GOLDIEBLOX HAS LANDED!

Whoa! Did you see that? It all happened so fast and with a whirling blur of gold, but there’s little doubt that GOLDIEBLOX HAS LANDED!

From San Jose to the south of France – everyone is talking about the new toy that will inspire future generations of engineers. Everyone.

Even here in tiny Rhode Island, Goldie has popped up in newspapers, on Facebook, in videos and even in conversations with strangers. It’s incredible! It’s exciting! It’s a little creepy…

I mean who is Goldie exactly? And who are these pals of hers? How did she make it through customs with a veritable zoo of friends and a belt full of tools? Just what are they up to with this spinning machine?

Also, how is it even possible for a relatively unknown girl to suddenly be everywhere? Is Goldie going for Santa’s job? Is this some sort of surprise spring attack? New toys in March? Madness!

PLUS she’s stepped onto the scene and has promised to shake things up. It’s no longer just pink or princesses or fashion frills for girls.

I’ll tell you this, if I hadn’t grown up with Debbie and Steph, I’d be rounding up the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa and Cupid screaming “HELP! INVASION! GOLDIE’S COMING AND SHE’S CHANGING EVERYTHING!”

In light of these very well tempered and well-reasoned concerns, I decided to look around for some answers.

So I asked my friend Dr. Magee.

You see, Dr. Magee is not only an experienced educator; he’s also a father of three girls. When I asked him what he thought about GoldieBlox he didn’t hesitate:

“I was thrilled to find not just a role model for girls interested in science, but a path to generating that interest and actualization in the first place. Great game, even greater cause!”

Fine, I thought, but what about this cast of characters she’s associated with? Surely they’re up to no good – especially this Nacho guy.

Dr. Magee said he would provide me with some footage that may help my case and sure enough Nacho was no where to be found:

Goldie and the rest of the gang have a pass for now but I’ve got my eye on Nacho and I’m keeping watch here on the East Coast for any more signs of total Goldie domination.

Until next time…Hammer on!

Ships Ahoy! GoldieBlox is on the boat…

Out on the ocean, far from all the commotion… GoldieBlox is on the slow boat from the factory!

Mark your calendars; the toys will arrive on or around February 26th (which is also Debbie’s 30th birthday!)

If you are expecting a toy in February, the wait is almost over. Once the boat clears customs, the Goldie team will be hustling to pack up the toys so they will arrive on your doorstep in a matter of weeks! We could not be more thrilled that all of your girls finally get to play with Goldie, and we’re so excited to see all of the creativity that erupts from their imaginative minds. Thank you all again for your patience and support, this wouldn’t be possible without you!

Another update… Team Goldie has moved! We found the perfect office…we can even walk around without bumping into each other.  And this office actually has windows (see below).  We painted our walls Goldie yellow, and the team already feels so inspired. We anticipate lots of creative ideas to flow in this office, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted on the best (and maybe the worst!) of them.

Keep your fingers crossed for us this weekend.  Goldie’s headed to the big apple and the team will be showing her off at Toy Fair.  This is Goldie’s coming out party, the toy industry’s first chance to see the toy in person.  We’ll let you know how it goes, but we have a feeling it’s going to be amazing.  You’ve given us faith that so many people out there want more for their girls.

Until next time…

Yours,

Team Goldie

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a…poopy diaper?

Here at GoldieBlox HQ, our team is super-charged, super-motivated, and we like to approach challenges by playing to our strengths; things we refer to as our “Superpowers”

You all know Debbie by now. She’s intelligent, driven, charming and wickedly funny. Her enthusiasm for the ideas she embraces is infectious, and she’s almost impossible to say ‘no’ to. She can parallel park during rush-hour, drinking coffee, with one hand on her iPhone while singing the rap from “Waterfalls”. But none of these things are her super-power.

No, her super-power is irreverence. Debbie is completely irreverent, and it adds magic to everything she does.  From punch lines to PowerPoint presentations, to the very concept that brought us all here in the first place.

Engineering toys for girls don’t sell? Who cares?!

Girls only like pink and frills and fairies? Says who?!

I love this about her; we all do. It keeps us on our toes, and prevents us from slipping in to the dangerous, crippling world of “I’m doing it this way because it’s been done before. I’m doing it this way because it’s safe. I’m doing it this way because I know how.”

