Our Journey

NHPC was first established in NH in 1990.

The name came while I was traveling from my then home in NH to my childhood home in Maine. I was actually crossing the board bridge of 95 when the name came to me.

NHPC was needed for my very first commercial venture—the "Paint Saver"—a recycled plastic paint can topper that would aid in painting using one gallon cans and helping to keep resealing cleaner, so the remaining paint would store longer and one would not have so much trouble getting the lid off.

NHPC got investment for this project from family and friends.

It failed because I had no idea how this industry actually worked. Distributors were not interested in dealing with a one-product supplier.

I reestablished NHPC in NJ in 1993—now with my wife as equal partner.

I just purchased my 2nd ever PC, a 386, and had a new project I had been toying with ever since a capital procurement trip to Reno—where I came upon the idea in a local casino.

I was always a poker player—since my dad started a weekly penny poker group, after moving into our first purchased home. In Reno, I was drawn to the "video poker" machines. While learned the details of how this game worked—it occurred to me that for every 5-card hand dealt—there was a single correct (long-term statistical probability) way to play each hand.

Over the next few years I worked on teaching myself card probability statistics. BTW—with the help of a girlfriend I had at the time—who was way smarter than me about many different things.

With this new PC, I purchased Visual Basic and taught myself how to create "executable programs". Once I learned the basics, I could have an idea in the AM and have a working prototype in the PM. I created several different software games.

The "Video Poker Helper" (VPH) project was far more complex and took me a few years to get it to work—primarily because I decided on creating a single solution for ALL the many different types of video poker games.

The goal was to sell the software to machine producers who would then encourage them onto casinos. The reason they would want them is because they would net more money—which at first glance seems counterintuitive—making players smarter means less mistakes and higher returns, but VPH required redeeming coins for help.

At that time the closest thing to video poker "help" were books written on specific video poker games. Each game with a specific set of paybacks. There is a different set of rules expert play" if even one payback is different. My VPH would automatically adjust for all of this and provide 100% accurate instruction for every hand and every game. Books tended to give general rules vs. specific rules for each and every hand, so not 100% accurate.

In 1995, I landed a job with Bells Labs in Holmdel, NJ. I got the job because I had been doing construction projects for friends who worked at Bell Labs. They learned I was also an engineer.

I started as a contractor. NHPC was in place, so they could contract with a business versus me as an individual. After a short successful test period—they encouraged me to become an employee. This seemed like a good idea at the time.

Fast forward to the day when in HR, I was filling out all the necessary paperwork, I paused on one document that stated everything I would ever create would be Bell Labs. This immediately triggered the question—what about NHPC's existing IP? After a little verification checking—HR came back to tell me that all my past work, owned by NHPC would also become their property.  A minute later I walked out the door of HR—not as an employee—still as a contractor.

I went to my director and he said it was OK to remain as a contractor. This relationship was maintained until 31 Dec 1999—when a new set of federal laws came into effect that limited contractor relationships to two years max.

We purchased a plot of land in Maine in Feb 1996.

In Mar of 1997 we moved up to Maine from NJ.

I worked remotely for Lucent, 25% time, while my brother worked for me and Lucent full time in a rental house. The rest of my time I spent building our home on that property we had purchased. 

I also was still doing the game stuff.

Circa 1998.

The NHPC  inventory of games had grown. I was still developing new games on the side while working 40 hour weeks for Bell Labs—who now was Lucent Technologies.

I should have ran away—after hearing their firms name: HowRich. Howard Fleischer and Richard Blank.

It started great. They signed me up for an exclusive 5-year representation deal—a huge mistake on my part. But they invited me to Toy Fair to help pitch my own projects. I got pretty good response from many meetings with big name game companies.

In the end, no one took anything and HowRich became combatant vs. helpful. About a year end I stopped working with them, but then I could do nothing else with any other agency.

While working with them I was told that annually, 4 million toy/game ideas get pitched. Of these about 400 get ayyention of the industry. Of these about 4 become successful at making money for everyone involved. Most of the 4 million are noise and duplication.

But I learned a lot and continued to build up an NHPC inventory—just waiting for the time to pass.

After TRI-WORDS failed, and a lot of money spent, I went looking for other pathways.

Found a group in NH called Big Idea Group (BIG). They were consumer project focused. They had not specialization in toys and games, but were willing to work with me—after I shared my story and many of my prototypes—both analog and digital.

I liked their model—because when I first started with them they did not charge for representation. They were new and thought they could make it with a split of licensing royalties.

They launched a contest that I actually won with a combination digital/analog game innovation concept called Webhoppers.

