Why YoYo Factory?

I got this comment on one of my videos the other day, and it’s a question that comes up a lot…so I thought I would give it a little more clarification than just a YouTube comment. 

@unklesteve If you don’t mind me asking, what keeps you with yyf? I’m not trying to say anything bad about them, but I want to know, what makes an amazing performer like you stay with that specific brand. It’s like if Steve Vai played all his music on a strat. What makes them your “#1 choice”.

-FajardoIsaac.

It’s been a very long and odd friendship that I’m incredibly pleased has turned out where it has. 

During my tenure with Duncan, I was incredibly dismissive of YoYo Factory. I didn’t understand the value or appeal of the FAST 201 initially, and I made a lot of jokes about it. There was also still a lot of old antagonism related to my frequent clashes with Tom Van Dan Elzen while he was running Playmaxx that left me with vague old grudges that had nothing to do with Hans or Ben but were still lingering, unresolved, in the back of my mind. So I was snarky about their whole endeavor and didn’t assign it the weight it deserved. 

Then I went to their Toys R Us launch of the FAST 201 in Times Square, New York City, during the 2005 Toy Fair and I was blown away. It was a huge, professional production and the best I’d ever seen for promoting yo-yo sales to the general public. And while a chunk of credit for that goes to Hasbro, it was undeniable that YoYo Factory was the sort of company that was going to make very, very big moves. 

I turned it over in my head for a few days, and then drove out of the city to see their “FAST Challenge” yo-yo contest in a large shopping mall. It was again a huge, polished, really professional production for the general public and it was incredibly engaging…people who knew nothing about yo-yos were on the edge of their seats while strings broke, people missed tricks, Ben shouted on the mic and the timer blazed. It was crazy. It was so much better than any yo-yo event or promotion that I had ever put together or even felt at the time that I could put together and I was inspired, awe-struck, and more than a little shamed. I had a pretty ridiculous ego at the time about my work with Duncan and seeing that event just completely destroyed it. 

I started thinking about what I could do with Duncan to compete against this new kind of company but I had two things working against me: first being that I was a really terrible “office employee” and had never been good at working within the framework of Flambeau which I frequently fought and resented (sometimes it was justified, sometimes it was just me being awful); and the second being that I was tired, burned-out, and had been considering quitting for some time. At that point I had been in the yo-yo industry for 10 years and that’s a really long time to do any one thing…particularly if you’re me. 

So I spent the next year struggling to keep the faith, struggling to figure out how to compete against this company that seemed to suddenly be everywhere at once and getting the kind of press that I would punch orphans to get for Duncan and I realized: I was quite simply out-gunned and out-classed. When I showed up at Duncan, I was a revolution. Now the world had turned and left me behind and I didn’t have anything else up my sleeve. Everything that I would have done, YoYo Factory was already doing and doing it better than had ever occurred to me. It was mind-blowing. I’d hit the wall, and at the time I simply wasn’t professional enough to force myself past it.

And their products were starting to come out quicker and quicker and every one was better than anything else on the market. They had a wicked sense of humor (still do) and they were creating yo-yos that played like nothing else. I couldn’t deny that I really enjoyed playing with them every chance I got, and when I sat down to talk about my salary with the VP of Flambeau and he assured me there was no raise coming, I simply resigned. Gave them a few weeks notice, and called Ben to see if they had anything coming up that they could throw me. 

A few months later I was in Singapore teaching hundreds upon hundreds of kids how to throw a yo-yo for the very first time, with a program that worked better than anything I had ever tried. It was amazing. I’d NEVER been that effective teaching kids how to yo-yo, and the FAST Challenge made it so easy for me to teach and so easy for them to learn…it was brilliant. I was hooked. 

During that promotion, Hans and Ben treated me straight up like family. Ben and I had been friendly for a little while at that point, but Hans and I had really only hung out a few times and still didn’t know each other very well. But I worked hard and moved units and they showed me amazing plans for future yo-yos that completely blew my mind and on that promotion, Hans & Ben treated me better than ANY company I had ever worked for. I was respected, I was taken care of, I was never coddled but I never wanted for anything, and the amount of pressure that was off my shoulders was incredible. I could just go and do my job and at the end of the day it wasn’t my show to run. I’d been with Duncan about 6+ years and the pressure of being Guy #2 in a two-man division was intense. The relief at being able to have equipment that simply worked, to know that I could just rely on it, and to know that I didn’t have to answer to everyone at every moment….it was exactly what I wanted. 

Hans and Ben have been amazing to me, both as employers on the occasions when I was contracted for demos, as sponsors, and as friends. I trust their product completely and love seeing what they come up with. The rest of the team is absolutely incredible, and I’m happy to have something that I can simply be part of without feeling any pressure beyond simply being myself. They’re good people, and they’ve treated me well and most importantly:

They’ve never really needed to. 

There’s nothing about their business plan that needs me. I’m the creator of a style of play they can’t even promote, I’m old, I don’t compete, I can barely get my fat @$$ in the air to jump over a yo-yo, and I don’t look good in promotional photography. But they still value my opinion, they still value my contributions, and they still value my friendship. 

Hans & Ben have done right by me, even when it didn’t benefit them at all. That’s true friendship, and that’s why I will always remain loyal to YoYo Factory. 

Tags: yoyo factory