Masters of invention: marketing products such as the hot new hoverdisc toy, Sun Valley firm Overbreak LLC takes ideas from innovators around the globe and brings them to life.

SUN Valley-based Overbreak LLC doesn't consider itself a toy maker.

Even though one of the hottest-selling items for kids this past holiday season happens to be the company's own: a Mylar, flying saucer-shaped balloon of sorts that, rather than floating away when you toss it in the air, zings like a Frisbee in slow motion.

The idea for that product, called the HoverDisc, along with the company's other top sellers, the digi-draw tracing kit and Rainbow Art paint set, belongs to independent toy and novelty innovators around the globe who, in exchange for seeing their inventions get from paper to the production line, agree to hand over intellectual property and trademark rights to Overbreak.

Overbreak develops and manufacturers the products, primarily toys and novelty items, then puts them on the market, with a portion of sales paid back to inventors as royalty fees, in most eases.

"We are innovators of unique ideas, we're not toy manufacturers," said Dayne Sieling, president and co-founder. "We bring great ideas to life that often would otherwise never get made, and some of those ideas come to us on a cocktail napkin."

Rather than peddle their products to big retailers right out of the box, Overbreak introduces them directly to the consumer at kiosk and cart businesses set up inside roughly 400 shopping malls and other locales across the country, and, more recently, through mail order via advertising spots on TV and cable channels.

Sieling, along with the husband/wife team of Arie and Ricky Aharon, launched the company in 1999. Sieling had worked as a toy and novelty distributor. The Aharons were clients.

He says the direct market approach is one of the fastest ways to create a buzz about a new product lacking the backing of a major brand.

"You've got little Johnny and mom right there at the kiosk where they can see a product being demonstrated and brought to life," said Sieling. "It's about as grassroots as you can get. We call it 'in the trenches selling."'

Quick popularity

Through a combination of kiosk and the "As seen on TV" sales, Overbreak unloaded 4.2 million pieces of the three core products last year, 3.2 million of those were the HoverDisc, which has only been on the market since May of 2003.

"We knew it would be popular, but we didn't know it would do as well as it did so quickly," said Sieling.

Revenues for Overbreak's first year in operation in 1999 were not exactly weak at $3.5 million. But they've been rising steadily since and hit $31 million in 2003. The company now has 65 full-time workers, up from three in 1999.

To accommodate growth, Overbreak is amid remodeling its Sun Valley offices and the local distribution center, which handles roughly 15 percent of all sales. The company also has warehouses in four states, London and Hong Kong.

Big box retailers including Wal-Mart and Toys R Us picked up on the popularity of the digi-draw and Rainbow Art products about a year ago and more recently began selling the HoverDisc.

One of the first toy chains, however, to sell the products was Massachusetts-based K B Toys, which, like the kiosk vendors, uses in-store demonstrators to attract customers because most of its stores are also based inside shopping malls.

The company waited until November to pick up the HoverDisc, but it proved to represent a significant portion of K B's Christmas sales nationwide and will remain in stores through summer, according to Fred Hurley, vice president of merchandising for specialty items.

"I'd actually seen the HoverDisc ads on TV and I'd heard that it was doing extremely well in department stores across England., said Hurley. "Sale-through percents for us over Christmas were in the double digits, and we haven't even kicked off the demonstration market for that item yet."

The HoverDisc retails for $14.95. Both digi-draw and Rainbow Art sell for $19.95 each.

Seeking Inventors

The challenge for Overbreak in identifying the next hot seller is getting to the inventor before the big guys do. The HoverDisc is the creation of a gymnastics teacher in Nashville. Sieling and Arie Aharon discovered Rainbow Art at a tiny toy show in what they'll only describe as "a very small town someplace in Europe."

"Put it this way, we've racked up a ton of frequent-flyer miles," said Sieling. "We go to all kinds of rinky-dink shows around the world and I'd say 90 percent of the time nothing comes of it. We scour the globe looking for ideas that no one else is paying attention to."

Overbreak also hires what it calls "spotters" to keep an eye out for potentially good ideas. One of its most recent discoveries just now hitting the market is fonefree, a cellular phone accessory that provides a wireless hands-free option by drawing power through FM radio transmitters instead of batteries.

The company is striving to boost Overbreak as a brand retailers automatically recognize and track. Ditto for the inventors out there, who, according to Sieling, are starting to come out of the woodwork.

"We're still going to be building up those frequent-flyer miles, but in the last year or so we've been getting more calls and e-mails from people who want us to help launch their ideas," said Sieling. "These guys are hearing about what we do and they're starting to come directly to us now."

Spotlight

Overbreak LLC

Year Founded: 1997

Employees in 1997: 3

Employees in 2004: 65

Revenues in 1997: $3.5 million

Revenues in 2003: $31 million

Goal: Grow revenues to $100 million by 2010.

Driving Force: Inventors seeking funding and exposure.