WHAT ARE WE

A shop selling toys that inspire, spaces that teach, and the resources teachers and caregivers need to engage the children they love.

We combine the art of play, the science of learning, and the appreciation of high level craft and design into an inspiring retail environment.

We are also a design studio with a focus on creating inspiring learning and play spaces for children. We work with teachers parents and caregivers to identify needs and craft creative solutions to meet them. 

WHAT WE SELL

We sell toys and learning tools that are of a higher level of craft and design. Many of our vendors are European in design and, or execution. We sell art and decor to enhance the learning environment - either classrooms or living spaces. We partner with smaller producers that receive more of an immediate impact from our purchasing. 

WHO DO WE SELL TO

Teachers - We see a real connection with Montessori and Waldorf educators, who’s pedagogies focus on natural materials, individually directed, and experiential learning.

Caregivers We target those that appreciate well crafted and designed toys that are stimulating on multiple levels. 

We have begun to survey the density of purchasing customers in our initial core market. We have only to date tapped into the public Montessori community. We know that there is additional potential in the private Montessori community as well as Waldorf, which has a similar appreciation for the type of goods we will sell. As you will see, there is a robust potential base. 

Within the public Montessori community alone to date we see:

25 3-6 level teachers, 28 6-9 level teacher, 19 9-12 level teachers as well as a potential additional 28 teachers across those levels. Each of those teachers represent a classroom with a potential of 25-30 kids each, with associated parents and caregivers. As one can see, those numbers alone yield a tremendous opportunity. 

In addition to these numbers, there are over 40 private Montessori school affiliated with  Cincinnati Montessori Society. Each of those schools represent an underserved teacher and parent base. 

We feel we can also tap into the private traditional education schools and the home-school community. We know a key demographic will be parents who place a high emphasis on their child’s education and are willing to invest in quality learning and play resources.

Teachers have little to no local resources for practical classroom materials. The targets teachers structure their classrooms around using both real world and imagination as the basis for learning modules. By providing them with a curated selection of artistic, ethically sourced and produced goods, we will facilitate an easier shopping experience than always ordering on-line. Our goal is to also bring new and undiscovered resources to the market - often using non-educational vendors and showing the educational potential for those goods.

WHERE ARE WE

Clifton, Northside - areas with higher concentration of families. Areas with higher concentration of socially responsible and environmentally conscious caregivers. 

Northside Demographics

Northside has a very racially and socio-economically diverse population, with concentrations of college students, artists, young professionals, and many members of the creative class. In recent years, Northside has earned a reputation as welcoming to Cincinnati's gay and lesbian community. 

White-collar workers make up 84.24% of the working population in Northside Cincinnati, while blue-collar employees account for 15.76%. There are a total of 5,555 households in Northside Cincinnati, each made up of around 2 members. Family establishments represent 46.3% of these Northside Cincinnati households

Companion Businesses - Many family focussed non profits as well as family friendly businesses and restaurants often catering to a more specific food population (vegan, vegetarian, ethically sourced etc)

Happen Toy Lab - A non-profit organization that offers FREE programming for children and teens. Combining 3 storefronts, 3 community gardens, and innumerable public events, Happen, Inc. provides an invaluable asset to Northside’s children and families, with creative programming like making sponsored holiday wreaths to decorate Hamilton Avenue, or their free summer grill outs. 

WordPlay Cincy - A nonprofit organization with a mission to help Cincinnati’s young people fulfill their potential through reading, writing and storytelling. They offer three models of programming: community-based, school-based and mobile programs.

Noteable - Provides FREE high-quality music education for kids aged 7-13, and access to regular performance opportunities such as with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra as part of their SUMMERMUSIK series in 2017. NoteAble students currently meet Monday-Thursday from 4pm-6pm, with founder and classically trained musician James Meade, at 4041 Hamilton Avenue above WordPlay. 

Northside Business District - (pr community website) Just five miles Northwest of Downtown Cincinnati, Northside is a hotbed of creativity, and a popular destination for entertainment, nightlife, and shopping, with dozens of independently owned businesses along a two-mile stretch of US-127/Hamilton Avenue and its cross streets. The Northside Business District is situated along Hamilton and Spring Grove Avenues, and the Hoffner Historic District, boasting distinctive Italianate architecture that reflects the city’s German roots. The walkability and social connections of Northside’s business district is a big part of why people choose to visit or make their home here. Northside’s population has remained overwhelmingly diverse over much of the past several decades—despite a rapid increase in redevelopment, and a surge of popularity. In the neighborhood parks, pubs, restaurants, and shops, you’ll find local business owners, artists and musicians, young families and older residents who have raised their children here, arts administrators, young professionals, college students and educators, as well as skilled-laborers and technicians—often with the shared vested interest in maintaining the community spirit that makes Northside so special.

The INSIDE Curve: educator program and bog

One of the exciting aspects of this business is our unique ability to connect educators with resources and products they may not have previously had access to. We also what to be a forum for sharing ideas, inspiration and teaching techniques. We see accomplishing that through two main channels

The Inside Curve Blog - We want our customers and experts to be able to share their passion, knowledge and love for the products that we sell. We will have a blog that features at least monthly posts from a slate of teachers, caregivers, parents and others that can bring relevant information to our community of customers. We will also use the base of subscribers to this blog as our core target group for events, workshops and seminars that we host as part of our SHARING vision. 

The Inside Curve loyalty program - Qualified teachers, paraprofessionals, and at-home teachers can purchase from us at a 15% discount on all regular price product. We will also have special vendor events, theme events or “invitation only” sales on certain categories of items. We also offer free registration to any in-house event, workshop or seminar to these “inside the curve” (supplies for “make it” workshops not included in the free registration) We also will offer Co-Op opportunities for out insiders. Insiders may sign up to work evening or weekend shifts (the best time to have teaching experts in store to answer questions from parent and other teachers) in exchange for their time, they will earn store credit at the base rate of $15.00 pr hour worked. This will be a great way to reduce staffing costs (as these will be considered compensated at 15.00 retail but will cost out at about 7.50 pr hour cost. It will also reinforce our “expert” standing in that we will have trained teachers and product advocated engaging with our customers. 

We will also host round-table discussions and exclusive product previews for this group. Our goal is to really make these “insides” feel like the valued members of our communities that they are.