Episode #136: When Your Toy Dream Is To Open A Toy Store with Isaac Elliott-Fisher
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When asked what it takes to create a small toy store, today’s guest answered: “Well, you have to be crazy, but that’s fine. I’m crazy.” What he meant by that was that you have to be willing to take chances, willing to try something new, willing to learn new skills, and willing to get creative. In today’s episode you’ll learn about what it is like to start a small toy store, toy brand, and a new manufacturing technique. In today’s podcast episode, find out what it really takes to open a toy store in terms of time, money, heart, and labor.
Todays’ podcast guest, Isaac Elliott-Fisher's experiences in the film industry as a cinematographer led him to toys in an interesting and unexpected way. While working on a documentary in the UK with his production company, Definitive Film, he couldn’t find any toy knights, so he decided to create some himself. In the process he bought a dilapidated building in his small Ontario town, with the intention to turn it into a manufacturing site for his toys. However, it turned into something even better. It is now The Village Toy Castle, a destination that is part museum, part toy store, part play space, and soon to be the center for his new manufacturing techniques for plastic toys and toy parts.
In my interview with Isaac, you’ll learn how it all came together. You’ll find out how much money goes into creating a brand new toy store, what kind of out-of-the-box thinking helped the process, and about the benefits of having a generous and open mindset. You’ll also find out how to get in touch with Isaac about pitching your product for his store!
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Learn about the movies Isaac made that led him to get interested in the toy industry. [00:01:40]
Find out a play pattern that Isaac used as a kid that allowed him to enjoy his toys well into his teenage years. [00:02:31]
Learn about the toyetic principles that caused The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand to become so successful. [00:07:46]
Learn what exactly sparked the surprising transition from cinematographer to toy manufacturer and toy store owner. [00:10:10]
Learn why The Village Toy Castle is not focusing on online sales [00:34:53]
Learn about the capabilities of a new tool that could help to bring more affordable toy manufacturing to North America [00:45:14]
Find out the benefits of sharing information in the toy industry [00:52:00]
Learn the unlikely piece of advice that helped Isaac break out of the mold and dare to be different. [00:58:45]
Find out Isaac’s best advice for anyone who wants to open their own toy store. [01:00:53]
Learn about Isaac’s favorite childhood toys that inspired his love of toys as an adult. [01:03:37]
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Visit Isaac’s website by clicking here.
Follow The Village Toy Castle on Instagram.
Follow The Village Toy Castle on Facebook.
Follow Definitive Toys on Instagram.
Follow Definitive Toys on Facebook.
Visit Definitive Film’s website by clicking here.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 136.
[00:00:06] Isaac Elliot: I was looking for conversion rates and turnover rates of how much product a store could expect to turn over in a year. At that time, the number was 3.3 times. So I took 3.3 times and then took what I thought I could afford as wholesale startup. And went okay if I can turn over that 3.3 times that equals this much product moved. And then if I looked at an average markup, then that average markup would equal this roughly speaking profit margin.
[00:00:41] Azhelle Wade: 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. Today my guest on the show is Isaac Elliot-Fisher, a cinematographer documentary filmmaker turned toy store owner, and soon to be factory owner from rural Ontario, Canada.
[00:01:18] Now, since childhood Isaac has been pushing his own creative limits as both an artist and a movie creator. Before he was nine years old camera in hand, Isaac was filming eight millimeter film, stop motion animations on his Clinton, Ontario living room floor, a camera that's been in his hand ever since. A much later, 2008 graduate of the film in television program at hum college in Toronto.
[00:01:43] Isaac now brings with him a variety of cinematography skills and experience along with a creative sensibility and passionate enthusiasm. Now, today we are gonna be focusing on Isaac's toy journey, but I thought his film history was super impressive. So we had to talk about it. Isaac, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here today.
[00:02:02] Isaac Elliot: Thank you for having me. The film experience is kind of intrinsically tied in because while I've been a cinematographer for many things from music, videos and commercials and, feature films and stuff, a lot of bad television, for over a decade, we've been doing documentaries on massive pop culture brands.
[00:02:19] So we really. I guess you could say cut her teeth or were well known for a documentary we did on the history of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, that we did from 2000 late, 2008 into 2014. And it was released under paramount back in 2014 with Michael Bass movie. and that kind of led us down this path of doing pop culture feature docs that, dabble into, or, or phase into the toy industry.
[00:02:43] Azhelle Wade: What was the first toy related film you worked on?
[00:02:46] Isaac Elliot: Probably the first ones I did cause when I was a little kid, everything was everything I shot was with toy. So I would string little strings on the shoulders of my GI Joe's and take him out to the garden with best friend. And we would, have this video camera and the mid nineties and we would, do these elaborate, edited in camera.
[00:03:02] They weren't even related to the show. GI Joe. They were just sort of like military show stories and we would like bury sticks in the dirt and then with a string and then you'd, you'd pull the string and they would make this little explosion, in the dirt mortar fire. Oh, know, fun little thing. So yeah, I mean, it was our, I guess we were probably in our, in our early teens at the time.
[00:03:22] So it was a way of carrying play beyond the years of playing with toys, was making excuses to do that by making movies about them. Or with I should say. And so I would say from there, the first major toy one was, as I say that the ninja turtles, which has such a, specific for me, it was a, it was a passion film because that for me .
[00:03:42] Azhelle Wade: Which Turtles
[00:03:42] Isaac Elliot: film?
[00:03:43] So we did this documentary called the, the definitive history. Oh, sorry. It's called turtle power, the definitive history of the teenage mu turtles. So it really does cover the entire history of that franchise from the inception with Kevin and Peter in the, in the early eighties, to the 2014 era, since we're doing like a series of three other films on it.
