The idea for ZipString came about during an engineering class at Georgia Tech.
Stephen Fazio’s goal is to win a design competition where entries can only feature circuit boards the size of a credit card or smaller. He decided to base his design on a physics experiment he saw in middle school, in which a machine sent a circle of rope spinning.
After creating his first ZipString prototype, Fazio’s church leaders introduced him to Austin Hillam, another like-minded college student with a passion for entrepreneurship and engineering.
“He said, ‘Stephen, you really love engineering. Austin loves engineering. You should get together,” Fazio said. “I had Austin over for dinner one night. Normally when you invite someone over for dinner, it’s like, maybe you invite them over at 6 p.m. and then you have dinner at 7, but I don’t have to Without showing Austin my bedroom electronics lab, we just nerdged out and spent five hours on this string transmitter.
From there, Fazio and Hiram set up shop in Hiram’s parents’ basement, tweaking prototypes and designing new ones. One day in August 2021, Fazio decided to share his creation on TikTok. Fazio’s other works have achieved viral success on social media platforms, but ZipString became a huge hit, racking up over 20 million views online and even appearing on Reddit’s homepage. At the time, Fazio and Hillam were preparing to launch ZipString on Kickstarter and didn’t even have a company name yet.
Enter the Shark Tank
ZipString met its funding goal on Kickstarter, with the first 4,000 units handcrafted in Hillam’s parents’ basement. More than a year later, in December 2022, the pair appeared on the ABC show Shark Tankthey struck a deal with Robert Herjavec and “Mr. Great.” Kevin O’Leary paid $100,000 for 20% of the company. However, the deal with the Sharks was not ultimately over.
“It was a great experience, but eventually we all went our separate ways,” Hiram explained. “It wasn’t the best deal. But overall, they were great to work with.
Although their Shark Tank After the deal fell through, ZipString’s appearance on the show connected Fazio and Hillam with Product Advisor’s founder and president Robert Yusim, a toy industry legend behind the launch of Moon Sand, Pixos, Havoc Heli, Pixicade, Wubble and other popular toy brands.
I got to know Spin Master in 1994, when they were still one company. When I see Austin and Steven, I’m reminded of the young men from Spin Master. That really inspired me to want to help them transform their company from a one-brand, one-product company to a multi-brand, multi-product toy company and help them grow into this incredible success.
The company’s latest product is the ZipString Luma, a model that features a glow-in-the-dark phosphorescent string that starts glowing when exposed to a black light. As the rope passes through Luma, it charges up and glows brighter. Kids don’t need to understand the science behind ZipString Luma to be amazed by it.
“One of the reasons ZipString is so popular and so viral is this phenomenon we call the surprise smile,” Hillam said. “Every time someone uses ZipString, they get a look of pure, raw amazement on their face. They don’t quite understand what’s going on, but it’s cool. It happens again and again with everyone, whether they’re 3 years old or 103 age, [a] Boys, girls, lawyers, physicists, school teachers, [or] police officer. Everyone loves this.
A version of this feature was originally published in The Toy Book’s 2024 Los Angeles Fall Toy Preview issue. Click here to read the full article! Want to receive a printed copy of The Toy Book? Click here to view subscription options!
