Episode 571: Ronnen Harary: The Bite-Sized Decisions That Built a Billion-Dollar Company From Nothing

What if waiting until you feel ready is the reason you keep missing the opportunity? A lot of people have ideas, ambition, and opinions, but very few are willing to move before they have the perfect plan. Ronnen Harary built Spin Master by doing the thing so many people avoid: making the first small decision, trusting his gut, asking who could help, and moving fast enough to catch the opportunity while everyone else was still thinking about it. He did not start with decades of experience, unlimited resources, or a perfect roadmap. He started with curiosity, speed, persistence, and a willingness to figure it out in real time. This matters because opportunity rarely looks polished when it first shows up. Sometimes it looks like a weird grass toy, a product everyone else passed on, or a preschool show created after two brutal years of company losses. Ronnen's story is a reminder that success is built through motion, not overthinking. The people who win are the ones who create momentum, learn fast, build the right partnerships, and keep going long enough for the next big thing to appear. Ronnen Harary is the co-founder and former CEO of Spin Master, one of the world's largest children's entertainment companies, behind brands including Paw Patrol, Bakugan, Air Hogs, Rubik's Cube, Melissa & Doug, and Toca Boca. He is also the author of No Experience Necessary. In this episode, he breaks down entrepreneurship, instinct, failure, culture, partnerships, decision-making, and why not knowing too much can sometimes be the advantage that gets you moving. What's discussed: (02:11) Why Ronnen wrote No Experience Necessary after building one of the biggest toy companies in the world. (05:48) Why a learning disability does not mean a lack of intelligence. (13:27) How Spin Master started with two college friends, fertilizer sales, and the decision to go into business for themselves. (20:46) How one bold Kmart meeting turned into an order for 48,000 pieces and the possibility of half a million more. (27:02) Why bite-sized decisions, momentum, and asking for help matter more than having the full plan. (30:11) Why speed to market and fast scaling helped Earth Buddies beat the competition. (36:56) How Air Hogs became the product everyone passed on before it took Spin Master from $7 million to $35 million in sales. (48:57) How Paw Patrol was created during Spin Master's lowest point after losses, layoffs, and failed shows. (01:02:43) Why the ability to say sorry, debate well, and remove ego is critical in business partnerships. (01:21:17) How overthinking led him to turn down a $100 million Universal movie deal. Thank You to Our Sponsors! Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen http://www.magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. Pique: Go to piquelife.com/jenniferrsd https://piquelife.com/jenniferrsd to get 20% off for life plus free gifts Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com http://livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. Therasage: Visit therasage.com http://therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% off your order. Your skin Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Find more from Jen Cohen: Website: jennifercohen.com https://jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen http://instagram.com/therealjencohen Books: jennifercohen.com/books https://jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more from Ronnen Harary: Website: ronnenharary.com https://www.ronnenharary.com Book: No Experience Necessary https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/789812/no-experience-necessary-by-ronnen-harary/ Foundation: Robert Harary Foundation https://www.ronnenharary.com/giving-back/ronnen-harary-foundation Initiative: The Toy Movement https://www.ronnenharary.com/giving-back/initiative/the-toy-movement

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, athletes, and top experts to uncover the habits, strategies, and mindset shifts that actually move the needle in your health, happiness, and success. Today, I'm sitting down with Renan Harari, who is the co-founder of Spin Master. This is the company behind Paw Patrol, Rubik's Cube, and some of the biggest names that you've heard of in children's toys. Renan built one of the biggest children's entertainment companies in the world by moving fast, trusting his instincts, and figuring things out before he had the perfect plan. In this episode, we get into how a weird grass toy became his first big win, and why

• 0:49Speaker 01

  speed beats overthinking every time. This conversation will make you rethink experience, failure, momentum, partnerships, and what it really takes to build something that lasts. So let's dive in.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Welcome to Habits and Hustle. You guys, I'm so excited about today's guest, legit, because he is not only a great guy, he is Canadian, he is a true entrepreneur, like, I'm talking like a legit baller. Started the, or basically founded one of the most successful toy companies on the planet called Spin Master. It is equivalent to like a Mattel? Like, where is it in that world?

• 1:32Speaker 00

  It's Lego, Hasbro, Mattel, Spin Master.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Oh, so you're number four in the world. Okay, you should be embarrassed. Like I said, the Rubik's Cube is one of his Paw Patrol. If you are someone who has a child, you will know probably half of the products that they have. But more than that, what he built, we're gonna learn so many things about leadership, entrepreneurship, grit, and how to basically get what you want. And I'm very happy to have you today.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. It's so nice to be here.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  It's so happy. Okay, by the way, his name is Renan Harari. I forgot. I was so excited. I don't think I even said your name. And he wrote a book called No Experience Necessary. What is so, I was saying to Renan, I was saying before we even started, what I found so interesting about what you're, I never, I never founded a multi-billion dollar company, founded a few other ones that were not that, not like that, but what your pillars are about how to build success and get success, like, it's literally like, it was like reading my own book, or like my own, saying the same thing I say to myself. So the fact that I felt like there was like a real like synergy here. So I really, I wanna like dive into this book. But my first question is like, someone like you, who's already like made

• 2:46Speaker 01

  so much money, has had so much success, why would you even like, like, why are you writing a book? Like, why do you even wanna do this whole grind in the first place? You know?

