The Business Model Shuffle

A recent AP article profiled a company called Baby Plays, the brainchild of Houstonian Lori Pope. The idea is simple: instead of buying lots of toys for your kid (and watching your kid get sick of them), Baby Plays will rent you toys Netflix-style; you get a set number for a monthly fee, and when the kid’s sick of them, you ship them back and get new ones. Meanwhile, Baby Plays cleans the toys thoroughly, checks them for damage, and sends them off to somebody else.

I’ll make no predictions about whether the company will succeed or how many people will adopt this rent-a-toy model, but three things struck me about Lori Pope and her business.

The first is just an observation about starting a business. People often wish they’d have that brilliant, utterly original idea that will make them into successful entrepreneurs. Pope didn’t do that; she had a good idea that really is borrowing a business model that’s worked in one market (video rentals, Netflix-style) and applying it to another one. By shifting those four P’s of marketing around, a lot of interesting opportunities appear. (So can some dismal failures - I’m not holding my breath for, say, renting undergarments by mail!) But the best ideas often aren’t totally original - they’re reapplying things that we’ve already seen work to new situation. And, most importantly, putting them into action. Great ideas occur to people all the time; Pope actually went and made a business out of hers. Good for her.

The second is that reapplying business models doesn’t always work, and usually requires some tinkering. Pope hasn’t adopted Netflix’s “send it back and we’ll send you something right away” approach; toy shipments are monthly only, which probably makes the whole thing manageable (and therefore potentially profitable). And I think one of the risks to her business is that toys aren’t DVDs; they’re in the hands (and mouths!) of your kids, and no matter how much Clorox Baby Plays applies to those toys, there are some parents who will find the whole idea a bit disturbing.

The third and final thought: I don’t know how Pope is promoting her service, but it seems like a natural for social media for several reasons. Parents like to talk about parenting; there are already extensive online communities for her target customers. Talking to other parents could help a lot of potential customers get over their concerns about giving their kids used toys. And whenever someone tries something new, there are going to be glitches; social media could keep Baby Plays in close touch with customers to find out what problems are brewing and what change customers might want.

I’m not a parent, but I love this idea for my own reason: reusing toys means fewer toys sitting in landfills. Spreading the costs of toys over more people makes it more feasible for people to have higher quality toys that aren’t assembled far away by low-wage workers from questionable materials (lead paint, anybody?). These are good things for those of us who only buy toys for our nephews and nieces twice a year, too.

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