How to Create a "Start-Up" During the "Lock-Down" Part I
by Caiphus Moore

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is intended to inspire prospective and current students, as well as anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit. This work is a case study in creating an international designer toy business during a global pandemic without leaving the room. More importantly, I wanted to inform people of how far one can take an idea by using just a few pieces of software, a commitment of sweat equity and artistic creativity. In addition, I wanted to keep startup costs as low as possible and within reason for a project of this scope. All artwork, web design, logos and written elements were thought of and conceived by me. I wanted to use the lock down as reason for being productive and show the positive results of a dire situation. In addition, it gave me the time to investigate new methods and ways to use my skillsets and to do things outside of my comfort zone by wearing multiple hats. Hopefully, you will enjoy this case study as much as I enjoyed creating it.

How to Create a "Start-Up" During the "Lock-Down" Part I

CONTEXT

The initial idea of this research began years ago; since I have always been a fan of art toys, and as a character designer, ideas have always flowed naturally. Once the pandemic hit in March of 2020, I used the resources available to stay creative and keep my idle hands busy. It was a month later that I began writing blogs and keeping notes of my daily process and tasks. It was not long before I decided to dive headfirst into the idea and see how far I could take things while the lockdown continued. I enlisted the help of a few trusted friends, for their expertise in areas where I lacked experience such as: marketing, finance, and growth. I did this for the simple reason that if this idea became successful, I would already have all the pieces in place to take it the next level.

Location, location, location. Knowing that the world would not be traveling any time soon, proximity was no longer an issue. I was able to reach out as far west as California for financial advice, and as far east as Finland for growth and strategy information. Having a core team in to assist me with any questions I may have had, allowed me to focus on what I really do well, art and design.

PROCESS

Since I wanted my students to be able to follow this workflow, I used the same software that I teach them at UTT. However, I needed to learn a few other smaller programs to help me along the way. First up, Z-Brush! Pixologic's Z-Brush is a powerful sculpting program and industry standard in the world of animation, movies, toys, and video games. Being already familiar with the program, it was quite easy to sculpt a pleasing design that I wanted. Nevertheless, making it into a physical object for manufacturing was another step completely. I spent countless hours doing manufacturing research to understand how to hollow out digital sculptures and understand wall thickness for 3D printing. I also learned a new software named MeshMixer that makes that process easier to achieve. In reality, I could have skipped that step completely but I wanted to create an actual prototype so I could fully understand every step of the manufacturing pipeline. I then 3D printed the sculpture with a Formlabs Form 3 printer which I had acquired before the pandemic.

MERCHANDISE. In addition to the toy, I wanted to create some merchandise to help fund the manufacturing cost of the design. The reason being that the initial estimates of creating 500 mass-produced figurines would cost $15-30K depending on the quality and material used. Yikes! Hopefully, selling t-shirts and art prints of the toy as well as other designs would raise the capital for the actual production. I researched a service called Printful that creates clothing on demand as well as drop shipping. This allowed me to not have additional costs regarding inventory, shipping, and storage. Printful handles all of that for you and integrates seamlessly with my website provider, Squarespace. I also used a website called placeit.net to super impose my design on real life models. Again, saving me costs on having to pay for an actual photoshoot.

WEBSITE. As I briefly touched on earlier, I used Squarespace to host my website. It has many templates to choose from as well as support for Printful services. I played around with diverse ideas and colors schemes until I decided on a minimalist design. Payment gateways was another hurdle. This is where being an American citizen was beneficial. I was easily able to open PayPal, Stripe accounts, and link them to a newly create Novo bank account. This is exceedingly difficult for Trinidadian citizens. The banking system is unfortunately, tremendously difficult to deal with and I found that the only way around it was to use my American banking options. Hopefully, the government will realize that they must eliminate these hurdles if we wish to unlock the potential of our local entrepreneurs. We have a large digital talent base that can appeal to the international market and be very profitable.

RESULTS. Overall, I accomplished what I set out to do. Only remaining tasks are finding a manufacturer and raise the capital for production. I recently discovered a new revenue stream that can acquire substantial amounts of funds, but I will disclose that in Part 2. Stay tuned!