5 Toy Maker Success Stories [2023]

My name is Mat Hofma, and I created Mini Materials. We sell miniature masonry and woodworking supplies like cinder blocks, red bricks, pallets, lumber, and even molds to pour your own cinder blocks.

Since then we've expanded to different styles of mini masonry and even kits to build models.

My founders and I all LOVE building. We’re freaking obsessed with it and it’s an incredibly empowering experience to us. It’s the reason we all bonded as friends.

• 3d printers were wayyyyy too expensive
• The status quo of the 3d printing experience sucked for kids (it took us months to get comfortable with it as highly technical adults). We figured if we could figure out how to build this thing at a low price and with great user experience, then we could absolutely take the market by storm. Luckily, we were all user experience engineers with a knack for hardware. So we set out to do it.

My full-time job is in advertising. (Think Don Draper with less Brylcreem,) And from 2005 to 2012, I worked at JWT, the United States Marine Corps’ longtime ad agency. As the Creative Director, I was in charge of recruitment advertising - writing the television commercials, print ads, billboards, etc - for the Marines during two of the most unpopular wars in our nation’s history.

Today, we donate ZZZ Bears monthly to children who have lost a parent in the line of duty through our partnership with TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors).