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Click-A-Brick Co-Founders Jason Smith and Georg de Gorostiza say the company’s ability to compete with the behemoths of the educational learning toy segment is due to the already burgeoning loyalty of its customer base. Considering it’s just a small, family-run outfit, this brand loyalty is important for the company to develop, the pair says, as it continues to find its footing in the market to go toe-to-toe with giants like Lego, Hasbro and other mega corporations.
Unlike the major players in the industry, the co-founders say, they don’t have teams of people doing market research and closing major licensing deals with top children’s movie franchises. Although this obviously makes things challenging for the company, the businessmen believe their customers can relate to them on a personal level, knowing they are just a couple of parents themselves who are running a company that’s going up against major industry stalwarts.
The pair of entrepreneurs say cultivating a core customer base is key to carving out a niche in their particular market and they believe being a smaller company lets them be closer to their customers because Click-A-Brick doesn’t have the multiple layers of a big company like a C-suite management team and a board of directors, which makes them more accessible.
“If you can make some kind of personal connection with your customers, it helps them identify with the brand,” Smith said. “And, for us, that personal connection comes from us saying, ‘Hey, we’re just regular parents like you’ and hoping our customers identify with that. Companies like Lego and Hasbro and Fisher Price all have a lot of nostalgia for people. Who doesn’t remember playing with one of their toys as a kid? Obviously, being a new company, we don’t have that same nostalgia factor, so we want our customers to know that we’re regular people who are just trying to make this company work as best we can and offer the best educational learning toy we can.”
One way the businessmen stay connected to parents is by the near constant feedback they solicit from customers about what they want to see from the company. When customers fill out a survey for Click-A-Brick, Smith said, they know that he and de Gorostiza themselves are going to be reading the feedback and discussing it, which usually takes place over a Skype call with their respective kids playing in the background, he added.
Smith said both he and de Gorostiza want Click-A-Brick customers know they are communicating directly with not only business owners, but also fellow parents when they give their feedback to the company. And all feedback is taken into consideration when planning the company’s next move.
Release ID: 82552