Going viral has been a blessing and a curse for Dundas artist and puzzle maker Lindsay Stead.
A feature on HypeBeast.com in 2020 launched Stead’s circular moon puzzle into a new orbit of success. The day the article went live, Stead sold 800 puzzles and had to close her online orders.
“You invest so much into something. I don't even mean financially. I just mean, personally and time-wise, and you're so excited,” she said.
Stead’s company, Four Point Puzzles, had only been open for nine months when it trended on Google, which attracted business attention from around the world — and from companies ready to knock off her artwork.
It started with sponsored Instagram posts like this one, linking to companies with random names like “GiftZone2” or “disneyandmore_kwt.”
“Some of [the posts] had thousands and thousands of comments of people being like, ‘I can't wait to order this,’” Stead said.
While some of the ads would take customers’ money without sending them a puzzle at all, most were selling low-quality versions of Stead’s puzzle.
“I would get emails from customers who are understandably upset, saying, ‘You know, these are the worst quality puzzles I've ever received.’ And that was really hard,” she said.
But that was just the beginning.
Stead began seeing knock-offs of her puzzle at major retailers, like Walmart and Amazon. She said some retailers, like Wish, took the products down quickly after she reported them. She said she was surprised by the response from some of the companies.
“Amazon would often write back and say that they don't see a similarity in the image when it was actually just the exact same image, and I'm not sure why.”
The images used in Stead’s moon puzzle were taken by NASA and are public domain — but the photo of the moon isn’t the issue, she said. The companies creating the knock-offs were using professional copyrighted photos of Stead’s puzzles, straight from her website, and were using her company name.
“Sometimes [knock-off companies] would take our image of the moon puzzle with my friend's arms and they would Photoshop in a different planet, but even that you're able to report because it really is your image that they've just altered a bit,” she said.
“My poor friend Janet, who was so lovely to model for free, now has her arms just everywhere.”
Reporting the knock-offs became another part of Stead’s work day. She said she would report knock-off sellers weekly, sometimes daily, on top of running a growing business.
“I would scroll through Instagram and it was like every four or five posts was an image of my moon puzzle. It was just insane,” she said.
In 2021, a company in Asia trademarked the name Four Point Puzzles, which made it difficult for Stead to print and sell her original product in Asia.
“When I launched my business, I did not have a budget for applying to trademark my name,” she said, adding that she wasn’t sure how the business would do and if it was worth it to trademark her company name in other countries.
After a year-long court battle, Stead lost the rights to her own company name in Asia.
Stead said she was burnt out from the pandemic, the explosive growth of her business and the knock-off stress. The court decision, which meant she would likely need to rebrand to continue printing and selling puzzles in Asia, was the final straw.
“I think I was just in a very worn-down place, so I decided to close,” she said.
But the closure turned out to be more of a pause.
Earlier this month, Stead reopened her puzzle company under the name Parkside Puzzles. It is an homage to Parkside High School in Dundas, where Stead went to school. She moved her business from Hamilton to Dundas, where she grew up.
“It just feels so good to be home. I really love Dundas. I really loved growing up here. I think it's such a magical little town,” she said.
She said her time away allowed her the space she needed to regroup, rebrand and figure out how to move forward.
Stead has expanded her puzzle inventory, and her viral moon puzzle, along with a puzzle of Earth and Mars, are now available.