• 2:58Speaker 00

  It's a great question. I think that part of it's to give back, for me.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  And, you know, I, in a way, I kinda wanted a book like this to be written when I was a kid. And because the, the book is there to be a supportive parent to you, and to encourage you to do what you wanna do in your life. And I was actually very blessed, in a sense, because after my parents divorced, my mother was like, super encouraging for me to do whatever I wanted. And there was no negativity in any parts of the conversation. And when I look back, when I hit, you know, in my 40s, I was like, there's something so special about the 20s. There's something so special about that decade.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  So true, yeah.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  And I wanted to put it down on paper and explain what's so special about that decade, and what accrues to you during that time. And I love reading books, and it was a challenge for me. And it's kind of an irony, because I grew up with learning, but a disability called dysgraphia, which is, which is all about the inability to get your thoughts out through your, through your hands. So it was kinda like a challenge. And plus, the last part is that I took a sabbatical for a year and a half, and I'm a bit of a workaholic, so I needed a project.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I think that's a great reason, though. It's a great, I think everyone needs to have something to do, a purpose and a project, right? Because then what? Like, especially someone that's built the way you are, it seems that you are. But one second, I've never heard of that type of learning disability. What do you mean? So you're not able to get your thoughts from your head to the paper? Is that what the disability is?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Correct. Like, if you asked me to sign the book for you, and write a note, okay, it'll be hard for you to read it. I'd have to write it really slowly. So it's basically like, I write like a doctor, but I'm not a doctor.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Okay, so basically, as I start writing, my hand starts to cramp up, and then I can't even read my own handwriting. So then I gotta go back and scratch it out, and write very slowly so I can read it later. And it's basically, it's just, I get stuck. And then my, basically, I gotta reboot my thoughts to actually start again. So it slows you down. And I have some other, you know, learning disabilities around spatial stuff. But please, go ahead.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  No, what I was gonna say is that when I was reading your book, you did mention in there how like, the way you work and process information is different than how other people do, which, and you kind of made a point, which I thought, again, resonated with me. It's like, a lot of people like spreadsheets and graphs, and like doing a lot of these, like busy admin work, or like PowerPoints. It was about a PowerPoint. And you're like, I just don't work that way. Like, I don't, that's not the way that works for me. And when I read that, I was like, oh my God, I'm so glad that you put that in paper, because my brain, again, is very similar. Not, I don't write like a doctor, but probably similar. Like, I have really bad handwriting, and my superpower is getting things done off paper.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Right? And the second someone says, you have to be giving me a PowerPoint, and this type of agreement and contact, I get so like anxiety struck. I'm like, I can't do that. That's not how I work. Because not everybody learns and succeeds in the same way.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. Well, I've never done a PowerPoint in my whole life.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, neither have I, by the way.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Never done a PowerPoint, because we're very similar.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Neither have I.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I mean, my brain processes, it's, the thing about a learning disability is not a sign of lack of intelligence. It just means, it's just a sign that you intake information differently, and the information comes out differently. And the unfortunate part is that most of us that go to public school, the system is not built for us. And so it's very difficult. But I was very lucky, because I got identified at 10 years old. And as a result of that, I got accommodations, I got extra time on my exams, I got a tutor at the end of the day. And if I didn't get identified, there is no way, I can tell you 100%, there was no way that I would have made it through school. And I probably would have been either in jail or something else.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Interesting, because normally, I would say, if you were, if you were born today, right, they would say that, you know, I don't even know if that, that would even, well, actually, that's not true, because I would say they would actually give you a lot of, like, it would actually be different. What I was gonna say is, sometimes when you put emphasis on that disability, that becomes your identity, and that defines who you are. So a lot of times, people will then not work as hard, and they will just like fall back on, well, you know, I can't do it. So like, how did you kind of like negate that, and not let that become the who you are? Like, oh, because when you're young, you think, oh, I'm stupid, I can't do this, I have, something's wrong with me, all those things.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  You know, the irony is, is that it was never talked about in my family. Okay, my parents never recognized it. So I hid it from everybody. Everybody, no one even knew. Okay? Even my classmates didn't even know. I was the guy in the class, where I was like, where were you, Renan? We just wrote the exam. And I was like, nah, you know, like, I was like the king of stories. Okay?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Really?

• 7:45Speaker 00

  I was the king of stories. And I never told anybody about my learning disability. Okay? The knock-on effect of that is I grew up with a lot of shame, as a result of it.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  Right? So I was just like, but I didn't tell anybody, and maybe it was, maybe internally, I just wanted to like, prove that I can like, fit in, or I want, I could be like everybody else. And maybe that was the thing that got me through it, or it was just like, and also the, the accommodations at the end of the day, like, it gave me the ability to like, figure, figure it out. Right?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And then the gift it gave me was actually, it turned me into a person that was able to overcome challenges, because I constantly had to do it. Like, I, I learned, I had the muscle memory. By the time I graduated, I had the muscle memory on powering through things and anything. And I think that taught me that anything was possible. If I can make it through school, anything was possible. Because after school, it was like, oh, I could breathe. I was like, oh, you know, now I could do things my way. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to start my own business.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Right. It made you, it made you much more resourceful, because you had to be.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Right? But that's interesting. So you did grow up with the shame, but yet the shame worked to your advantage, because it worked as a positive, as a strength, right? Because, you know, you were, it was kinda like, you had to prove to yourself that you can do it, and work through past the shame, and like, still do the things that become more resourceful.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  The shame was, that's, that was a negative. I don't wish it on anybody. No one should grow up with that.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  How did your parents not even know? When you got tested at 10, they didn't know that you got tested at 10?

• 9:12Speaker 00

  No, they, they knew.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Okay. Did the, did the people at school just come up to you?

• 9:17Speaker 00

  They knew. It's just my parents were classic, you know, immigrants, and they, they just, they didn't know how to deal with it.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  And they just, they were like, oh, the, the school system will deal with it. And we just.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So that's what you meant?

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And so then, like, they gave you extra, like, so the school tested you, they knew, but it was never like, me, you weren't coddled at home because of it, in any way?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  Correct. I came back, like, I'm the king of Cs. Okay?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  I got lots of Cs.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's okay.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  I'm the king of Cs, occasionally I got a B, and I come home with a report card. My parents were like, why is it just a C, you know? But it wasn't like, oh, it's a C, because we understand that you got some other issues going on.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right, right. They did it. And that was okay. And that worked, though, for your, for your, for your advantage, because they didn't like emphasize it all the time.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  They were not coddling. There was no coddling.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  I know. I mean, okay, so let's talk about the shame for one second. So how did that manifest itself?

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Shame causes you to not ask people for help, and causes you to be shy.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  You know, I'm typically, you know, naturally a bit more of a shy introverted person. I'm like somewhere in the middle. But it causes you to like even go deeper and just to be more in your own thoughts and to not ask for help. And then, and then you have like self-esteem issues. There's a whole lot, lot of knock on effects.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  No, but that.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Probably, probably for another podcast.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  No, but I think it's very, I think it's part of why you're successful though, right? Cause you had to over like, even with the shame, like you said, because of that, you never asked for help. So you had to figure things out on your own. It made you more resourceful because you didn't ask for help, you know, like also like it was you, it made you more resilient. Like you got used to being, you, you got used to failing. So you got immune to the feeling of being a failure. So you kept on going. Like, I think shame can be a huge advantage if you're lucky and you like deal with it the right way, right? Like you started a business, you were twenty-three or twenty-two years old.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  I think, I think I could have gone there without it.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Why, why do you say that?

