The birth of jumpSHOT™

When my son started playing our local basketball Little League, I wanted to give him for Christmas a table basketball game I used to play with as a boy. That game had a plastic spring with a hole for a ping-pong ball to shoot baskets. It seemed to have disappeared from the market except for a puny toddler version. I thought about making one for my son and then I forgot about it. Some time later I drove over a bump in the road, my body jumped – and a light came on: “put a little figurine of Kobe on that old ‘catapult’ and make him shoot baskets!”

Such a game with figurines of NBA and NCAA players would have to be really popular,  right? Since nobody was making my great idea, I decided to get a patent for it, and tried to license it to Hasbro, Mattel and other toymakers. Most of them would not even bother to reply – even companies that make boring, static “(no-)action” figurines of NBA players!

Next, I tried to find a US manufacturer, unsuccessfuly. I went to Southeast Asia and Europe, but they all are so afraid of the Chinese competition that some even “sold our best equipment to them” in the words of one Southeast Asian factory owner. Finally, one of the Europeans told me to see his Hong Kong suppliers and have the table basketball made in China… After 5+ years of effort, our new jumpSHOT™ line is finally getting close to introduction, starting with that table basketball game. The basic game will have two paintable action figurines performing jump shot.

We plan to get licenses of NBA and NCAA players for an annually updated line of basketball action figurines. To lower your cost, the figurines will be sold separately, but they can be used  with our table basketball, multi-sport tables or by themselves. You’ll be able to add just your favorite NBA players to your table basketball game: will you choose Kobe vs. Wade, or Pau vs. Kevin?

In this blog I’ll tell you what we are working on, ask for your opinion, and talk about our struggles. I hope that somebody starting a company can learn something useful from my experience with (1) patenting my basketball action figurines, (2) trying to license and (3) produce a game or other products….