Nitin Bajaj

Welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Drew Vernon. Drew, welcome on the show.

Drew Vernon

Thank you for having me, Nitin.

Nitin Bajaj

Pleasure is all ours. So let’s get started with a big question. Who is Drew?

Drew Vernon

Well, I am, the marketing director for Tonies, but, who am I? I, I’m a marketer. I went to school for brand and product management, and I started out in beauty. I worked for some beauty companies, including Procter & Gamble. I worked my way into the toy industry, and, worked for Lego for a few years before coming to Tonies. That’s kind of the more of the business side. On the personal side of things, I’m married. I’ve got 3 kids, and I try to do some hobbies now and then. I play tennis and and do pottery, but, that’s myself in a nutshell.

Nitin Bajaj

Oh, quite a quite a variety there, and, looking forward to getting to know you better. So tell us more about Tonies, you know, what’s the mission, the Vernon, and, also tell us a little bit about the size and scale of the operations.

Drew Vernon

Sure. Tonies is a German company that started in 2016 by a couple of dads who met on the board of a preschool together. They noticed that their children’s teacher was using a CD player, in the classroom to play songs and stories, and they thought them themselves. CDs, they’re kind of old technology at this point, and they scratch and they break. And, most importantly, a young child can’t use it without an adult supervising them, you know, young kids 2 or 3 years old. So they created a product called the Tony box, which is a figure based system. You put a magnetic figure on the box, and it’ll play, whatever it’s programmed to play. So we have different types of characters, whether it’s Doctor Seuss stories or or Disney princesses. We do, you know, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, all of the different, children’s favorite characters. And it was just kind of an immediate success over in Europe. So they launched it in Germany and expanded to the United Kingdom. I helped launch the United States, about 2 years ago. And, now that we’re about 6 years into the company, we’ve sold 4,000,000 Nitin boxes. Or publicly traded. And, right now, we’re on track to, to make about 250, $300,000,000 this year.

Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. That’s a huge impact.

And, you know, it’s you’re going to an audience, you’re getting them early, and you’re being a part of their development process. You kind of touched upon this, but if we can talk a little more about why do this and why do this now. Right? So you you talked about older technology and then coming in with this newer tech, but it’s also very simple and easy for kids to use. So tell us a bit more about the why. Sure.

Drew Vernon

I think when the founders invented the product, it was really to put the control into the hands of the children, because they wanted to give them an independent play experience, where the child can put the figure on the box. Because there’s no screen, all of the navigation of the content is done through tactile play. So you actually just give the the box a whack on the side. They’ll advance it to the next track or the next song, and, it’s really a great independent device for that. What the founders didn’t anticipate was the COVID 19 pandemic. And that has kinda changed the game for us a little bit because when that happened, our school shut down, people started working from home, and we started to develop some pretty bad habits, I think. And and namely, we were giving our children smartphones. We were giving them TV screens, Netflix shows, and we were doing this at younger ages and for longer periods of time. And so now that we’re kinda hopefully coming out of the pandemic, we have these bad habits which remain, which is leading to too much screen time among kids. And, the Tony box is designed to be something that can entertain and educate a child in the way that a screen Drew, but without having them be glued to a screen.

Nitin Bajaj

Out of curiosity and and for the benefit of our audience, how does content get on there? Who gets to choose it? And, how often can you change it?

Drew Vernon

So we have a great, franchise licensor relationships with a lot of different entertainment and media companies, as I mentioned, doctor Seuss, Disney, Universal, major publishers. And so we create the figures that will have the content, and the stories from which they come. On the technical side of the things, like, if you have a a Disney character, for example, you put that on the box, it will use Wi Fi to download, the content from the Internet, and they’ll download onto the box. And so once you’ve done that, it will be on the box, and then it can be a disconnectable experience where you can take it in the car, you can take it on an airplane, and you don’t need to always be connected after the initial download.

Nitin Bajaj

That’s really cool. And, you know, simple is not easy, but you’ve made it extremely simple, for your audience to get to that content. As simple as this sounds like, you know, there’s a lot of pieces that you’re pulling together, partnerships, content, updates. Tell me about the biggest challenge you’re facing as a business.

Drew Vernon

I would say the challenge is a good one, which is just keeping up with the growth. You know, I come from working from, for older companies. So Procter and Gamble, I think, is a 175 some years old. Lego is 90 years old. Tonies is only 6 years old, and it’s only 2 in the United States. So it’s a very young company, but it’s very much in demand. And so we have expanded our distribution. This year, we got to Target, and we’re getting into other big box stores as well, and we’re doing that with a very small and agile team. So our biggest challenge is literally just building the company as we build or I should say, building the organization as we build, the company.

Nitin Bajaj

That is indeed a great challenge to have. What’s the most exciting opportunity?

Drew Vernon

So it’s funny. I started out in beauty, as I mentioned, and and went over to to Lego, got into the toy industry. It was there that I really become became, an advocate for children. I did that through I did a program with with pediatricians that, was a success. And I really saw that as an opportunity not just to sell toys, but to improve the childhood experience. So the most exciting opportunity for me is to do that. And I really believe that childhood matters. We only get one. And we as parents and educators have the ability to shape what that childhood looks like. And I truly believe that the Tony box is a positive element to a child, and to a childhood. And so that’s what I am doing my part in is improving that childhood experience.

Nitin Bajaj

And congratulations to you. And it’s it is indeed such a motivating and also rewarding experience, right? When you get to see the joy on the faces of children, when they’re able to define their own experiences, it’s truly rewarding. So kudos to you.

Drew Vernon

Oh, thank you. Yes, I have, children of my own, and I work with educators. I work with children, and it’s always a rewarding experience.