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Because I think that for me, I'm, I'm a very curious individual, right? And I'm curious and uh, I have some boldness in me. And I like trying different things. I like bringing things into the world. So I think it could have been an easier journey. I don't, I, I actually, I'm not a, an advocate or I don't subscribe to the, what we're describing, what we're talking about here, that like deep, deep adversity brings you to success.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Hmm, okay.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  I think, I think, I think if you have the natural, everybody's got natural gifts inside. And the gifts are the gifts, right? And they could be, and they're just deep, they're, they're just there and they could be expressed in many different ways. And I, I don't believe in people having to suffer their way to get to success, right?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  What you don't have to, but sometimes that is the path, you know, that, that's why sometimes, some people get there because they had to go through all this suffering to teach them certain things or show them certain things or build them, build their character.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  I, I agree. I just don't, I just, I don't, I don't, I don't wish the knock on effects on anybody.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  And also there's certain things like, I was very like, I love reading the business section. Like I don't read sports. I still don't read sports today.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  You know, and I, and I was surrounded, my parents were, you know, small business entrepreneurs and business was discussed in the house. And I got exposed to a lot of interesting people. And so there's a lot of things that led me.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  What did they do?

• 12:40Speaker 00

  To this path. My parents were classic entrepreneurs and they had a, a gallery in Toronto that sold Persian carpets.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Really?

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, they sold Persian carpets and I was like, and then I knew, I used to go to my dad's place every Saturday and work and I used to like roll the rugs. I was like a good roll rugger and rug roller and fold and stuff. And I knew exactly that I did not want to go into retail.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  That's right. Exactly. Okay, good. So the process of elimination of what you don't want to do. So then how did the whole toy thing happen? Like, give me, like, start, give me the evolution of how it even began.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Well, it started when uh, we were in university, Anton and I, as my business partner. Who, we were best friends growing up and we swore we'd never go into business together.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, we swore we'd never go into business together until we had to pay for school.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  And then we were like, okay. And we were selling fertilizer door to door after our first year.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Where'd you go to school, by the way?

• 13:34Speaker 00

  I went to Western.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  You went to us? That's what I thought. Okay.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I went to Western. And we were selling fertilizer door to door and that was like not so much fun. And we had noticed these sophomores that had just graduated. They created this product called campus. We call the campus space. It basically was a collage of these posters, sorry, collage of students that were taken during frosh week. And then around the collage of all these pictures, they would sell advertising and they'd print up nine thousand posters and give them to the kids for free at the university campus. So they just graduated and they weren't doing it anymore. So I said to Anton, like, why don't we just do it? And that's what we did. And within two weeks, we basically sold all the advertising and took deposits of four thousand dollars. I remember I took two thousand of the four and I went to Europe.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  I came, I came, I came back and uh, we finished, we produced posters and we, we distributed them. It was great. And then we ended up doing them at five other schools by the time we graduated. And Anton was, went to business school and we kind of said to ourselves, we're going to do something in marketing when he graduates. We'll continue doing the posters and we'll figure something out, but we made this commitment to each other that we'll do something. We want to go into business for ourselves. Which I think is like the key defining decision that you need to make. It's like, don't wait for the idea. Just make the decision if you want to go into business for yourselves. So we made that decision. And then literally a month before Anton graduated from business school, my mother was reading this Israeli newspaper called the Idiot Truck. And in there, there was this two-page spread, okay, of these six different people that were manufacturing this product called the grass head.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  It was a small, little, kind of like.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Oh, like a Chia Pet kind of deal?

• 15:08Speaker 00

  It's kind of like a new age version of a Chia Pet.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Right? So it's, it's a softball made of grassy nylon sawdust that has a happy face on it. And you put it in water and it grows grass for hair. And in the article, okay, classic, the Israelis, you know, they love sharing all their secrets.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  So, so they basically said that they, that I added it up. It said it sold like three hundred thousand pieces in a country of ten million. And no one was doing it in Canada. So I drove up to Western and I said to Anton, I was like, why don't we make these? And he thought I was crazy. And he basically said, I'm not in. Anyways, I convinced him. And uh, finally two weeks later, he said, I'm in. He graduated. Next thing I know, we're at like Kmart, we're buying all these raw materials, nylons, pantyhose, sawdust, you know, like everything. Actually no sawdust, didn't sell it. But anyways, and then, and then I got my brother-in-law. We gave him some profit sharing um, to help us figure out how to manufacture them. My, my sister to design the packaging, we gave her profit sharing on it. And we decided to make five thousand pieces for Mother's Day. And it was the most magical twenty, twenty days of my life, like just like figuring out how to like.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  You guys made them yourself?

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, we made them.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Five thousand pieces?

• 16:14Speaker 00

  Five thousand pieces. I remember having this conversation with my mom. She's like, why don't you just buy it from the people in Israel?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, that, that was why I'm confused. Why don't you just license it from them and just bring it to Canada or wherever?

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Because I didn't want to give up the control. I didn't want to wait the time, you know, I knew.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  The whole deal, the whole thing.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be anybody else's hands. And I was like, it's easier to do it myself than to like call these people and figure it out.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Was it the Earth Buddy one? Is this the?

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Correct. Yeah, that's the Earth Buddy.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  That's the Earth Buddy?

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that was our product.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  So we make five thousand pieces for Mother's Day. We start selling them in the streets of Toronto. And we sell like seven hundred pieces and we're like, oh, we've got four in the warehouse. So.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Five thousand's a lot to make on your own.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Well, try a million.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I, I, like, I've been, but like two little kids, you know, like two young guys doing it with their family, you know, it's a lot.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Well, I, you know, it's, it's amazing. My, my brother-in-law is like, my ex-brother-in-law, he's an autodact. So he kind of figured it out and we hired workers and we hired people from a homeless shelter. And then we just kind of like figured everything out. So we made these five thousand pieces and then we came back to work on Monday. We're like, we got more to sell. And two weeks later, we sold twenty-six thousand pieces.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  How? Where, how are you selling them?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Well, basically what happened was through, through another contact, another contact through my mother. She said, go meet this person. So I go and meet them. And it was the strangest meeting ever. Okay. It was like in downtown Toronto and there, they sell clothes out twice. Okay. And so for anybody listening, clothes out toys are like what you sell to someone. When, when it's like, you can't sell them anymore. So we had this brand new product. We take it to the clothes out person. And they're a lovely family, the Cotser family. They say, yeah, we'll sell it for you. And we don't hear anything for two weeks. And then they call us back and they say, can we deliver twenty-six thousand pieces? Cause they sold it to Walmart in Canada.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Wow. Okay. Wow.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  So then we moved factories, we hired more workers and stuff like this. And then the most magical thing happened was we got an order for half a million pieces from Kmart.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Was it how mu, give me the timeframe from when you started to make these in, you know, you went to Kmart to get the seed, whatever, all the, the stuff? And you sold seven hundred on the street? How did, like, what was the timeframe between the seven hundred and the getting that, like, the purchase order for that many?

