Designing Fun: Inside the Toy & Game Industry with Richard Heayes

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone. This is Armando Prescarenho and welcome to the web talk show. Today with us is Richard Hayes from Seven Pips and Haze Design. Welcome Richard. Hi, welcome. Nice to see you. Thank you for joining us today. I'm really excited about today's show because we're going to talk about toys, games, game design, and it's I think it's a great topic for anyone listening because in my experience, it's just I don't know anything about what happens behind the scenes. We love the games. We love the toys. If you have kids, then you see the other side. So hopefully Richard will give us some behind the scenes glimpses into what it means to be in the toy industry. So Richard, uh, let's start off with how did you get started in games and toys? What was your for all this? So I there's a quick story. Um, so I trained as an industrial designer. Um so if people don't know industrial design, industrial design is basically designing all the things that around you. They all need designing and that job is basically industrial design. Um and I my first job was working for a plastics company. We did sort of housewares, buckets, bowls, that kind of stuff, you know, storage boxes, which is all fine but pretty boring. I'll be honest with you. My first job out of of university and it was pretty boring. And then I one day we were working on a box and I designed a um a pirate lid to this box. It was like a standard box. We designed a pirate lid and it went to testing and the reaction was really positive like the parents were cuz normally it was talking about things like oh how cheap is it or **[00:02:00]** what's I don't like the color or just really mundane questions. Whereas this there was no questions about the color, the price or anything. It was like oh it's a cool pirate chest or I wish I had a pirate chest when I was a kid. Oh does it come with coins and all these kind of questions. was like, "Huh, that's interesting." And I haven't heard those kind of reactions before. And it kind of dawned on me. It didn't it kind of dawned on me later, but that moment it was like, "Wow, this is interesting. Why are people reacting in this kind of way?" And obviously, it's about experiential design how you talk about it these days. It's it's people caring about your product and not just seeing it as a commodity item. And the thing with toys is they have an emotional hook which is everybody wants their products to have. It's really tugs on your heartstrings. It was something that you get excited about and you don't really worry about the price. You don't really worry about all those things that you worry about with other things. So anyway, that was from there I I realized that toys are my thing. I really I wanted products like this that get those kind of reactions. And I eventually worked at a I worked at a giftware company for a short period of time. Well, four years, five years actually. And then from there, I got a job at Hasbro and I was at Hasbro for 18 years. Um, wow. So, My Little Pony, Play-Doh, uh, Micro Machines, uh, Outdoor Things, and then lots and then games, lots of games. So, yeah, which we'll probably end up talking a bit more about, but yes, that's but from **[00:04:00]** a design I mean, basically from a design point of view how I got in there. But yeah, I think um I think the people who tend to stay in toys as well tend who in toys tend to stay in toys. It's very hard to leave once you're in cuz it's kind of nothing else kind of quite matches up actually. Do you think it's because of that feeling of satisfaction of of seeing the kids or even the adults actually play with it and enjoy it versus other things? Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think, you know, there's obviously a lot of I'm very conscious of kind of the environmental factor of toys and look, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of chuch. You know, there's a lot of toys which are kind of plastic landfill, but we try and I've never really worked on those and I I kind of wouldn't. Um but actually most toys and particularly games we work on there is a strong emotional hook and you know particularly with games you know I've got probably all your listeners think about if they've got any kind of games at home they're probably kind of games or maybe their parents' houses they got kids games they played when they were a family you don't tend to throw them away you keep them because they become memories they become stories in their own right people have got these old Monopoly boards with completely ragged and stuff But when they play them and they get out at Christmas, whatever, it's those memories, you know, that they have the dog to the corner or this something spilled whatever they are storyboards for. And that's why they have that emotional hook and there's just very few products as consumers **[00:06:00]** that we have that have that hook. You know, they most products we have these days are very disposable. We have them a few years, they break, we throw them in the bin. Toys and games generally are not. You you tend to keep kids toys that you had. you're very, you know, reluctant to throw them away. Oh, I could pass them down to my grandchildren. All this kind of stuff. So, in gr if you build a good quality product like, you know, they will last way way longer than most products we other types of products we buy as consumers. So, from my mind of mind, but of an ecological product, that's kind of that, you know, doesn't matter what it's made or how many times it's recycled. Just don't throw it away and just keep it for a very long time. And that's surely what an ecological product is. I'd never considered that but it's very true. We I unless of course you start moving and everyone starts dispersing but if your parents keep sort of the same house for a few the every all the toys are there you come back after many years they're still there the boxes even. So for the environmental factor you're saying with toys it's this weird thing where we keep the boxes and that's that's where you put it. could put it in a container, but you sort of keep the Monopoly box with everything inside and the little manual and the obviously a game particularly yes, but even toys, you know, you obviously toys you perhaps throw the packaging away, but the toy itself you don't. And again, people keep them or they give them to friends and family or they take them down a charity shop or **[00:08:00]** they often get recycled within the community, you know, a good quality product. Yeah, I was saying there's a lot of cheap toys which you know aren't quite great and we try but they're gradually filtering out to be honest um because they're just costing too much to make those things. So anyway, we're talking about eco but obviously it's a thing I I consider about you know especially these days you become when you're designing products of any type of product you sort of become a bit more mindful of its impact. You know, no one wants to see your product on a beach some in 20 years washed up in bits contaminating the planet. Yeah, that's not a great feeling. Um, so that's kind of but but ultimately is the joy that it brings. They are joyful products and they're fun to work on. You know, they are generally fun. They're not all easy. Toys and games isn't like any, you know, is a lot of it is grind like any other business. you know, it's getting to the right cost, getting to the if you're selling or licensing an idea or getting it through the supply chain. It's it's it's still tough, but ultimately the product that comes out the end of the day is something that people kind of generally uh care about and have an enjoyment from and it brings a positivity when people kind of interact with it, whether that's a toy and a child or a game with a social group. games are very unique like you were saying because I I remember playing Monopoly as a child and that that's a game that has been around. We all know the perfect history of course those in a bit but it it's been **[00:10:00]** around and it still has that if I go to Target or a store here in the US and there's or anywhere and there's Monopoly and they might it might be just a new version of Monopoly with a with special characters or with silver little things or what it's still you're you're interested in it even though I might not play it right now. I see the box and it still calls to me and oh that special edition looks so fun and it's the same exact gameplay really but but it still calls you so so that it just has so much value and I imagine there's all this work that happens behind the scenes concept design and and and we'll we'll get into some of this stuff but