We were lucky to catch up with Joe Novak recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joe thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
How did I come to own a toy store, it was really an epiphany that took almost 20 years to develop. Coming out of business school I knew I liked to make deals and create value, I also knew I did not like to wear suits. So the toy and entertainemnt industries were a perfect fit for me. As I progressed professionally, I marketed, sold, developed, and managed toy brands and IP worldwide. I totally enjoyed seeing an idea go from my head to retail, and wearing jeans or shorts while doing so. Then I met a girl, it happens to us all in one form or another. We soon figured it was time to grow up so we traded the one bedroom by the beach in Santa Monica for a house here in Atlanta where she was from, and this was in 2009 when the buying was good. My wife Whitney’s job as COO of Mathnasium could be handled remotely, but I needed to come up with a plan as at that time, Atlanta had limited opportunities in toys and licensing. We thought about what type of business we could create for ourselves. We had experience with children and MBA’s, and a goal to put down some roots. Maybe we could bring something new to Atlanta. Sure, there were some toy stores already in existence, but none that really knew toys, and curated an enjoyable experience both for the child and the caregiver. It would also allow me to go the last mile and get toys from the shelves into the actual hands of children,..and cut down my commute to about a mile. It was a scary thing when we started not knowing boo about retail, but we learned over the years and each smile we garnered at checkout only gave us more energy to invest in the business and our store. And here we are almost 9 years later, having fun, generating smiles, and being a part of the Atlanta and Buckhead communities.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My wife and I are the owners of Kazoo Toys. Kazoo Toys is an independent, full-service toy store offering a truly enjoyable toy shopping experience. Our store in Buckhead provides area parents, grandparents, teachers, and kids with one of the country’s largest selections of unique and high quality toys, games, puzzles and creative playthings. Our focus is excellent, friendly customer service, and we believe in the trio of children’s fun: imagination, education, and activity. We are dedicated to providing the best possible tools for children’s healthy and safe play, all while being an active member of our local community. While I have only lived in Atlanta a little over a decade (having frown up on the west coast), Whitney is an Atlanta native who graduated from Trinity and Westminster. We support all of the local schools as well as many child-centric charities and encourage everyone to support local businesses. When you shop local, you keep more of your money within the community, which makes it such a great place to live!

Any advice for managing a team?
In this time of labor shortage, which everyone is experiencing, it is super important not only to keep an eye out for potential hires at all times, but to keep the employees you do have excited to come to work. How do we do this, we do our best to make it a fun place to work, we offer opprtunities to our staff to build their skill sets by doing new things on the job, by rewarding both performance and overal store sa acles achievements, and by treating everyone as a family member and taking interest in their lives.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
1- Making sure each and every guest has a great experience at Kazoo 2-Being a part of the community and supporting all local schools and children’s causes 3-Carrying great product and just as important, having knowledgeable staff that can help guests learn all about it. That, and amazing complementary gift wrapping

Contact Info:

• Website: www.KazooToysAtlanta.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/KazoToysBuckhead
• Facebook: Facebook.com/KazooToysAtlanta

Image Credits
Whitney Novak, Kazoo Toys