Two Years, 45+ Countries, 100,000+ Retail Doors, and a Whole Lot of Toys!

The Born To Play toy company started with a friendship, a dinner in New York, and a very exciting conversation.

Two years later, we’re sold in over 45 countries and more than 100,000 retail doors worldwide, with a growing lineup of trend crafts, collectibles, and squishies. We have a permanent California showroom and have even built our own 3D printing division here in America. Our team now spends a considerable amount of time thinking about dragons, DIY creations, and exactly how squishy something should be.

But let me back up to the beginning.

In 2020, I was expanding Blippi through licensing partnerships in all kinds of categories. I signed Jazwares as our master toy partner, Round Room for the live show, and K-Swiss for footwear, before later moving to Ground Up International. I signed deals for bedding, bath soaps, toothbrushes, sippy cups, you name it, we made it. Basically, a kid could wake up in Blippi bedding, brush their teeth with a Blippi toothbrush, do a Blippi painting, put on Blippi shoes, play with a Blippi toy, and head to a Blippi live show. Creative Kids was our master arts and crafts licensee, which is how Daniel and I were introduced.

I really enjoyed working with Daniel and his company. He knew the toys, activities, and crafts business, cared about making great products, and followed through on what he said he would do. I was proud of the Blippi crafts he and his team created, and we built a lot of trust along the way. Over time, we became friends and stayed in touch, even after our work on Blippi together was finished.

After selling Blippi and finishing my time performing as the character with Moonbug, I took a two year sabbatical. It was a chance to slow down and enjoy life after spending years building something that had become much bigger than I ever imagined.

Eventually, though, I started getting that itch to create again.

Daniel and I had stayed in touch, and I asked if he wanted to get together. I flew out to New York, we went to dinner, and the conversation turned into: “What if we started a company together?”

We talked about the products we could create, how we could market them, and what we wanted the company to become. Daniel brought deep toy industry experience, and I brought my experience building a brand and connecting with families through content.

It was a surprisingly productive dinner. Most dinners just leave you with leftovers.

In a nutshell, he and I took the next couple of months to figure out the new company. He officially left Creative Kids, and we were off to the races!

From That Dinner to 100,000 Doors

Seeing how far Born To Play has come in two years is pretty wild!

Today, our products reach families through retailers including Target, BJ’s, Dollar General, Barnes & Noble, Dollar Tree, Wegmans, Walgreens, Macy’s, Meijer, B&M, El Corte Inglés, and so MANY more.

We’ve participated in Nuremberg’s toy fair every year, and I’ve made a couple of trips myself. We also have a permanent, year-round showroom in El Segundo, California, right next to the Mattel building.

Like many toy companies, we work with manufacturing partners overseas to bring our ideas to life. There’s a lot that happens between dreaming up a toy and getting it onto a store shelf, and these past two years have given me quite an education in all of it.

The growth is exciting, but so is the confidence we’ve earned. Buyers know us now. They’ve seen us deliver what we promise. They understand the quality, creativity, and value we bring.

That takes a tremendous amount of work from our team, and I’m proud of it.

The Plot Twist: Tariffs

Of all the things I expected to spend time thinking about while building a toy company, international trade policy was not near the top.

Then, in 2025, the tariffs happened.

It was a rough period across the industry. Big companies and small companies were navigating rising costs and uncertainty while still trying to get products made overseas and delivered.

During that time, Daniel called me with an idea: what if we started a massive 3D printing farm here in the USA? We talked through the opportunity, both agreed it made sense, and got to work building it.

That phone call turned into an entire 3D printing division… and one of the largest 3D printing farms in all of North America.

An actual farm of printers making toys. Fewer tractors than you might expect.

It has become an exciting part of Born To Play. We can develop ideas, turn them into physical products, and keep expanding what we make here at home. And we can do it very fast. Print Play, Click Crew, Flexeez, and Dragon X are some of the fun toy lines coming out of our farm.

I love seeing an idea become something you can hold. Watching a dragon emerge from a printer makes that process especially entertaining.

