00] able to get that retailer for com, I started thinking. I was like, oh, all those makers should be here. Cause then they could have this opportunity. So let's talk a little bit about the TCA virtual pitch event, which is the pitch event that happens at the end of toy craters academy. So it's a 12 week program, which at the end of it, you get to apply to pitch to retailers or toy companies depending on your toilet. Not everybody gets to pitch. Cause you literally have to apply and show me, you did the work. You have something to show. What is, it has to be good to pitch, but it's included as part of the program. So Nicole gets a pitch to learn me express express lake Zurich.
[00:23:37] Nicole Hawthorne: So I have to just preface the story with that. I'm now nine months pregnant with my second daughter, right?
[00:23:45] Azhelle Wade: Wait, nine months right now? It's a labor. Any moment.
[00:23:50] Nicole Hawthorne: Like some weeks I got like two weeks left. Right? So when, when I signed up and you initially you know, gave me my time slot, I'm like, This [00:24:00] baby didn't come yet. We're good. We're going to pitch. Right. And then I just wasn't feeling that well, and I reached out to you and you were so amazing. You were like, girl, get on that pitch. You've got this, you can do this. And I was like, okay, I can do this. You know, like I am a mom, I'm a wife, I'm tough. I'm a business owner. I can still make this happen. So yeah, I was going into it, not that confident because I wasn't feeling that well, physically, like. So tired and you know, and still I call it, I'm a dual preneur. Like I worked during the day, I have a nine to five and then I pick this up and I don't have a team yet working on that. But long story short, I went into it and I was like, we're just going to bring that energy that you bring, you know, when you talk to people, because this is a cause of mission in my heart.
Right. And then, so yeah, speaking with Richard, it was amazing because he got. You know, the presentation I followed the, I tried to follow the template that you outlined as much as possible when you helped so much with the reviewing of the presentation and helping create some of the [00:25:00] graphics, which I don't have that background. So that was amazing. And I just, I feel like the whole experience was one of the best pitches I've ever done and I've pitched. I pitched along. Yeah, maybe at least 10 to 15 pitches that have been some successful where we've won grants and stuff. And then others where people just weren't giving us feedback on what we're talking about, but the outcome of him testing the dolls in the Chicago area. Just so exhilarating. I'm like, oh my goodness. I'm so glad that I did this because I was doubting myself. I was even doubting myself, you know, right before the pitch, like, oh, I don't know how this is going to. But
[00:25:39] Azhelle Wade: I was shocked by, I was like, is she serious right now? aren't you part of like the Amazon accelerator program? I was like.
[00:25:46] Nicole Hawthorne: So the Amazon black business, so Rader and all that. And I'm like, I have to pull it together. I got to do right.
[00:25:54] Azhelle Wade: And then if anybody, if you don't know, testing a product means they're bringing in a [00:26:00] small batch to see how it sells and if they can sell through, if it sells well, then they will place a real order. I'm so happy for you. So tell me how big was your toy company list before you took TCA?
[00:26:13] Nicole Hawthorne: Zero. None. I had none. You remember? I told you I was stopping you for awhile. I was like, damn. And finding you on LinkedIn and obviously your podcast. So yeah, you were, you were it. And now I I'm like, oh man, I would at least say several, you know, that you've had offer you know, to share with us besides the one that I now am directly in contact with. So that's amazing. And I just feel so proud and blessed to have been a part of your, your cohorts.
[00:26:50] Azhelle Wade: Awesome. Overall, how was your experience in toy creators academy?
[00:26:55] Nicole Hawthorne: It was amazing. If I have to do a scale of like one to a hundred, it [00:27:00] was a thousand, you know, I think everybody should sign up. I feel like if you really are serious about trying to do something, this is the program for you. If you're not ready. This is still the program for you, but you need to get your mindset, right? So that you can do something because, you know, knowledge without action. Like I said is just an idea and we, if we all dreamers as great, but we want to have those dreams come true and be alive.
[00:27:25] Azhelle Wade: Yes. Thank you. Oh, and I have to say. You are part of the reason that I even invited Richard to come to the pitch event depending on what you guys submit for the pitch event. I have my base people I normally invite, but I go out and add people based on your concepts. So yeah. So thanks you so much, Nicole. Thank you for this. Anything else you'd like to add, but if not, it was a pleasure.
[00:27:50] Nicole Hawthorne: No, I just, I want to say thank you. I, I really hope and pray that you continue to do this hard work. I know it's not easy being a creator. Right. But [00:28:00] when you create it helps other people to create. So, thank you very much.
[00:28:04] Azhelle Wade: That's beautiful. Thank you. Take care.
[00:28:07] Nicole Hawthorne: You too.
[00:28:10] Azhelle Wade: Well there, you have it toy people. That was my interview with Nicole. I hope you enjoyed this episode on the importance of research for your toy ideas. Hope you got some valuable takeaways and insights. And I hope you're super pumped and interested in joining me inside of toy creator's academy. If you are head over to toycreatorsacademy.com to learn more about the program, and I would be thrilled to see you inside of thecourse. If you would like to join me for my wrap party to wrap up enrollment for toy creators academy, please head over to thetoycoach.com/115. And I'll put the link in the show notes there for you. And I would love, love, love to have you attend. Now the conclusion of what we learned today, we really focused on the power of [00:29:00] research.
If you need help figuring out any of those things or any of the other seven steps in the toy development process that I want you to reach out to me and say, hello. I would love to chat with you about how potentially this program and I could help you develop exactly that. Okay, so here is your action item for today. I want you to go out to the stores. I want you to go to your closest store. It doesn't have to be an exclusive toy store. It could be a target or Walmart at BJ's. And I want you to do the research going in there with your own toy idea in mind and just see if anybody else has come up with anything remotely close to what you have created. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to [00:30:00] me that you tune into this one. Until next week I'll see you later. Toy people.
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