125: Pitching Your Invention to Big Product Businesses

With Dougal Grimes, VP of Innovation & Inventor Relations at SpinMaster Toys

Dougal Grimes is the Vice President of Innovation and Inventor Relations for SpinMaster Toys. He leads a team of people who review product pitches from inventors just like you. Before this, he worked for over 10 years as a leader in many different roles at Hasbro. Today, Dougal is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can best pitch to large product brands, like SpinMaster, and what you can do to best prepare for, deliver, and expand your product’s success with this type of partnership.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Developing the toy idea out
• A great idea can come from anywhere
• Big ideas come from the mass market, not in-house design teams
• The process of meeting inventors is quite freeform
• Pitching the idea well is important and applies to all types of industries
• Have a quick pitch for your invention, then a proof of concept physically, then prove feasibility of manufacturability, that it is safe, that it is viable, and possibly that it has intellectual property protection.
• Look for toy fairs and conferences, reach out via LinkedIn, and find the invention submission areas of the company.
• Remember, a product pitch is a promotion.
• Don’t lead with the technical aspects, lead with the features.
• Remember, you are bringing a solution to a company when you pitch.
• The inventor’s vision and passion can help push a product through to greater success even after a licensing deal is struck
• Timelines for toy inventors getting to market

EPISODE LINKS

Dougal Grimes / SpinMaster Links:

• Website: https://www.spinmaster.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougalgrimes/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entrepreneurs/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KevMako/
• Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Kevin-Mako
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KevMakoPage/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KevMako/

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time.