No entrepreneur in Croatia can claim to have achieved significant cooperation with the American retail chain Walmart, let alone that he succeeded at the age of 23, except for Albert Gajšak, the founder and owner of the start-up CircuitMess, whose STEM toys have been available for purchase at Walmart’s specialized subsidiaries, Sam’s Club, which has 589 stores across the USA, for about ten days. Following a collaboration with Warner Bros on the Batmobile project, this is a significant success for CircuitMess, from which the American retail chain ordered as many as 17,670 specially designed STEM toys a few months ago, which were to be on American shelves ahead of this year’s Christmas.
– Our product, the new educational product Chatter 2.0, is already on sale, and we are very proud of this collaboration. We arranged everything a few months ago, so we shifted into high gear and worked in three shifts for a while to fulfill the order, but the goal has been achieved. Chatter 2.0 is a do-it-yourself educational kit for wireless digital communication that works on the principle of walkie-talkies and teaches children about electronics and programming, already available in American stores at a price of $99, which was also the price limit when we negotiated the collaboration – Gajšak explained, adding that the total value of Walmart’s order is one million three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, or about 10 million kuna.
—
—
The whole story with Walmart began back in 2019 when Gajšak sought funding for his Makerphone, his first own STEM toy, on Kickstarter, raising funds in just eight hours, which remains one of the most successful Croatian Kickstarter campaigns. At that time, he was already contacted by Cole Powell, a senior merchant and chief sales advisor at Walmart, a person who plays a crucial role for numerous manufacturers worldwide.
– He is the “make it or break it” link; if you pass with him, you enter Walmart, you enter that market – Gajšak told us breathlessly, adding that it was precisely because of him that they decided to open a company in the USA back in 2020. The only problem at that time was, Gajšak laughs, the pandemic. All other administrative, tax, customs, and other challenges were quickly resolved. At that time, Cole ordered toys worth 5 million kuna from CircuitMess for Walmart in 2020, but the collaboration ultimately did not happen because the whole world came to a standstill due to the virus from Wuhan.
—
—
They waited the longest for a tax number to be able to operate in the USA, but since they were in quarantine and their tax administration faced digital challenges, it all took months. However, the order agreed upon during the pandemic was not realized.
– About ten months ago, Mr. Powell reached out again, and we started talking. Of course, we boasted that we had progressed from the first Makerphone on Kickstarter, that we had a wider assortment, but he was particularly interested in the toy in that sense, something like a communication set, so we spent some time just working on the design and prototype of the toy according to their requirements for their market. Once we agreed that this was it, the order followed – Gajšak recalled, adding that for his start-up, only then did the reality check come, meaning the encounter with reality. CircuitMess was not quite ready to work with such a large company; it had never had such a large order before, and besides, the American retail chain does not pay for goods in advance nor do they provide any logistical assistance. They only, Gajšak states, ordered the goods and said to deliver them to one of our 18 distribution centers in the USA. Everything else was their concern, and there was no shortage of concerns at that point. One major concern was money, how to finance the entire order, the second – chips, and the third, perhaps the biggest, workforce. They needed to produce as many of their own STEM toys in just two months as they usually produce in a year!
—
—
– First, we had to order chips and plastic from which to make the toys, and that needed to be paid for. Since we did not receive money from the USA in advance, we had to turn to banks to help us cover production costs, but they were not very receptive to us, except for Kentbank, and we are very grateful for that. The challenge was to order chips, and our only condition for cooperation in that regard was what was available, and we stuck to that. When the chips and plastic arrived, we started working in three shifts to produce, assemble, and package everything. We engaged numerous students, and everyone worked in the plant, from finance to programmers to marketing. We all worked for two months, producing, packaging in boxes so that the toys from our small plant in distant Croatia could be found wrapped in shiny wrapping paper under the trees in American homes – Gajšak says as if he still cannot believe the feat he has just accomplished.
In addition to licensed projects like Chatter 2.0 and Batmobile, CircuitMess is currently developing its subscription services for learning electronics and programming. In the upcoming period, their plan is to invest in the development of an original educational programming application, CircuitBlocks. Gajšak’s start-up currently has 25 employees, and the projected revenue for CircuitMess in 2022 is 16 million kuna, which is nearly 80 percent higher than the revenue from 2021.
