As many of you might know, I follow the Dragons Den on CBC, a show in which business owners (or many times wanna-be’s) get to pitch their ideas to the “dragons”. I just noticed that Rob Grand went into the Den and actually got a deal with Arlene. He is a very hard working guy and has been working on his business – the Grassroots store in Toronto where our blocks are being sold as well – for over 17 years. I can only imagine how much of an uphill battle that must have been for all these years.

I wish him all the best.

Here is the pitch (skip right to min. 5:22 to see it)

Here is the link to this blog post on the Grassroots Blog.

Friends of mine found a neat “media mention” of the our blocks in Canadian House & Home Magazine (June 2010 edition). Thanx Kimberley (of House & Home) for this great photo, who found the blocks at Swipe (Toronto, Books on Advertising and Design). It is very humbling to see all the other great classic toys on the same page.

I found out from Bernard (once again, he connects everyone in the business), that you can now get our building blocks on airmiles. Weird that I never know about it, I wonder how the whole deal works (I’m pretty certain I know who they are getting them from… not from me though).

I’m just working on some graphics, trying to display what it is that Ukoonto is all about.

I have a very tough time with creating graphics that are very obviously made to sell a product. I just don’t think that we really need any more toys. Don’t get me wrong. I like to sell things (and buy beautiful things myself), in the end that’s how I can make a living.

I’m a father to two little girls (2 years and 8 weeks), and I’ve worked hard on cutting time out to spend with my daughters. What we need are parents that take the time to spend with their children. Parents that care about how their children are doing, how they feel and how they grow up to be able young people. That’s what we need!

I find this very touching, what do you think about all this?

Just a quick shout out to Digital Dads. Great discussion going on over there about kids and video games. Check it out!

(via @cc_chapman)

PS: I put in my 2 cents in the comments as well.

I found this video (Delivered in Beta from KS12) on Swiss-Miss this morning and I wanted to share it with you.

I oftentimes feel like I am under huge pressure that everything needs to perfect right now with Ukoonto. As an entrepreneur I feel that I’m exposing my imperfections to the world even more so. Everything that I do here is under an enlargement glass the moment that you start a project. Unfortunately, things only go ahead in many little baby steps (and fortunately they go ahead :-) ) and all the little imperfections that you see that are part of Ukoonto are going to be looked after at some point … only to reveal more down the road.

I’m grateful for the support that I get from all of you. Please stick in there with me :-)

Hans

I just found a blog post about “Toronto’s Best Baby Stores” on blog T.O. . The post is from summer 2009 (I guess better late than never :-) ). Many of the stores sell our wooden building blocks. It feels great to be part of it all.

This is a little blurb on the evening news in Hamilton. Lots of game action with Ukoonto blocks.

So if you guys ever want to go to a really fun store that has a lot of really nice toys in the Hamilton area, you should visit Citizen Kid.

Hello,

Our blocks were on TV last night as part of CHCH news in Hamilton. Unfortunately there was no mention of us, but footage of kids playing with them. Gosh, I really need my branding iron to come in :-) Maybe I can even track down some video online about it.

Cheers, Hans