[00:04:00] And so. in going into film school or going through film school. I had this really interest, like I had a big interest in, in learning about the history of that brand. So I wanted to, to dig in and, and find out what was on underneath the surface.
[00:04:13] And that at that time wasn't really a lot of pop culture documentary stuff happening yet. And we kind of pressured and pressured and pressured the, the people who still owned the brand. And they said, well, we can't really stop you from doing the film. So you can go ahead and do this and interview us. it just sort of snowballed over a, a course of five years. And we kind of really embedded ourselves with, with the entire world of turtles and still are working with them to this day since 2008.
[00:04:41] And this was at the very end of that deregulated era in the early eighties where you had Heman and, and GI Joe and transformers coming in where you had cartoons, cartoons being paid for by the toy companies.
[00:04:53] And so turtles was kind of the end of that, where you have playmates toys, this very little known doll company decided to pay for a five episode mini series of turtles. And so the toy design and the cartoon were so intrinsically woven that the decisions that the toy company was making directly affected the entirety of the media L.
[00:05:13] For the, for the rest of the brand, for the rest of its history.
[00:05:16] Azhelle Wade: So you started a company called definitive film
[00:05:19] Isaac Elliot: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Azhelle Wade: You did a bunch of project, the teenage mutant ninja turtles documentary was one of them. What year was that released?
[00:05:26] Isaac Elliot: That was 2014.
[00:05:28] Azhelle Wade: And you did a deep dive on the ninja turtles.
[00:05:30] Do you remember, were there any, cause you said you wanted to figure out like what caused this phenomenon? Were there any like key occurrences or things that you noticed popped out in your research and creation of the documentary that like caused it to be such a phenomenon?
[00:05:46] Isaac Elliot: I think that for the turtles themselves, it was, it was very much about the core concept because the turtle.
[00:05:55] As a, as a property were, they were invented as a comic book, that was satirizing other tropes of ind Oros at time. And so turtles is kind of one of those funny properties where you take a really zany idea, combining ninja. With a, an, an animal that's anthropomorphized in a strange, in a funny way.
[00:06:19] And it's all kind of comedy, but you have this serious Kung Fu movie take in the background, and then you, so you kind of look at it as they are born out of pop culture. They become pop culture as characters themselves, they consume pop culture. Mm-hmm in the sewers. Like that's how they learn about humans.
[00:06:41] They like take old VHS tapes and comic books. So there's this weird ultra meowing. And it was so radical and so wacky and so unique that kids. of any era will always want their thing. And turtles had this under groundness that really made kids feel like it was their own. Right. And, and there there's all these, I mean, we've dissected this for so long.
[00:07:09] There's all these layers on top of that, where they not at were they're non race specific. They are relat, they are boys, but they're relatively gender neutral. They are closer to age as teenagers to the children who are playing with them than say a Superman or, something like this, where there's sort of this, this, all these like, and also they're the primal character archetypes.
[00:07:34] The four of them represent four primal characteristics of a, of a person. And so with us kids. All the kids and all your friends could I'm of Michaelangelo. I'm a Raphael of this. So you have all of this perfect storm working together at a perfect time. When the toy business was collapsing, action figures were, per were supposed to be dead.
[00:07:56] And then it came into this vacuum and it just explode.
[00:07:59] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, I call that one Oh, Toyota principle, number one, defined personalities for all the kids to latch onto like one of those personalities. So when you created definitive films, what was the goal of definitive films? And then I wanna bridge over into definitive toys, like how, like, how that came to be, was sure.
[00:08:17] Isaac Elliot: Yeah. Well, yeah, it's all tied together because yeah, with definit, definitive films was born out of doing that specific documentary project I, I was this young post film grad who came back to his hometown and, and, and was bugging these friends, friends of mines who became my business partners who, or considerably older than I am mm-hmm
[00:08:39] And so one of them was still a high school teacher. They had started doing some video together. We had collectively started doing some music videos cause they were in, they do, they had, they record music all this stuff. So. I said, let's do a documentary on ninja turtles and Randall. My business partner was like, no.
[00:08:55] And mark, my other business partner was like, yes. And then , they kind of was like, let's do it. So as I said, there's this big kind of evolution, which then led us to doing something on calling the barbarian, which we're still working on. And then we Heman master's universe. And then one of the projects we worked on along the way, we got asked, we got asked to do, a making.
[00:09:17] of Development documentary with dark crystal age of resistance series with Jim Henson and, and Netflix mm-hmm . So we were doing that film in the UK covering how the creature shop and everybody was, it was a huge production of puppets. It was a beautiful, beautiful 10 part series on all done hand puppets mm-hmm
[00:09:38] And when we were in the UK, my first son had, had been born that time at that time. And I wanted to collect for him little toy nights. And I couldn't find anything in the UK. I was like in the UK, I should be able to find toy nights and castles, why can't I find these? Right. So that kind of spawned this idea.
[00:09:55] Like I would home, we'd go back and forth and I'd come And I would just like, well, what if I bought him a bunch of used toy nights? Like the ones I had and I made him a wooden castle and I was like, If I made a wooden, a wooden castle, I I wonder if other parents would wanna buy wooden castles for their kids.
[00:10:11] And then what if I made my own toy knights, but instead of just making generic, what if I took pages out of all of this toy history that we know, and with Heman being a toy first and, and having these little comic books and have creating characters, and then the toy drove the narrative of the, of the, the media, et cetera.
[00:10:29] So that was what, what sort of spawned this? Okay. Now I'm gonna create a fantasy IP world that is that is accessible to kids and gives them this kind of like meaty story. And then you have these, these toy nights that can be made into a game or into just toys collect. And then these wooden castles that go with them and, and make this very bespoke, handmade product.
[00:10:54] And then I went a step further and because I'm strange and stubborn, And I said, well, what if, what if I just manufactured the plastic stuff myself? What if we didn't go to Asia? What if we don't go overseas? Well, what does that mean? Well, that, that spawns and a half years of a filmmaker trying to become a plastics engineer.
