In 1998, CoolToys Host Scott Bourquin switched gears and entered the home technology business. He was all about the “Cool Toys” for the house. He also ski’s, races cars, flies jets and surfs. His friends always called him to find out more about the next “cool toy”.
CoolToys Started With A Blog
In 2008 Scott started a free website about Cool Toys. The blog wasn’t much of a start but a start it was. Each time Scott found new toys that anyone could buy and add to their house like Insteon Home Control he wrote about it. In 2005 he started racing a LeMons car that you can see in some of the videos.
CoolToys Host, Scott Bourquin, clearly has a problem with toys, apparently he just won’t grow up. The 1966 Mercedes SL pictured here is one of his toys that didn’t make the show because it was “Wife Approved”. The 1966 SL was sacrificed to help CoolToys grow. This photo is from it’s new home in Nantes France.
As the blog about Cool Toys grew in scope Scott tried the idea of a video addition to the blog. The name he tried for the first video series was Tech-Tach-Dough. A show about technology, fast toys (tach as in tachometer), and money. The first episode was about adding LED Halo Headlights to a Jeep JK.
The First Video – 0 to 50,000 in 7 days no ads!
The first TechTachDough.com video hit 50,000 views the first week without any advertising or marketing work. By the end of the month it broke 100,000 views and the company that made the headlights sent us even better headlights. Scott knew he was on to something, but he wasn’t yet sure what.
After making two more videos in the dough part of the TechTachDough series that got almost zero views, it was quickly determined that no one was ready to hear Scott pontificate about money and the “dough” was dropped even though he has an online course about money and success. People will pay for business advice but no one watches it for free. Who knew.
The best part is we have found many of our videos on other people’s YouTube Channel, even after the name change with the old name still in the watermark.
The Failed Videos
The second two episodes were shelved quickly. The decision was made that the new series would only be about Tech and Tach, basically big boys toys. The name was changed to CoolToys and CoolToys.TV was launched.
After seeing a three year old ride an electric two wheel bicycle like he was Kenny Roberts, and then go drift his over boosted electric car like he was auditioning for The Fast and The Furious, we decided to add a CoolToys kids segment. All the stuff your wife gets mad about when you let the kids play with it.
Due to a clear ignorance on Scott’s part about making sure you own the trademark before you post the videos, some have been re-edited and one has been taken down completely waiting to clear legal hurdles. Yup, the lawyers found us. Now we have our own.
The Rules
The Rules are easy. We buy, or receive things that we think look cool. Then we test them and decide if they are. Finally we see if our wives like the item or service. No one can pay us to review anything. Once the review is complete of course we will take their money so they can say “as seen on” and use the footage on their website or marketing.
CoolToys Trademark
CoolToys became a trademark of our parent company in 2019, and we are getting everything corrected here on CoolToysTV.com and CoolToys.TV as fast as we can.
Jeep is a trademark of FCA USA and is used without promotional consideration. Yes it earned all five stars. That is until the JLU arrived with a steering wheel heater, Scott’s wife drove it and it lost a star.
How We Make Money.
When we started out, CoolToys TV used affiliate links to allow our viewers to quickly purchase the items we reviewed. CoolToys would receive a commission for those links. The links are now removed and CoolToys clearly shows all advertisements as “Sponsored By” or as an ad with the company name such as Amazon.
How We Make Money Now-
- Show sponsors, whose products appear in the show but are not reviewed or ranked on the CoolToys Scale. (Please sponsor us)
- The sale of swag (please buy lots of it)
- The sale of items purchased through ads on our website
- The sale of advertising on our website.
- The sale of footage to winners for “as seen on” use.
- We Do Not use Affiliate Linking to Make Money. If you find an old link, let us know we will remove it!
Our Sponsors
Special thanks to our start up sponsors, The Mastrangelo Law Offices, The Earl Banes Company, TruSpeed, and Hard-Yoga.
More importantly, Thank YOUfor watching our show. Without viewers, it is not worth doing.
If you think you have a CoolToy, send it to us and lets see if it gets CoolToys Approved!
Scott, Josh and The CoolToys team.