how does something like this start a game there's an idea. How how how does what happens before a game is made? I'm very curious as to like something like Monopoly, the original one for example. How how did do you know how that came about or a similar game? How do they begin? Monopoly has got an interesting story that it was um designed as a kind of anti- Monopoly kind of game. and and it was called the landlord's game and it was kind of kind of the antithesis of what it is today. And then Charles at the time when that came out there was lots of there was lots of companies did doing different things in different states in the US cuz this obviously didn't start in the US and there wasn't these kind of national brands that you had. There was people doing games in the east and the west and central and so and monopolies actually was one of those first products which **[00:12:00]** became a kind of product a consumer product that was the same product across the US and it was done by Charles Darrow. Charles Darrett basically picked up the game mechanic and again other people were doing kind of similar kind of like games like Monopoly or a ball a simple ball roll of the dice because you have to remember property obviously the idea of a monopoly monopoly is 90 years old this year by the way which is kind of incredible because you think trying to think of how if you look at a monopoly board it's it's not if you go back to okay the original was actually a round board bizarrely but if you go back to um 60, 70, 80 year old monopoly board. It's not that different really to how it is today. And there's there's very few consumer products, you know, that are like that in their core product. You they're caught. So yeah. So obviously everyone's excited about property and owning property. And so it just again it just taps into a dream. It taps into something that games often do that. They tap into other things. So um you know whether it's Magic the Gathering and tapping into wizards and orcs and it's just a fantasy world whereas this taps into a real world um sorry taps into a real world of owning property and earning money and doing well and you know it's so you know you can just play out your fantasy in a game of Monopoly. So that's really kind of what most games are really. they tap into something that you know it's a fantasy or uh something that you'd like to kind of imagine you could do you know or or you know in also in **[00:14:00]** a way you know like pandemic which is a really big ball game you know what happens in this scenario could I stop the bugs infesting the planet you know so you just take on a role you take on a personality and you often find the most successful games are like that wow 90 years and you're right it's it's very similar even the additional editions that they make. It's just it's sort of the same thing. But you said it was round at some point. Was it the the board? The original one was round. Yeah, the board was round. The very first one, but then Charles Darrow Charles Darrow did it and they they turned it into a square board. And we actually we did we did a round board version when it was the 70th. 20 years ago at the 70th anniversary, we designed a round bold version. Um, but uh, yeah, they've always been square. Nice. And then it was so Go ahead. No, no, no. Sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. We had a bit of a delay there. So, no, I was going to ask it's it's a it's such a fun game, but it's it's sort of on a longer time horizon for playing, right? And so then the Monopoly Deal game came along and what was your involvement in that and how how did that start? How I remember you told me the story a few years ago and it's very interesting. So how how did that start? How did it come about? Well, it's really interesting Monopoly because obviously it's Monopoly is a great product, but is it the best game in the world? No. There's 3,000 games launched a year. People just don't realize how many new games launched out. But **[00:16:00]** Monopoly is a has a, you know, it glues people together. People think they know how to play. In fact, most people don't know how to play Monopoly. They play it wrong. And that's the reason it takes two or three hours to play a game Monopoly. There's world championships of Monopoly every sort of few years and most of those games finish in 50 minutes or less and it's because the way you're supposed to play Monopoly is that when you roll anybody you if it's your turn Amodo and you roll and you land on a property that property goes up for auction if you don't want it then other people can bid for it. Now, most people don't, it's in the rules. People don't read the rules. So, what most people would do is you would roll, you'd land on a property and you'd go, "Do I want it?" "No." And then there's the next player's turn. Well, the problem is the chances of landing on the property you want to land on is very small. So, that's why the game lasts forever. Whereas, if every property goes up for auction and you don't have to pay, you could say, "I'll pay $10 for this $300 property." You know, you go I'll have it for $100. So or to it might it might sell for more because you might have a set. So that's and it's actually a much more exciting game. You play it by the rules. But getting on to Monopoly Deal because most people don't play Monopoly properly. The thing is how there's a lot of we wanted to kind of boil down all the fun bits of Monopoly into 20 minutes into a card game. How do you how do you capture the **[00:18:00]** physical elements like the property and the go to jail and all that kind of stuff? How do you get the sniping? You know, when you've landed on, I'm going to charge you rent, you know, I'm going to going to, you know, really screw you over your How do you get that? But rather than dragging on and kind of festering for two hours, how do you get that into a fun kind of 20 minute? And so, Monopoly Deal was born out of that. So we we designed that in Europe and it took six months to design actually at card game. People think card games are very simple. Some are but actually despite they're just bits of paper. This is the big difference with the game is that a toy is what you see is what you get. So toys are often plastic or they're threedimensional and so you look at them and you play with them. They have a feature something might pop out or whatever but you get the idea. You have something with a game. You could look at a game and you could look at Monopoly Deal with is 55 or actually 110 cards just playing cards. Okay, it doesn't tell you anything really. You you couldn't interact with it. You need the rules. So there's a game mechanic behind it. And that's the magic. The game mechanical mechanic, the game mechanic, and that's the invisible layer over every game. And that's the bit that makes it a game. Um, and so the rules took a long time to to rewrite and write and test and because we wanted them to be very succinct because the problem with this and this does affect other brands is that people were coming into Monopoly Deal **[00:20:00]** with baggage because it was such a well-known game. People came in with an assumption of how it plays. So we couldn't break that. We couldn't we had to sort of work with what people's expectations of the game probably were. because we know they wouldn't read the rules properly. So they kind of we then we we ended up crafting that and again tweaking it. But yeah, we made up we actually made some test copies cuz the biggest problem was um within Hasbro actually selling the idea because it's trying to sell a sell anything into a big company is hard. Especially when it's just a pack of cards. It's like not very sexy. Yeah. Here's some cards. And the games team would often follow the Nerf team and the Nerf team would come in with their new blasters and shoot the room up with darts and get everybody kind of crazy and everything and then we walk and go, "Hey, look at my new cards." The new It's just so so in order to get over that, we made a hundred test packs and we gave them to all the top execs from all the different countries to play. We said, "Hey, look, do you want to be?" Because let's be honest, everybody who works at a toy company, whether the CEO or everybody, they all want to be a toy designer. Really secretly, they'd rather be a toy designer. So, we gave them the opportunity to be a designer. We said, "Look, we've got these games. It's not it's secret. Yeah, it's just in development. So, we really need you to test it and give us your feedback and be part of the design process." So, basically what we had is all these execs around, you **[00:22:00]** know, playing it and enjoying it because we liked it. It was a good game. So, when we came in and