In Debbie’s case, irreverence fosters innovation.

So, what about me?

I’m Lindsey. My official title here is “VP Sales”, but I’m considering changing it to “number 2” because I was Debbie’s first hire, and I like poop jokes.

As the VP of  Sales, you can rightfully guess that I’m an extrovert, that I connect well with people , and that I can be pretty persuasive. These things are true, but not my super powers.

My super power actually has a lot more to do with those poop jokes.

 

Meet Stone and Paolo.

Yes, I have two boys. Alanis, eat your heart out.

They change everything, don’t they? Nothing ever looks the same again. Kids turn Pyrex to platinum, an improperly sliced hot-dog in to a lethal weapon, and a dirty diaper in to a comprehensive health report.  I read somewhere once that these changes can be credited to something called “The Mommy Prism”. That term is a little cutesy for my liking, but the premise is that we can never see things again without putting them through the shape-shifting filter of motherhood, and I believe this premise to be sound.

I call it “parent-noia”, and it’s the reason that you’ll never see me without my cell phone.

It comes on slowly, but the effects are undeniable.The first time you’re handed your new baby, tender and vulnerable, you can’t imagine that you’ll ever have the confidence to bring that sweet creature outdoors, much less put them in a moving vehicle. We learn to diaper, swaddle and nurse. We forget to check the temperature of the bathwater. We find out, too late, that there was peanut butter in that cupcake.All the while, we’re reaching out; calling our mothers, texting our friends, scouring the internet for advice and validation.

Am I doing this right? Am I screwing up? Yes. You are. On both counts. We all are.

This is a hard pill to swallow, the hardest. There’s nothing we want more than to do it perfectly, to earn an A+. We want to nail this one. They deserve it, these babies, and the thought of making a mistake is paralyzing.

The reality, though, is that these mistakes are the good stuff. The nap-times where we’re so tired that we put their pajamas on without a diaper. The night you rush him to the hospital for a particularly bad case of gas. The time I snipped off the tip of her finger with the nail clippers.  The “oops” moments that act as the great equalizer…they happen to all of us, and they make us stronger, better, braver, more cautious and more forgiving all at once.

You can’t learn without failing, and they won’t thrive if we don’t learn. And so, for our babies, we learn to fail with grace.

Enter GoldieBlox. I’m the VP Sales at a start-up. We make toys; toys that have never been made before. I’m doing things that I’ve never done before, and it’s scary. I want so badly to do it right; I want to nail this one. I can’t imagine taking this sweet creature to market, much less placing her on the shelf. But I will, our girls need me to, and I’ll make mistakes along the way.

It’ll all work out. Someday, the original members of Team Goldie will laugh about the stupid things we did this year, and I’ll laugh the hardest.

Because that’s my super-power.

Notes from the Assembly Line

This Monday I woke up early, checked my email, and found out that our production completion was a week ahead of schedule (wahoo!). This meant I needed to head to the factory ASAP to do a final quality control inspection. I already had a flight booked to Hong Kong for the following week, so I checked online to see if I could get an earlier flight. Indeed, the only flight option that was even remotely affordable was leaving in 4 hours. So I booked the flight, threw some clothes in a bag and raced to the airport. And since I booked the flight that morning, it should have been no surprise that I was in the very last row of the airplane.

Luckily, the seat next to me was empty, but one seat over was this very strange looking man. Well, actually, I’m not sure what he looked like because he was wearing the blue airline blanket over his head and body like a hijab. As soon as the plane took off, the strange robed man proceeded to lay out across the entire row, his socks practically in my lap. Even after a good 45 minutes of the worst turbulence I’ve ever encountered, this man still would not move. How come he gets to lay down and not me? Don’t ladies typically get the right of way in this scenario? About halfway through the 14-hour flight, the man finally got up to use the restroom. Now was my chance! I sprawled out across the row, double blankets and pillows in place. He returned with a scowl, nudged me and said, “Hey, I was sleeping.” So I retorted, “Yeah, and now it’s MY turn!” He relented, and I lay there, unable to sleep, wondering how many hours had passed since my last dose of Dramamine.

Seven hours later, the plane landed at Hong Kong airport. I wandered through immigration like a zombie, and was proud of myself for figuring out how to take the train to my hotel instead of a taxi. The only thing on TV to watch in English was “Con Air,” so I watched that, trying not to think about how much my plane mate resembled “Cyrus the Virus.”

Dennis, my brilliant engineer contact from the factory, picked me up from my hotel the next morning to escort me to the final assembly check. The trip to the factory is long. A ninety minute cab ride, followed by long lines at the immigration portal, followed by another ninety minute cab ride. Sometimes I think Dennis pretends to know less English than he does to avoid my annoying small talk. Nevertheless, I ascertained that he’s been married for 10 years, no plans for kids, heading to Japan with his wife for Chinese New Years and likes photography. When we finally arrived at the factory, my stomach was growling. Dennis gave me a bottle of water. I wished it was a bottle of cookie dough.

We headed upstairs to check out the assembly line. And there is was: GoldieBlox. Thousands of wheels getting Velcro-glued on by hand. Enormous bags of dolphins, sloths and dogs, getting cleaned and inspected, one-by-one, and sealed into little plastic baggies. I stood there for a moment in an absolute daze, kind of like a euphoria mixed with disbelief. This is really happening. It was absolutely surreal.

Dennis brought me the first toy off the assembly line to inspect. I took all the pieces out of their baggies – they were all there and they all looked perfect. I flipped through the book – all the pages were there in the right order. Then, I started to play with the toy. I stuck an axle into the pegboard hole and…oh no. My heart sank. It was too tight. My mind started racing. I looked to Dennis in despair. He said, “Oh yes, board too tight.”

“WELL THEN WHAT DO WE DOOOOO??” I screamed (in my head). We had gone back and forth seven times to get this board right. I was in a state of shock. Then, Dennis brought out a bag of axles from his desk and told me to try one. It fit perfectly. Turns out, the axles differ in diameter slightly, and I had pulled a thick one. We measured the axles with calipers and found that they were all between 0.598mm – 0.605mm. Anything 0.603mm or greater would be too tight. Dennis assured me he could go back through all the axles and discard any that were 6.03mm or greater. Problem solved. Oh man am I happy I booked that earlier flight! PHEW!

By the time I was leaving the factory to go back to my hotel, all the workers were hanging outside, changed into their regular clothes. They got to leave work early that day for a big company dinner party. They all looked really happy. It made me feel good. I headed back to my hotel solo, via taxi and train, with hours to reflect on this amazing journey of GoldieBlox. We are off to a good start. Now, I wonder who’s gonna sit next to me on my plane ride back?

The Scoop

Here’s a much-awaited update!

We wouldn’t be here without your support and wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes peek on our progress over the last couple of months. We’ve been working around the clock to get GoldieBlox perfect and hit our February deadline. We are so excited that we are on track; nothing short of a miracle!

It all started back in October. Once we started production, it was time to get all of the construction pieces working perfectly. The holes in the pegboard first came back a bit too big. And then they came back too small. We literally went through seven revisions of the board before they finally came back JUST right! This has been Goldie’s most complex task to date, and we’re confident that we’ve finally nailed it.

Amongst all the chaos and excitement here at GoldieBlox, Debbie flew all the way across the world and back in two days to visit our factory and make sure everything was going according to plan.

December was a very busy month as well! We never would have thought that having tools peeking out of the hoodie pockets would be impossible to mass-produce. We’d like to thank the handful of people that spent what seemed like endless hours ironing each decal on by hand – Sydney Malawer, Smiley Poswolsky, Stephanie Glasband & James Hague. It’s all worth it to us in the end to see you all in your Goldie gear! We shipped the first round out and we would love for you all to post pictures wearing them on our Facebook page.

We’ve also been working on small improvements to the toy and the packaging. We have a brand new ribbon (pictured below) that is much sturdier and Goldie-worthy. We’ve gone through mutliple press checks and paper samples to get everything in tip top shape to pass the ultimate test: your girls’ approval.

It’s been amazing to watch our samples come to life in this way, and we couldn’t be happier with the vibrant colors and fun patterns that we used. Goldie and her friends are jumping off the pages, and we can’t wait to hear all about the adventures your girls have with them. Read on to see some top-secret pictures below.

Even though our Kickstarter campaign is over, we’ve still been getting a lot of buzz in the press! Here are a few amazing mentions of GoldieBlox that we are so happy to share:

“GoldieBlox, an alternative to toys more concerned with looks than brains.” – Boston Globe

“Move over Barbie, there is a new kid on the block.” – Forbes

“Debbie Sterling wants to re-engineer the world, one girl at a time.” – Huffington Post

That’s all for now. Next stop…your doorstep!

