Maya Group Grows Up as Tiny Love Toys Catch On
On Oded Ben-Ezer’s desk is a bright yellow and green stuffed turtle. Why hide it? The man just goes ga-ga over baby toys.
Ben-Ezer and his wife, Tali, both Israelis, scrapped high-flying jobs in investment banking and advertising, respectively, as new parents in 1992 to start a company to distribute toys.
They ran Maya Group Inc.,named for their daughter,from their 10th-floor Manhattan apartment before setting up shop in a 1,000-square-foot office in Huntington Beach, where Ben-Ezer’s in-laws lived.
“We needed to live on a tight budget,” he said of the move.
The Maya Group became the exclusive distributor for Israeli toy maker Tiny Love, and introduced the company’s products to the U.S.
Tiny Love has held its own against American toy king Mattel Inc. and its Fischer-Price unit with hot sellers such as the Gymini, an activity blanket with an overhead toy bar,one of the top five baby-shower gifts in the nation, according to the company. These days, Maya Group is housed in a 40,000-square-foot facility in Garden Grove.
“Over time, we really built a line of products that covers everything that the baby needs in the developmental aspect from infant to 3 years,” Ben-Ezer said.
A laid-back guy, Ben-Ezer’s not shy about chatting up his company’s accomplishments. But show him a camera and he ducks like a kid playing hide-and-seek (the Business Journal couldn’t sneak a photo).
The Maya Group is relatively small, with about 19 employees and $10 million in revenue, as is Tiny Love in Israel. But the toys are hot among the mommy set.
“The products, I can tell you first-hand, are excellent and well thought-out,” said Maria Weiskott, editor-in-chief of New York-based Playthings magazine, a 98-year-old trade publication covering the toy industry owned by Cahners Business Information.
Weiskott said the relatively new company has done a “really good job” stealing market share from bigger, more established toy makers and capturing an audience of parents and grandparents who already have a list of tried-and-true brands.
Tiny Love muscled into hearts in 1993 with the launch of the Gymini, its first “breakthrough” product, according to Ben-Ezer.
The toy more than redeemed Tiny Love for its balloon-shaped nightlight clock, which sold well in Israel but flopped in America, he said.
According to a 1998 article in the Jerusalem Report, one in 20 American babies have the Gymini, as do one in 25 in the U.K. and one in 10 in Israel. The Gymini also recently was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame and is touted as one of the best toys of the century, according to a company spokesman.
Jessica Hartshorn, senior lifestyles editor at Primedia Inc.’s venerable American Baby magazine, called the product a “must-have” for moms.
“Like the name Kleenex comes to mean tissues, their name, Gymini, comes to mean baby playmats,” Hartshorn said. “It’s definitely still the gold standard.”
The toy put Tiny Love on the map all over the world, particularly in Israel, where the company was founded in 1991 and has a strong foothold.
Tiny Love products are designed and developed in Israel, and are made in China.
Baby specialty chain Mothercare is a major distributor in the U.K., and The Maya Group takes care of the U.S.
In a gritty part of Garden Grove, employees pack and ship hundreds of thousands of colorful, cutesy toys destined for store shelves across the nation, in Canada and soon also in Mexico.
Products are sold in New York’s famous F.A.O. Schwartz and other major retailers, including Babies ‘R’ Us, Toys ‘R’ Us, Sears, Target and Zany Brainy.
Competition may be cutthroat in the toy business, but American Baby’s Hartshorn said Tiny Love “doesn’t try and compete with the big guys like Fisher-Price, who are just interested in mass products.”
“They’re in the mass-market stores, but they’re very good about doing the right thing for the small shops and boutique brands and making high-quality stuff,” Hartshorn said. “They do their homework and make sure they’re coming out with things that have great appeal. Tiny Love is small and smart.”
The popularity of its products has prompted a slew of knock-offs.
“What do they say? Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” Weiskott said.
But Tiny Love isn’t afraid to show its teeth.
In 1995, the company sued Tyco, Mattel’s baby-toy subsidiary, for producing a Gymini look-alike,and won. The victory in court reportedly stopped Chicco, a unit of Italy’s Artsana SPA, from marketing a clone of its own.
“Winning in court was important because it sends a signal to other companies,” Ben-Ezer said. “But our big wins will be in the marketplace.”
The company will continue to use its resources to ensure that “parents pick up our product over any other imitation because they trust us,” he said.
“We’ll never compromise on the quality of the product, innovation of the product or customer service,” Ben-Ezer said. “Over time we’ll build a reputation among new parents and grandparents.”
Tiny Love has piggybacked on the momentum it gained from Gymini and expanded its offering of developmental toys over the years. Its selection (ranging from $15 to $50) includes an arch that fits on a crib or car seat, a series of Gyminis, the 1,2,3 Discovery Lane (featuring interconnected mats with activities that encourage babies to crawl) and its newest release, a 3-D developmental mobile called Symphony-In-Motion. The battery-operated toy plays classical music by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and has colorful soft dangling animals and shapes.
Hartshorn said the mobile has gotten praise so far. Just as in the past, she said, Tiny Love did its homework and was very careful about what it developed.
“They only put out a few new things a year, and they’re usually the right products,” Hartshorn said. “They’re usually products that moms want.”
The new product garnered kudos on both the “Good Morning” show and “Regis & Kelly,” according to Mercy D’silva, Maya’s vice president of sales who oversees Tiny Love’s team of 100 independent U.S. sales representatives.
She said the company strives to make quality products that will sell for retailers, who want to “buy the product and move it.”
“If it doesn’t move for them, they drop it,” D’silva said.
But Tiny Love isn’t facing that problem, even in the slowed economy, Ben-Ezer said.
“Even though it’s a recession year, we’ll continue our growth of the company this year,” he said.
One reason: the baby is the last member of the family to go without, according to Ben-Ezer. Consequently, he said, “it’s an industry that’s a little bit more recession resistant than others.”
Through the years, Maya Group has expanded to meet distribution demand, and Ben-Ezer anticipates more growth. Just last year the company moved from an 18,000-square-foot space in Huntington Beach to its 40,000-square-foot building in Garden Grove.
Looking back, Ben-Ezer said the company has surpassed his expectations. Little did he know Tiny Love products would someday become a mom “must-have” when he and his wife were the only two fielding faxes and filling orders from home.
“I never thought it would get to this level,” Ben-Ezer said. “As much as I love my daughter, I wouldn’t have named the company The Maya Group. I would have found a more babyish name.” n
