TOTW: Open Source Stuffed Animals Squishable

Social media is great for a lot of things, such as keeping in touch with friends or searching for interesting articles, but it has never yet been used like the way Zoe Fraade-Blanar and her husband Aaron Glazer use it. They are the founders of the 11 person company Squishable, who are out to make the cutest and most diverse set of stuffed animals to ever set foot on the market. They even made a Squishable Axolotl. Never heard of it? Point proven.

The Squishable Axolotl

The Axolotl

So how do stuffed animals have anything to do with social media? Well, Squishable uses social media sites like Facebook to take advice and search for new ideas for their ever-growing collection of plushes! As an example, here is a post they did on Facebook last Wednesday:

As you can see, Squishable takes the public into account, which greatly boost the customer satisfaction. Squishable is probably the only toy company that does that, which explains it’s huge following. Plus, I personally think Squishables come out better than competing brands. But that’s not all Squishable has to do with the public.

Squishable Cuthulhu

Open Squish is Squishable’s biggest advantage over other toy companies. Open Squish is a program where anyone over the age of 18 to can submit a design for a future Squishable! First, you can download a template and use that as a base for your design. Then, you upload your design to Squishable’s website to be approved. If it is approved, your design gets put into a contest, in which people can vote on all the approved designs for the best one of the week. All of those will be prototyped and the few successful prototypes will be made into Squishables (mini or regular)! You can even look at and critique the prototypes. If it is not as successful or has something wrong, it could end up as a Limited Edition, where only 1,000 will be made commercially available. Plus, the prize for getting your design picked is $500 ($250 for mini), a $100 ($50 for mini) Squishable gift card, and your name on the tag if picked.

Squishable is probably the best and biggest stuffed animal company out there. Any animal you can think of has already been made or prototyped. They even have some food, like waffles or bacon. But seriously, Squishable uses social media and the public to their own advantage, securing success. Like no toy company has done before.