COMPANY HISTORY

In 2002 Sherry Martin began to work on developing a game he created back in  the  mid 90's, the game was initially called "Word's Up." Over the next year in his spare time while operating his mortgage company, Sherry completed developing the game concept and produced the first prototype of "Word's Up." Sherry then began to look at how he could bring the product to market.

In January of 2004, Sherry started his company for "Word's Up" and any future games and products that he would develop. Sherry decided to change the name of the game to Sentence Says, and to attend the New York Toy Fair in February of 2004 to explore the potential of the product.

Armed with just a prototype of the game and a demonstration DVD, Sherry attended Toy Fair and found Sentence Says to be a big hit with not only with other vendors but also with merchandisers from all over the world. Sentence Says was mentioned in the Toy Fair trade magazine as a game to watch. Surprisingly even without products to ship, the company received orders for games from major stores such as Nordstrom's and respected educational outlets such as Scholastic and Highlights. The events at Toy Fair convinced Sherry that he should move forward and find a manufacturer for the game.  After settling on a manufacturer, the first game was produced and shipped to retail outlets in late June of 2004.

Around this same time major distributors from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K. had heard of Sentence Says and wanted to add the game to their product line. These distribution outlets made Sentence Says an international product.

Sentence Say began to pick up industry awards such as a Dr. Toy “Top 100" game, a "Parenting Media" and "Hot New Toy" award along with a Creative Child "Seal of Excellence."

Sentence Say was tested on a trial basis by Toys R Us in 50 of their stores across the U.S. and without any advertisement the game sold out in almost all of their stores. This prompted Toys R Us to add Sentence Say their product lines in most of their stores nationwide.

Sentence Says was a featured game at the Chicago Toy and Game show in September of 2004 and was the lead game featured on Chicago's major morning television network shows. The Chicago Tribune named Sentence Says as the Top Ten game for 2004. Other national newspapers and magazines did feature stories such as with the Washington Post, Essence Magazine, and countless industry trade magazines and newsletters. Sherry was named "Businessperson of the Week" in the Los Angeles Business Journal in October of 2004. Parade Magazine read by over 50 million readers weekly named Sentence Says in its Top Pick of games for 2004. In the first year, Sherry saw over 25,000 units of Sentence Says sold.

In 2005, Sherry geared up for Toy Fair in New York with high expectations. The company was  not disappointed going from a little over 100 independent retail locations to well over 1000.  After Toy Fair Sherry began to focus his attention on new products and other avenues of product exposure, Sentence Says Dice, the travel version of the game, was created. Later that same year a group of television producers offered a contract to Sherry to do a game show version of the game. Distribution to Singapore was added in 2005. Sherry attended and had representation at Toy fairs in Nurnberg Germany, Toronto Canada, and Hong Kong.

Sherry was offered a licensing contract with Arby's© restaurant to produce a series of games for their kid’s meal. Over 2,500,000 units were produced and distributed through Arby's restaurants throughout the U.S. and Canada. Sentence Says Man was created to be the face of the Arby's promotion and he toured the country visiting Arby’s and encouraging kids to speak proper English.

In 2005 Sentence Says won two "Top Toy of the Year" awards in the U.S. and in Canada. In 2006 Sherry's plan was to locate and partner with investors in order to really expand the brand and realize his dream of one day taking his company public.  Sherry has created four new spin-offs of the game as well as other new games and has taken them to market under his new company, SFM International.

Sherry changed the name of Sentence Says to "What Is the Sentence" with his new game launch in 2022.