TORONTO – Fresh off of their win at Toronto Startup Weekend, a group of Toronto-based startup hopefuls are taking their 3D printed kids game to a global level.
After taking home the top prize at the event, the newly formed startup is working to collect votes to become one of the top 15 teams from across the globe to present their idea to a panel of international judges.
If they win they will earn much-needed seed money for their business, as well as trips to places like Google headquarters where they will receive mentoring from A-list entrepreneurs.
The startup Griflens, led by mother and entrepreneur Alison Gibbins, uses 3D-printed story beads to allow kids to tell an interactive story that changes depending on which beads you have in your collection, both on and offline.
Kids can collect beads, making jewelry or keepsakes, and then create storylines and characters online.
WATCH: Griflens Interactive Story Beads
The 14 person team came together at Toronto Startup Weekend – an event where over 120 participants have only 54 hours to create a startup.
READ MORE: Toronto Startup Weekend kicks off, attracting tech funding hopefuls
“Everyone from my mom, to folks from Kingston, Ont. to London, England – we even have a fellow that recently moved to Canada from Iceland. We have skill sets ranging from people like me who specialize in business, to a recent grad who is doing computer stuff and two York University design grads,” said Gibbins.
“We have the gambit of experience – life experience, stages in life; the whole nine yards.”
Over the course of the weekend the team held two focus groups with children to test their idea – one that was well received by both parents and kids.
“We got really great feedback from the kids. The older kids really wanted to customize their beads – they wanted to create themselves,” said Gibbins.
“So we pivoted and adjusted our strategy so that we are doing the mass produced beads in sets, as well as allowing customers to create their own beads and their own stories.”
Gibbins said the group even made sales through the focus groups, prompting them to immediately start taking pre-orders through their website.
Due to the success of the initial focus groups, potential customers can now sign up on the Griflens website to become toy testers, allowing Gibbins and her team to continue to gain customer insight on how to better the idea.
“I truly believe in customer validation every step of the way, so we want to do a lot of co-creation with the kids and testing things as we build them,” Gibbins said.
“It’s just amazing to see what the kids say.”
Gibbins said her goal is to be the next Toronto-based startup to win the competition – further proving Toronto’s strong market for startups and entrepreneurs.
Last year Group Notes, a startup that was created at the Toronto startup weekend, went on to win the global competition. Group Notes has now moved into the Hyper Drive space in Waterloo and has acquired funding.
Voting remains open for the Global Startup Battle – but, only the top 15 startups with the most votes will go on to present their ideas to the panel of judges.
Users can vote for Griflens here.
In the meantime, Gibbins said the team is working to put together a campaign on crowd funding website Indiegogo to help raise money to create molds for their beads – the most expensive part of getting the business off the ground.
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