said, "Oh, we had all these people in the audience." Yeah. I've played that. That's really cool. That's a great game. And suddenly they were selling it for us. They were just doing the job for us. We didn't have to sell it. Um and that worked really well. And that managed to internally get the product over the line and get it promoted because that's the hardest thing with any new product. You know, we might believe in it, but if the country's marketing teams, the sales teams don't believe in it, it'll just bob along and then it'll just fall off and you'll never see it. You'll never get to play it. You'll never get to experience it. So it's really important that the internal teams have that you because like with any new product you know when you're launching any new product in any industry it's an uphill you know you got to push it up you got to push you know get traction get people interested and then obviously can start rolling and rolling rolling so I think that's a really good lesson actually from that that you could apply is to is to whatever product you've got I know it's not always a toy in a game and they can't test it but try and get people engaged especially in the design process because that's quite motivational for people. Um, and when you're selling your product, don't you a lot of companies focus on the end consumer, which is very important, but it's really, really important to your internal people focus and because they're ultimately doing the selling for you to get to your **[00:24:00]** customers to then get that ball rolling. And if they don't believe in it, it will show. it will just show straight through and you'll never get that product over the line or it'll just it will just fade away, you know. So, I think that's a great point. The the buy in from the internal people in the company and the sales representatives and and I this brings up a very interesting question at least for me. We as consumers just go to the store and buy the thing but how does it get there? So something like monopoly deal is made, you get buy in from the internal team, everyone loves it. Okay. So then I imagine there has to be some sort of sales process where they they talk to the stores or h how does it how does that work? Then you've got buy. So, so example, you know, the Target and the Walmart buyer, you know, are very important people because they control a huge amount of volume in the US and often, you know, we would even globally to some extent like we would design products in the in the for the for the global marketplace and one of the we I ran the team in Europe that did that, but we designed certain bits for the whole world. But if the target buyer or the warm-up buyer didn't like it, that wouldn't have a big impact on volume on global volume which might jeopardize the product globally because you know you could say the warmup buyers maybe taking 50% or 40% of the global volume. Well, that affects tooling, it affects investment, affects lots of things. So those people are very powerful actually and it's really important to sell into them because often **[00:26:00]** if they don't like it, you'll never see it. You might see it somewhere else of course you might find it at a different store but um the sales teams as I said it's really important that and quite often what we would do even in Europe what would happen is again that going back to toys and games toys are very much what you see they're kind of easier to sell in the sense that what you see is what you get whereas with a game it is a much harder selling process cuz now you can't you know when the buyer comes around and and they have in your showroom, you haven't you're not going to play the game with them. You've got to sell this game in 10 seconds, in 15 seconds. And often what we'd end up doing is the designers would end up selling the product to these big buyers because we really knew the products inside out. And they were hardest to sell for the sales guys, particularly girls. If they if they weren't really into games, it's not something they can just look at and memorize. you really have to memorize like remember how this game works because the buyers will call them out on it and you often you'll find buyers in games particularly go what happens if I do this and if you don't know the rules of the game you won't be able to answer that question because it's like asking you well how's that gearbox work oh well there's a don't know there's a thing you pull I'm not sure you know it's like I can see I can see the gearbox what's that gear there what's that what's that little gear um I don't know it's a spinny **[00:28:00]** gear thing you know and you'll look like an idiot whereas and It's the same with the game, you know, people might look at it and go, "What does that what does that what's that? If I pick this card up, what does that do?" You know, what what does that mean? You know, pick up two and give three. It's like, um, it's the same thing. It's that game mechanic thing I was talking about. So, often the designers would pitch those ideas because that is such an important process because you spend all of this time internally working on these ideas, spending money on them, time, effort, sweat, blood, tears. If you if you fail to sell it to the buyer, all of that's kind of for nothing. Yeah. Okay. I said there will be other buyers, but particularly your big important buyers, they are very important meetings. Um, so yeah, once it's obviously on the shelf, you'll tend to find like, you know, Target or Walmart particularly or they might do a test. So they they'll pick a certain amount of stores to test it in and then if it does well in those stores, there will be a global national roll out. And the same thing happens in Europe. You know, sometimes you'll get like an instant here, this is fantastic. And obviously, it might not be slightly different when you've got such a heritage brand. If you're if you're a small startup or a new company and you're coming in with your new product, that's a hard that's a hard sell because they don't know you. You've got no history. Um, and they would certainly most likely do a test for you in a few stores to see how it goes and then it would **[00:30:00]** kind of roll out if it was if it met the expectations of the, you know, the sales targets. I wouldn't have expected it, but it makes total sense. So, these buyers actually know products. Well, these they know toys, they know games that they and and so well, they should, but from what you're saying, it's not like, hey, I'm just going to pitch you something and I'm a salesman or saleswoman and and if I'm good at selling, you'll get it. No, these people know their stuff and they're they're they're going to call you out if if they they're actual I practitioners or whatever. They actually play games, I imagine. Well, some of them. Well, you tend to find though that buyers don't always like you'll find specialist stores who will have buyers who really have been in the air, their specialism for a very long time. But often you'll find buyers move around. So you you know they they might start on something they might start on fashion then go into toys then go on to home electricals and now obviously they've got to do their research you tend to find these buyers do move around they don't always stay within you know their specialist area um it depends by by retailer I think you know there obviously are particular retailers who have buyers who have been there a very long time and and they're very very very established but the bigger the companies like the Walmart targets they're career buyers these these people don't neessy want to do be buyers for games for years and years and years. They want to go off and do the you know they end up on luxury watches or you know I you know there's obviously a path of **[00:32:00]** products they'd like to they really like to sell. Um so yeah it's uh it's it's yeah that's obviously the process of getting you know obviously designing a product and you know because obviously what's interesting is the design team you we're at the very very start of the process and the selling to the buyer ultimately okay it's not the final part of the process it's the final part of the journey to it happening you know obviously there's there's people involved in logistics and shipping and manufacturing which you know is continually continually off to process. But that sort of design to sell is quite a satisfying thing as a designer when you get to sell as well because you're always selling. Design is a continual selling. You're selling to your team. You're selling to engineers. You're, you know, you're selling ideas. You're selling whatifs internally all the time. People don't often think of design as a selling job, but it