We caught the attention of Hasbro who was working on something similar, but who saw we had something with more potential. But they were further along in developing their project that had a virus theme.

Hasbro stopped working with us when some real-world virus emerged and destroyed the fun in viral propagation of game components.

But I had a good relationship with BIG now. We kept at games together.

The toy and game industry is not big in Maine. Unknown to each other, a few miles down the road from us, was a toy and game agent. I met Cynthia, Synchronicity, at a Maine-based incubator event. We were both shocked to learn that we lived next door to each other for years.

A few days later I went to her office and showed her my inventory and she was very interested in representing NHPC. Her terms were 60/40, so better for us than our previous BIG deal.

Cynthia, as I learned over the next few months, had never landed a toy & game license deal. Her claim to fame was she was the Tootsie merchandise rep. This had given her lots of connections with lots of industry firms. In that first few months with her she did land a deal for another inventor. Actually a deal initial deal for a cutting edge new technology. Fast forward—the deal ended soon after when it was deteremined that what the inventor invented was not buildable for the industry.

But we worked away getting my inventory ready for her to present.

I don't recall the timing of exact events, but what ended up happening, I think because I had so many games, Cynthia determined it would be best for her to bring me with her to do the prototype demos to industry reps. We went to the Feb 2003 NY Toy Fair together. She had several meetings setup and I did lots of demos. It helped a lot that we could tell everyone that I was the inventor of SNAP. Reps pay attention more to inventors who have already found some level of success.

We had no takers—after all the post fair follow-up work.

This year's toy fair produced different results. Seven licensing deals with four different producers. Mainly, it's a story of persistence—going back to the same producers we first presented to the prior year. This time with prototypes they had hinted they were more interested in the year before.

I was provided the opportunity to pitch to a "Desperate Housewives" boardgame project—where the TV series producer, Mark Cherry, was to decide which submission he liked best. A few months later—guess whose prototype he liked best? Yup, NHPC's!

Deal licensing deal sucked though—we were told because sales volume would be so high—because of the popularity of the series—only 0.75%. Typically inventor/agent deals were more like 3-4%. But it was a foot in the door with a producer who had shown little interest in my work prior. And as you will learn the floodgates opened for NHPC after this with this producer.

Another producer licensed my TRI-WORDS game and used the China-based tooling we had produced years before.

Another revisited producer, Pressman, took a mash-up project of a Rubik's Cube and Texas Hold'em.

Briar Patch and their new inventor manager took four ideas—when it was all said and done—two concepts for the  "I SPY" brand, one for the "Little Golden Books" brand and one unbranded concept.

What a year's difference made!

BTW—one of the I SPY games is still being sold in the market—I SPY Eagle Eye. Now with a different producer who has survived the industry shakeup over recent years. Many of who I have worked with in the past are gone now.

As of this writing, I SPY Eagle Eye has sold more than 1.7 million units. NHPC's biggest success story—so far.

Three more license deals resulted after this year's fair. Two with Cardinal and one more with Briarpatch. All three assignments given me for specific brand license needs—meaning the brand owners licensed with the game producers to produce a specific type of game product.

Three more licenses resulted from this fair—two with Briarpatch and one with Cardinal. Brands were Thomas the Engine, 24—the TV series and High School Musical. Yes, I had to read scripts and watch for these shows. None of these became big sellers.

Joined a local Maine-based incubator, MCED, to further develop a project called iCubis, a web-based platform for inventors to share their commerce ideas. This did not go well. I learned I was a terrible frontperson for pitching projects to industry reps.

We did do several more license deals with Briarpatch and Cardinal this year.

We also ended our relationship with Synchronicity—after Cynthia told us there was not much more she could do to help NHPC pitch concepts.

I decided to go it alone and see if I could represent myself—now that I had achieved some level of success in the toy & game industry, as an inventor.

Early in 2008, I learned that my analog prototyping game component supplier, Grand Prix International, had spun off a game production division called Haywire Games. I had worked with Mike Fisher since back in the day, when I was trying to produce and distribute TRI-WORDS on our own.

Mike had just bought a summer home in Maine—with plans to retire here in the near future. We ended up meeting at his Maine-based home. I pitched him dozens of game concepts. Of everything I showed him, he was most interested in a concept that many other companies had loved but were to scared to actually try to market.

The game Mike loved was called Flickin' Chicken.

I got a great licensing contract deal from Mike and with no cut for an agent—NHPC had its first 100% royalty deal.

This game is still selling great today. The weird thing is that University Games also procured this game years ago—so the last two NHPC games in the market actually got scooped up by the same producer—after the other two producers exited the industry.

tbd