Wrapped around a new venture – Blongo Family Fun

Blongo Family Fun owners Roberta and Mike Long have placed the outdoor game in six Spokane-area retail stores.

This game called Blongoball, it doesn’t look like much.

By Linn Parish Spokane Journal of Business

The “ball” is a short nylon rope with golf balls attached to each end. The target, called a “blongoal,” is a three-foot-high structure made of PVC pipe. The object of the game is to throw the ball so it wraps around one of the blongoal’s three horizontal bars.

Points are accessed for each successful throw, and the person or team that’s first to score precisely 21 points is the winner. Successful throws are worth one to three points, depending on which bar the ball wraps around, and worth five points if it bounces and lands on a bar.

It doesn’t look very sophisticated, concedes Mike Long, co-owner of Blongo Family Fun, of Spokane, but he adds, “Once you pick it up, it’s addictive.”

Long and his wife, Roberta, operate the fledgling venture called Blongo Family Fun through Yellowjacket Partners Inc., a company they formed. After the Longs spent two years developing the game, the company produced the first 1,000 Blongoball kits. The Longs are the company’s only employees, but brought in temporary workers during the manufacturing process.

So far, Long says, the company has sold 150 of those kits, which retail for $39.95.

The game is available at six Spokane-area retail stores, ranging from Uncle’s Games & Puzzles Etc. in downtown Spokane to Larkin’s Chevron in Spokane Valley, and the Longs are working with distributors in Washington, Oregon, Montana, California, and Texas to develop their retail base further. In addition, the company has sold some units online through a Web site it has developed, http://www.blongoball.com.

Long says he currently is in discussions with contract manufacturers that would make the Blongoball components and assemble the kits.

After such a relationship is established, he hopes to be able to expand the product’s visibility by displaying it at trade shows and getting it into more retail stores.

“We’re hoping it will snowball from there,” Long says.

Market research

Last year, the Longs hired Bill Hockett, president of Critical Data Marketing Inc., to research the viability of the Blongoball concept.

In 18 years of conducting market research for new products, Hockett says he has had to break bad news to many budding entrepreneurs. Their products, he’s had to tell them, won’t make it in the marketplace—or don’t have the broad-based appeal anticipated.

“My first impression is that’s what we would be doing here,” Hockett says of Blongoball. “My initial thought was ‘I don’t know. I don’t think this is going to be valuable.’”

However, a Gonzaga University student interning at Critical Data took the game to campus and began playing it there with some friends. The game piqued interest in a number of passers-by, and Hockett says the response “was ecstatic.” After conducting additional research, Critical Data found that the game was popular with every demographic, from kids to the elderly.

Hockett also interviewed corporate buyers who find new games for mass merchandisers and found that Blongoball has two attributes essential to make a game marketable: It’s easy to understand—throw the ball, get to 21 first, win—and easy to play.

Also, he says, it doesn’t appear to be the type of game in which an experienced player has a distinct advantage over a newcomer.

Case in point, this reporter played Blongoball against Long in the Spokane Valley warehouse where Blongo Family Fun is located, at 9517 E. Fourth. Despite having never played before and having little natural athletic ability, the reporter beat the game’s developer, 21-17.

Long says, “I have friends who think they are masters, and you can usually beat them.”

Critical Data recommended a two-stage marketing strategy: Start with specialty stores, such as game retailers or outdoor-equipment stores, then launch it among national big-box retailers.

Blongoball, however, must overcome some shortcomings before it can become prolific, Hockett says.

First, he says, the basic game can be built by a layman. Many people become interested in the game after playing it, but some say they’d build a knockoff rather than buying a kit.

To address that concern, Hockett says, a design engineer is working on the product to give it a more finished look.

Also, Long says, people are interested in Blongoball after playing it, but aren’t always attracted to it when it sits idle.

To compensate for that, the company is refining its point-of-purchase displays to show how the game is played and hopefully garner more interest.

Also, the company is hoping to be able to lower the game’s price point in the future.

Out of retirement

The Longs have come out of retirement to develop and launch Blongoball. Mike Long, 53, worked previously for a large engineering company in California that served the oil industry. Roberta Long, 50, owned and operated her own painting business.

The Longs came to the Spokane area after retiring, then moved to Western Montana. There, a neighbor approached the couple with the idea for Blongoball, though he didn’t have that name for it. Long says he still doesn’t know how the neighbor came up with the idea for the outdoor game.

The Longs and their neighbor partnered to pursue development of the game as a business venture, but that neighbor sold his interest to the Longs after they moved back to Spokane.

The name “Blongoball” is the result of a family brainstorm. The Longs struggled to identify a name that didn’t infringe on someone else’s trademark, so they opted to make up a name.

The Longs hope the name will be as catchy as the game is addicting.

http://www.spokanejournal.com/spokane_id=article&sub=1702