Episode 66: Exploring the Toy Industry w/Brendan Boyle

The One Percent Project- Entrepreneurship, Leadership & Resilience

About Brendan Boyle:

Have you ever wondered how your favourite toys end up in your hands? What makes toy companies such as Lego, Hasbro, and Mattel market leaders, and how have products such as Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars stayed evergreen in a highly competitive industry?

My next guest on The One Percent Project is Brendan Boyle. Brendan is a toy inventor, an adjunct professor at Stanford, and the Founder of the IDEO Play Lab. He is also the inventor of the world-famous Jumperoo.

Brendan consults companies about redesigning their organisational behaviour to include space for play and co-authored the award-winning encyclopedia of never-before-seen inventions, The Klutz Book of Inventions.

Listen in to learn Brendan's insights on designing and working in the toy industry, the value of divergent thinking, how Lego & Mattel have kept themselves relevant and much more.

How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented itself.

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In this conversation, he talks about:

00:00 Intro

03:44 How designing a toy is similar to design thinking?

04:44 What is the funnel from idea to sales for a toy?

08:15 How divergent thinking generates better ideas?

09:45 Are toys actual concepts in the world?

11:15 How does the toy industry work?

13:10 Why should you read about the history of your industry?

14:45 How have Lego and Barbie (Mattel) kept themselves relevant?

16:19 Why does a global design firm such as IDEO like to hire T-shaped people?

18:47 What has he learnt as an entrepreneur?

21:22 Three books

22:53 Advice to your younger self?