It started when a whimsical gift from Peru encountered a serious academic challenge at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. Dan Clay, enrolled in the masters of business administration program at the school, and sporting a llama finger puppet given to him as a travel memento by a friend, was tasked with inventing a product pitch. Recalling advice that the best business ideas solved actual problems, Clay noticed that it was impossible to operate his touchscreen phone while wearing the fabric finger puppet. He considered the traditional toy in the context of modern kids’ increasing interaction with mobile devices; the idea for DigiPuppets was born.
DigiPuppets are interactive finger puppets that kids can use to operate story and learning games by tapping and swiping them on touchscreen devices. The eponymously named kid-focused technology enterprise, which became a limited liability company in 2014 while its three creators were in their last year of business school, is now a bicoastal operation. Two of the co-founders setup shop in Portero Hill last year: Brendan Green, a Mandarin speaker who has traveled extensively in China and loves logistical puzzles, handles operations and Chinese manufacturing as chief executive officer. Matt Newcomb, who has Wall Street experience, serves as chief growth officer, and heads finance and business development. Chief creative officer Clay, who among other things writes story scripts and songs based on his learning puppets idea, runs the creative team from New York.
The DigiPuppets – a blue rabbit named Honey Bunny and a little zebra named Zip – are manufactured from a proprietary material that allows them to easily grab and swipe touchscreens when worn on children’s fingers. Green and company got the manufacturing process underway in 2014. “The [manufacturing consultants] warned us about the bunny,” Green laughed, “because it is so difficult to manufacture anything with parts that stick out. As you know, bunnies have large ears.” But in the end, Green said, Honey Bunny, who was the star of the first DigiPuppets story, was too cute for the team to abandon.
Now Honey and Zip interact with four IOS and three Android apps. The free apps developed by DigiPuppets provide interactive background stories that focus on positive values, like inclusion, and with various games that teach skills, such as counting, finding, and memory-matching. The games and stories, with titles like, “Honey’s Hide and Peek,” and, “Honey Bunny Learns to Share,” are designed with a team of seasoned elementary school teachers. The toys and games, created for ages three to six, are themselves kid-tested and approved.
“We’re all uncles and I’m a godparent. Our experiences with the kids we know give us a lot of our ideas,” Green said. “We do some focus group testing, offering the toys locally through the NextDoor app and then getting the kids’ feedback. It’s like DigiPuppets playdates.”
The product was launched last fall, and was in stores in time for Christmas, with placements in 29 Bloomingdales, 15 independent outlets, at Amazon, app stores, and through the company’s own website. Operating with less than $1 million after four rounds of funding between 2013 and 2015, Digipuppets chose to market primarily through social media and at in-person events at libraries and similar outlets. Last Halloween, the company gave away 400 DigiPuppets to kids outside Hazel’s Kitchen on 18th Street. The reception so far has been positive, with mentions on The Today Show.
“Touchscreens are the most popular kids’ toy,” Green said. “Disney and other companies do similar things with characters and learning for television, but those are passive experiences, and we wanted something interactive and fun for kids focused on mobile, since 50 percent of kids’ screen time is spent with mobile devices.”
DigiPuppets has sold 2,000 puppets to date at $9.99 each, and is developing additional characters and story arcs that create an entire interactive world. A cast of characters that includes a dog, a cat, and a human princess are already part of the DigiPuppets story world online. According to Green, now that the company has shown the products have toy-industry legs, the next step is seeking-out license holders of existing popular characters that could be developed into touchscreen-interactive finger puppets of their own.
