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I assume you're very supportive of people not showing up for 14$ an hour being a good capitalist right?

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There is nothing wrong with not taking a job that you think doesn't pay enough.

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What’s the biggest upside of sharing your journey in public? What’s your goal with doing it?

The biggest upside is the attention it brings to our brands, like Brain Flakes.

The main goal is to drive eyeballs, which drive sales.

I also like this type of thing. It doesn't bother me when people make fun of me or call me stupid or whatever. It's fun for me :)

Do you need a hug? Or your weighted blanket to help you ground ?

Whats been the hardest part of building the business? Whats been the easiest?

Then why did you tweet that "wild that 14$ isn't enough"? What do you pay as a starting wage now?

The early years were extremely rough. At one point, a factory in China that I was dying to work with told me they didn't want to work with me and I contemplated suicide. In retrospect that seems really dumb, but at the time, it felt like a disaster.

So the answer to your question is: it's really hard to start a business without venture capital because everyone looks down on you and when you don't get immediate sales success it's really depressing, but you have to KEEP FIGHTING!

The easiest part of building a business? The few times I got lucky.

You're going to get lucky if you keep doing something for a really long time. The key is to recognize when you've gotten lucky and then to commit effort and energy to taking advantage of that moment, but in general, building a business is never easy. It's constant headaches and stress.

yes

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Big fan from twitter. How did you get into the toy game and think of the idea for Brain flakes?

Because I was surprised by the sudden rise in wages caused by government money printing.

We had been paying $10/hour for temporary labor and it jumped up suddenly to $14/hour and at that time, we couldn't get people for $14 either. That was surprising to me. It wasn't an accusation of laziness.

We probably pay $12-$14/hour now for temporary unskilled labor right now, but it's been a while. All our full-time employees in the warehouse earn significantly more than that.

You can read a ton about the local economics of where we are here: https://twitter.com/Molson_Hart/status/1449573538294378499

People don't understand how much farther your money goes in rural Texas than it does in a city like San Francisco or New York.

Brain flake buildouts hurt my eyes looking at them. 3d blobs of chaos. Any children I have would be too stupid to figure out how to build anything.

I guess what I am trying to ask is, do you have any coupons?

Any worries of Amazon developing an “Amazon Basic” copycat product of yours? We use to have a first party relationship with Amazon, but third-party always seemed like free market research from Amazon.

1. Got fired for writing fan fiction about the executives at the company I was working for
2. Realized that I wasn't going to do well in corporate America, so I decided to become an entrepreneur
3. The first idea I had was to take a product that was really popular in China, jianzi, and sell it in the US. I thought I'd be a billionaire in a year. That product was a failure.
4. Other products after it succeeded which created a nice little business.
5. One day I was on Taobao, which is China's biggest e-commerce marketplace and I realized that I could sort all the products by their sales. I then thought that I could identify the products which sold very well in China, but not in the US for potential launches in the USA. Interlocking plastic discs were one of those products.
6. Interlocking plastic discs sold okay in the US under a bunch of names, but like 100x better in China and I couldn't figure out why, so I decided to try. I came up with a good name: BRAIN FLAKES® and good packaging and just launched.
7. They launched at Toy Fair 2014 and were a failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnOO94NVAAU (possibly because everyone knew that interlocking plastic discs had been around and there was no novelty to them besides our name and packaging)
8. I said "fuck it" and launched them on Amazon and they were an instant success!
9. Over time I and my growing team would read reviews and constantly improve the product. We've got all this amazing educational content, some of which is free on our website brainflakes.com (of course it comes in the booklet too)
10. Very importantly after continuously trying to improve the product, we got a patent of which I am VERY PROUD! Our discs connect better than everyone else's because of this.
11. Our goal is to be the number #1 building toy brand in the world and I increasingly think it's possible.

That's a really good question!

From what I've seen in my life, I think that who you are is a combination of nature and nurture. Educational toys are the nurture component. You're never going to be good at something if you don't practice it and educational products like Brain Flakes enable you to practice spatial thinking, visual pattern matching, counting etc. so I'm pretty sure it makes kids smarter.

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lol

I know what you mean; that's why we do these 3-d GIF renders: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0531/2633/2567/products/BrainFlakesDrevnarTheDragonProductListingGIF_110x110@2x.gif?v=1669408936

Sorry, no coupons today, but if it's any consolation I am constantly told our prices are too low: https://www.amazon.com/VIAHART-Interlocking-Educational-Alternative-Childrens/dp/B00N7CD4BK/

None because we have a patent and a strong brand. I would also KILL THEM on social media :)

Seriously, unless they played unfairly, Brain Flakes would crush Amazon Basics Building Discs.

I agree that 3rd party is free market research (better than free, they make a ton of money from it) for Amazon.