• 18:27Speaker 00

  So basically from the time we hit, started selling on the street to the time we got the twenty-six thousand pieces was two weeks. And then we sold, then we sold to Roots. Remember Roots?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course I know Roots.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Okay, Roots was, Roots put us on the front counter of the store. So it was so wonderful.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  How did you do that? Do you know Michael Budman? Is that his name?

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it was Mike Budman, but we, we went there ourselves and, and.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  You did?

• 18:50Speaker 00

  And we showed him the product and he was so nice. He was like, this fits with our brand and our ethos. And then we ship a live grown Earth Buddy to every store so they can have it on display.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then we broke into Zellers into their.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Zellers, yes.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Remember Zellers back in the day?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  God, this is like so nostalgia. Okay, go on. Yes.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  And then the craziest thing happened. So Anton was backpacking the year before in Europe. And he met this guy by the name of Aaron Hermelin. And Aaron lived in Detroit.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  I remember this from the book. Yeah. Tell me, I love it.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  And so Aaron lived in Detroit and his uncle owned the palace where the Detroit Pistons played. So we kind of figured maybe they have some connections, stuff like this. So he called me and he said, can you get us a meeting at Kmart Corporation? And at the time, Kmart was the number one retailer in the world in the nineties, bigger than Amazon, bigger than Walmart. They, they were it. So he says, yes, I can get you a meeting. And for some reason, I don't know why, I was the one that actually ended up doing the sales call.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Why did you go? Why did Anton not go?

• 19:49Speaker 00

  You know, I have to tell you, I don't even know.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  You don't?

• 19:52Speaker 00

  Still to this day, I don't know why. Maybe it was under the weather or something. I can't remember. So I go and I drive it. I leave my house like three thirty in the morning. I didn't even think about staying in a hotel. Okay. And getting a good night's rest.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You're like, I'm just gonna save you money.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  Save money. And you're in twenties, you know, you're saving money. You've got the energy to do. Of course I go wake up at three thirty. And then I go there and I get there for nine o'clock, meet the buyer, meet Aaron, meet the rep. And I pitched this buyer for thirty minutes and he's lovely gentleman. I'm in his boardroom and he says, I'm not the buyer for this product. And I was like, okay, maybe he's lying to me. So I'm like, I pitch him for another fifteen minutes and he doesn't say anything. And then afterwards, he says, I'm not the buyer, of which I said to him, well, we'll give it to you on consigned sales. And if sells, you know, like just pay us. He said, I'm not the buyer. At which point I was like, if you're giving someone something for free.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  And they still don't want it.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  And they still don't want it. So I said, who is buyer? And he came back with the, this name Adrian Zacks on a piece of paper. I shook his hand and I started walking around Kmart Corporation, looking for this woman. And I was super lucky. She was sitting at her desk and I did like, I said something to her over thirty seconds. And she said, I'll meet you at three thirty. You can come back to my office. I go downstairs and the guys are like, what happened? I'm like, cause I just left them. I didn't even say anything.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  You just walked, yeah, you just walked out, yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and, and, uh, and I was really lucky. I was so young because I look back now, if I was like probably forty, they would have kicked me out. And I think they, they probably thought I was someone's kid.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Probably. You're like twenty-two years old. Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  And so they, they were like, let's go for lunch. So I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. And I didn't leave and I stayed there and then I went up at three thirty. And I walk into her office and it was so nice. It was like, it wasn't in the boardroom. It was in her office. It was just a tiny office, this desk. And she was sitting behind it and it was like cluttered with stuff and she was a horticulture buyer. She had like these gnomes and all these different things around. And then I noticed she had seven other competing products sitting in her office, other grass heads from other people. Anyways, I gave her the whole spiel and told her everything about like the earth buddies and, and the factory and, and the campus faces. I told her everything about my, you know, my life up until that point. And then she did the most magical thing and she gave me the vendor book and she said, I'm going to order forty-eight thousand pieces.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  And if it goes well, I'm ordering half a million pieces from you. And, and then I asked her for her garden gnome, which is a strange thing.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  You did? Why did you ask her for that?

• 22:16Speaker 00

  You know, I just wanted something to like, remember the occasion. I didn't, it was almost like surreal. I didn't believe it was almost, I didn't believe it was true.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  So you got forty-eight thousand from her. How did you find?

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Forty-eight and then a half million.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, then a half million. But I was going to say for the forty-eight thousand first, because at these numbers, you're two young guys. You've never done this before. Two, three weeks prior, you're making, like you're making them yourself, but you made five thousand. I don't know how you made five thousand. You, you had to like find the fact, you had to find a factory at some point to like make this quantity, right? No?

• 22:48Speaker 00

  No, we, we opened our own factory.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Well, okay, okay, okay. Already at this point at twenty-two, twenty-three years old? At twenty, okay. So this timeframe is insane. So then you guys opened your own factory, hired factory workers. How did you do all this in like such a speedy amount of time?

• 23:05Speaker 00

  We have a ton of energy.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like even like to find the people, like to interview the people, like to even know the, the materials, like the machines to buy, like what, like, how did you do that?

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, we built the machines ourselves.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Oh, even more so.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  It was, we were able to, we were able to surround ourselves. The truth is, we were able to surround ourselves with amazing people. That's when we brought our third partner, Ben in.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Ben, okay. So what did Ben do for the company?