[00:11:11] right. So, so, so, and, and it was working
[00:11:16] Azhelle Wade: and what happened
[00:11:16] with that? Last time we talked, you were trying to figure out how to make an injection molding machine here in the states. Right. Is that what you were working
[00:11:23] on?
[00:11:23] Isaac Elliot: Well, basically, you know, I bought, I bought an injection mold machine from states.
[00:11:26] It's small, that we're bringing up here to Canada that, and, and so that spawns, this building that I'm sitting in right now, that I, I needed a workshop to work in and we had built a house here in this small village that live in, but I didn't have a, shop space.
[00:11:41] So there was this very, very, very old two story brick hotel building.
[00:11:48] Azhelle Wade: Oh. it was a hotel.
[00:11:50] Isaac Elliot: Yeah. It was a turn the century, horse and buggy. Yeah. Turn of the century, horse and buggy hotel. wow. Beautiful old pictures. We found everything and, and it was, it's like 445, 4500 square feet of of space, but it was like raining inside. So it was like completely, it was like condemned. It was, had been sitting here for so long, so We decided to, to buy it and gut it and put the factory in here. Yeah. But it was, it on a main, thorough fair we're in kind of a cottage. Industry area there's, there's nothing out here for kids to do. We have three little kids now and we're like, there's nothing for us to do during the day with them other than go to the beach or, or a few little museumy kind of thing.
[00:12:32] So I said, well, what if, oh, that we made part of it into a destination?
[00:12:37] Azhelle Wade: because you had nothing to do that kind of Spawned this idea. The kids had nothing to do in the area and you're like, well, I'm gonna, gut this space anyway. I need to work in it, but maybe I can turn it to something
[00:12:48] more.
[00:12:49] Isaac Elliot: right, exactly. then the main level, my factory space keeps getting smaller and because it's not, not building large parts.
[00:12:57] And I kept going, what if the showroom had had a museum in it? And what if the museum had a life size play castle in it and what if it had, or retro arcade machines and what if we had also then a store that also like all of the shelves, but above me have all of these more museum pieces all around the store that aren't for sale.
[00:13:20] And then you have, you know, retro themed candy and, and, and just a normal kind of condensed toys or us type of store. Yeah. With a bit of whimsy and magic and retro products, all jammed into a very confined space and then. The other part of the building, we're opening up soon will have like a games room that we have games, workshop, product here.
[00:13:40] We have board games here and then that room will have a window that looks into the factory space. Oh, very, very cool. So yeah, you can see product being made. So both business units, like both business units end up helping each other where the manufacturing can't rely on this little tiny store, right. In the middle of nowhere for its existence.
[00:14:01] So it has ship out to the world. But if you're buying the product out in the world somewhere and go, oh, you can actually go to Canada to this little cottagey area and see the product being made or, or, or a vice versa. visits the store
[00:14:15] Azhelle Wade: attraction A factory toy store. And your workshop, the best tax write offs I've ever heard.
[00:14:22] Isaac Elliot: no kidding. As a filmmaker, you could write off everything.
[00:14:26] Azhelle Wade: I mean, as a toy creator, That whole, that whole shop sounds like an expense. So
[00:14:32] Isaac Elliot: right. We there's all sorts of writeoffs here.
[00:14:35] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. No, that's
[00:14:36] Isaac Elliot: and then with the, with the toy museum and the interactive space, it's all about like, if, if you were to look at this only as retail, right.
[00:14:44] And you weren't to include the factory, it's, it's very much, the philosophy is based around that everything has to be experienced. Everything has to be like a, a consumer that's going out, can just buy their, their stuff at Walmart or, or, or wherever. Right. They like, why do you want to go Like, why would you want to go and shop at Walmart versus going to shop here?
[00:15:06] I mean, so, so you try to give them, give the consumer, or the customer as much experience through the door as you can as much texture. I mean, ,I mean, it's not, it's not to the level I want it to be yet, but if you imagine the way that, how long. Since December 1st and we owned the, we only owned the building since the previous December, so, so fast.
[00:15:26] And it was, yeah. And, and considering that, like the there's like steel beams above me, we've put in we've re plumbed, the whole building rewired, the whole building re all the, like every single element of the infrastructure. We had to build a new building inside of an old building and then re brick the outside of the building.
[00:15:42] So,
[00:15:42] Azhelle Wade: okay. So I wanna just give a visual for those that are listening and not watching, cause I'll be able to put some imagery up with this podcast, but you know, for those listening, this toy store Isaac's toy store is called village toy castle. The logo is kind of like a retro vibe to it.
[00:15:59] There's like a oblong, a purple circle behind the word village. There's like a castle image behind and on top of that word village. So the, and the. The facade of the store has a very like medieval castle, like look to it, but then the product inside, is, seems to be a nice mix of, you know, modern products.
[00:16:19] But it does seem like you have, I mean, you have this giant play castle in it, so it's still leaning toward the Knights like that kind of So, so how would you describe the store's overall vibe, I guess, or what, how would you
[00:16:32] describe this toy store?
[00:16:34] Isaac Elliot: It's, it's very retro and fun. We bring in a lot of product from shilling which is really popular here because of you've got the little, little wooden boats and the tin, the tin robots, and the racers and the, and the old school.
[00:16:46] And it's all the, the branding on that, the little toy soldiers of the branding on that It's very fifties and, and earlier, so it really fits the vibe because we're both like, we're both from a, an area in the world, like north America, None of the buildings are, are really that old mm-hmm. like, know what I mean?
[00:17:02] A building like this, like these are pretty rare now to be because most of them are knocked down. I mean, this building would've been, it was built by a man named William Dixon who came over from England in the 18 hundreds and it was a hotel and then was burnt.
