From Retail Rocketship to Product Operating Model: How tonies Built the Toniebox 2

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tonies is best known for its kid-friendly Toniebox and collectible Tonies figurines that unlock imaginative audio adventures. The company has sold more than ten million boxes and over hundred twenty five million figurines, with active use in more than hundred countries. In his talk, Christian Sprinkmeyer shared how tonies evolved from a project-driven, agency-based setup to a true product operating model that enabled the biggest innovation since the company’s founding in 2016: the Toniebox 2 — and how this transformation created lasting business impact.

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The Starting Point: A winning product with a limiting setup

When Christian joined in 2020, tonies was already a huge success in the DACH region with a strong retail focus. About ninety five percent of revenue came from retail, while digital touchpoints existed but were underused. Most development work was outsourced to multiple agencies delivering fixed-scope projects. That setup made it difficult to move fast or scale internationally.

Leadership defined two ambitious goals: expand direct-to-consumer (D2C) and grow internationally. To make this possible, Christian set out to pivot toward the product operating model—without slowing down the existing business.

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The First Moves: Stabilize today, earn time to transform

• Keep shipping with clearer guardrails. Continue working with external partners but tighten scope, process, and delivery to build trust and quick wins.
• Hire catalysts. Bring in experienced product and engineering leaders who understand empowered teams and can champion the new way of working.
• Match structure to strategy. Focus internal capability-building where it mattered most: international expansion and e-commerce.

tonies introduced a product triad for each area: a product manager (viability), a product designer (usability and desirability), and an engineering manager (feasibility). Early attempts to roll this model out everywhere proved challenging, so the company switched to lighthouse teams—selecting a few areas to demonstrate success quickly and then expanding from there.

Clear goal-setting frameworks helped teams define what success meant and align on outcomes.

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Using pressure moments to accelerate change

Two external events became turning points for transformation:

• The French market launch. An ambitious timeline forced tonies to bring key e-commerce capabilities in-house and rebuild its architecture for multi-market scale.
• A supplier component shortage. A sudden lack of parts required a hardware redesign, which became the moment to build internal electronics and firmware expertise for the first time.

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From platforms to missions

After these foundations, tonies moved from platform teams (web, app, backend) to cross-platform mission teams responsible for customer outcomes across all touchpoints:

• Discover – guiding families to the next best action in the app or on the web
• Collect – owning the complete e-commerce experience
• Control – managing IoT setup and device control for the Toniebox
• Create – developing the digital content experience

Each team worked with a team contract, defining its mission, responsibilities, and success metrics it could truly influence.

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Uniting digital and physical products

The next step was to merge digital and hardware under one product organization to avoid “shipping the org chart.” Hardware brought new challenges—supply chains, manufacturing, logistics, inventory, and retailers with strong influence on product decisions.

To balance autonomy and expertise, tonies introduced empowered category teams for business outcomes, paired with domain expert teams providing deep technical capabilities.

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Shipping the big one: the Toniebox 2

The Toniebox 2 became a company-wide initiative involving four task forces, twenty workstreams, and over hundred people. Hardware development required careful backward planning for production and holiday readiness, so tonies blended the rigor of program management with the flexibility of empowered teams.

The result:

• A new Toniebox with expanded capabilities and a broader age range
• Tonie Play, an interactive audio experience where kids can play games on their box
• A growing ecosystem of accessories and new content formats
• A streamlined setup process and improved ratings from parents

After launch, the team ran a hypercare phase with twice-daily check-ins alongside the Customer Happiness team to identify and fix issues fast. The Toniebox 2 debuted on Times Square, and the company’s share price rose more than thirty percent after the announcement—a clear sign of value creation through product thinking.

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What’s next

In 2026, tonies plans to extend the product operating model into hardware using the Team Topologies framework. Product categories will be structured as stream-aligned teams, supported by enabling teams such as product operations and core engineering.

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Key takeaways

• Structure follows strategy. Focus transformation efforts where your growth strategy demands them most.
• Balance change with delivery. Win credibility by helping the business succeed while evolving how it works.
• Start small, scale success. Use lighthouse teams to prove impact, then expand the model.
• Use pressure moments. Turn deadlines or crises into opportunities to accelerate transformation.
• Blend program and product. Hardware requires structure, but outcomes and empowerment still drive success.

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Why it matters

tonies shows that even a company rooted in hardware and retail can build an empowered, outcome-driven product organization. The launch of the Toniebox 2 was not just a product release but the result of a multi-year cultural and structural shift—creating a new experience, a new ecosystem, and measurable business impact.

If you are leading a similar journey from project to product, this story proves that transformation is not about speed, but about focus, alignment, and persistence—the same principles at the heart of From Project to Product Mode.

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