A Bad Day With The Family Dog
D. Byron Patterson
President of Creative Development
"When it comes to storytelling, music, sound and imagery, my creative process is painfully slow. I find themes, stories and ideas over time, through endless cycles of imagination and discovery. It's the same with Lamby and all the pieces of his world, but what's different is the blending of talent and philosophy into a spiritually positive aesthetic.Lamby embodies the potential in all of us, that we all can live a meaningful life if we CHOOSE to be our authentic selves. Conveying that kind of vision effectively is my great challenge. It's easy to make angst-filled art and I'm sick of honesty and self-reliance being dirty words."
Tina Patterson
Chief Executive Officer
"I always knew we could turn Lamby into a real toy, but I had to fit a for-profit business model into my husband’s artistic values. When I read Blake Mycoskie’s book, “Start Something That Matters”, I realized that it’s possible to create a company based on giving. Blake is the founder of TOMS Shoes and his business model is extraordinary -- for every shoe sold, the company provides a pair of shoes to a child in need. This philanthropic blue print was the catalyst I needed."
It all started when D. Byron Patterson bought a bargain bin stuffed toy animal at the supermarket. Sadly, the toy lost both eyes and part of its head after an unfortunate encounter with the family dog. Instead of tossing away the ruined toy, Byron saw something special. He restitched the torn seams, plugged the gaping head wound with a plastic water bottle cap, and made the wounded toy some pants. Finding a perfect voice followed, and as Byron continued to let his imagination run wild, a wholly new creation, Lamby Lambpants™, was born.
Artistic Vision Meets Creative Business Savvy
Creating a world for his quirky lamb was no quick or easy task. Byron spent years making drawings, stories, and original music, song covers, parodies, and myriad other sound bytes that he distributed for free through LambPants.com and his Facebook Fan Page. In 2008, after an attempt to make Lamby into a cartoon for cable fell through, his wife encouraged him to focus on writing while she tried to figure out how to market his creation. Initially, Tina thought to sell chapterbooks with stories featuring Lamby, but after a two-year development process, including storytelling workshops with eager (and fanatical) kids at a local middle school, Byron had something quite different than a few vignettes about a living stuffed animal with lots of sass. He had a novel-length fantasy adventure, which will take time to complete.
Back to the Drawing Board
With years spent in the CPG industry managing eCommerce websites for multi-million dollar businesses, Tina became quite familiar with everything from product development to online and offline marketing strategy to operations management. Having worked with mid-sized corporations in the alternative health space and on her own retail start-up in the same vertical, Tina had extensive knowledge in what it takes to bring a product to market. Turning Lamby Lambpants into a plush cuddle toy was always the easy part. What proved to be a little more difficult was finding a business model that matched her husband's artistic integrity. But Tina's knack for research, analysis and creative problem solving kicked into high gear, which finally lead her to the breakthrough moment that solidified the heart and soul of the company.
Small Lamb + Big Ego = Character Cuddle Toy
Lamby Lambpants™ is the first in our planned line of physically impaired fleece Character Cuddle Toys meant to teach children that having a disability can be liberating when it's worn as a badge of courage. Lamby may be missing an eye, but his spirit is certainly not broken. In fact, having a physical impairment is the very thing that makes his ego, as well as his heart, larger than life.