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Lanky-Performer-4557 t1_j13x9xv wrote

What’s the biggest upside of sharing your journey in public? What’s your goal with doing it?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j13xief wrote

The biggest upside is the attention it brings to our brands, like Brain Flakes.

The main goal is to drive eyeballs, which drive sales.

I also like this type of thing. It doesn't bother me when people make fun of me or call me stupid or whatever. It's fun for me :)

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ForzaFenix t1_j13xls9 wrote

Whats been the hardest part of building the business? Whats been the easiest?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j13xzgt wrote

The early years were extremely rough. At one point, a factory in China that I was dying to work with told me they didn't want to work with me and I contemplated suicide. In retrospect that seems really dumb, but at the time, it felt like a disaster.

So the answer to your question is: it's really hard to start a business without venture capital because everyone looks down on you and when you don't get immediate sales success it's really depressing, but you have to KEEP FIGHTING!

The easiest part of building a business? The few times I got lucky.

You're going to get lucky if you keep doing something for a really long time. The key is to recognize when you've gotten lucky and then to commit effort and energy to taking advantage of that moment, but in general, building a business is never easy. It's constant headaches and stress.

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[deleted] t1_j13y94i wrote

[removed]

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j14054h wrote

That's a really good question!

From what I've seen in my life, I think that who you are is a combination of nature and nurture. Educational toys are the nurture component. You're never going to be good at something if you don't practice it and educational products like Brain Flakes enable you to practice spatial thinking, visual pattern matching, counting etc. so I'm pretty sure it makes kids smarter.

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DJpoop t1_j13ym6t wrote

Big fan from twitter. How did you get into the toy game and think of the idea for Brain flakes?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j13zss7 wrote

  1. Got fired for writing fan fiction about the executives at the company I was working for
  2. Realized that I wasn't going to do well in corporate America, so I decided to become an entrepreneur
  3. The first idea I had was to take a product that was really popular in China, jianzi, and sell it in the US. I thought I'd be a billionaire in a year. That product was a failure.
  4. Other products after it succeeded which created a nice little business.
  5. One day I was on Taobao, which is China's biggest e-commerce marketplace and I realized that I could sort all the products by their sales. I then thought that I could identify the products which sold very well in China, but not in the US for potential launches in the USA. Interlocking plastic discs were one of those products.
  6. Interlocking plastic discs sold okay in the US under a bunch of names, but like 100x better in China and I couldn't figure out why, so I decided to try. I came up with a good name: BRAIN FLAKES® and good packaging and just launched.
  7. They launched at Toy Fair 2014 and were a failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnOO94NVAAU (possibly because everyone knew that interlocking plastic discs had been around and there was no novelty to them besides our name and packaging)
  8. I said "fuck it" and launched them on Amazon and they were an instant success!
  9. Over time I and my growing team would read reviews and constantly improve the product. We've got all this amazing educational content, some of which is free on our website brainflakes.com (of course it comes in the booklet too)
  10. Very importantly after continuously trying to improve the product, we got a patent of which I am VERY PROUD! Our discs connect better than everyone else's because of this.
  11. Our goal is to be the number #1 building toy brand in the world and I increasingly think it's possible.
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ihasdeerfeet t1_j13z1c7 wrote

Brain flake buildouts hurt my eyes looking at them. 3d blobs of chaos. Any children I have would be too stupid to figure out how to build anything.

I guess what I am trying to ask is, do you have any coupons?

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WakaWwaka t1_j13znpu wrote

Any worries of Amazon developing an “Amazon Basic” copycat product of yours? We use to have a first party relationship with Amazon, but third-party always seemed like free market research from Amazon.

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j140km3 wrote

None because we have a patent and a strong brand. I would also KILL THEM on social media :)

Seriously, unless they played unfairly, Brain Flakes would crush Amazon Basics Building Discs.

I agree that 3rd party is free market research (better than free, they make a ton of money from it) for Amazon.

I've written a long blogpost about how to use IP to protect your business here: https://medium.com/swlh/starting-a-physical-product-company-youre-gonna-need-a-lawyer-13b2eecebc9f

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JUDGE_YOUR_TYPO t1_j1426dd wrote

Would you consider hosting a chess tournament at your warehouse?

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MuhnYourDog t1_j142l41 wrote

I have no idea what "brain flakes" are and Amazon is a pile of shit here in Australia.

I'm guessing either a breakfast cereal or a GM coating specification?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j142w57 wrote

Amazon just launched. They might get better over time no?

I think Brain Flakes is available on Amazon and Catch down under!

​

Brain Flakes is an interlocking plastic disc toy that teaches kids spatial thinking while giving parents some much needed peace.

Watch our awesome video produced by my team!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko0Xf07HaVY

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MuhnYourDog t1_j143q85 wrote

Holy fucking shit that is awesome! You guys are fucking amazing, it's tactile and spatial and brilliant!

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j143wgf wrote

Thank you!!

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MuhnYourDog t1_j144wcr wrote

Mu son is blind, so something like this is seriously brilliant.

Fucking elegant in the simplicity!

We have a house full of Lego and mechano and a million other things, but nothing like this.

Good on you guys for doing this shit

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j145cth wrote

That's cool! If he can play Lego and meccanno he can definitely use Brain FLakes too!

