Darran Garnham is the founder and ceo of Toikido. An entertainment company at the cutting-edge of digital design and toys, Toikido leverages both its own IP and third-party properties, including Among Us, Gang Beasts and VeeFriends, and has just added Gaggle Studio’s Goose Goose Duck to its roster.
Here, Darran tells LicensingSource.net more about the deal, and how moving “at the speed of culture” helps give Toikido the edge.
Toikido isn’t a traditional toy company. How would you describe it?
I founded Toikido in 2020 with a mission to build remarkable brands that create excitement, emotion and attention. These can be creative brands we develop in-house or external brands that we help to grow their audiences and execute globally.
Toikido can be a one-stop ecosystem for brand owners. We are helping some partners just launch toys, and others as a full service with merchandise, retail planning, marketing, promotions and extensions into other forms of entertainment, such as animation and live action. This is an example of our non-traditional approach; we don’t have a menu of offerings, it’s not ‘one size fits all’ – we do what’s right for the brand based on the founder’s vision.
Our focus to date has been taking gaming into toys, merchandise, and promotions. We also have partnerships with Hollywood and media platforms, with some fun to come from the creator space soon. To give some numbers – last year we sold close to 20 million products across 75 countries in over 100,000 stores.
You’ve had huge success with gaming IP Among Us and Gang Beasts. How do you decide which games/properties to partner with? Is it easy to spot trends?
Sometimes our decisions are based on data, sometimes it’s the founder’s vision and sometimes it’s a gut feeling based on years of experience, or even the game’s disruption. Seeing Goose Goose Duck for the first time was a combination of all of these. The founders are our kind of people, who I could tell would embrace the way we work and our ability to succeed together.
I could picture the product line the second I played with my kids, and what Toikido could bring to the game’s fan base. Our aim is to sync both online play and offline products from the start through good planning, launch timings and the production of excellent and authentic products.
We try and spot trends. We set aside time to research, read and play. Take new meetings weekly, meet people from diverse industries. Ask questions. I’m extremely lucky to have a cfo (Dave Chattaway) who is a ferocious reader, and a chief creative officer (Jeff Hall) who loves researching new games and technology. If I have missed something I am confident they won’t have.
We are also fortunate to have very good standing in gaming, sport, the creator economy and family entertainment, something we nurture and never take for granted. We are also blessed as a team to be surrounded by our kids – they bolster our trend spotting, and they are the most honest members of the team, telling us what’s hot and what’s not. We get to see daily what’s grabbing their attention, online and in the playground.
I’m phenomenally proud that Toikido is becoming a go-to in the gaming space. It’s a testament to the team’s execution for the brands we have been representing that others want to trust us with their IP and games. At Toikido we’re all gamers at heart and don’t just view our partners as an opportunity to generate revenue. We’re fans of all our partners’ IP and take the time to understand each brand’s identity in full.
Can you share yet any of your plans for the Goose Goose Duck consumer products programme? Presumably there will be toys? Apparel? Maybe NFTs?
We will be moving fast for the fans in plush, collectables, apparel, and stationery. We will then work closely with the Gaggle team to link into their updates, keeping products and launches fresh and fun.
We love brands with a passionate community. The multiplayer party games that bring fans together online. Brands that we can not only feed with products but where we can communicate with and engage the audience in product planning/requests. We are looking into new ways to manufacture, places to manufacture and categories that are unique for each brand.
As mentioned before, we don’t have a fixed product line-up, we work up a bespoke line plan for each brand (with the fans in mind). We are fortunate to have such rich data from our experience in selling toys in the gaming space – we really lean into that; we know what fans like to buy in Brazil vs fans in Belgium!
You’ve recently developed your own in-house IP, Piñata Smashlings. What do you envisage the balance will be going forward between licences and your own IP?
Our partners will not see any difference between the way we work, talk about, or treat external IP and how we treat our own. We have brand vision ‘owners’ in the team for each IP, who we call ‘Vision Keepers’, and this keeps each one a priority.
On Piñata Smashlings, we have a big 18 months ahead. It will come to life in a multi-million-pound Roblox game launching globally in June, a toy launch in October, with publishing and collectibles, and then our animated series drops in 2024. This is a full 360 launch across multiple touchpoints of creative and content. I want this to be a calling card to licensors of what Toikido can deliver when we are given the freedom to execute.
How to you see the toy market evolving in years to come? Are you spotting any trends in play patterns?
We are seeing shifts in how entertainment is consumed and used. An explosion of influencers, creators, and platforms. My own kids’ heroes come from TikTok, Twitch and YouTube rather than Hollywood and sport. The nimble new creators and games springing up play directly into the Toikido ethos and speed. Play patterns are changing, digital and physical are rapidly merging, and you will need to move at the ‘speed of culture’ to thrive. We are also looking at investments and acquisitions in the digital space to complement our physical prowess.
What’s the company culture like at Toikido? How are you able to attract and retain the best people?
This is such a vital piece of the puzzle for me. I set out my own values very fast and hopefully lead by example. Family first, always. Mental health is vital. Take time, take breaks. Find the path of least resistance.
We have also leaned into building a team with amazing skills; a team who have worked on movies, TV shows, games and more to give us a rich base to create. We encourage the sharing of everything in the team and ‘hot properties’ is one of our most active Slack channels. We run the operation and planning like a game studio with scrums, stand-ups, and sprints. This is unique in the toy/entertainment space and allows us to be agile without compromising quality. We can move fast – we have two brands this month that went from pitch to signed contracts in less than 10 days, and are now in the team creative process for modelling, development, packaging, and so on.
Toikido has a fairly flat structure. We look out for and support each other. We don’t have age barriers to entry at any level. We also have a company share option pool which allows every member of the team to have ownership in the business.
Finally, I love the WOE moments – What On Earth. I like Toikido doing things differently. We can, so we should.
