Exclusive Interview with FiGPiN Cofounder Amado Batour

In the short time that I have been collecting FIGPINs, I have really come to enjoy the FiGPiN community. Everyone is welcoming and helpful. And everyone I talk to has the same thing to say – “It’s a great community to be a part of.” For myself, FIGPINs gave me a hobby I could share with one of my sons. Since adopting my first FiGPiN in late June of this year, I have found myself immersed in every aspect of FIGPINs. Yesterday, I even celebrated passing the million milestone in Collection Power, which I could not have done without a lot of help and advice I received from members of the community.

A big part of the ‘community feel’ may also be due to the fact that FiGPiN – the company – is so involved. So it was no surprise to me when cofounder Amado Batour quickly accepted an invitation to a Q&A interview with me. While a lot is already known about him (he’s done an AMA on Reddit among other things), there may be something new in this interview that you will learn. For example, did you know that he came up with the tagline “collect awesome”? I feel privileged that Amado took the time to answer some of my questions and I’m happy to be part of this community.

1. Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

So I have a somewhat eclectic background. I got my bachelor’s degree in Architecture and immediately proceeded not to work in that profession! – it was too slow and the pay was terrible. I got sucked into the world of exhibit design right out of school, the pay was more than double that of architecture and you would design something and see it built within weeks – I was hooked! I had a chance to really sink my teeth into branding and messaging by way of environmental design and interactive design and better still, I traveled all over the world setting up and seeing my work in action.

Although I didn’t work in architecture, I did keep my foot in the door by way of teaching. I was an adjunct professor of architecture for approximately 6 years. I focused primarily on the application of digital tools to empower design exploration with an emphasis on switching back and forth from digital to analog design methodologies.

I did go back to school for a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering – another field that I didn’t do any work in! I had other things on my mind.

Next up was my startup S2H (Switch2Health). I co-founded S2H with my partner Seth Tropper to build activity trackers that rewarded kids for completing a set amount of physical activity. We had some great traction early on and were awarded a pretty significant US Patent for our tech. Ultimately we sold S2H – two companies made offers to acquire our tech (Fitbit & Apple) We sold to Fitbit.

I spent a few years afterwards working on various design projects, both digital and physical. I was the creative director at Noom when there were only 12 team members – I worked across all the departments in helping them up their design game – I even reworked their office interiors!

During that time I also had been doing some freelance work with Dan Williams, one of the three FiGPiN co-founders. Dan had this idea to take hard enamel pins and put a feature on the back that would allow them to stand up. We played around with that concept for a while and the one thing that I kept realizing is that in order for this to work, we would need an art style that would take this medium to the next level. Enter Erik Haldi – the third co-founder. Erik effortlessly took a product that had been around for decades and gave it a new and exciting art style – a style that to this day is still getting better and better.

In the early days, I was based out of NJ and Dan and Erik were in the Seattle area. Our 4th business partner, Travis Oliver was based out of Irvine, CA – the current location of the FiGPiN Distribution and Logistics facility.

When we started, I focused primarily on the 3D design of the kickstand, the packaging design and other presentation methods for FiGPiN. Dan was out trying to drum up interest in the idea and Erik was fine tuning the art. Dan and Erik had come up with the name FiGPiN (Figure Pin) and we needed a tagline that really captured what we were trying to do. One day I was texting Dan and I said, “we keep trying to be descriptive about the product, we should instead focus on the emotion of it – what about ‘collect awesome’?” So, that’s another thing I’m really proud of from the early days – it has really stuck and matured nicely!

Another big thing that happened early on was the decision to add the serial numbers onto every single FiGPiN we make. In my previous startup, S2H I had implemented a serial number system on all of our devices (our initial product was a disposable tracker) so I knew the power of having a digital component to a physical product. It didn’t take much to convince Dan and Erik on the Serial Number idea because it immediately clicked with them as well.

So we had the name, the tagline, the art style, the packaging and the digital backend. Now all we needed were some licenses!

2. Can you take me through a typical day at FiGPiN in your role?

I moved to CA from NJ with my family in early 2020. Since then, I’ve been much more involved in all aspects of the business and not just the packaging design and the app. The pandemic also kicked me into the role of COO. I started to dive into every aspect of the business such as; planning, product definitions, manufacturing optimizations, fulfillment, organizational restructure, our direct to consumer pivot and more! The reason I don’t use the COO title is because I’m still the owner of the product as well. I feel that COO doesn’t really capture the creative side of product ownership. So I’m sticking with the Chief Product Officer title. My responsibility is everything ‘FiGPiN’. My job is to make sure that the product that people see, touch, feel and experience meets a very high standard. So I find myself switching between App development meetings, licensing planning, operations, creative, exhibits and events, marketing – basically everything.

3. What’s been your biggest surprise since co-founding FiGPiN?

My biggest surprise is the amount of love that our fans have for our product. It is an extremely humbling thing for me. For a fan to spend their hard earned money on something I’ve helped to create just really makes me want to double my efforts at making FiGPiN the absolute best collectible out there. The fans deserve it.

4. Is there anything you share about the next feature of the app that we can expect to see?

The big upcoming features are the unlocker room lobby, shelf management in your collection, being able to see other’s collections, creating user avatars, the ULTRA experience and dozens of little tweaks and improvements. Battles unfortunately will slide till early next year.

5. The Cohort Bonus was a major app change. What do you envision as the next major concept change to potentially hit the app?

I’m very sensitive to making big changes fast in the app. In addition to having a VERY small dev team, there are lots of unknowns ahead of us because we don’t know exactly how things will work out with our users. Take for example, BOOSTS – I never imagined that feature would become so intense for our users – the same for Adopter Score. So we’re taking it a little slower now and making sure the app can handle the growth that we’re seeing day over day. Some of the features I mentioned before are quite significant, so we want to make sure we build and launch them right.

6. You previously announced that XLs, minis and 2-packs were not coming in the future. Could FiGPiN still experiment with other sizes or styles in the future?

Something I’ve experimented with recently is what I jokingly called a ‘Double-Triple Box’. It was basically a photoshopped mockup of a box that is 2 wide but has 3 slots for the posts. We’ve run into some licenses and characters that just DON’T WORK in our current packaging and I think it is very important that we find a solution for them. I want to move away from the ‘scale game’ that XL alway introduced – to this day we still get requests based on the scale of characters in 3″ versus XL. Trying to work scale like that is a slippery slope – we will never get it 100% accurate and we’ve already violated the relative scale rules dozens of times. (Think Thanos next to Rocket)

7. Can you tell us something the FiGPiN community doesn’t know?

We are a TINY company. I often feel that fans think we are just another Funko or something like that. Our team in Washington state is less than 10 people! Also, I’ve designed almost every single backer card (except for a handful that were done by the artists). Finally, I designed and built all of our exhibits for the CONS! I even made the crates for our NYCC booth. OK, one last one – during pandemic we had to shut down our warehouse because some team members got sick (they are all good now) – so I did all the order fulfillment out of my garage for 2 weeks leading up to Christmas – I would carry these huge USPS bags to the local post office looking like a multiverse Santa in an orange hoodie and facemask.

8. Do you stay active within the FIGPIN community? If so, where can I go to find you online?

I do. I try to swim in as many lanes as possible. Between Facebook, Discord, Reddit – and a little bit of Twitter. I also read EVER SINGLE support ticket that comes in and I’ve tried to watch every YouTube product review. I should probably try and reduce the amount of time I spend, but I believe that our current fans and future fans are my number one priority!

9. There’s been rumors of a FiGPiN logo shirt? Can you shed light on what that might be? Will there be more apparel options?

We’re currently testing different on-demand printing services. Our plan is to offer T-Shirt versions of all or most of our logo pin designs. We won’t go out with this until I’m 100% convinced that our fans will be getting the absolute best FiGPiN T-Shirt.

10. Did you collect anything growing up?

Not really but I did and still do get obsessed with collecting sets of things – especially nice pens and markers. I also have a ridiculous box collection – I just really enjoy well designed packaging and boxes. So I literally have boxes of boxes in my garage.

11. What was your first convention? Do you happen to have a favorite convention? If so, why?

My very first was NYCC in 2018. I had no idea what was going on in there – I felt like a tourist! But I did see something that has stuck with me since then. These events are overwhelmingly full of the best positive energy I’ve ever seen!. I’ve spent a ton of time in the same convention halls but for other industries and the buzz and vibe and joy you see at CONS is infectious – there’s nothing like it. My first FiGPiN CON was ECCC in 2019 and that was a real eye opener as well. We as FiGPiN thought that perhaps some people might walk up and check us out then keep walking. Little did we know that we would end up with a monster line – our social media and community outreach team member, Yoko McCann had really killed it in getting some serious buzz around our booth that year. Since that show, it’s been like that at every CON and I LOVE it! My favorite CON so far has to be SDCC. It was a magical show for us because it really reinforced what we had seen in ECCC a few months prior. Also, if you had told me that I’d call SD my home just 7 months later, I would have thought it a crazy idea – but here I am!

12. If you were sitting next to one of the top FIGPIN collectors, what would you ask them?

I’d ask them to tell me what we are doing wrong. As much as I enjoy adoration for the product, I also want our fans to be honest with us and really help us make the product better.

13. Do you have a personal collection of FIGPINS? Can you share a photo of just a peek of your collection?

I do have one! But unfortunately it’s all still boxed up from the move to CA. I do have all the ‘grails’ of course, but for me the exciting stuff is the stuff that is being drawn now!

14. Be honest, have you ever thought about making yourself a FiGPiN?

Ha! My son has already done that.

***** Have something to share with the FiGPiN community? If you would like to take part in the interview series, please e-mail [email protected] *****