really is a selling job. Um, like most jobs out there, every job has an element of selling in it, but because you're selling, you're trying to get people to buy into an idea which is you're not yet fully formed. Um, some people struggle with that. It's like, well, I don't really get it. You know, it's not it doesn't look very good. No, because it's not finished or can you, you know, so you're you're constantly trying to sort of sell a kind of a concept until it sort of forms itself into something a bit more finished. And the Monopoly deal was a kind of classic example of that. You know, it's like um it was hard. Well, do we want to sell a card game? You suddenly going to sell for like six **[00:34:00]** six bucks. There's not much money in that. I don't know if we should do that. Well, we What if we sell a million? Yeah, it's not that much money though, is it? And so, you've really got, you know, it's like, oh, I could sell a 20 I could sell a board game for 20 bucks and maybe should be doing that. So, you got to all those kind of basic arguments you've got to sort of think through. But, um, ultimately, you know, Monopoly was designed. I honestly don't know how long ago we designed it now, but it's it's still selling. It's sold millions and millions of units and it will probably continue to sell for years and years and years. You know, it's as good as it's like an UNO in that respect. You know, it's just out there. People like it. They recommend it. And that's the that's the thing. That's the other thing with games is people recommend the products. And if they really like them, they really will recommend them. And social media has been a very powerful tool for toys, for games particularly because it's something that people love to share. People like to share positivity. their sh don't share negativity on social media generally. Um you like to share positivity. So playing a game and having fun is a positive thing. Um and you like to spread the love. So that's amazing. The the game part like the Monopoly deal for example and Uno, we see them at the stores. They're just there. They don't even have to have these amazing setups anymore for them because like you said, people they're they're a known brand now. So, oh, I need an uno. I'll just grab one because it's there and I **[00:36:00]** and I and I get it right. But it's this makes a lot of sense because it's a it might sound like it's not going to be a big deal. Like you're saying, yeah, six bucks or whatever, but if you think about it just from a business perspective, it's you put all this effort six months, one year, many years, whatever to make it and create the game mechanic. And that's the hard part. But once you have that and it's been sold and it people bought into it and and you like it, once it starts selling, you now have that IP for it and it's just now it's just a pack of cards. It's printing and cutting and packaging, but it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You think of food products, you think of like a lot of food, getting a new food product to market is really hard. But, you know, if you look at a basic once you get it over the line and you've done all that work and you can establish it like an Oreo or something, you know, you can just make a huge factory just to churn them out, churn them out, you know. Um, and yeah, okay, you got to keep control of and and that's obviously the fact that that's the goal for any company who's manufacturing a product or even a service, but probably a product more so is to have something successful that you can that you don't even have to change because that's the challenge obviously if you're in the technology market, you're in a product if you're in a category which is very in need of constant innovation which the toy industry is. But on the other side, you can find these products which and particularly they **[00:38:00]** are games. Games tend to toys tend to be much more in and out fashionled brands, licenses, all this kind of stuff. But games um and that's why a lot of companies still do games because if they can find that little magic game that they can seed in, it can sell. We call it cash cow, you know. It just sells and sells. It just very little marketing spend. it just sells out year after year after year and that's great. That's a that's every company would love those kind of products, you know, and especially the ones that then create a community around them. So, you mentioned Magic the Gathering. So that game you probably tell me I have no idea but but it started from what I understand it was relatively small thing at the beginning and then it blew up into this thing where there's a huge community people there's tournaments there's there's the cards but then there's a whole there's a collectible space around it and how how did that happen? Is it just we got popular and or or is it It's quite clear how it happened really. It's because if you went back to like Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering Mhm. go back to the 80s sort of ' 90s before social media. There was people who liked it. It was seen as very geeky and it was not something that you'd particularly bring up in social conversation that you like pretending you're a wizard and killing this and summoning dragons and all this kind of stuff, but people like doing it. It's like Lego is the same thing. So, this brings on to the big big trend in in toys, which is kids. We call them kids. The kid adults purchasing **[00:40:00]** toys. Imagine the Gathering is primarily an adult purchase. And that's what's driving the toy industry. So Lego sales an example, Lego, if you go back 20 years, they their sales to adults was tiny, like a few percent. Now I would say it's probably at least I don't know this, but my guess is based on what whatever product they're putting out, it's got to be close to 30% of their sales to adults. and by high value. You know, those big death stars, big those big sets you see in, you know, they're not designed for kids. You know, $300, $400, they're not designed for kids. And what I'm getting on to is social media. So, the reason that these things popular is that you get celebrities sharing on social media, celebrities, but suddenly it's become socially acceptable. Suddenly, I am not a geek. I'm not some sort of weirdo. I really like playing Lego. I'm going to go buy some Lego because David Beckham does it or what this celebrity does. and um I'm going to play Magic the Gathering cuz I've seen my fame. I've seen my Hollywood star. They've been playing Magic the Gathering. You know, it it just becomes socially acceptable and then great, I get full license to go and spend $300 on Magic the Gathering cards. Um so yeah, and just be a kid again because let's be honest, here's the other thing that's going on. The world's a tough place at the minute. You there's a lot it has been for a little while. There's a lot going on. It's the world, you know, with, you know, the other side of social media is not always great. There's, you know, a lot of pressure on adults and actually if you can **[00:42:00]** sort of become a kid again, not not not in a silly way, but just that playful side of us, which was inherently a part and really important part of all human beings. You know, if we if you don't have playfulness in your life, it kind of can get pretty low. You know, playfulness is is about connection with other people. It's about happiness and positivity generally speaking and exploration, all those kind of things. This is what encourages adults to do. So, yes, it's it might be seen as trivial, but actually, you know, when you're building a big Lego set, it's quite therapeutic actually. You know, bit of bit of mind time. It's kind of just a way you're just very much focused on the thing. And when you're playing Magic the Gathering, you you know, you can sort of put the world if you're really kind of in that world with the dragons, the orcs, and so it's like I'm in this world. I'm just going to let the outside world kind of take its place, you know, and that's really what they are. It's very different to watching a a TV show or really good. So getting involved or a theater, just getting into something that kind of takes your the outside noise away. But the great thing with games is they're relatively expensive. you know, yes, you can pay you go to the theater and pay a couple hundred bucks or you can pay 20 bucks or less and and have that experience for a lot less. And so that's yeah, that's really the the big growth and and then continued and you see that across the spectrum in fandom in in adults collecting um like Funko Pop, those kind of toys, you might **[00:44:00]** Funko Pop. There's so many things out there that are appealing to that demographic. Now, that's