• 23:29Speaker 00

  The irony is Ben is the most creative person. He's not an operations person, but he ran the factory for the first nine months.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  I mean, this is crazy.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  He ran the factory, but amazing things happened. Okay. Can I tell you, we, the first people we went to hire in terms of workers were people from a homeless shelter. Okay. It didn't work out that well, but two of the people, okay, that we hired from the homeless shelter, stayed in our company for five years. And one of the gentlemen was a manufacturing savant. And he came into Ben's office, okay, after like one or two months of being in production. And he's like, you guys can go way quicker if you do things this way. And one morning Ben came in and he had all these Gantt charts already all figured out. The guy figured out like the whole line flow. This is a man from a homeless shelter. So the, just the universe just kind of like coalesced to bring the right people to us to make it happen. And we worked really hard. Like my brother-in-law came every night after, he was a lawyer.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  And he'd come to our factory and he'd work from like six to eleven o'clock at night and he'd build everything and he hired people to build it. And then we, you know, we're working with different agencies to bring in workers. We had people from Vietnam, Sri Lanka, like all these different, uh, uh, agencies. We're giving us workers and, and then Ben was running the factory and I was working the raw materials and Anton was out doing sales. And, and we started hiring people. It just kind of just happened.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  So you make, you, you basically then make a million of these earth buddies.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Right. And then to answer your question, how we got into toy business. So now.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I was going to say.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  Now we're getting, now we're getting to the toy business part.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  But, but wait, I'm still on the earth buddy thing. Cause the fact, the, the amount that like I, how my brain works is like, I'm chronologically going through all the steps that have to take place for you to even be able to make even a fraction of that amount is absurd in that amount of time. People get stuck, who are listening to this, they get stuck in minutia, like analysis paralysis for even like the first step. Like, okay, how do I make two? Never mind a million. Can you give a little, like if someone listening to this who's young in their twenties or not, when they're sitting on their so, on their couch and they go, I don't know how to, I, I don't know how to do this. What would you say that one thing is that what that got you that ability just to like stop overthinking and just do?

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Think about, first of all, make, make bite-sized decisions, right? Cause we said we're going to make five thousand pieces for Mother's Day. We didn't say we're going to sell a million pieces. So that was a bite-sized decision. The reason why we got five thousand was because that was the minimum order quantity the printer would do for us.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Okay. We probably would have done two thousand, right? So it was like, what's, what's the most manageable thing you could do in this moment in time? Just to get started, right? And once you start, you unlock the magic.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Momentum.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  It's, everything's about momentum. It's all momentum. Momentum brings you the luck into your life, right? So it was do it in a bite-sized chunk. Okay. Don't overwhelm yourself because if you think so big, you're going to get like stuck and you're going to get doubt. And doubt is the anti-lock. So that'd be the first thing. The second thing I would say is think who, who's around you in your life, right? They can come in and help and participate in whatever you're doing. And I think that people have so much excess capacity, right? And so much desire to be included in something. And if you're the one with the idea, you can bring people along. And so think about who's in your, your network and you can do things on a project basis. It's not like, you know, we gave profit share. My brother-in-law got five percent profits on the earth bodies. My sister got five percent profits. We didn't pay him a cent.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  They just, they just put it, and, and then more than anything, they were invested in the upside. And when people are invested in the upside, boy, do they actually like, they're like, you unleash this incredible amount of energy.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Right? So just think about who's, who's around you and who's got what talents. And then don't be afraid to start asking, telling people what you want to accomplish. And when you tell people what you want to accomplish, they're like, oh, I know this person. I know this person. I know that person. I know this. And then if you're not, and then if you don't overthink it, like I didn't overthink going to the closeout guy. I didn't even know about closeouts. And he surprises us with twenty-six thousand pieces and then we went to roots and like, so it's, it's.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  So you made off of that one earth buddy. How much did you make off of that?

• 27:27Speaker 00

  In, in the first nine months, I think we, we grossed probably upwards of like, I think it's like three million dollars in that nine months.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  And you guys, and like this was like your first main, major project. So you were like, how much does it make? How much did it cost you to make one of those?

• 27:44Speaker 00

  It costs us about, I think about sixty cents.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And how much were you selling them for?

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Probably on average, like around two fifty, something like that.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Wow. So then here you get the million dollars, all these, and, and how long were you selling those for? How did that ricochet into a toy company?

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Well, we sold the earth buddies maybe for like two and a half years. And I think maybe over the course, we sold like three million pieces or something, two and a half million pieces. But we knew very early on that this was a fad. It was a Chia Pet. It was like a moment. There was something magical like doing it once, but you're not going to do it more than multiple times.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  There's no longevity. You knew there was no longevity.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  We knew that going in and there was a moment and that's why we wanted to be like first to market and.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  But you weren't even first to market. Other people were doing it. You said that woman in the office had five different competing competitors, like five different green.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Correct. But, but I, I would say that we probably got at least fifty percent, sixty percent of the market.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Why do you think that is? Was it a better product or was it just?

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Because, because we didn't wait to get it from Israel and we didn't.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Speed.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  It was speed to market, all of it. We were the quickest and we were able to scale. It was those two things together.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  So speed and being able to scale. I think the speed because people sit too long and then then someone else comes and does it.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  It was there. It was there. It was there in the ethers, in the zeitgeist.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  That's why I asked you about what you, about why you didn't license it from Israel, because that would be the, the most obvious thing, right? Like just license the thing, but it actually would have, you said something that it would, it would have taken way too long to do that.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  I couldn't even look the one Kmart, Adrian Zacks in the face and say, I can deliver the half million pieces for you. If I wasn't, if we didn't have our own factory.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  I mean, that's pretty amazing.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  We were, we were like unshackled. It was like, it was our.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Cause you did it, like from, from, you like owned it right away. So you didn't, a lot, a lot of people like do second, like, you know, um, third party stuff. So would you say, would you say a big piece of advice would be if you could eliminate the third party, starting a business? People listening, would you say that would be a really good idea and try to do everything yourself in-house?

