INSIDE THE MIND OF MCMONSTERMAKER

1. YOU HAND-MAKE EVERYTHING AND YOUR WORK IS KNOWN FOR ITS DETAIL — WHY NOT GO WITH THE MASS PRODUCTION ROUTE?

Well uh, I never said that I don’t plan on doing that. I mean, we’re still a young company. It’s really just a matter of growth and investing in better technology so we can do even more. As it stands, we are a small-batch production company — but we still produce quite a few products in a very short amount of time due to our workflows and the things we’ve developed over the last five years to become more efficient. That said, I fully intend on having a factory at some point before I’m dead. I’m not doing this for fun — we’re doing this because we want to be household names within the next 10 to 15 years, if not sooner. 

So in order to get there, you just gotta keep grinding and doing the best you can. But yes — I fully intend on doing mass production. I don’t understand why small businesses that start out as small businesses enjoy leaning into that aspect. I have no intention of remaining a small business if I have anything to do with it.I don’t know why anyone would want that. I can’t wrap my head around it. And if you do — more power to you. You do your thing. But no, I fully want to take over the space at some point. Even in some small capacity.

2. WHAT’S BEEN THE MOST UNEXPECTED CHALLENGE OF RUNNING A BUSINESS IN THE COLLECTIBLE INDUSTRY?

The biggest challenge would probably be simply having the resources to educate the consumer about your very existence — let alone how things are produced.In this day and age, with the advent of very cheap and affordable hobbyist 3D printing becoming so prevalent, it’s very difficult for people to make the distinction between what hobbyists do and what our company does. We do absolutely nothing different than the major competitors in this space. The only difference is we’re a small boutique. We specialize in designer collectibles at the moment — but one man’s designer collectible in five years is just going to be an everyday consumer product.

It really just depends on the perception and your reach, in terms of your target demographic. All that really comes down to is time. Time and investment in your business — and you will eventually break through into that. There was a time when the Scrub Daddy was just some weird tchotchke you get online — now you get them everywhere. Everybody knows what that is. It’s no different than our methodologies here. Someone sees a creature in a show and in five to ten years I fully intend for it to be like: “Oh yeah, here’s your Funko Pop collection… oh, here’s my Cutie collection. Cool. Awesome.” That’s just the way my brain works — and the direction we’re always aiming towards. What I mean by that is: growth, expansion, becoming part of the cultural zeitgeist. However we can — we will make it happen. Damn it.

3. YOU’VE MENTIONED YOUR FRUSTRATION WITH PEOPLE NOT TAKING YOUR BUSINESS SERIOUSLY. HOW DO YOU COMBAT THE PERCEPTION?

Really, it just boils down to time. The more time you have in the commerce space, the more you’re regarded — or understood — as someone who has every intention of remaining and growing in that space. Certainly in that time, educating customers and word of mouth advertising helps. In the beginning, it was a challenge because — even we didn’t know what we didn’t know, right? We had a very hard time educating the consumer on what it is we did — what our objective was. We knew what it was in-house and in practice, but to be able to articulate it to the customer? That’s a whole different art form. One that needs to be honed in and of itself. In the beginning, we just didn’t know what we needed to convey to educate the consumer. 

Unlike now. Now it’s very different. A lot of the questions that used to annoy the hell out of me? We don’t get those anymore. But now we get a whole new set of questions that we have to answer. So, for every hole you plug — there’s always something else that pops up. That, I think, is the current state of challenges. As far as people not taking us seriously? I don’t know that that’s even a thing anymore. Some might — I don’t know. But we have a very loyal base of customers and consumers and friends who definitely know we’re here for the long haul. So really, it’s just about educating the newcomers. That’s the only way I can explain it.

4. HAVE YOU HAD MOMENTS WHERE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT GIVING UP? WHAT KEPT YOU GOING?

If I’m being completely honest — there was one day where I thought about it for maybe 15 minutes. I could say “no” and it wouldn’t be a lie — but it wouldn’t be the literal, binary truth either. To me, 15 minutes out of five years isn’t really “considering it.” But I did, very briefly, for a couple minutes one day, think: “What would it be like if I didn’t have all this?” Then of course, when you go down that line of thinking — if you have any sense of character and work ethic — you look at everything you’ve accomplished and go, “What the hell am I thinking? Why would I do that?” At that point, any question like that just becomes some dumb rhetorical thing you think in the throes of being stressed out from the work that needs to get done. That’s human nature. So I would say it was just my brain being lazy for a minute — which I have whor— but you know, it happens. We’re human. But in the grand scheme of things? No. I haven’t. We’ve come too far to just drop dead for no reason. Absolutely not.

5. WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST REQUEST YOU’VE EVER GOTTEN FROM A CUSTOMER?

I don’t know how to answer this other than to say: really just one. I’ve only had one real crazy request — and that was for a Thomas the Train villain replica that I was asked to sculpt.The person I took on for this commission was a wonderful client, and it’s kind of a joke now. But at the time I was producing this thing, it was a bit difficult. He had a little bit of OCD, you know? So it made creating this thing extremely challenging — just from a pinpoint accuracy part. A lot of the stuff — even though I’m sculpting digitally — I’m still using my hands. It’s not a machine process. And we were getting into literal centimeter and millimeter discrepancies. It was very challenging to satisfy this individual. I’ve never encountered anything like that since — and I don’t know that I would ever want to again. That was probably the weirdest request. Other than that, I don’t get a lot of weird requests — but I do get requests for things I absolutely have no interest in doing. That’s not weird. But let’s just say… I’m glad there are websites where people can buy assets to download and do on their own — because there are some voids I just don’t want to fill.

6. IF SOMEONE WANTED TO COLLECT YOUR PIECES BUT COULD ONLY START WITH ONE, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU RECOMMEND AND WHY?

If we’re talking about something highly detailed and it’s more about the status — then I’d say one of the Collection Classique busts or statues we have coming this year. If you just want to collect something affordable to put on a shelf and enjoy — then definitely our Creatureporium Cuties or our Necronom. We also have another line of products coming soon called Shmi — kind of adorable little creatures I pulled out of the ether of my brain that are a little cuter than most. So for high-end things? Our busts.For affordable, casual collectibles? The aforementioned tiny products.

7. WHAT´S BEEN YOUR PROUDEST MOMENT SINCE LAUNCHING MCMONSTERMAKER HOLDINGS LLC?

The proudest moment that stands out to me is probably the first time I saw my son in one of our work shirts at an event. Seeing him participate in what his father does for work really meant a lot. That would probably have to be my proudest moment — of many. But I can’t really think of anything that stands out more than that.

8. YOU’VE BEEN SHIFTING YOUR BRANDING AND PRESENTATION. HOW DO YOU SEE THE COMPANY EVOLVING IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?

We’ve definitely made a few pivots over the last five years — simply out of necessity. As the business became a company, it became important to make branding distinctions. If we’re making certain products, certain demographics are going to gravitate toward them — and they may not understand if we have other products in that same space. What I mean is — GMCM Publishing is our literary wing. It handles all the books we sell. Then there’s Guy McMonsterMaker Creatureporium — which handles all of the creatures, monsters, and ugly things. All of that falls under McMonstermaker Holdings, which we created because we eventually see the company taking different avenues in terms of commerce. So it’s best to have them under one parent company. Say we go to a fantasy-based event — we may not want to take Creatureporium products. We may want to take something else (yet to be determined).

My point is — we definitely have to do a lot of strategic branding and compartmentalization so we don’t confuse the consumer. Where do we see ourselves in the next five years? Doing exactly what we’re doing now — only on a larger scale. With more recognition.More notoriety. And more customers. Really — that simple.