‘Tis the season for toy shopping. Every parent wants to find their child that one special gift that produces a sense of fun and wonder, something unique their child hasn’t experienced. That can be challenging today when many kids are just focused on getting the newest video game or smartphone.
Toy inventors Austin Hilliam and Stephen Fazio of Johns Creek may have hit upon something, however, that can bring back “The Smile of Wonderment” some kids are missing.
ZipString is an innovative new toy that brings hours of entertainment to kids and adults alike. At first glance, the toy seems to operate on pure magic, but really it’s all pure science.
In 2021, while working on a robotics competition at Georgia Tech, Fazio was challenged to create a small circuit board that could do anything, as long as it cost under $50. His design was used as a string launcher, a fun physics experiment featured on YouTube. He successfully designed a hand-held string launcher and won the competition, but was unsure what else he could do with it.
When Fazio and Hilliam met later through church, they spent hours discussing how to turn the string launcher into something more. It took the pair only twelve days to create a bare-bones prototype string launcher toy, the original ZipString.
Hilliam and his father advised Fazio not to share the idea with anyone, since they saw the potential for a new product. The excitement was too much, though. “He ended up posting it on the internet,” Hilliam retells with a laugh. “And had twenty million TikTok views in four hours.”
The immediate response from thousands of social media viewers was, “Where can I buy one?”
“So, in the video description I added, ‘Arriving soon on Kickstarter’,” Fazio explains since he didn’t want to disappoint thousands of interested potential customers.
Soon YouTube sensations Dude Perfect asked to take a prototype on a national tour, social media influencers wanted to feature the toy, and best of all, pre-orders were being placed from kids and parents who wanted their own ZipString.
Hilliam recalls, “We wound up building the first 4,000 by hand in my parent’s basement.”
“We are both very hands-on, so we just thought, hey, we can probably do this ourselves,” Fazio explains. And that’s exactly what they did.
After the toy went viral, the two visited Hilliam’s engineering teacher at Johns Creek High School, Dr. Stephen Sweigart, who had been influential in Austin’s early interest in electronics. It was Dr. Sweigart who suggested the pair should apply to Shark Tank where they made an appearance in 2022.
Today, the successful ZipString business is still headquartered in Johns Creek and the company has just shipped out its millionth unit, with more new products and fun on the horizon.
When asked why parents should buy this toy, and what makes it so special, they both agree this is one of the few toys that instantly brings a “Smile of Wonderment” to kids of any age.
zipstring.com