very interesting. And the whole magic thing then went and Dungeons and Dragons then there's the the whole certification thing that then happens and then people start reselling the card not to play the game and I and I recently heard this from someone in in that side of the industry that there's there's a when you talk about table card games, right? tabletop card games. There's a certain percentage big percentage of people that don't play the game and it's a big chunk of the economy of the game where they don't actually play the game, but they they it's all around the community and the the collectibles side of thing. Well, that happened over COVID a lot because um you saw a massive spike in like Kickstarter campaigns. Yeah. people had, you know, all those kind of $100, $200 board games with crazy amounts of miniatures and crazy amounts of, you know, nothing you'd ever find in store. Um, and these were being bought up, you know, and and and then once that kind of ended, you had all these people with literally games they never played. They just bought them because they just it it's just a thing they wanted to have. Um, which isn't great. obviously but also as an investment you know there's got they like you know toys are and you know and games are very collectible and if you find the right one um you know gold not so gumb bang like Lego here but there was a point where Lego was more valuable than gold not at the minute cuz gold's gone up but basically there were Lego sets that you could buy that over the **[00:46:00]** course of 5 years made more money than gold um on their on their turn because they they were just super super collectible. So you could pay like $100 and suddenly it'd be like worth $400. Um so you'd obviously have to you know just keep it in its box and everything. So they are, you know, from an investment point of view, they they still are, you know, if you pick the right products and you hit the right fandom. Um, you know, obviously there's B, going back to Magic, obviously we, you know, obviously there's baseball cards, you know, obviously worth a lot of money, but there are some Magic cards. I know the company, um, called Carter Mundi. They actually they're the main one of the main printers of Magic the Gathering card. Um, and they've got a factory in Belgium where they print a lot. And they've got a vault there which even the CEO the CEO isn't allowed in and it's got some really rare cards in this vault. Yeah. Wow. And because they they print, right? I was looking into them actually the other day because for one of the things we do, totally unrelated to what I typically do in software, uh we have these sort of collectible coins, uh silver, brass, copper, uh very nice with little design science. And so we were thinking they have a little certificate of authenticity and all that. So, we were thinking we we're going to do the trading card aspect of it. Just put in some of that. And so, we looked into some of the the the printers and manufacturers of cards and some of the things they do. I had no idea. There's these playing card decks that these companies make that are **[00:48:00]** incredible. Just the quality of I've never seen one in person. Just seeing a video I was who uses these? No, they get they become well there. So there was a huge um card if you've heard of cardistry which is kind of a m you often find them on YouTube they're cardists. It's like magic, but it's all done with manipulation of cards. You know, they'll do something crazy folds and they need certain they need really high quality cards to get that sort of smooth, you know, and so they that's one of the things quality cards, but also just because cards are again a fantastically collectible product um by the cards only bicycle um which they bought as a brand and that's obviously a very well-known brand in the US. Um, and you know, huge amounts of people, they're very collective. You think about size pack of cards. You know, I've got some loads of packs of cards. Uh, we used to go to a well, I still go, but there's a there was a toy inventor um thing every year in the UK and Cartman used to print some special cards just you could only get them at that event. So, yeah, they printed like 100 decks or 200 decks. So, I've got loads of those. Now, they were worth anything or not, I don't know. But they are they're very easy to customize a deck of cards. actually you can do digital printing. So you can literally have one card. You can have a unique card that's digitally printed but looks like a production quality card. Um that you know is literally one off and they can do that not in a crazy price you know cuz normally it' be crazy. So there's very sophisticated **[00:50:00]** equipment. So cards lend themselves very much to um customization, low runs, collectible decks, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And the quality as you say is fantastic. You put RFID chips in. You can make them smart cards. You can do all those kind of things. So, yeah. I didn't know about the RFID thing in the cards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is there was a whole thing with cards interacting with um with with with iPads. We did we did a lot of them because when they that's an interesting thing the toy industry of often is quite it it sometimes it it does really jump on trend. So when the fir when the um uh iPod came out and then the first and then the first iPad, a lot of toy companies were all over that. They were doing they were doing capacitive figures which when you put it on the screen, you know, the figure interacted with the environment. We had RFID cards which obviously but the reality is the consumer wasn't there. The toy comes all over it. We were exc we worked I worked on loads of products like that and they were really fun to work on but the consumer had barely worked out what an iPad was let alone it could do these things. Now of course we realize everyone just understands that you know an iPad or smartphone could do all these millions of different things and they but back then when they first came out they really didn't know they really understand half the things that a smartphone does. It's like a PC. People don't, you know, these 5% of a PC's capability stand half. They do emails, they watch YouTube, but they, you know, just they that's all they **[00:52:00]** do, you know. They don't really push it. You know, they got this huge process, all this memory, and they use like 5% of it. But yeah, so yeah, to just kind of interesting like that. It's But you got to be careful. You got to take the consu you got to make sure the consumer's with you. You know, you're not just getting carried away because it can be done. Doesn't mean it should be done. Yeah. That makes sense. Sometimes you have this great idea and you start talking about it and it sounds awesome to you and maybe your team and then but if you don't actually interact with the final user of it, the consumer, then it might just flop because they might have actually loved it if it had this little thing and you missed it because you didn't ask. So that's something interesting in any scenario not just toys of course but so what's your take on working by yourself? I know in haste design you were we were doing you had the design company but is because some of our audience is small business owners, freelancers, things of that sort. Do you think there's uh something to gain with collaboration versus being on your own? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think so. The thing is I work in the when you're working with UIP and just the idea because we work in basically two ways. We we consult for companies where you know basically work for hire you know they want something done, we do it, we get paid. The other way to work it is on royalties. So we do a lot of the toy bin industry is very driven by inventors and the sort of professional inventor network where we will design **[00:54:00]** products for them which they didn't even really know they wanted or they might have an idea of what they want but can't really think of it or don't know what where to look and then we will get a royalty for every sale that is made. So that's all the longer term things. You don't get paid straight away. you know, you've got to wait until the product is made and in sale and you get a royalty check and that might be 18 months, two years down the line. So, that can be a kind of a lonely thing. The the work for hires a bit more kind of snappy, you know, it's kind of in and out, in and out with the royalty stuff's a bit more kind of you got to and there's a lot of rejection like any if you're, you know, songwriter or an author or you know, it's like trying to sell anything to get royalty on is not an easy gig. um when I was working for myself um obviously I did a lot of collaborations with other people and companies and and and sort of that was great but I kind of missed um I did that for like 10 years but I sort of realized I really did miss that kind of creative collaboration and so I I ended up partnering with two other people that I used to work with at Hasbro and we formed a new company Seven Pips a few years ago um because ultimately that was it just It it wasn't it was about making better ideas because there's three of you and you can bounce off each other and be honest with each other which is a super important part and not waste time on **[00:56:00]** working on stuff that probably isn't the right thing to work on. And sometimes you can in your own head even with all your experience you you kind of sometimes go down the wrong avenue. So that helps a lot. And just the general dayto-day of working with other people and bouncing ideas around and it's just it's just a lot more fun. You know, it's not always about the money. Um yeah, I'm sure if you're working for yourself as and you get all the profits, but there's more to a business than that for sure. And um in fact, working the three of us, it is kind of one one one way five. You know, it's strength in numbers. You can put a different perspective out because we were all known individually in the business. They we all kind of were quite well known. But when we pitched ourselves as a three, everybody, oh yeah, it makes sense. I totally get why you guys have done that. and and suddenly it's like and we're all bringing in slightly different skill sets of course. Yes, there's a common thread, but we've all got different skill sets. And that's the other great thing. You know, you're always seeing things from different perspectives. And I think um as a small business owner, you know, even if you can't take people on yourself, it's really important to find people you can be honest with. You know, find those not a mentor, but uh you know, sort of business owners club or something where you can really talk shop to other people, get their perspectives on it, even if they're not exactly from your world, you know. Um, I think that's incred. It's so easy for small business owners to become in quite **[00:58:00]** insular because it's just running a business. There's so much to deal to deal with, you know, just the dayto-day grind of running a business. Um, that you can lose sight of why you're even doing it, you know? It's like, yeah, I'm trying to make a paycheck and keep a roof above my head and that kind of stuff. And it's it's not that's the only reason you're doing it. Otherwise, you just go work for a company, which is probably actually quite a lot easier and just take a pay just get a, you know, check every month. Um, so I it's got to be fun and and and and I was in not having fun, but I'm realized working as a a collective now we're just having a lot more fun and uh the stress is a little bit less as well. And it's a very interesting approach because many times depending on where you're coming from, people might see someone like your colleagues as competitors. And so they might be like, "Oh yeah, we all work together, but they're my competitors." And then in this approach, you got together, like you were saying, strength and numbers. And it's a different way of handling things. And it's great because now you get the added benefit of each of you together, your networks, everything. And it just makes a lot of sense. Yeah. No, and we kind of were competitors, not in a in an aggressive way, but we all kind and we all kept in touch with each other, you know, outside of, you know, we just we worked with each other on occasions on certain projects, but but we were sort of in competition, you know, um and so again, that just helps because um but **[01:00:00]** you know, that was the nature of the business. the toy companies emerging like a lot of businesses, you know, you're getting sort of less smaller players, more bigger players, and that has to reflect in the services that go with that. You can't if the if your if your customers are basically merging together, there's no point if all the suppliers are just staying as they are because the pond, you know, the supply chain is smaller, the pond is getting bigger. It's like, well, all you're going to do is drive down prices, you know, because there's just going to be more kind of natural competition. So, it's much better if those those smaller guys, girls get together if they can and they can work together in a kind of harmonious way. Um, but I said it wasn't really it wasn't necessarily it wasn't driven by a financial goal to do this. Um, cuz it wasn't a a big deal that we're in competition with each other. We were all sort of doing okay. It was more just I say just making better products and making the dayto-day more an enjoyable process. And yes, the net come out of that probably has been that we haven't got to worry that we've got in competition with each other, you know, but that wasn't the driving force. And the other part that you mentioned is also very important I think because you are a if you are a freelancer or business owner and you have a small business in some scenarios something like this is the ideal route and in some cases you can't and it's just you and being part of a community like you said is is another great approach. I was just talking with a client the **[01:02:00]** other day and we're talking about like the Rotary in his case. He likes to go to those meetings, breakfasts, uh, or lunches depending on what time of day you chose because he meets in in this particular case maybe people who have already retired that had businesses that have tons of experience and it's just getting so much knowledge and and knowledge transfer from them. And it's an very enjoyable process, but at the same time, you're learning, you're growing, and like you're saying, you're not in isolation. You can talk with people that have are either in the same places you have the same issues or or wins or have had them in the past. I think it's really important, and again, it's easy to kind of go, I haven't got time because I've got and and you're right, you never find time for these things, but you really need to because they'll help you become more efficient and they might help change the path of your business even. You might come across someone who wants to invest in you or help you or they might know someone how it is. You just got to get out there. Networking ultimately is the best bit use of business time you can make if you know you just need to set some time aside to it and do that. And even on if you can't even get out and just spend some quality time on LinkedIn, you know, just not just just focus, you know, who who do I want to talk to, who can I network with, who can I and you know, it really does pay off. It might not pay off straight away. But it but I'm in my experience it definitely pays off over time. Pays **[01:04:00]** off. I've started to see that. I think you're you're really on point here. I in our last show we had retired Colonel the Joe Frankie. He has used LinkedIn since 2004, I believe, and and he helps people with this and amongst many other things, executive uh search and all that, but we were we're talking about how important it is. And I very recently started actually using LinkedIn. I've had it for years, but it was just there. And since I was never in sort of the corporate space, I and I just saw people would use it to post new hire, we did this, this other thing. I I wasn't really seeing the power of LinkedIn, but recently I started to get into it. And first of all, once you start using it and connecting with the right people, your feed transforms. It's a whole different thing. You actually learn things, you collaborate, you you network. If you're actually building connections, it's so interesting the people you can meet, interact with, learn from. I've It's been a night night to day difference in in my experience at least very recently just starting to use it as a as a real networking tool to actually meet people. It's just tracking down, you know, we all we all lose track of people or, you know, people we work with or, you know, we sometimes it might be years down the line and we go, I wonder if could really do with that service. I wonder if those people are still doing that or I need a marketing person. I need to say, I wonder what they're doing now cuz I really enjoy and you can track them down and you, you know, that's been tracked. I want to I **[01:06:00]** had a you know, I had a literally a case I hadn't worked with a guy for 10 years. This was a very senior guy at Hasbro. He was like a president of Europe and now he was running a new