Lehigh Alum’s Kitrex Dinos, Dynamite Splash in Toy Industry
Mary Ellen Alu writes for Lehigh’s blog about a curious trend taking shape among its School of Management graduates: many are pursuing lucrative careers in the boutique toy industry.
According to an NPD Group study the blog cites, U.S. toy sales grew 7% to nearly $20 billion in 2015, due in no small part to E-commerce. The blog notes that two typical routes for inventors involve an established company either a) buying and taking on all the fabrication responsibilities or b) licensing his/her idea or design for the inventor to handle all the manufacturing on his/her own.
Regardless of how the idea gets from “farm to table,” so to speak, the blog posits that the true success of any toy arrives from its availability across “a variety of platforms, including brick-and-mortar retailers, online retailers, distributors, crowdfunding, social media, and more.”
When Lisa Glover ’13 enrolled at Lehigh, she initially planned to pursue a career in “sustainable architecture.” As part of an assignment for Lehigh’s Technical Entrepreneurship master’s program, Glover drew upon her background in architecture and childhood experiences with origami to concoct KitRex — “cardboard puzzle crafts that fold into colorful 3-D dinosaurs.” Much to her surprise, the dinosaurs were a campus hit.
Glover parlayed her campus buzz into not one but two successful KitRex Kickstarter campaigns, which have enabled her to buy the equipment necessary to fabricate what has turned out to be wildly popular velociraptor and pterodactyl designs.
According to Lehigh, “in less than two years of production, Glover has sold her dinosaur kits to more than 4,000 customers in 49 states, 42 countries and 10 retail outlets, including Amazon.com, and the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem.”
Glover works with kids to make sure that KitRex kits are “challenging, not frustrating” to assemble. The challenge of constructing cardboard dinosaurs, Glover explains, is what brings both creator and consumer “a lot of joy.”
After a stint at Ben Franklin TechVentures’ Baker Institute office following a first place win at the EUREKA! Ventures Competition, Glover’s company, Architrep, has set up shop at Allentown’s Bridgeworks Enterprise Center. Since then, Glover has exhibited her work at National Maker Faires in D.C. and northeastern Pennsylvania, and was invited to the upcoming National Week of Making. Word on the street is that Glover has an ace up her sleeve for her next launch with a 2-foot-long triceratops design.
You can read more about Lehigh alumni and fellow EUREKA! Ventures Competition winners Briana Gardell’s Goblies, Lauren Villaverde’s Stackablz 3-D puzzles, Shannon Varcoe’s Zyx Building Sticks, Keith Martin’s IncuMagic fingertip markers at the Lehigh School of Management blog.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
