What is Toe's Town?
Not all start-ups are tech plays. This start-up is a unique line of 65 multi-occasion greeting cards branded as Toe’s Town. The greeting card industry is boring and predictable, Toe’s Town cards are hilarious, and different in the fact that the front or cover of the card is a stand alone illustrated joke (it doesn’t say, “hey I hear it’s your birthday”) The cards are perforated at the top where the card is folded so the joke can be separated from the rest of the card and pinned to your favorite surface.
Surprisingly the ability to send electronic greeting cards has not decimated the physical greeting card industry as it still remains a multi-billion dollar industry.
What is going on in the industry
Although greeting cards have long been part of the way society communicate with one another, the industry is seeing fewer repetitive customers stop by to purchase a card. It is an industry that is within its declining life-cycle stage because there are more digital options for communication today than ever before.
That doesn’t mean the industry is dead. Far from it. There are still many dedicated consumers who will purchase between 30-60 greeting cards each year for distribution.
The one variable which is difficult to predict for the industry is the Millennial shopper. Young Millennials especially, coming from homes that have incorporated high levels of technology, are sometimes placing more emphasis on handwritten messages than previous generations. In some geographic regions, such as the U.S. East Coast, Millennials spend an average of $6 per card instead of the $2 to $4 of the average consumer.
If more Millennials embrace this trend, the greeting card industry may do more than survive. It will begin to thrive once again.
Creating Toe's Town
Founder Tory has this weird way of storing many of the silly/stupid things people in his circle have said and done over the years. He just cant get these moments out of his head so he decided to make a line of funny comics called Toe’s Town (his nickname is Toe) and try to get them syndicated.
Tory tried getting syndicated for a about a year, reaching out to all the major syndicators out there. Unfortunately the comic syndication segment is shrinking dramatically every year so this was not a viable option for him. Tory then came to the realization that he could use my jokes/comics as the front cover for a unique new line of greeting cards.
Tory is an inventor by trade and has brought many new products to market over the years, but this Toe’s Town initiative is one that has him all wrapped up. He loves it, he gets to make people laugh for a living. Tory's other inventions cost millions of dollars to bring to market, ge needed to be concerned with banks, investors, patents, production etc etc, not so with Toe’s Town.
What Toe's Town is building
The rationale of calling the initiative Toe’s Town was to create a place where all our characters in our cards live and interact, much like Springfield in the Simpsons. By having all its characters live and cross paths in the mythical place called Toe’s Town, the company affords itself and endless amount of runway from a creativity perspective. The team are committed to getting their brand exposed through various retail shops with their big vision to create a television series called Toe’s Town.
One of Toe's Town big successes is to be accepted as a vendor on the RangeMe online platform. It is a site where buyers from across North America (and around the world) go to look for new product lines. This type of platform has really taken off during Covid as most of the trade shows being cancelled and the limiting of travel and in person meetings.
How Toe's Town is changing lives
It sounds corny but Toe's Town makes people laugh out loud. Seriously, the world needs to laugh right now more than ever and our cards do that. If Tory had to pick one persons life that has been changed by this project, he would have to pick his own. Tory was killing himself working 16 hour days bringing products to market. For the most part it takes years to bring a product to market and the joy you experience at the beginning of the product development process can be greatly diminished through the many trials during the journey. With Toe’s Town, Tory sees something funny and turn it into a comic and the joy is immediate.
Check it out: https://toestown.com/
Follow on social:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toestown/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toes.town/