I've written a long blogpost about how to use IP to protect your business here: https://medium.com/swlh/starting-a-physical-product-company-youre-gonna-need-a-lawyer-13b2eecebc9f

I think that there is an element of that, but, it's money just money printing that's causing inflation, not corporate greed nor supply chain.

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Would you consider hosting a chess tournament at your warehouse?

Haha, no because these guys do such an awesome job in Pease Park in Austin: https://www.facebook.com/groups/866344480633533

I have no idea what "brain flakes" are and Amazon is a pile of shit here in Australia.

I'm guessing either a breakfast cereal or a GM coating specification?

Amazon just launched. They might get better over time no?

I think Brain Flakes is available on Amazon and Catch down under!

​

Brain Flakes is an interlocking plastic disc toy that teaches kids spatial thinking while giving parents some much needed peace.

Watch our awesome video produced by my team!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko0Xf07HaVY

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

Yeah, seriously, go!

It's one of my favorite things about ATX!

Holy fucking shit that is awesome! You guys are fucking amazing, it's tactile and spatial and brilliant!

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Thank you!!

It's just plastic tinker toy trash marketed at kids.

How'd you find investors, if any?

I appealed it!

I won $16,000 in a chess tournament, had a little bit of money saved up from a job, and I lived in China (very inexpensive) and with my mom (free!).

So I didn't need any.

Mu son is blind, so something like this is seriously brilliant.

Fucking elegant in the simplicity!

We have a house full of Lego and mechano and a million other things, but nothing like this.

Good on you guys for doing this shit

That's cool! If he can play Lego and meccanno he can definitely use Brain FLakes too!

Thank you that means a lot to me, I'll share with our team!!

Fuck off. Tinker Toy is okay to an extent - I can't tell you how many wooden dowels I've filed down so it fits.

It doesn't do a lot for people that learn through tactile interaction.

I was knocking tinker toy knock offs. Seems like we had perfect engineering toys growing up but all these companies are making them from cheaper materials and redesigning them to be shittier than the OGs; Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Erector Sets.

Engineering toys can be great and made from better materials; Brain Flakes are trash that will eventually break down enough to fit into your bloodstream.

While I think our quality could be better (I'm a Brain Flakes perfectionist), we have 4.8/5 stars on Amazon which is pretty good for a plastic toy on Amazon.

Try our product. If it breaks, report that on reddit or e-mail support at viahart dot com and we'll give you a refund without a return.

Glorious. Can guarantee rhe Tinker Toy I played with as a kid weren't ethically and sustainably sourced. Nor did the tees have a gender identity or preferred pronoun.

Out of idle curiosity, may I ask you do for a living?

If you posted this comment from a consumer device, you're already a fucking hypocrite.

... genuinely what? Because I exist in a capitalist system and require phone access to live I am a "hypocrite"? Ah yes. Let me give away my phone. I'm sure the hospital, my patients , my family, and my friends won't notice because I've got to be an ideological extremist for some guy named "muhnyourdog" doesn't understand the concept of top down vs bottom up change and when each is most appropriate.

lol. I'm a metal worker.

My criticism; Companies are purposely making a material (that gets more hazardous every year) universally known for being trash, into a crappy product that would've come in a cereal box 30 years ago and markets it to parents under the guise of engineering enrichment.

Lead paint is probably the reason your panties are in a twist now, that's why we don't use it for kids toys anymore.

Which rule did he break?

Out of respect for the mod, I won't share the private conversation, but I did repost my AmA here after they gave me some direction wrt the rules!

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/zrr4kt/im_molson_hart_the_inventor_of_the_educational/

How much of that $16,000 was used for your investment and how was it used?

Our first container was 20,000 pieces at around $1 a piece (this was Kikbo, our first product, not Brain Flakes) if memory serves. So I used it all, but I was able to convert that into more money by selling those products. As I said, I kept my expenses crazy low!

Did that include packaging/logistics to US or was this local to China? As I understand your main market is in the US for your products and at the time you were living In China?

This is assuming you source from China

Its cool to see that your inital investment wasn't astronomical and makes me wonder what I could come up with. I'm sick of the corporate life.

This was 12 years ago so I don't remember all the details sorry! That included packaging, but I don't remember if it included logistics. You are correct re: main market and where I was living.

I could've done that for much much less than $20k. It could've been $1-2k.

Watch this video: it could change yoru life https://www.tiktok.com/@molsonexplains/video/7178703908506783018?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

One last question - do you speak mandarin or any other local chinese languages? I assume you would having lived in China however it's a possibility that this is not the case.

Thanks for the conversation! Definitely makes me think about possibilities

Yes, I am self taught conversant mandarin speaker and reader and typer (I can't hand-write).

You don't need to learn Chinese to do business there. You just need to have the balls to go.

You're welcome and good luck!!

Can I please have $3,000?