company and he he you know he reached out to me and after 10 years now he wouldn't have know where to find me but he obviously saw my posts cuz we were connected and I didn't know he was seeing my posts but he obviously was seeing my post or they were just in the background and I'd pop up every now and then. So I was just kind of in his mind. So when this thing comes up, it's like, "Oh, oh, I know who I could reach out to. Let me just check, you know, that's it. It's just you're just like being positive prompt." So you need to kind of post and you need to you don't need to be crazy about it, but I think you just need to be active and think about what you want to say and try and write some interesting stuff and people might want to listen to or read. Don't keep it too long because people are busy. Um, just targeted stuff. And then again, just think about what your brand is. What are you trying to sell, you know, people, we all have a very, you know, just ultimately people probably know me as the games guy or the toys guy. That's it. Oh, if anything comes across their desk, that's that's how I want them to think about. It can't be any more complicated than that. You know, toy guy, games guy. Oh, yeah. Someone said, "Oh, I need some." Well, yeah, I know a guy. **[01:08:00]** I know a guy. So, it's got to be super simple. You can't don't get too sort of deep and heavy about it because people Yeah, they got they got other things of their lives to worry about. Um, but if you can keep it simple, um, then, um, yeah, I think it pays off. That's an excellent point. And posting like you're saying, it's so important. Just doing it. It doesn't matter if you feel sometimes it's repetitive because you're talking about the same thing. Well, if that's what you do. Yeah. talk about it because it's not going to always be the same people who see it. It's going to be different people time it isn't as we know it isn't always the same people the way the algorithm works. Mhm. And I often find as a creator too I often when I've posted I actually do it not necessarily out from a sort of ego trip. I'm not really I don't really care about who likes it or who doesn't. I know some people will see it, but the process of writing and and it it just helps you get something out of your head that you think, "Oh, actually, yeah, I as you're writing it, like anything, yeah, I could I could just do this to myself on just write a letter to myself or something." But, you know, the the process of doing on LinkedIn, knowing other people are going to read it, so I'll just make sure it scans properly and isn't gobbledygook. And just the process of doing that often helps me be quite insightful about things that oh actually I should think a bit more about that or I should do this or do that. So yeah, it's part of the creative **[01:10:00]** process actually for me just writing and posting. So I don't do it very much. I used to I go through phases, you know. Um but I always try and find a bit of time for it. And it's always going to matter to someone who is in one part of their journey. And you might not even find out ever or you might find out in 10 years that your post actually helped someone. And because we're all in different parts of our journeys and doing different things and it's like I've seen your posts through time. We met a few years ago out of chance and I I totally see your post, but the other day I remember we were talking about create like who manufactures cards and who manufactures toys and we want to keep it because the whole China US so we want to keep it in the US and you had just like that day posted something about a company that's manufacturing here and all all that and I was like, "Oh, wow. That's that's that's great." And it brings you back top of mind, but then also you actually gave a lot of value because I saw that company. So, yeah, I think it's it's really often people come, you know, you say, "Oh, I you know, people that you kind of know, but you bump into a trade fair or something, oh yeah, I really like your post." Oh, okay. Thanks. You know, I whatever. And it's nice. Of course, it's nice when you've helped someone. and yeah, someone's taken some positivity from it because it's a win-win. I enjoyed writing it and as I was writing it, it probably made me think about something and someone's got a bit of value out **[01:12:00]** of it. And at the end of the day, look, if you're adding value to somebody, ultimately that's the best marketing tool you can do cuz down the line, people will probably come back and, you know, repay that value in some way. You know, it might not be monetary, it might be another connection, it might be whatever it be. You know, it's just that's just how the world goes on, doesn't it? I've always felt that that kind of you know again don't look for those don't expect quick wins. I think the problem with today is a lot of people with social media and the way the world works is that you there's an expectation that I'm going to I'm going to drop you a post on tomorrow you're going to give me a work it's not going to work like that. Life has never worked like that, you know, and people, you know, but you sew those seeds and then people move around and chances are your world, not every type, but there'll be there'll be enough cross-pollination. People will connect, someone knows somebody, you'll meet them again, and you've built up a trust. You you're basically building trust by by by by by writing stuff and and and commenting and stuff. building a trust there that people can go actually that person I think I know what they're talking about you know um so yeah I'll give I'll touch base so it's not complicated people try to make it comp it really isn't that complicated but it's um it's just you just if you were in a village weren't if you were all living in the same village and you were just going around you bumped into the same people at the market every now **[01:14:00]** and then and they get to know what you did or and eventually you might need a carpenter you might need someone to do your kitchen or you know I know the guy and then the guy saw him down the village. It's no different. It's just you're talking about a global village. So, um but yeah, just don't expect instant in instant results. I talked to a lot of students about that and they just they have a sort of unrealistic expected expectation. So, sometimes it can work. You just if you say as you say it might you hit the right person at the right time maybe maybe those magic paths will cross and you say just what that person wanted to hear. Anyway, we've gone way off topic on LinkedIn but no it's obviously I think for small business owners is important thing. basic networking obviously that's what we got talking about. So I think try and find quality time for that even if it's only an hour a week you know just some time that you're not doing anything else you're just collaborating trying to connect and if you can find a bit more time to find local people around you um then that's great as well. I what you said about doing the posting sort of as part of your process I think also applies for many people and this could be LinkedIn this could be on your blog on your website wherever YouTube I've found it very helpful and and I myself I'm guilty of forgetting getting too busy not doing it etc. But the times that I've done it, they pay off because there's there's one it has happened more than once in in the past years where maybe I wrote an article **[01:16:00]** about something how to change I don't know run a specific code on a specific software that we're doing right maybe I I published it completely forgot about it years later I'm doing the exact same thing and I'm like how does this work and search on Google find the answer like oh okay go good answer and it's my website I find my my answer from my past self like oh well thank you completely forgotten about it and so yeah even if it's just an exercise of yeah a record of your thoughts totally I think it's you're right and that's happened to me before as well what I've I've done not quite to that degree but something I've I've written about and I've forgotten on the about and I've come back and sort of found it again. So yeah, that's how you do it. I I love some of the things that you were talking about with the the game mechanic and the instructions because I've seen products you could love a brand. For instance, I don't I don't I don't want to bash it because I don't remember if it's exactly this, but for example, we really love the Haunted Mansion at Disney. We're big fans of of a lot of things Disney. And I think it was something regarding the Haunted Mansion. There was this game that came out. We were really excited. Obviously, just because of the