By writing 136 poems and harnessing the power of the internet, I believe I helped spark the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s

07.08.2023 15:52

BusinessInsider.com

Lina Trivedi with a big Beanie Baby, then and now.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

Beanie Babies exploded in popularity in the '90s, sparking a collector frenzy over the toys.
Lina Trivedi was in college when she joined Ty, Inc. and created a website and accompanying poems for Beanie Babies.
Both ideas were ways to connect better with customers and helped generate buzz for the toys.

Lina Trivedi is an Indian American entrepreneur who helped catapult the Beanie Babies into a worldwide phenomenon in the 90s when she was just a college student. Her role in the Beanie Babies craze was documented in the recent movie "The Beanie Bubble." She has since launched a few tech startups in the AI and content generation space.

This article is based on a conversation with Trivedi, as told to Insider reporter Yoonji Han. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'd describe myself as the godmother of the internet. I wrote around 136 poems for Beanie Babies and created the website that helped turn them into a pop culture sensation.

Lina Trivedi at Ty, Inc. with stuffed animals.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

My parents came from India in 1972, and I was born the year after in 1973. I was raised with very typical immigrant values: I did well in school, especially math.

A young Lina Trivedi and her mother.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

When my parents first came here, they didn't speak English to me, so for the first five years of my life, I didn't speak English. But math is a universal language.

When I was 7 years old, my parents bought the IBM 5150, the first-ever PC. My mom made me read the DOS 1.0 manual three times. Because math came naturally to me, computer programming did, too.

Lina Trivedi learned computer programming when she was in the second grade at a gifted program, pictured above.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

In college, I was looking through newspaper ads for a part-time job when I came across an ad for Ty, Inc. I gave them a call and basically landed the job on the spot.

Lina Trivedi in 1994.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

I left college in my last year to be at Ty full time. My parents were like, "What are you doing?" I got a lot of flak for that.

In 1993, a year after I began working at Ty, Inc., Beanie Babies were born. I thought they were cute and addicting: Once you pick them up, they're difficult to put down because the beans in them make them fun to play with.

Ty Warner, founder of Ty, Inc.

Peter Barreras/AP

In early 1995, I approached Ty Warner, the founder of Ty, Inc., and pitched the idea of creating a website for Beanie Babies. It was like being in the eye of the perfect storm. The impact of Beanie Babies without the internet just wouldn't have been the same. We had people going out to get computers just to access the Ty website.

A screenshot of the early Beanie Babies website.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

I recruited my brother to Ty to help with building out a massive catalog for Beanie Babies: I had to cut these pictures of each toy that the photographer had taken, then upload them onto Photoshop, and then add them to the catalog.

My brother and I built the first draft of the site together in about a week or less.

The website was a way of connecting with customers. We tapped into the people. I think I was the only person in the entire company that had a pulse on what people on the outside really wanted. All the physical mail — artwork, letters, cards — and emails were read by me and my brother. We soaked in information from collectors and customers.

Lina Trivedi's desk at the Ty, Inc.'s office.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

I also pitched the idea for poems in Beanie Babies' tags. I had a couple of Beanie Babies on my monitor, and was trying to figure out what to put out there in terms of content. There are so many plush animals outside of Beanie Babies — what would make someone pick this up out of the hundreds of others? I wanted it to personally connect to someone.

The first-ever poem Lina Trivedi wrote for Beanie Babies.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

I went into Ty's office with a Beanie Baby in my hand, and told him the current tags were bland and offered no means of connection. I said I thought it was a good idea to write poems to give each toy a little hint of a personality, and a birthday, to add another layer of collectability.

Ty said it made sense to him, but wanted to visualize it. So I went back to my desk, where Stripes the Tiger was sitting, and went to Photoshop 1.0, which had just come out. I made a quick mock-up of the tag in two minutes — it's the one that Stripes has right now (he also has my birth date).

It was that easy, and Ty asked me if I could write poems for all of the Beanie Babies.

Beanie Babies have come full circle for me now, because I have a daughter who loves collecting them. I now understand how mothers back then were embracing the hobby of collecting Beanie Babies with their children. It ignites all these positive memories and fun experiences that we otherwise wouldn't have had.

Lina Trivedi’s daughter with her collection of Beanie Babies and other toys.

Courtesy of Lina Trivedi

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By writing 136 poems and harnessing the power of the internet, I believe I helped spark the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s

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