Nitin Bajaj

Now when we talk about your career as we look back, Procter and Gamble, Lego, and now with Tonies, I would love to hear from you one experience that blew your own expectations and was a success beyond your imagination. And on the other side, something that did not work out as you had planned and maybe became a lesson learned.

Drew Vernon

Sure. Yeah, I alluded to it.

One of the things I’m most proud of from my time at Lego was a program that I created called Prescription for Play. Mhmm. And it was a program in which I partnered with pediatricians to, encourage parents to play with their children for at least 15 minutes a day. And I developed the program. I thought that I might, you know, I made a goal of getting into a few doctor’s offices. And I went to pitch this down to the pediatricians at one of their conferences. And I came away with it with 2,500 doctors that wanted to be a part of it. So, that’s kinda when the light bulb moment went off for me. It ended up becoming, went all the way up to the top of the LEGO leadership. They ended up making it a global, initiative for the company. So that was one of the successes that I, am proud of. On the other side of things, one of the lessons that I learned actually also occurred while I was at Lego. If running the preschool business for them was not enough, I decided to take on, an entrepreneurial endeavor of starting my own business, and it was then that I started a state license drop in daycare center in Connecticut. And as I researched that and put that together and and opened that, it really just became too much. On top of a full time job, I had a staff of about 10 people. I had a pretty high overhead, and I ended up having to sell the business after just a couple of months. And what I learned from that is to know my limits, to not take on too much, and to really just try to focus on the most important things.

Nitin Bajaj

Great lessons to learn. And as they say, the sooner you learn them, sooner you put them into practice. You can continue to move on with those lessons. Which also brings me it’s a good segue to my favorite part of the show. We call it the one line life lessons. And, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us and our audience.

Drew Vernon

Sure. Yeah. So this was a fun one. I you gave me the the heads up on these questions. I actually had a chance to think about this. And, I don’t know if it makes a lot of sense to other people, and I don’t know if I’ve actually even shared it with other people. But one of the things I like to tell myself is that every day, you have to wake up twice, because, you know, you’re sleeping, you wake up, that’s the first time that you wake up. I think that there’s kind of like a second time you have to wake up, which is just to realize your true potential, that you have a choice on what your attitude is going to be and how you’re going to deal with the challenges that you face. We’re not able to always choose our circumstances or our challenges, but we can choose how we approach it and how we, what our attitude is. So, one thing I tell myself is every day, I you must wake up twice.

Nitin Bajaj

I really love that. Thanks for sharing.

Drew Vernon

Go ahead. Yeah. I guess a couple others. I follow Seth Godin. He’s, you know, popular blogger, podcaster. He likes to talk about how you have to pick yourself.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Drew Vernon

A lot of people wait around, try to be picked. They want, you know, their boss to notice them. They want a recruiter to notice them. And, really, nobody is going to be watching out for you like you. And so, that’s just speaking again to your own self empowerment. Maybe it’s speaking again to your, your attitude and your ability to shape your own potential and circumstances. So, pick yourself would be my second one. A third one is, I think this came from probably some, maybe some hippie spiritual leader. I can’t remember who, but he said be here now, which is just speaking to being present. You know, I’m obviously passionate about, avoiding screen time. Not to say that I don’t have screen time or that my kids don’t have screen time, but I think it’s a big distraction. And and I think it takes us away from the present, away from the here and now if we’re always scrolling or always watching shows. And so I try to set limits on that, and I try to be here now, especially when it comes to interacting with other people, around me in real life. I try to give them my undivided attention.

Nitin Bajaj

So simple in theory, but so difficult with all of the stimulus coming at us every second of the day. So kudos to you on that practice and staying true to it.

Drew Vernon

I’m not perfect. Everybody, you know, has their addictions. Let’s see. How how many of these are we going for? A couple more. Would love them.

Nitin Bajaj

I love what I’ve heard, so I would love to hear more.

Drew Vernon

Yeah. I think, I might just have one more thought, which, I don’t know if it’s snippy or or concise, but I I really just believe that, there’s a greater potential in exploring innovation than sometimes we believe. Like, sometimes people take the world for what it is and not necessarily what it can be. And so I’ve always tried to focus on my career on how things can change for the better and to not just take the status quo at face value, but to always try to question, why, you know, something better or more efficient or, you know, more helpful, can’t exist. And so that’s what I’ve done in my professional life with the programs that I’ve developed, and that’s guided a lot of my personal decisions as well.

Nitin Bajaj

I love that it brings all of your other perspectives, your lessons together, right, where you get to pick up and paint the colors that you want to see, right. So you get to be that change maker that you see the change that needs to happen, you go and make that change. So thanks for sharing those lessons. Yep.

Drew Vernon

And I don’t wanna underestimate how difficult it is because, you know, someone listening to this might be thinking, you know, it’s not that easy just to, like, you can do whatever you set your mind to and just wish it into existence. It’s there’s definitely a lot of work and, like, that’s the one thing I’ve learned the hard way is that it’s easy to have an idea. It’s easy to wish something to be better, but the difficulty comes with the the grit and the, the implementation of the idea, and that’s something that I still kinda wrestle with.

Nitin Bajaj

Absolutely. And and that’s why the the previous thing, the previous lessons you shared, where you get to make those choices. Do you want to live with a status quo? Do you want to do something about it? And doing something about it is not going to be easy, but if that’s what you want and that’s the change you want to bring about and if you’re successful at it, that’s what you become. And thanks again Drew for sharing those lessons and also sharing your journey and story. Really appreciate it. And also to you and the founders of Tonies for bringing such a wonderful tool to help shape our future.

Drew Vernon

Thank you. Well, thank you again for having me. I’ve I’ve enjoyed our conversation, and, I appreciate it.