The Future for Happy Dinosaur
The Future for Happy Dinosaur
What's in Happy DinoStore for Happy Dinosaur
I’ve been asked if I plan on continuing Happy Dinosaur throughout college and what will happen to the brand while I’m in graduate school. To be quite honest, despite graduate school only being in three year’s grasp, I haven’t even thought about myself that far in the future. As a second year undergraduate who has only been on a campus for fourteen weeks, seeing myself in veterinary school seems a wishful fever dream. As far as the immediate future of Happy Dinosaur, I have some big plans for the brand in 2022.
After several months of me hinting at a Happy Dinosaur website with no success, I’ve decided to make a calendar for myself so that I can follow a concrete schedule for Happy Dinosaur. Take a look at my plan for Happy Dinosaur next year:
January 2022
January is going to be a an important planning stage for me to prepare for the possibility of increased demand on Happy Dinosaurs from website orders. I have several things to consider about setting up a website. For instance
Should I allow custom dinosaurs to be made through the website?
Should I stick to pre-designed colors that you’d have to chose from?
Should I include my other dinosaur products besides the plushies such as my mini-backpacks and stickers?
How can I keep track of my orders and shipments?
Should I keep shipping restricted to within the United States or allow international shipping?
How can I keep up with the demand for dinosaurs with only one person making them?
Should I get additional trademark and legal protection for the Happy Dinosaur brand before I launch?
I would like to spend January drafting questions and answers so I can prepare a business plan.
February 2022
At the moment, I use priority shipping boxes or envelopes to ship out dinosaurs. I would like to spend February thinking about my packaging, as the priority boxes and envelopes are going to end up decreasing my profit in if orders increase and I don’t want shipping to be too large of a fixed cost. I’ve looked into ordering bulk boxes with Happy Dinosaur’s logo on them and getting Happy Dinosaur shipping tape, but several of the options are approximately the same price as the priority shipping boxes. I also considered using recycled boxes, as I had been using them for the most part during quarantine when I was only shipping to my friends. The only concern with that is I don’t think sending someone a box with another company’s logo on it is very professional.
March 2022
I would like to have a good business plan by March and if I decide to get legal copyright and trademarking for Happy Dinosaur to apply for it at this time.
April 2022
I would like to offer an option where you can customize a “Mood Dinosaur",” based on a personality quiz that generates a three color pallet for you based on how you answer some questions. Since almost all of my friends are computer science majors they are offering to assist me with the coding of this “Mood Dinosaur” quiz. My plan is to have about 8 questions that ask you about your preferences, such as:
Are you extroverted or introverted
Do you prefer sweet or savory
Would you rather go on a nature hiking day trip or beach day trip
I would like these questions to code for specific types of colors, for instance, if you prefer “sweet” you might have colors that correlate to fruity and bright colors like berry pink or magenta, whereas if you prefer “savory” you might have colors that correlate to organic and neutral colors like ginger gold or hunter green. If you prefer hiking you might get evergreen versus is you prefer the beach you might get cerulean. I would like to have the Mood Dinosaur ready to launch by April.
May 2022
I would like to draft the Happy DinoStore website and have all the photos taken for the website. I would like prices and shipping and billing all figured out and have a few trials of the website accessibility tested for easiness of use, functionality, and aesthetics. At the moment I already have a draft on Square Space, and I would like to see if I can connect the Happy DinoStore to the Happy DinoStory on Substack.
June 2022
Happy DinoStore Website launch!
July 2022
Post-launch I want to spend the month working out kinks and see how the website works and if I can keep up with production.
August 2022
I think I want August to be a chill month where I can just continue to work on smoothing out production of the website and work on orders. I am currently selling Happy Dinosaurs at Starry Bird Kids in Rhinebeck, New York; I would like to branch out and look into another retail store for Happy Dinosaurs to be sold in person.
September 2022
I want to start advertising the Happy DinoStore website and slowly accelerate Happy Dinosaur marketing. I will also be starting my third year of college so I may decide to put off the marketing acceleration to October, depending on how the summer goes.
October 2022
Halloween Dinosaurs will launch on the Happy DinoStore.
November 2022
I would like to see if I can try “pre-ordering” for my Christmas/ Holiday Happy Dinosaurs and see if I can incentivize “pre-orders” by offing some kind of perk. Last year I noticed dinosaur demand increase for Christmas so I think having a “pre-order” system may help if production can’t meet demand and I have to stop accepting more orders.
December 2022
Finish all Holiday Dinosaurs and take a breather to reflect on the year’s progress and compare the business plan/ plans to the success of the year. Compare expected outcomes to observed outcomes on both a financial and a personal level.
I’m looking forward to the future of the Happy Dinosaur brand and I hope you will too. There is a chance this whole plan could fall apart or there is a chance the plan could go perfectly, either way I’m excited for it and I can’t wait to share the journey and the Happy DinoStory with you.