A Few Current Favorites

Our specialty is trend crafts, collectibles, and squishies. Basically, if something makes you say, “Wait, let me hold that,” we’re interested.

Softkins is a brand we’ve been working really hard on lately, and I love where it’s going. Think food meets animals, with a kawaii, Japanese grocery-inspired look. They’re soft, slow-rise, and ridiculously cute.

The kind of thing you buy for your kid and then find yourself squeezing while answering emails.

Nano Art is all about making your own creations. With products like the Bubble Pump Factory, you can pump up bubbles and add fun mix-ins. You can also use Nano Art with slime to create little DIY squishies.

Watching kids turn materials into something of their own is a huge part of the appeal. And apparently, people enjoy watching it happen, too: Nano Art content has passed 100 million views on our Born To Play Brands YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@BornToPlayBrands

One hundred million views of people discovering what you can make with this stuff. Those ain’t Blippi numbers, haha, but it still makes me stop for a second and think, “Holy crap!”

Print Play is one of the lines we make through our 3D printing operation, with fidget-style products that are hard to put down. Flexeez brings that same fun into little collectible characters that wiggle, flex, and move.

Then there’s Taba World: super squishy, super sticky characters with that immediately satisfying feel. You really have to pick one up to understand it. Written descriptions can only take a squishy so far.

We also have brands like Super Dough, Stack Mates, Click Crew, Magic Water Jellies, and our Miracle-Gro licensed line. There’s a lot happening around here.

But one brand deserves a little extra space.

We’ve Been Making Dragons

I’ve really enjoyed building Dragon X.

3D printed dragons are hugely popular, and I kept thinking about how much more we could build around them. I remember talking to Daniel about creating a dragon line with distinct characters, different powers and themes, and a world kids could get excited about.

Something you could collect because you loved the individual dragons and because you wanted to see what came next.

Every Dragon X dragon has its own distinctive articulating tail, along with a look and personality that helps set it apart.

We now have two series, and they’re selling really well. Some of my favorite themes include cyborg, lava, electricity, and skeleton. Then you get into venom, radioactive, rainbow, and tiki.

Apparently, choosing a favorite dragon is now a difficult decision in my adult life.

We recently launched DragonXWorld.com, where you can explore more of the lineup. And yes, I would love to turn Dragon X into a TV show someday. Once you start creating characters like these, it’s hard to keep your imagination contained to the toy shelf.

Growing Has Also Meant Getting More Focused

One of the biggest lessons from these two years is that you can have a lot of good ideas and still need to choose where your energy goes.

Early on, we developed a lot of lines very quickly. As we learned more, we started sunsetting some so we could put more attention behind the ones we believed in most.

Nickelodeon Slime was one of them. We made products under that license and got them into stores (even into Target!), but ultimately decided to move on. Apparently, kids these days would rather have Crazy Aaron’s slime than Nickelodeon Slime… who knew?

Licensing comes with commitments: upfront costs, approvals, ongoing communication, and time. Those can make sense for the right opportunity. We’ve also seen how much opportunity there is to create, launch, and market brands of our own.

Today, we have roughly eleven core lines we’re pushing. For a lean team, that’s still plenty. Nobody is sitting around wondering what to do after lunch.

But I believe in the lineup. Focusing our effort gives us more room to make each brand stronger, develop better products, and build something with a future.

Two Years In, and Still Having Fun

I’m proud of the products. I’m proud of our packaging, which I think our team absolutely crushes. And I’m proud that families around the world are discovering things we’ve created.

Most of all, I’m proud of the people building this company.

Daniel and the entire Born To Play team have brought so much creativity, experience, and effort to these first two years. We’ve learned a lot, worked through unexpected challenges, and had a lot of fun together.

That dinner in New York turned into something pretty special.

To everyone who has bought a toy, stocked our products, worked with us, or supported us: thank you.

Now, back to the very serious business of deciding whether the next toy should glow, squish, click, or somehow do all three.