Love,

Team Goldie

It Runs in the Family

Hello everyone!  I’d like to introduce myself as the newest member of the GoldieBlox team.  My name is Stephanie and my official role here at Goldie is “People Person” – something I’ll talk more about in a minute. First, I wanted to let you all in on a little secret…

I’m also Debbie’s little sister!

Before I go forward I want to take you all back to the very beginning. Before GoldieBlox. Before Kickstarter. Before Stanford. And even before me.

Debbie was three when I decided to come along and by then she had already developed a pretty active imagination.  Outgoing and determined, she would put together short skits and created games that almost always included me. I didn’t mind. In fact, I thought it was cool having someone as creative as her to look up to.

But then, high school came along and suddenly Debbie was not just my big sister; she was also a senior and I was just a mere freshman.

Suddenly, it became clear that keeping up with my big sis would be a tall order – both literally and figuratively.

Back then; it felt like no matter what I did, Debbie would always be faster than me, smarter than me and more likely to amaze our parents!

Take this for an example: One day I discovered the white shark bite was discontinued from our favorite fruit snacks.  I told our parents I was going to write a letter to the company. Impressed, they encouraged me to do it and so I let my big sister in on the plan.

Well, what did Debbie do? She managed to get nearly our entire school to sign a petition to boycott the fruit snack if the flavor didn’t come back.  And you know what? It did. Along with a year’s supply and an apology from the company.

She was always one-upping me! But this time the consequences were sweet…for the both  of us.

Since then I realized Debbie and I didn’t have to be in competition.  In fact, I learned that when sisters work together as a team the results are even more fulfilling! (I mentioned the year’s supply of fruit snacks, right?)

So now here we are. Debbie has created this amazing new toy and has decided to include me.  And I’m thrilled.

I packed up my whole life and moved here to San Francisco to help my big sis and the GoldieBlox dream come true.

I’m so excited about this new adventure that I’ve been wearing my GoldieBlox hoodie since I started.  Seriously, it’s getting funky.

But it’s all for a good cause.  And if I can help get this toy in the hands of a child, and get them exploring spatial relations, so one day they can become the next great engineer, inventor, creator, designer or you-name-it…then that’s a job well done. Smelly sweatshirt and all.

These first two weeks have been, well, challenging. After finding a new place to live, locating a new favorite pizza place, navigating new roads and getting my puppy Riley all settled I was tuckered out. And, honestly, a little lost.

Now, Debbie and the whole GoldieBlox team, evidently, don’t sleep so resting wasn’t really an option for me. I’ve had to jump right in and start figuring things out…like what it means to be a “People Person.”

Now this part involves you so, as Goldie says: Listen up!

I am your official go-to-girl. I am your troubleshooter, your question answerer, package tracker and all-around problem solver. I respond to emails, answer telephones, write blogs and provide you with Goldien customer service.

Think of me as Goldie’s tool belt. I’m here to make sure everyone and everything stays in place. So if you have a question, or concern, or idea, or comment let me know! I’m here.

-Stephanie, GoldieBlox “People Person”

Ps- From time to time I may come here to dish a little on my big sister Debbie and give you some behind the scenes GoldieBlox info only a sister can provide. Until next time… hammer on!

A Wild Ride.

We just went from 0 to 1000 MPH in 6 weeks. In that time GoldieBlox raised over $285,000 on Kickstarter, got published in over 70 publications and blogs including The Atlantic, The Guardian and Forbes, won three awards at the World Maker Faire in New York, pitched on the main stage in front of 2,000 people at SOCAP, was featured on a panel run at the New York General Assembly, among many other things that would make this blogpost just way too long.

In all of this our team learned a lot of lessons. Our greatest lesson? Never underestimate the power of people. When you are a company, a brand, you have to treat your early adopters like family. They are the ones who will be most forgiving as you go through growing pains, who will be your cheerleaders even if you slip up, and who will feel your highs and lows as if they’re their own highs and lows too.

So to our Goldie family, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. We’re working hard to make sure that GoldieBlox leaves its mark on society, and we know you’re sittin’ shotgun with us.