Making money making toys: how black inventors are bringing innovative ideas to the toy market - includes related articles on product invention rights, licensing brokers and information services - B.E. Report on Small Business

Becoat thinks it's crucial to cultivate good information, so that "flying by the seat of your britches," as he calls it, is kept to a minimum. "People need to network, need to get in touch with people that have already done it when they are creating a product," he says. "And make sure you avoid those invention-marketing groups. Use the full disclosure system that comes from the patent office instead."

From Dream to Reality

When David Walker Jr., of Atlanta, was put in charge of organizing recreation for an upcoming family reunion 18 years ago, he found nothing at the store suitable for all ages. So he created Walla Balla, "something that looks like a three-leaf clover. Each cloverleaf resembles a basketball hoop. Underneath this configuration is a string and a ball, and the whole apparatus fastens around the waist like a belt. The object is to use the body, not the hands, to maneuver the ball into each hoop. When persons of different sizes play the game, their bodies move in funny ways."

It was at an integrated party of blacks and whites that walker became convinced that Walla Balla could make money.

"When I carried it there," he remembers, "I observed that people had segragated. We were all in our little groups. I announced that I had something I wanted to get some feedback on, and people started playing. This game brought us together. It was a great icebreaker."

Although Walker, like most toy inventors, likes to see people enjoy the things he creates, he is quick to admit that "when it comes to getting to the marketplace, most of us don't have the interest or expertise."

He should know. For 15 years, Walker's homemade "icebreaker" delighted friends and family, who urged him to put it on the market He came up with a company name, IceBreaker Enterprises, Inc., and developed a rough prototype that he hoped would be licensed by a major toy manufacturer.

But hoping for a royalty deal and getting one were two different things. The hardest part, Walker explains, was "simply getting the right people to see it. It's like breaking into show business. If you don't see the right person at the right time, you may not make it." And the "right person" is probably not a buyer far down the management line. "You want to see a person higher up," Walker says, "the person who can make the decision."

There was an additional problem: The major toy companies he called didn't want to see anything in the rough. He couldn't see quitting his job as an operations supervisor for an Atlanta school district to risk time and money on a product that could well fail in the marketplace. He asked his sons Scott and Steven, both investment bankers, to turn their MBA talents to the marketing and promotion of Walla Balla.

Initially, that meant spending thousands of dollars in savings, mostly the money Walker had made on real estate investments. Walker and his sons contracted with Keener Mold Co. in Ellijay, Ga., to have a professional mold made for the product. Then they went to C.I.M. Corp., a plastic-injection-molding manufacturer in Cleveland, Ga., and had 1,200 fluorescent green-and-orange units made.