[00:17:15] It burnt down in 1896 and was rebuilt in 1897. So like the old railing, you can't see it here, but I can send you photos. Like the old railing to the hotel upstairs is behind the counter. The trim that was in the building, we repurposed into the shelving. So we tried to, to tie in as much of the feel of being in an old town building.
[00:17:35] But, but like, rather than being, say like an old towny general store or something that is sort of tied to say the purpose of this area, ,which would've been all is all farmland still.
[00:17:47] Azhelle Wade: Hmm,
[00:17:48] Isaac Elliot: Doing radically different, like a toy store and a, and different theme on top of it, but respecting the building's architecture and history at the same time.
[00:17:57] So you're kind of playing this balance. So it is, like I say, it's in, like, if you walk through today at the, the recording of this interview, it's still only like 60% of the magic I want it to have, but people still come through the door and go, oh my God, they're
[00:18:11] Azhelle Wade: I mean, I can see the before and
[00:18:13] after photo and you did a lovely job, you're such a cinematographer of taking a very similar photo of angle.
[00:18:20] And it's a very dramatic angle with the blue sky. It's great of the before. And then we can look at the, after I love how you painted the name of the toy store with a logo, huge on the side of the building and the way you let your sign it.
[00:18:30] It's great. Okay. Since we're still talking about you as a retailer, I've gotta ask a couple of things. First, are you, are you a part of any, of like the organizations for toy retailers in the industry?
[00:18:44] Isaac Elliot: Not yet because this has happened so incredibly fast fact,
[00:18:49] Azhelle Wade: have a feeling. that's your doing, but okay.
[00:18:52] Isaac Elliot: yeah. I'm like, I'm like trying to, I, and I'm not kidding. Last week we had another kid, so I'm like,
[00:18:56] Azhelle Wade: oh my gosh, What?
[00:18:58] Isaac Elliot: is like, congratulations.
[00:19:02] Azhelle Wade: Oh,
[00:19:03] Isaac Elliot: We had a third boy
[00:19:04] Azhelle Wade: oh my gosh.
[00:19:05] Isaac Elliot: I'm surprised I'm still standing. But the my, my wife is, my wife is still standing.
[00:19:09] She's she's amazing. But the, yeah, so the two of us are still running this business and, and, you know, wow. Having family. So the. Yeah, not yet. So yeah, no, there's so many, like we basically were just rushing to suppliers on board knowing that the ship, the shipping crisis was gonna be a problem.
[00:19:28] We, we kind of like rushed at pre-ordering back, like last August .So I had stored all the product my basement at house. so that when we opened December 1st, I had stuff in the store, but I mean, like I say, we're in an area that doesn't have a huge population density. So I couldn't expect, I can't expect the local demographic to be able to sustain the story year round.
[00:19:52] Like have to be able to bring in the, the, the tourist dollars, which all come into this area. But I was totally blown away when we opened it in December because I, I was selling stuff fast. I had to reorder within, you know, a few days. It was really
[00:20:04] Azhelle Wade: okay.
[00:20:05] Wait, I'm sorry we have to hold on. You're you're prompting too many questions.
[00:20:08] cuz I've already got one in the back. I'm gonna ask about people that would love to maybe pitch to get their product in your store. We gotta address that two. we've gotta address advice for people that want to try to do this on their own. What kind of capital investment should people be looking at?
[00:20:22] Let's start with, as a, a new toy store owner. If there are people listening that have what they think are just specialty toy stores, cuz you're essentially a specialty toy store, right? Yeah. H Are you accepting new creators to get their product in your store? How do they pitch it to you? What's your process like for vetting new suppliers?
[00:20:42] Isaac Elliot: Well, that's actually a great question because I haven't experienced that direct supplier experience yet. So far, we've been almost exclusively dealing with, with, like suppliers, like your, your Everest, your kid toy in Canada, those, those type big suppliers. Okay. Play mobile. I'm yet to get Lego in the store Lego, wasn't doing any new accounts in a, around the shipping crisis.
[00:21:07] And, and I guess they're notoriously known for being really slow. So I've got partway through the process and, then they went silent. So, it's been very frustrating. We wanna get Lego in the store big time.
[00:21:18] Azhelle Wade: So are you
[00:21:19] Isaac Elliot: currently leveraging,
[00:21:20] Azhelle Wade: I'd say name brands or are you still open to like small startup brands?
[00:21:25] Isaac Elliot: A hundred percent. We're open to, and I I've always wanted have. Small startup brands or really unique stuff here. Because that's sort of the name of the game here is to kind of have unique feel. So I'm obviously open to any product that has been manufactured anywhere, but I'm really excited to see stuff that's coming outta north America.
[00:21:42] Right? Like I'd love to see where's the domestic stuff coming from. Are there domestic doll makers, are there domestic doll housemaker are there, and can we work together as, an industry a across both the manufacturing and the, the retail to find ways of, yes, we all have to accept that price points are going up across the board regardless of where the product is coming from.
[00:22:04] Azhelle Wade: So you're open to smaller brands, but obviously being a new toy store, you got a real customers in with those bigger brands too.
[00:22:09] So you need to have a nice assortment. The question was how do people, kind of pitch their product to you if they want to be considered for your, toy, store?
[00:22:19] Isaac Elliot: Sure. I mean, people, people seem to be able to find my cell phone.
[00:22:23] on. I, I, I have that, like I like, that's store phone look here. It is.
[00:22:26] There's the store phone. What? And, and it's like, it's so funny because like, people will, will find, and I, I like, I don't don't wanna sound like I'm being mean to customers, but so like, people will phone me and say, what are your hours? I'm like, you got my phone number from Google.
[00:22:42] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh.
[00:22:43] Isaac Elliot: the hours of the store.