IP like, "Oh, yeah. Let's get it." We bought it on pre-order. We get it, open the instructions, couldn't figure it out. It was just so confusing. And it just we didn't never played it. No. No. Honestly, it's that obviously instructions are you people demone things like the IKEA instructions and Yeah. The problem is most **[01:18:00]** people don't read like I am the worst, you know. In fact, quick story. I had bought a new cooker hood the other week and um I got out of the box. Yeah, I know how to put this up. I don't need to read the instructions. And of course, there's me sort of like stupid designer has designed this. They haven't really thought about this. And of course, but Susan's wife says, "Have you read the instructions?" I went, "I know how to put. Have you read?" You're always moaning about people reading. Yeah, I'll read instructions. Of course, so I am no angel in that respect, but games particularly. Yes. You know, you know, I was talking about Monopoly D instruction. People like exactly with my cook hood analogy. People come into things products with a a knowledge. We we all like to think we're a bit smarter than the average person. Oh, I don't need instru I don't need to read those. I know what I'm doing. I can see this is easy. half an hour later where you've got the wrong thing in the wrong place. And so you've got to make instructions user friendly. They've got to feel part of the experience. They mustn't feel like a chore. A lot of instructions feel like you look at them go boring. So you've got to make them feel fun. And you know, obviously video games are really good at this because they they they enable to guide you through the pro. They don't really tell you. you just start playing and then they they interject knowing what you're doing right or wrong. So that's perfect. Obviously with analog product you can't do that. So rules are a huge part of games and most companies to be **[01:20:00]** honest don't spend they they they because it's the bit of paper in the box they they they don't spend the time on it that they should do. Um, and sometimes they they can they can be the most time consuming part of the whole thing. More than the graphics, more than game design, more than anything is actually getting rules that people want to read, can understand. Because ultimately, if you have a bad experience, your Haunted Mansion, you never played it. Well, my guess is you're not going to recommend that game, are you, to anyone else? Whereas if you had read it and the rules had been well written and maybe the game was a great game, the rules were a barrier to you experiencing that game. If you just sat down with the game designer, you might have had a great game and then recommended that product. So it's very very shortsighted to skimp on instructions. Whatever product you're selling, don't skimp on the instructions. Don't go, "Oh, I just need to save a few cents. I know we costed them in color, but let's just do them in black and white cuz that's right." Don't do that. You know, always make the instructions, you know, spend love on the instructions. Make sure you test them with people who don't know the product, who've never seen the product because then you'll really know if they make any sense, you know, cuz you all know this product and it's very easy to test them around the office. Oh, yeah. Great. These are great. Yeah. Super. Well, good. You already know what you're talking about. You know, give it to someone who's never seen your product before. What's this? I don't understand this. you know and um so **[01:22:00]** yeah the whatever product you're doing most of the time there's some kind of instructions whether it's an app whether it's a website you know there's some kind of instruction even if it's a few lines but craft that message spend time on it because that is your gateway to the experience of your product if people don't get past that you you ain't got experience of a product it's never going to get recommended you know so um yeah that's excellent advice and it does work for websites in particular a lot. So you're building a site, you're building an app or something and onboarding it's just an afterthought for a lot of people. They're just like, "Oh, it's ready. Okay, now let's add these little walkthrough things that everyone hates." And they're fine. But most of the time if you need those, it's because the interface wasn't clear enough and and they're done in a way that's like, "Oh, we've got it's like people do, oh god, do you think the onboard got it?" It's like, and they're just done because it feels like it's a tickbox exercise. It's like, no, it's like the first thing people are going to find. You know, we all talk about physical product unboxing with an iPhone and you know how it how it's all lovely and it feels of course you know that unboxing experience is super important. Unboxing in a digital and in it's the same thing. You're unboxing the experience not the physical thing but the the experience you're unboxing. So you've got to spend as the time and the love on it. And again yeah as you said it's just not most companies do not spend that time or love on on it. I think many people just **[01:24:00]** don't know about it because they haven't been in an industry where it is done well and it's good good that we all hear it because yeah I mean there's some games that it's a completely new game very complicated but then you get the little piece of paper you're like oh huh cool let's play and you just get going cuz they spent the time the ultimate thing obviously is to have no rules of course the ultimate thing is to have no instructions any product that would be the goal in games it's incredibly hard because it's like how how do you do that you know how do you it's really I say it's impossible it's just incredibly hard but with but obviously there are products which you could if you design them with a bit more thought you might be able to eradicate the instructions because you're going with the expect you know I was talking about going back to this lovely deal about what people come in with baggage so people come in with what an what how they think these things should work. Now, if you design it into how people's naturally should work, don't try and design a clip that clips in a weird way when everybody thinks it's well, should do that. Oh, why doesn't it do that? Oh, why is it doing that? Where's the instructions? Where as opposed to, you know, if it just something some you can eradicate instructions and the worst thing also is to people say, I will cover off in the instructions. That is a when anybody says we'll just cover off in the user guide. We'll cover off with red flag. Red flag, you know. Um so yeah, watch that as well. That's amazing. Oh, this **[01:26:00]** this has been really insightful, Richard. I have so many other questions, but I don't want I don't want to take more of your time. Perhaps a part two sometime. Yes, that would be fantastic. There's so many things that I want to ask about other aspects of the business, but I think we covered a lot and I want to get you back to your day. Is there a place where people can find you if they're interested in learning more or perhaps they're in the space and and they need to reach out to a designer, inventor, etc. Well, as I said, probably LinkedIn if I'm honest. Richard, just Richard Hayes. H E A S. It's a strange spelling. Um, I've got some illiterate forebears who spell probably Haze wrong and so I've got but it's great for getting web domains and getting found easily online if they spell your name properly. It's H E A Y S. Um, and yeah, you can drop me a message on LinkedIn and or it's got my email there. You can connect with me there. So, probably the better. I don't tend to use X very much these days. So, yeah. And I'll and I'll put it in the show notes as well so people can find you. And for seven pips, is that something who would reach out to seven pips as a company? Would that be like specifically a uh a toy company, a game company or or is it also for for startups or Yeah, toy and game. But anybody who's you know, we sort of do a lot of essentially anything in the play space in the broadest possible sense of that. you know, we're all we're all basically industrial designers, but with a kind of a **[01:28:00]** a big a huge knowledge of the play industry, you know, so um where we're looking at kind of areas adjacent to toys and games as well. But yeah, J, that's that's our kind of core skill set. But hey, if you want to talk about instructions as well, we can certainly help you with the user instructions. Amazing. I'm sure we all need that. Cool. All right, Richard, thank you so much for coming on the show and we'll talk soon. Thanks everyone. Great. Take care.