If someone were to....

[yoyobrandon]

I don’t know if this is the right section to post this or not, so sorry if it isn’t.

I was wondering what some good steps are to creating a yoyo company. l am curious, and if anyone else was, I thought this would be a good place to post the question. I am wondering how all of you guys started your company, and if you had any tips or suggestions. What someone needs before they start, how to keep the company going, how to raise funds, how to advertise, where to get the throws machine, logos…things such as these.

Thank you all in advance.

[Gambit]

To quote myself on another similar thread:

As has been mentioned, you need to start with enough money to make a few decent runs if you want to seem established and reputable, nobody like to spend too much time waiting on prototypes. The advantage you have is that pretty much whatever you put out will be bought by at least a few people, as is the tradition in the yoyo community provided you don’t charge extortionate prices.

My advice would be to get a marketing strategy and/or theme worked out, then come out with a decent run of competatively priced throws… nobody wants to spend $150 on an unknown company so get the pricing right on the first runs. Get some protos out to reputable reviewers so that you can get the word spread and get some excitement going for your design beforehand.

Come in with competative pricing (not too low though or people will assume they are cheaply made), a solid and relatively original design (where possible) and a good theme/marketing strategy and you’ll be sorted.

Also, make sure you deliver. If you all of a sudden get popular but then don’t have the money, resources or business ethic to ship out orders or produce more runs, then your reputation will dimish quickly.

… but perhaps most importantly, make good yoyos. Don’t just throw together a design off the top of your head, accept the first prototype that comes off the lathe and start production. Try out a few different weights, different weight distributions and tweaks in designs so you can get a feel for what works and what will produce the best throw. The top brand designers know so much about yoyo design that they can pretty much design based around how they want a throw to play and feel, so you need to start learning how design affects performance.

The reason people like General Yo, Onedrop, YYR, CLYW and so popular is that when it all comes down to it, they know a heck of a lot about making good yoyos.

If you need to burn $1000+ on different prototypes until you get something thats truly special, then so be it. It’ll help you in the long run. If you don’t have the money or committment to do this, then you’ll just need to accept that you’ll never be up there with the big names.

So yeh, I think the biggest thing is having the money to get it all off the ground, otherwise you’ll have difficulty making it past an initial run.

Also, as Apple have proved, marketing is very important. There are hundreds upon hundreds of yoyos out there, what makes yours different? Why should people buy from you instead of another company? You need to get your approach on point in order to get good business.

A trailer video is always a good idea as well. Look at the recent Prestige trailer, it’s great for getting you noticed.

[yoyobrandon]

Bump.

[turtleyo]

I imagine you could get Onedrop to machine your throws. Raising the funds would take some time, but could pay you back in the long run. Something I’ve learned from companies is pull up ALL the hype you can. HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE, get EVERYONE wanting one.

[GregP]

@turtleyo

I imagine you could get Onedrop to machine your throws. Raising the funds would take some time, but could pay you back in the long run. Something I’ve learned from companies is pull up ALL the hype you can. HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE, get EVERYONE wanting one.

It’s called “marketing”.

But yeah, don’t pull up the hype too early (looking at you, Deadly SpINS… even though I’mma prolly still buy your yoyos… )

[da5id]

Your questions can’t really be answered in a forum post. There is no “formula” per se for how to start any business, let alone a yoyo company.

There are plenty of resources online about the basics of starting a business. Stuff like finance, business plan, licensing, marketing, etc.

I will say that without a background in manufacturing and design that this is going to be a much tougher road than most think. We help out a lot of yoyo startups and there are little bits of knowledge that are required that most don’t have. For example, do you know how to specify tolerances to your machine shop on your design? Do you understand just how small .0001" is and how that relates to making a yoyo? Do you understand the limitations of CNC machining as it relates to your design? Etc.

Making yoyos is really difficult. The tolerances and the customer expectations for smoothness are really high.

I’ll give you the single best piece of advice that I have learned from owning a business for 13 years:

Everything costs more and takes longer than you think it will. This might as well be a universal law of business.