[00:22:44] Oh
[00:22:44] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh, that's too funny.
[00:22:46] You know, but I wonder if they're unsure because your hours are like Wednesday to Thursday and Saturday to Sunday or something like that. . right?
[00:22:54] Isaac Elliot: No, I'm I I'm closed. I'm close Mondays, Tuesdays, but that's cuz we're open on weekend. So yeah. No, they can, they can find my don't don't call cell phone every day. But like all our social media, you message me and you you'll get me, so yeah.
[00:23:07] Azhelle Wade: and all right. And
[00:23:08] then what advice would you give to people that are thinking about starting their own toy store? I do get people messaging me about this a lot. I've never done it, so I don't know what to tell them. I'm like, I don't know. You know, this is not my area of expertise. What does it take financially and emotionally like, what
[00:23:24] does it take?
[00:23:26] Isaac Elliot: Well, you have to be crazy, but that's fine. I'm crazy. But like the, for me. F coming from a film background and coming from a very broad film background film is a very superficial facade based industry. We are like, we're one of the worst industries in the world when it comes to like, we design everything around how something looks and to be the most appealing.
[00:23:52] So where people see discrimination or sort of like, like not, not good things. You kind of, if you peel back all the layers, all it's based on is money and making something look good. so, if they say, well, everybody's the same size and they're also beautiful in movies. And it's like, well, yeah, because it makes money.
[00:24:11] right. And it's a horrible thing. No, right. I don't, I don't condone it. I think it's a sad reality of how this sort of. Superficiality of, of presentational business works. And I think that not to equate what we're doing to that, but that attention to detail and holding ourselves to such high standards visually, in the film industry and, and executing at this level constantly and having to make everything out of nothing, because you have no budget ever.
[00:24:41] Having access to many different creative skills will help in the execution and hold those things like visual presentation of your retail space and the signage on your building and The counter that your cash register's on, what does the cash register look like? What is it sitting beside? You know, you can read all those marketing books that you have to kind of start funneling that into something that is. Cohesive, and it works with your brand vision and it gives the customer an extensive experience.
[00:25:12] And, and, and I'm always sort of disappointed by small retail. When I walk in and go this, you could have done so much more with this sign. You could have done so much more with this entrance. You could have done so much more. And, and I know that's not everybody's expertise and that's fine. You don't have to be good at all those things don't be afraid to bring in somebody who's really good at, at sign stuff, then be the boss that is connecting all the dots. So then in terms of your other question, in terms of finances, that's another big kind of observation I would make when it comes to, depending on the physical size of your retail space.
[00:25:41] And that was something I, I had no calculator say, well, I have X square footage of space. How much product can I fit in here? Yeah. What is that what is, what does X thousands of dollars of product look like on this 12 foot wall? Well, it was surprising how. How much you could fit a space, meaning that this wall, oh my God, this wall is actually like $10,000 worth of, of wholesale goods.
[00:26:04] And it's not a very big wall. So like, and that's a big thing with small retail, is that so often it's under stocked or you've got one supplier, right. You need to kind of, especially with toys, you need to GRA cram that all in there and have a lot of variety and a lot of color. And I mean, we made a very specific choice to try to, to stay above the preschool market age bracket.
[00:26:26] because there's a lot of options for to get baby toys or things out there. and also I, I would, I just didn't have the space to spread ourselves too thin.
[00:26:34] And you need to have that density of product. I think out of the gate for people you wanna be open the hours, you say you're gonna be open. You wanna have good hours and don't change those things. And because you look wishy washy and, and have a lot of stuff. When people come through that door the first time, and then for us, it was, you know, at minimum, I think we started with 50 or $60,000 worth of, of product in a small space.
[00:26:56] Azhelle Wade: And that's not accounting. you completely renovated, designed and made this.
[00:27:00] Isaac Elliot: Well, we had to build, we had to build a a building
[00:27:01] Azhelle Wade: yeah. You built a building and On top of all that, I'm curious, how did you calculate, or did you calculate and project what you thought you could make in this space?
[00:27:12] Were you basing that on what you thought the people in the area could buy? Or were you saying we're gonna do in-store and online sales?
[00:27:19] Isaac Elliot: No. Yeah, no, I wasn't gonna do online sales. For multitudes of reasons, one, this, a lot of suppliers don't, they seem to all have this like caveat where they don't really want to, but I didn't go into detail as to why, cuz I wasn't really interested to begin with because I don't want to be, that's a law.
[00:27:34] There's a whole other department's job just to be doing shipping and. Right. Yes. And, and so, so yes, it could equal more volume, but now I have to create shipping labels all the time and deal with couriers. And so like there's 1,000,001 other online stores out there. People can buy, buy, buy online everywhere.
[00:27:50] Right. So why compete in that space? I will compete in a space where there is a huge void of, you know, mom pop own owned
[00:27:58] Azhelle Wade: stores.
[00:27:59] Isaac Elliot: Exactly. And, and, and I kind of looked at it and went, you know, and this is, I don't wanna sound self aggrandizing or, or, or ridiculous, but like, if I type in internet world's best toy stores or world's coolest, and you get the big ones and I mean, I've been into Hamleys in, in, in, England and, and, you know, you know, the, the, the Schwartz is kind of gone now, but there's a different version of it.
[00:28:18] But like, I looked at it and went, I don't like other than scale, like physic, like ley is huge. I mean, it's multiple levels. I can't match that scale, but can I beat them on. on very like intimate interaction experience. maybe, you know, maybe I can be, be better known than that in a way. Yeah. What I did kind of pull from in business plans. Cause I mean, you should have a good business plan. I took online, there was some stats.
[00:28:47] I can't remember I pulled them, but they were like the last previous two years at the time sales in the hobby toy and game industries as, as taken by like sort of retail watchdogs. Right. So I was looking for conversion rates and, and, and turnover rates. Of how much product a store could, could expect to turn over in a year.
[00:29:07] Within that category of the industry. And then that, I think at that time, the number was 3.3 times. So I took 3.3 times and then took what I thought I could afford as wholesale startup mm-hmm and went okay. If I can, if I can turn over that 3.3 times that equals this much product moved. And then if I looked at an average markup, then that average markup equal this roughly speaking profit margin.
[00:29:38] Right. And, and I couldn't pull the data for this specific area. Because where am I gonna compare it
[00:29:45] Azhelle Wade: There's nothing in the area.
[00:29:46] Isaac Elliot: Yeah. So is, yeah, it's sort of, so at some point you are totally pulling this out of thin air, which, which is that's any venture capitalist kind of, or, or kind of thing like this , That that you're, you're taking a entrepreneurial, that's the word I was looking for.
[00:30:01] You know, attack on at risk. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think that it's on track to working and, and we'll see how the, the new, the next Christmas season goes.
[00:30:10] Azhelle Wade: So your first month, did you say you sold through
[00:30:13] Isaac Elliot: We, like, we were like, I had to reorder fast, I was worried about having empty shelves, like Barbies and hot wheels, just disappearing. .
[00:30:21] Azhelle Wade: First I have to say, if you can happen to come across the link where you did find your data would love you to share, it. we would love to like link that in the show. notes. Because I do know there are people that listen to this podcast that would love to start their own toy store for their in their neighborhood.
[00:30:35] And they can't find that kind of guidance and mentorship. So if you could help with a link, please throw it in there.
[00:30:40] How did you market your toy store? So well, where did you, what did you do?
[00:30:47] Isaac Elliot: Well, mean, I think that here where we are and what we're relying upon in this, this specific geographic area, visually speaking, I didn't have a lot of competition because this village that the village toy castle in is one of those blip on the maps.
[00:31:02] You, you blink, you miss it. And there's no reason to stop here other than the burger bar. Okay. That's it like there's, I'm not gonna rely on foot traffic from a town of, let's say 200 people. We're on lake Huron right across from Michigan. So the, so we're like an hour away from Detroit where we are and this, but this, this, the largest towns in these areas are like maybe five, six, 7,000 people total.
[00:31:25] We relied very heavily on the fact that we are on a very public busy highway and a crossroads between. Like kind of the different towns. So we're on our way to kind everywhere and on our way to the wineries and the breweries and the cottage area along the lake, on the lake, you're on area.
[00:31:39] Cause we're about minutes off the lake so our visual presence of the building itself and that big logo you see on the, in the pictures, that was a huge portion or component because we were restoring this building for over a year and we haven't even finished. Like you, you mentioned the photos of the outside.
[00:31:56] It was impressive to see how many people were just playing curious, because when you drive by And you see a big, you see a a big toy sign, you go, most people wanna go see a toy store. I
[00:32:06] Azhelle Wade: know. And I love on your Instagram, you have a link that goes right.
[00:32:09] To buying a gift card for village toy store. Smart. So, okay, so you've got, it's a toy museum, it's a destination, it's a toy store. It's a place to buy product. But it's also, going to be a factory.
[00:32:22] Now let's get into the factory part of it. Why did you do this to yourself? Is there any no. Is there any product that you're already producing that
[00:32:31] you sell in your store?
[00:32:32] Isaac Elliot: No, not yet. Because literally that part of the building is still not done. Okay. We very much had to for time and financial reasons, we had to get the, the retail spot open as fast as possible.
[00:32:45] So that it could start generating a cash flow to keep the rest of the project alive. Yeah. Because it is, it is incredibly expensive. As you can imagine
[00:32:53] Azhelle Wade: Mm-hmm
[00:32:54] Isaac Elliot: The manufacturing side, isn't moving as fast I want it to be. But I, because I've been developing that for like three and a half years now.
[00:33:00] Azhelle Wade: What are you trying to accomplish with this manufacturing arm?
[00:33:03] Isaac Elliot: The, the manufacturing arm is I'm trying to basically be able to produce in short run quantities at an efficient price. Plastic first and foremost, plastic products, there's printed products. We can do vinyl printed products and, and wood products too. cause there's a wood shop and a plastic shop side by side.
[00:33:23] Azhelle Wade: When you say short run, how many pieces are you talking?
[00:33:26] Isaac Elliot: Well, it's hard to say because it, as you know, it all comes down to the size of the part and everything.
[00:33:30] For our toy soldiers, say two and a half inches tall, if I can get two to three soldiers on a tool and I can do a cycle time of about a minute, per cycle, you can crank out a few hundred a day on, on one machine. And a single operator may actually be able to operate on more than one machine.
[00:33:48] So you could actually say have a, a single operator producing, you know, all of a sudden you can double your output with second machine, and not that large, and they're not that expensive, to use the machines that we're using. The expensive part, as you know, is to do incredibly high detailed tooling.
[00:34:01] .Now, if I was to be say, okay, I'm gonna make a simple toy boat, or Hey, this broken tractor that I've gotta fix here. Most of the tractor's parts, most of the boats parts they're very large, so require large machines, but they're, they're simple tooling in the sense that it's just a curve.
[00:34:18] It's not a, you don't have a lot, like you have some characters and some small, but like my toy soldiers are like as detailed as a miniature from games workshop. Right. Oh, okay. So, so how do you get that kind of detailing into the metal tool and not spend six, seven, $8,000 per tooling insert or 10,000 or more?
[00:34:38] So we came up with a way of, of combining ancient and new technologies to cast our tooling, for a 10 times cost So I was able to. Produce tooling inserts for peanuts that had the, the, all the detail. Like if I had my fingerprint in that tool, you would see it in the, in the final product.