• 29:46Speaker 00

  It's hard to make a blanket statement and not knowing what specifically, what type of businesses people have. I do think the more vertically integrated you are, the better it is because A, your costing is better, your margins are better, right? B is that you're learning more about the whole process. And I think it's great to like, it's great to learn, right? And so to, to.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  To know all the pieces that.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  To know all the pieces that come into it, right? And then I think you can have much more creative control in what you're doing. And there's lots of knock-on effects that, that come along with it. But I think it really depends on, on type of businesses.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Okay, fair. Okay, now go into how it started.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  So, so it's like, so we were in the horticulture business. And we did, we did, we did one follow-up. We did one thing which is called the, the herb garden and it bombed. It was like, it was like facing growing herbs and my sister was on the package.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  But, um, so we knew that earth buddy was going to have a life to, life to it. And about six months into the earth buddy, I started to notice the kids in Toronto were playing with this product called Devil's Sticks. So I don't know if you ever remember those. It's just a three-piece juggling set for kids. You got two sticks and you got this bigger stick that's weighted on the end. It's got tassels and you hit it back and forth. It starts to spin.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  I kind of do.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Maybe, you know, if you, if you were a hippie back in the eighties and you went to grave to dead shows, you would see it.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  I kind of do.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  So I, I went to a lot of dead shows and so.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  I can see that. I could totally see you being a huge deadhead. You probably still are. Did you go see them in, at the Sphere and?

• 31:15Speaker 00

  I have, I have not been to the Sphere. I am so upset. I did not see.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  You missed that? Oh, you would have loved it.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Before Bob died. Yeah. Yeah. So I used to play with them myself. And then I started to notice the kids were actually playing with them in the schoolyards in Toronto. And they were making them themselves. So I kind of put it together. I was like, something's, something's here. Maybe there's a fad going on. And we had our factory. So I said, why don't we actually make some ourselves and, and see how it goes. And so we, we made our prototype. We made some packaging through the company that bought the 26,000 pieces from us for Walmart. They knew a, a rep company in the United States. And next thing I know, myself, Anton and my ex-girlfriend Melissa are at New York at, uh, the toy fair in 1995.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  And we're there in like this back room with our like one prototype of the devil sticks. And, uh, and whenever the, you know, buyer would come in, you know, I would go out and I would juggle the sticks and I'd go behind the curtain again. And, and these reps broke us into Toys R Us and KB Toys. And suddenly we shipped the product into those accounts. And devil sticks was such a, something was in the ether. There was something like in the zeitgeist for kids around this particular product that the moment we shipped it, it just took off.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Really?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  It just took off.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  So you're two for two, kind of like you found these two juggernauts, basically. First was the earth buddies that you found.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  And second is this stick thing.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Correct. So at the, at the end of that year of selling the stick things, devil sticks.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, devil sticks. Yep. Uh, AKA devil sticks.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  AKA devil sticks. So we sold a million and a half of the devil sticks. We manufactured and shipped a million and a half.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  In how long?

• 32:58Speaker 00

  In that year, in that 12 months.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  And then we had a decision to make. We were like, should we go into horticulture or should we go into toys? And we were like, toy sounds a lot more fun.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Is that really what happened?

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Yes, what happened? And so my third, the third, and if you want a little more details, so our third partner, Ben, he left the business. Okay. Cause he didn't like the manufacturing. Anton had the insight, he's like, let's bring Ben back into the business. Ben comes back and Ben's living with Jen Irwin. Do you remember Irwin Toys? They were the biggest Canadian toy company back in the day.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I don't remember.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  So the Irwin toy family says to us, you know, if you guys are going into the toy business, there's this list of 200 inventors around the world. They come up with ideas, but they don't commercialize them. And here's the list. So Ben took the list and he started traveling around North America, meeting all these toy inventors and showing them the work that we had done so far. And started to generate a bunch of ideas. And that's how we got into the toy business as a result of.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  How does that work? Do you pay the inventors for ideas? How does that work?

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's basically they come up with the ideas, they'll show you the ideas for free. And if you license one from them, you pay them a 5% royalty in perpetuity on the selling, on the sales of the product.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  So what was the first thing you took from that inventor?

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Well, we, we started to meet with hundreds of vendors.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. What was the first one that you actually bought or licensed?

• 34:15Speaker 00

  The, and I just want to, I, I do want to say that after, after the devil sticks, we were marketing some like open source products. And they weren't like very fancy just to pay the bills. But the first one we, our first big toy product was a thing called air hogs. It was an airplane and you pumped it up. It had like a PT bottle and a little pneumatic engine and a propeller on it. And it would fly around for 45 seconds. And so these two British inventors, John Dixon, Peter Manning came to show it to me and Ben. And it was like the funnest day of my life. Okay. We'd go to the park. Okay. We flew the plane. You got to understand back in the nineties, they only had the balsa planes or the Cox gas powered planes, which took off your finger. And so we go fly this airplane and all I wanted to do was I wanted to pick it up and fly it again. And Ben wanted to fly it.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  And I'm 25 at the time and I felt like a seven year old kid. And so we said to them, okay, we want to, we want to license this from you. And we spent two years developing this product. Little did we know, and this is like the thing about being young and all the amazing things that happen to you. Everybody had turned down the product.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Wait, all the, all the.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  They had shot, they had shopped it to all the toy companies.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  So, oh, really? Okay. But they didn't take it out to the, to the stores, like to the.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  No, no, it was still a prototype.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  It was still a prototype. So all the other like Mattels of the world, Irwin, whoever.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Mattel and Hasbro, the biggest guy, they turned it down.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  They're all said no. Okay.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  They all said no. But we didn't know it till about a year and a half later.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Really? Okay. So you guys said yes. And then what happened?

• 35:39Speaker 00

  And then we basically took all the money we made from earth buddies, all the money we made from devil six, all the money we made from these small little tchotchke products that we're selling. And we put it into engineering and developing this, this very highly complex product.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  So you believed in this product that much? You put all your money into that?

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Everything.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  How much did you sell of that product?

• 35:57Speaker 00

  That product, at the time that we brought it to market, which was in 1998, we were doing $7 million in sales. And the year we launched the air hogs, we jumped up to about $35 million in sales.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  So that was a great bet.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  It was amazing. And then we became the kings of flight. We were producing flying toys for 15 years.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  So who was the person that said, we have to go out with this one? You?

• 36:21Speaker 00

  It was myself and Ben. Us together.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:31Speaker 01

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• 37:12Speaker 01

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• 37:39Speaker 01

  It sounds like, you know, you've had some really good idea, like you, you've got a very good vision for what's going to like be where the puck is going, not where the puck is. Do you know what I mean?

• 37:50Speaker 00

  Well, sometimes I can tell you that our three follow-up products after air hogs, we were still producing them. But we wanted to get into new categories and meeting with new inventors. Okay. And all three bombed.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Which ones were they?

