Article by Tony Ellis. – Visit Tony’s website at www.conceptioneering.co.uk

This article follows on from part one and part two, if you haven’t read them yet you may want to go back and read them first.

Pitching our ideas to toy companies

When we develop new ideas/concepts, we then try to sell them into the toy companies in what amounts to a ‘Dragons Den’ type situation – in fact the similarities with the show is quite accurate.

The pitch is everything. Over the years I have done many (many) pitches, and still today get nervous, even with people that I have pitched to before a dozen times or more. Thankfully, my enthusiasm wins over my nerves – in my opinion there is nothing better than an inventors passion for what they believe in.

In the early days we were working blind – wondering if manufacturers would like our new concepts. We would pitch in hotel rooms in New York (during Toy Fairs) in a room with up to 10 people at a time, who would sit there blankly as we’d present them with our latest ideas.

These days we are working slightly less in the dark, as we have got to know toy companies better and have an understanding on the type of toys they are looking for and, in some cases, companies will give us a ‘wish list’ to work with.

Know When To Move On

So many times we have seen inventors put everything on the line for their one invention, only for it never to go anywhere. We ourselves have had concepts that we believed to be ‘no brainers’ and perfect fits for some companies, but still couldn’t get them placed. I believe that the biggest lesson for any inventor though is to know when to move on to the next project.

What we do is not give up on the earlier concepts, but place them on the ‘back-burner’ and revisit them every so often – we have actually gone on to eventually place ‘older’ concepts with this strategy.

With The Smooth Comes The Rough

So what have been the negative experiences we have had to deal with over the years? I can obviously only give you my personal experience and what I have learnt.

Unfortunately I have (so far) had 4 major rip-offs, 2 of which sold millions of pieces.

Let me relay one of these events. I came up with a new item that was very different and took it to a large toy company (I trusted people in the early days).

When I presented the item, the guy nearly fell off his chair, and could not hide his excitement, so I thought “they are going to take this!”. Then on their inventor record sheet (most companies have you sign their inventor record, never your NDA) he recorded that they had a ‘similar item in development’.

Now this means I was stumped as far as my concept was concerned! As you can probably guess, a couple of years later the very same thing came on to the market and made millions, but I never got a penny!

All I can do is never go back to that company, it hurts though when you see your concept/invention all over the TV and media.

In another case a company actually signed my NDA, then even discussed going to deal, then all went quiet!

A year later they brought out exactly the same thing. I went to my Lawyer who said “do you want to risk hundreds of thousand of pounds (your home) to take on a long legal battle, where these guy’s can afford the best legal people?”

I had to make the decision to cut my losses, and never deal with that particular company again.

But I didn’t let these experiences defeat me, else that would have been the end of my pro-inventing career, and it paid off. I finally found great companies that did the right thing and legitimately took my concepts/inventions on to manufacture.

Article by Tony Ellis. – Visit Tony’s website at www.conceptioneering.co.uk

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