[00:35:05] Right. So with this tool, you could theoretically produce even an action figure. You could break things down into smaller components. And the thing is, is that like, like I, am not a, I'm not a, a a plastics engineer by trade, but it's sort of like, how can we think about it out of the box and, and sort of break the mold so to speak.
[00:35:27] And as you know, I'm sure you've come across. There's lots of, art toy industry, people who do like say versions of Heman or versions of, of star wars characters, but their own ideas. and they usually are hand casting with silicone molds and they're making resin parts and they can maybe produce.
[00:35:45] Say a dozen in a day or at most and they have to charge high rates for that. Now they're catering to a collector market. Yeah. So maybe they can justify that I'm trying to cater a children's market. Right. I want to sell into, so I need to pass safety standards. I need to pass. So you cannot right there.
[00:36:03] I can't use silicone molds and resin,
[00:36:06] So the, I couldn't go that route. So I had to adapt the traditional methods of, of manufacturing. into a modern context domestically. And I think that because I'm stubborn and because I'm naive, I was able to go, well, what if you kind of totally took this radical left field and I've spent countless hours talking to other industry people they have this kind of blank look on their face and they get kind of frustrated because the way it is is the way it is. They don't wanna acknowledge even the possibility of changing.
[00:36:41] Azhelle Wade: So I've mentioned you were working on something to somebody in the industry and they like laughed and said, good luck. And I was like, oh, I think it's gonna think it's
[00:36:50] Isaac Elliot: no, it's incredibly. And I mean, I, I know it's incredibly negative and it's so, and and I've had, I've had so many people say it like that.
[00:36:57] And, and no, I, I get their sentiment from perspective. Is it easy? No, of course not. No. Yeah, but I'm not, I'm not like. Not deterred or surprised by things being hard. Mm-hmm , you what I mean? Like we work in the film business again, like, you know, you're trying to make, you're trying to make a movie look like a hundred million dollars on $10,000.
[00:37:18] Azhelle Wade: Oh my.
[00:37:18] Isaac Elliot: Right. So right. And so you go, how can you do that? You, have to just think differently and just do it, and now sure. There's, there's limitations to reality, but.
[00:37:28] Azhelle Wade: But I also, I mean, I think it's so worth it, I had like one consultation client the other day who is in, he does the collector market. He does the silicone molds. And if he could domestically produce. He, he wants to get into the kids' market with his designs. So yeah. So if this was a possibility, I'm sure he'd be like, oh my gosh, let me connect with village toy castle the factory retailer and museum and.
[00:37:52] Isaac Elliot: Hundred percent. And it's like, here's the thing like people have said, can you patent your process? No,
[00:37:57] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Can you, I was gonna
[00:37:58] Isaac Elliot: I'm com. Well, I'm combining pre it's. Like I look it this way and somebody actually did tell me this at one point, who was a consultant said, listen, it's kind of like having the secret sauce recipe at a fast joint. Where it's like, none of those things are necessarily patentable because it's just, you're just combining preexisting spices. like, it's, it's the ratio to which you are doing something. And it's not say that, that I, what I, what I'm holding is some sort of big secret. I am totally. happy Be with people and, sharing all, like I say it all time in interviews and, and, and I, I go like, no, here's, here's how I'm doing what I'm doing here. And I just want to work with other people to, to, to who are open to that idea. And I think the maker space that you're mentioning is ready. Mm-hmm to that.
[00:38:48] But it's getting people with the tacit knowledge of understanding how tooling works to work with the artists who are desperately trying to make their cool things And get them to communicate. And I was actually, I was very surprised at the hurdles I've been, I've been faced with that part of it because there's a big resistance on the part of anybody who works in the business to have any conversation at all. And, and the, and the art side of it doesn't have confidence. They all just look at you like, oh, I don't, I don't know how to handle an undercut. And I'm like, I, it's not that complicated. It's just, you know, like you just, you can't have the thing here and that's it. And, and, and they just, you know, because they,
[00:39:30] Azhelle Wade: But I also kind of feel like, and this is why I made this podcast. I feel like there's some people and some elements of the industry that want to keep people who don't know everything, like just out. A little bit. And by making them feel inferior or insecure about what they don't know, even if they're super talented, like just cuz you don't know this little thing, you can't be in this club and I, I just I'm so against that so I, feel.
[00:39:57] Isaac Elliot: You know, here's, here's the thing is that like when one of my, one of my great mentors and friends is a guy named Steve Varner. He, so he's instrumental obviously of turtles is in so many different toys that he's made for, for decades and decades. He's such a, well, he's such a, good guy. He, he comes from a generation of people when he worked in the basement at Mattel, you were learning from the people in front of you and, and there, the machines were down there to do paint masks for Barbie, They were down there to do, to do technical. Let's try a tool and we're, we're gonna, we're gonna work on it. All of that was exported and all of it disappeared. And the knowledge that passed on from generation generation died with that.
[00:40:39] So when you, when you, when an entire, okay, take it outside of even toys, you go an entire. Economy in north America, where you go, if a company recently, I read a company, wanted to start up a jeans factory, but nobody knew how to set up the looms, To weave denim. So they had to go find a bunch of retired, really old people to go, Hey, could you come here and show us how to set up this thing? Yeah. Because they don't like, like, so if you want to, so if a society loses the ability to make things and how, where food comes from and how to make your food or, or, or a a part, that knowledge dies with that generation, it doesn't carry on. It Google doesn't retain tacit knowledge.
[00:41:20] Azhelle Wade: Have you ever seen the movie? The founder, cuz this is what you're yeah, you have. So I feel, you know, that scene where they're in. And so for those listening, the founder is like the story of McDonald's. Do you know the scene where they're in the, it's like a basketball court, I think. And he's like drawing the plan of how they're gonna make the burgers really fast. So I'm imagining like what you are doing with your factory is like that, like you're making the secret sauce. That's gonna make it cheaper and maybe not faster but cheaper. So that a whole business is built, was built on that FA a whole empire was built on that foundation of having the right recipe. So I think you're onto something.