• 38:02Speaker 00

  Don't, don't free Freddie.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  Take a little secrets, baby. I can't even pronounce the name. And so it was like, it wasn't even a great name.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  And key charm cuties.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Okay. So let me ask you a question. When did you get the Rubik's cube?

• 38:14Speaker 00

  The Rubik's cube, we acquired it in 2016, maybe 2018.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Okay. So this was obviously a license because this has been around for a hundred years, right? Like.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  No, we actually, we acquired it, we bought it.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  You bought, okay, but wait, so you bought it?

• 38:30Speaker 00

  We bought, we bought.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  You didn't license it originally?

• 38:32Speaker 00

  No, no, we had nothing to do with the Rubik's cube up until 2018.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  You bought it. What made you buy it?

• 38:38Speaker 00

  In the toy business to have an iconic brand that's got like 99% word of mouth awareness. It's like, it's, it's very rare that it comes along.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  So how much did you buy it for?

• 38:47Speaker 00

  We paid about $55 million for it.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Did you make your money back on it?

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Really? How many Rubik's cubes have you sold in the last 10 years?

• 38:57Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know the number, but I think we do, you know, it's millions of cubes a year.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  You sell millions of these still a year?

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Well, so what would you say?

• 39:07Speaker 00

  The crazy thing about the Rubik's cube is like, it's, it's part of culture, it's part of society.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I was going to say that.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  It's a major part of culture. Would you like, I was going to say, what, of all the toys in the world, where would Rubik's cube fall as one of them in iconic, in icon history? Probably in the top three?

• 39:25Speaker 00

  No, I wouldn't say top three, but maybe top 10.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  What's number one?

• 39:28Speaker 00

  Probably Barbie.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Oh, Barbie.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  Barbie, Hot Wheels, Lego, right?

• 39:33Speaker 01

  That's true. Okay. What's number five? Okay, let's go, this is actually very interesting. Okay. Most iconic toys of all time with the iconic Ronan. Number one?

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Ronan.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Ronan, I say Ronan.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  Ronan.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Ronan. Number one is Barbie.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Barbie.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Number two is Hot Wheels.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Hot Wheels.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Number three is Lego, you said? Lego. Four?

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Uh, four.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  This? No?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  No.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  You don't think like, you don't think so?

• 40:05Speaker 00

  What else have we got in our? I'd say, you know, I'd start to go things like, um, things like, but their licenses, like I'm thinking about like Star Wars or but pure play toys from scratch, those are the three, the three biggest. There's things like Etch A Sketch.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Hmm. I bet you if we chat G P T it, it will tell us.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  That you want.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  You did? What is it? Rubik's Cube is right.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Seriously?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Rubik's Cube is number one.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  According to who? Chat?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Okay. So, okay. I'm not even in the toy business, my dear.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  You know, you're hired.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  I'm, you should have hired me for innovation. Was that not right? No. So Rubik's Cube is number one. What's number two? Lego is number two. What's number three? Barbie is number three. Hot Wheels number four. Yo-Yo is number five.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  So I sold us, I sold us a little short.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  But I had the top.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  You own this and you didn't know it was the number one toy of all time?

• 41:07Speaker 00

  Cause I'm maybe I'm looking, I'm thinking about sales and revenue and other topics.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  You own the number one toy, the most iconic toy of all time. You own and you didn't even know that. You thought it was Barbie. By the way, so did I. That's insane. Wow. And by the way, I was still stuck on the fact that you guys created Paw Patrol. Or you guys licensed Paw Patrol or you created it?

• 41:33Speaker 00

  No, we created it.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  So you actually created Paw Patrol?

• 41:36Speaker 00

  It's our baby.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Okay. If you're a parent listening to this episode, this is insane. Paw Patrol is prob, I'm surprised Paw Patrol is not even on that. Where, where's Paw Patrol on that? You must have sold, what a hundred million dollars a year on just Paw Patrol?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  More. Two hundred million a year on Paw Patrol?

• 41:55Speaker 00

  I can't tell you the exact number. It's a lot.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Three hundred million?

• 41:58Speaker 00

  It's a lot.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Four hundred million?

• 42:00Speaker 00

  It's a lot.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Because this is how people like these facts. We're going to clip this because this is going to go viral because people, if you're a parent or someone who knows, you know. I would say, what a half a billion a year just on Paw Patrol?

• 42:13Speaker 00

  You're, it's, it's a multi-billion dollar franchise. That's what I can tell you.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  This is what I'm going to say. Okay. I would say maybe even a billion dollars a year on Paw Patrol.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Now, now you're, now you're going a little bit.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Cause I'm going to tell you why I say this.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  You're going a little bit, getting a little excited.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  One of our, one of our, Chaim Saban, another Israeli, he created the Power Rangers, his company, right?

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  And when he sold it to Fox, he made four billion dollars just on that one thing on Power Rangers. The fact that you had Paw Patrol is just one of this massive umbrella of like fantastic, iconic, legendary toys. I can't even imagine how much money Spin Master has made or how much you, you're worth. I can't even imagine. Paw Patrol is like, it's like, it's like, it's like diamonds, something where you ever talk, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I don't even know. You didn't even know that Rubik's Cube was number one in the world in iconic products. This is absurd. I mean, what you guys have created is like, it's, this will live on in like forever, for every, with every child in the world.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Like at my kid, you know, someone who's getting born, who's being born right this second, twenty years ago, like they all play with these things. Isn't that not insane?

• 43:28Speaker 00

  You know, just, it's, it's, I'm taking it all in as you're talking about it.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  It's pretty, it's pretty remarkable. Like, you know, I'm just thinking of, you know, when I first moved to L A and when I, I met Chaim Saban. And he was like, everyone was like, he was like the, such a like, everyone was like such, he was such a big mother, which is like a big deal, you know, like because he sold Paw Patrol. Oh yeah. All these billions and blah, blah, blah. And he was a great, he was a big philanthropist. And it's funny, you know, like everything in life is so relative, right? Cut to how many years later, we're talking about like, you know, like Paw Patrol, which is much bigger than Power Rangers. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's like, it's not even part of the conversation.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Like, it's like, it's like, it's like a throwaway. Cause there's been so many others. Paw Patrol is big, but like, okay, this, this is big. This is massive.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Listen, first of all, nothing's a throwaway. Every, everything is like so much time, care, attention, like.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Okay. How did it happen?

