To say the Smoot brothers have animal instinct is a bit of an understatement. The men behind the Zoobie Pets phenomenon have taken the toy world by storm — and by surprise. In just two short years, the patent-pending stuffed animals — which turn into pillows and blankets — have won 30 industry awards, landed gleefully into the hands of celebrities, bloggers and magazine editors, and turned its parent company into a million-dollar operation. “The response has been amazing,” says JC Smoot, 26, who started the venture with his brother, Reid, in 2007. “We make toys, and we have a lot of fun doing it. But it’s nice to know we’re something worth writing about.” And that you are.
The idea for Zoobies began as a break-off idea with the sourcing company my brother and I started. He lives in China, and in that business we work with medical and dental products — primarily plastics. At one point we did a big order of blankets and pillows for a company, and we had great pricing on the materials. Shortly thereafter, we came up with the concept for Zoobies.
We worked so hardon the concept and dumped a ton of money into it. We did a lot of research and tested the Zoobies at different day cares around town. They were a huge hit. Parents were loving it, and we knew we were on the right track.
Our first trade show cost us $23,000. We were doing the American International Toy Fair, which is the biggest toy show in America, and we went all out on this booth. We didn’t want to show up and look like a startup. We wanted to look like we had been around the block a couple times.
We showed up at the toy fair, and all the toy companies in the world were there. There were companies like Matel, Hasbro, LEGO — all the big guys. That first night I was so nervous. I was 24 at the time and realizing how much we were putting on the line. I threw up all night, and I wasn’t sick. It was all nerves.
I shouldn’t have been nervous. At the toy fair, our booth was literally swarmed with people. The fair took a poll of the “must-see things,” and we were in the top five companies out of 1,500 booths. There was a lot of buzz. It was a big deal.
We were approached by a lot of big box and high-end companies like FAO Schwarz asking when they could get us in their stores. We had 80 accounts by the end of that first show.
It felt good. We had spent so much time and money working on this, and it was great to know we had a good thing going. There was still so much to do — including moving the office out of my parent’s kitchen — but we were on our way.
The company name has nothing to do with BYU. I actually didn’t know about the “zoobies” term beforehand. We were firing around 200 different names, and I liked the word zoobie. Zoo animals … zoobies … Zoobie Pets. It just worked. I promise I’m not making fun of BYU students. I don’t think they’re caged animals.
Our stuffed animals are patent-pending, but more powerful than our patent is our brand. Within two years, I’ve never seen a brand in the toy industry grow this quickly — it typically takes years to get this kind of recognition. We’re actually busier than a lot of major national accounts. Their sales are bigger, but our hype is greater.
It’s been fun to see celebrities fall in love with their Zoobies. Meredith Vieira from The Today Show got a Zoobie from a fan, and out of the blue she wrote a blog post on how she carries it with her wherever she goes. Here was a grown woman who loved our stuffed animal — it was awesome. We were later on The Today Show, and then The Early Show called, and then the magazines started calling.
When we demo the product, there’s an audible gasp. People love it, and the best part is they keep coming back. You can always sucker someone into buying something once. But when they come back, that’s when you start celebrating.
We get e-mails from parents every day. They tell us how their kids can’t go to bed without it, or how it was a lifesaver on their vacation. And when we walk through the airport and see kids carrying it, it’s hard not to think, “We’ve got something here.”
When we demo the product there’s an audible gasp.