[00:41:58] Isaac Elliot: I hope so. And I hope even people that are listening to this wanna reach out and, and, and it's like ma matching up the, the skills and abilities, I can do a lot of things, but I don't know how to use ZBrush.
[00:42:09] Azhelle Wade: Okay, actually, let's do that. What's a CA a call for skills and abilities. What are we looking for?
[00:42:14] Isaac Elliot: When it comes to this kind of toy making most toy designers, like, and I know a few, whether they're make, whether they're sculpting physically or they're sculpting digitally, they don't really tend to, to care about how the part's gonna be made. I need those people. Who have the skills and abilities and artistic ability to, to design the end part, to then take a step back and go, well, let's have an open conversation of how simple is it really to mitigate undercuts, find a parting line, pose your figure or pose your thing to, to fit within the structures and confines of a two part three mold, et cetera. So I need people that have a vested interest in taking it, those steps fur further who want to get involved in something on a, on a ground floor, so to speak and say, okay, let's. Let's make this work.
[00:43:02] Azhelle Wade: You've heard it. Isaac is looking for you. If you , we'll we'll leave your contact info, probably your Instagram and the show notes. I wanna go to our closing questions. This has been a great talk. Thanks so much for being here today. What is the best piece of advice you received? Let's say in the first year of your career, it was probably your film career.
[00:43:23] Isaac Elliot: Well, when, when you're in the film business, it's a hierarchical system, right. And so they want you to shut up and tow the line, right? I had mentors close enough to me who cared enough to say, you know, put your head back on straight and focus on the job you're doing in front of you.
[00:43:40] Azhelle Wade: What piece of advice would you give to somebody who's looking to open their own toy store?
[00:43:46] Isaac Elliot: I would say. Think about how to best present your, your idea and is this the right place and try to think of it more anecdotally, right? You go, is this, is this a good town to open a bookstore in, is there already a bookstore here? You know, that kind of a thing, but yet do it with your, your per your, vision, own character and your vision. Yeah. Thank you. Is that because it really, I think this world is, is in retail, is sorely lacking in, in curatorship of, by people, right by a person who goes and chooses that product chooses those toys and presents and curates a selection. That's not based on an algorithm. That's not based on a computer. It's telling it's your gut saying, I like this. This is fun. This is cool. Let's present that to the world and see what happens.
[00:44:35] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. I agree with that. And I have to plug toy creators academy here, cuz in the , first and second modules, that is where I focus like research. And like you said, it's not just research, like how many kids age seven to 14 are gonna buy this doll? It's more about what exists in the world. Where is the opportunity for what I think I wanna bring into it and then like adjusting what your, your, vision is if like you, you might realize a bigger opportunity, you might have to expand your vision more or you might wanna narrow it more. But yeah, I think that's great advice.
[00:45:07] Isaac Elliot: Yeah. And, and, and don't let it, don't let it drag get down and, and do what you, you love and you want to do, because I think the best properties, the best stories, the best books, the best movies, the best toys all came from somebody who went. This was cool to me. I thought it was fun. I made it for me. Exactly.
[00:45:22] Azhelle Wade: Yes.
[00:45:23] Isaac Elliot: Here.
[00:45:24] Azhelle Wade: You go world. Yeah. Even with my podcast and stuff, like if I had really researched, I would've found a lot of stuff that I would've been like, oh, nevermind. I won't do it, but I didn't. I just knew. I was like, no, I think there's nothing like me. So I'm gonna do this. Okay. Last, last question. What toy blew your mind as a kid?
[00:45:42] Isaac Elliot: So, so I think that Playmobile and turtles cuz I was such a funny kid that wanted to play in those, those realms. But if I didn't have an Indiana Jones toy, I could make a Playmobile that looked like an Indiana Jones or you know what I mean? You could play any category in there. And I think that that Playmobile is like. It's an unsung hero. I think of that category because a lot of people focus Lego and I'm like, you know what? Playmobile that's me, man. I love that stuff.
[00:46:06] Azhelle Wade: Well, Isaac, thanks so much for coming on the show today, you shared a lot of great tips and advice. Where can people connect with you and village toy?
[00:46:13] Isaac Elliot: You can find village toy castle at village toy castle on social media, whether it's, on Facebook or Instagram, at definitive toys is there. And then of course our, our definitive film.com, you can find all of our film stuff.
[00:46:25] Azhelle Wade: Fantastic. We'll put all those links in the show notes. Thank you again for being a guest today.
[00:46:30] Isaac Elliot: Thank you so much.
[00:46:31] Azhelle Wade: Well, there you have it toy people. My interview with Isaac Elliot Fisher. I'm sure you're as impressed as I am how Isaac started a toy store that's also part museum part place space, and soon to be the center for his new manufacturing techniques for plastic toys and toy parts. In this interview, we talked about how Isaac made it all come together, how he used research data points that he found online to estimate what kind of profit return he might be able to get on his store?
[00:47:05] You found out how much money goes into creating a brand new toy store and the kind of out of the box thinking that helps in the process. Now, if you, my friend are someone that fits the description of a creative, who's interested in figuring out how the toys will actually be manufactured reach out to Isaac through his social media accounts for village toy castle. That's at village toy castle on Instagram. Make sure you check it out or at definitive toys and at definitive films. I hope you enjoyed this episode today.
[00:47:44] And if you did, I hope you will leave me a rating and review. Your ratings and review mean a lot. They help other people find and give this podcast a try. So if you love this podcast and you haven't already done, so please leave a rating or review wherever you are listening. As always thank you so much for being here with me today toy people I know there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
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