Thank you that means a lot to me, I'll share with our team!!

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beans4cashonline t1_j143za7 wrote

It's just plastic tinker toy trash marketed at kids.

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MuhnYourDog t1_j145srl wrote

Fuck off. Tinker Toy is okay to an extent - I can't tell you how many wooden dowels I've filed down so it fits.

It doesn't do a lot for people that learn through tactile interaction.

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beans4cashonline t1_j148i5w wrote

I was knocking tinker toy knock offs. Seems like we had perfect engineering toys growing up but all these companies are making them from cheaper materials and redesigning them to be shittier than the OGs; Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Erector Sets.

Engineering toys can be great and made from better materials; Brain Flakes are trash that will eventually break down enough to fit into your bloodstream.

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j1494y1 wrote

While I think our quality could be better (I'm a Brain Flakes perfectionist), we have 4.8/5 stars on Amazon which is pretty good for a plastic toy on Amazon.

Try our product. If it breaks, report that on reddit or e-mail support at viahart dot com and we'll give you a refund without a return.

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MuhnYourDog t1_j14aokn wrote

Glorious. Can guarantee rhe Tinker Toy I played with as a kid weren't ethically and sustainably sourced. Nor did the tees have a gender identity or preferred pronoun.

Out of idle curiosity, may I ask you do for a living?

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beans4cashonline t1_j14du8n wrote

lol. I'm a metal worker.

My criticism; Companies are purposely making a material (that gets more hazardous every year) universally known for being trash, into a crappy product that would've come in a cereal box 30 years ago and markets it to parents under the guise of engineering enrichment.

Lead paint is probably the reason your panties are in a twist now, that's why we don't use it for kids toys anymore.

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IAmAModBot t1_j143t2m wrote

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OGPrinnny t1_j1447ww wrote

How'd you find investors, if any?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j144edy wrote

I won $16,000 in a chess tournament, had a little bit of money saved up from a job, and I lived in China (very inexpensive) and with my mom (free!).

So I didn't need any.

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BIGpuppyENERGY t1_j15r98z wrote

How much of that $16,000 was used for your investment and how was it used?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j15rl3u wrote

Our first container was 20,000 pieces at around $1 a piece (this was Kikbo, our first product, not Brain Flakes) if memory serves. So I used it all, but I was able to convert that into more money by selling those products. As I said, I kept my expenses crazy low!

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BIGpuppyENERGY t1_j15ssf2 wrote

Did that include packaging/logistics to US or was this local to China? As I understand your main market is in the US for your products and at the time you were living In China?

This is assuming you source from China

Its cool to see that your inital investment wasn't astronomical and makes me wonder what I could come up with. I'm sick of the corporate life.

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j15t0dh wrote

This was 12 years ago so I don't remember all the details sorry! That included packaging, but I don't remember if it included logistics. You are correct re: main market and where I was living.

I could've done that for much much less than $20k. It could've been $1-2k.

Watch this video: it could change yoru life https://www.tiktok.com/@molsonexplains/video/7178703908506783018?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

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BIGpuppyENERGY t1_j15v2xn wrote

One last question - do you speak mandarin or any other local chinese languages? I assume you would having lived in China however it's a possibility that this is not the case.

Thanks for the conversation! Definitely makes me think about possibilities

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j15vicp wrote

Yes, I am self taught conversant mandarin speaker and reader and typer (I can't hand-write).

You don't need to learn Chinese to do business there. You just need to have the balls to go.

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longtimeyisland t1_j13wl8d wrote

I assume you're very supportive of people not showing up for 14$ an hour being a good capitalist right?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j13wxt7 wrote

There is nothing wrong with not taking a job that you think doesn't pay enough.

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longtimeyisland t1_j13xr1q wrote

Then why did you tweet that "wild that 14$ isn't enough"? What do you pay as a starting wage now?

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j13yn8f wrote

Because I was surprised by the sudden rise in wages caused by government money printing.

We had been paying $10/hour for temporary labor and it jumped up suddenly to $14/hour and at that time, we couldn't get people for $14 either. That was surprising to me. It wasn't an accusation of laziness.

We probably pay $12-$14/hour now for temporary unskilled labor right now, but it's been a while. All our full-time employees in the warehouse earn significantly more than that.

You can read a ton about the local economics of where we are here: https://twitter.com/Molson_Hart/status/1449573538294378499

People don't understand how much farther your money goes in rural Texas than it does in a city like San Francisco or New York.

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[deleted] t1_j1405tl wrote

[deleted]

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SmellMyChocha OP t1_j1411ta wrote

I think that there is an element of that, but, it's money just money printing that's causing inflation, not corporate greed nor supply chain.

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MuhnYourDog t1_j14b0ck wrote

If you posted this comment from a consumer device, you're already a fucking hypocrite.

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longtimeyisland t1_j14ca1p wrote

... genuinely what? Because I exist in a capitalist system and require phone access to live I am a "hypocrite"? Ah yes. Let me give away my phone. I'm sure the hospital, my patients , my family, and my friends won't notice because I've got to be an ideological extremist for some guy named "muhnyourdog" doesn't understand the concept of top down vs bottom up change and when each is most appropriate.

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