• 44:25Speaker 00

  Stuff doesn't just happen, you know, like we, you know, Anton, he actually was running mergers and acquisitions for us for many, many years. And like, he managed the relationship with the people that owned Rubik's for probably fifteen years.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  He kept in touch with them. He was always calm.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Did you distribute them at beginning or no?

• 44:42Speaker 00

  No, we didn't, we didn't have any, we didn't have any relationship with them. We just knew them as a result of being in the industry.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  You know, our whole thing, Spin Master, like we went to every trade show, every event, anytime we could be in front of people, right? Our whole ethos in our business is, okay, we'll, we're open to ideas wherever they come from. That's our ethos.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Okay. And we'll partner with people. We're the partnership company, right?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Right? Cause you can, you can do, you can do bigger things when you partner with other people.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Especially when you don't have the equities at the beginning, right? And when I say equity, I'm just talking about like competence.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  So he maintained that relationship.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  So anyway, so yeah, I'm going a bit far afield, but he managed that relationship for many years. And then when they were ready to sell, and it was actually complex, it was actually owned by like four different people and they had a bit of, there was issues there and Anton was able to manage it. And that's his gift is managing people and, and, and then we bought it.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  He's like a people person.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. It was just a moment in time.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a good moment in time.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  But it's, but it's also, so everything's like, nothing's, nothing's throwaway. Like it's.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Well, no, what I mean by the throwaway is when you think about the, the magnitude of some of these iconic brands that, you know, they're blockbuster movies being made of. There's, these are like, this is like historic brands that have like really impacted.

• 45:56Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Like life, like my kid used to love Paw, like I would put on Paw Patrol every single morning, right? Cause then like that would calm them down. You know what I mean? Like they also, my daughter liked the, the piggy one. What was that one?

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Peppa Pig.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Peppa Pig.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Great show. Amazing show.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Do you own Peppa Pig too?

• 46:14Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  No, you should, can you get the rights for that? Can you buy?

• 46:17Speaker 00

  No, Hasbro, Hasbro paid three and a half billion dollars for E one. And in the E one deal came Peppa Pig. So I, I don't think they're going to.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, that was a juggernaut also.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  That's great. Amazing. I love the show.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Peppa Pig is a good show.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Also created by British people and Paw Patrol was also created by a British person.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Okay. So tell me how Paw Patrol happened.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  You know, Paw Patrol happened in, first of all, happened at the lowest point in our company. Okay. Because our company was doing about a billion dollars in sales at the peak of Bakugan. And then we went, we lost half our sales. For sixteen years, sixteen years in a row, our company was profitable. And then in year seventeen and eighteen, we lost money for two years straight.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Why?

• 46:54Speaker 00

  Because there was too much hubris.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Right? And hubris, too much hubris, too much believing like everything you touch is going to turn to gold. Everything's going to be great. Um, you can do, we can launch tons of products at the same time. We weren't being very judicious at that moment in time. We got ahead of our skis. We hired so many people. We were just like, everything's just going to work out great.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  And we didn't have the experience to realize that, you know, as fast as something like a Bakugan can go up, go up, it can also come down. And also you need to have the consistent reoccurring revenue underneath to maintain growing your company. And so that was one of the most painful, painful moments in my personal career because we had to let go of three hundred and fifty people in our company. Um, we had to do four restructurings, right? And we weren't even mature enough at the time. Like we probably could have got it done and we should have gotten done it too. But like to be able to, to do it four times, people felt so unsettled in that twenty-four month period, right? So during that, that time, we, we said, okay, we really need to be much more judicious with what we're doing.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  And give everything a lot more time, attention and care. And we still wanted to stay in the entertainment business after Bakugan started to go down. So we said, what else can we do? And we actually launched three shows post Bakugan. They all failed. Red Akai, Ten Kai Knights and Little Charmers. You could not give away the show and you cannot, you cannot literally take the product off the shelf at retail. Like I thought it was like stuck with glue. Okay.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Because there was so much product there. Like it was like, no one was taking it, you know, like.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  It was that bad? Wow.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  The most important, like when you walk retail and you see the empty shelves, you know that that brand's doing well.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Really?

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. If, if the shelves are full, it just tells you straight away. Easiest way to know if something's doing well or bad. And.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  There's an abundance of your product over there for that.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Say again?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  There's an abundance of your TV products or.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. You go in one week, you come back next week, you're still saying, nothing moved off the shelf. It was like stacked.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  It's hilarious.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Stacked. It's funny, but not funny. You're just like.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Well, it's not funny.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  So, so, uh, but we still wanted to stay in kids. And so we said to ourselves, let's try to do something in preschool. And let's try to do something around preschool and transformation because transformation is such a magical play pattern for children. And so we created this brief and we sent it around to five different creators around the world. And the creator that I really wanted to work with, with Keith, was Keith Chapman. He created Bob the Builder. And yeah, which is a great show.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  I love that one too.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  And so I have this, I have this whole thing where I love, I love being around lucky people.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Right? I'll mark a person, like you're a lucky person, right? So I just want to like be close to you.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Are you sure I'm a lucky person?

• 49:31Speaker 00

  I think you're pretty lucky.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  How do you know?

• 49:33Speaker 00

  I don't know. You got good energy.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  You've got energy.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  So, and you make things happen.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  I do.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  Right? So.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  So do you, obviously.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  So anyway, so Keith Chapman was like, I really wanted to, I really wanted to work with him. And he came back with this really interesting take about these five pups that go on these rescue missions. It was originally called Robbie and the Rescue Pups.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Hmm. Okay.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  And, uh, but the crazy thing was that he didn't actually follow the brief. The brief was about transformation. So he gave us this story about Robbie and the Rescue Pups, but had nothing to do with transformation.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  But we loved it so much and, and we loved him. And we said, okay, let's start. And we, we went and started developing it. We found an incredible director. Jamie Whitney, incredible writers. We found an incredible studio. Just by the way, like Paw Patrol is a hundred percent Canadian, Canadian director.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  I was just going to say that I had no, does anybody know that Paw Patrol is Canadian?

• 50:26Speaker 00

  No, no, very, very.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  I can't believe this. I can't believe that Paw Patrol is Canadian.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  Yes, 100% Canadian. That's why all the pups are so nice, you know.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Captain Turbit, you know, Venture Bay is from British Columbia. It's modeled off a bay in British Columbia.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Do you own the TV show?

• 50:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's ours.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  You own the rights and all of that?

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, we created it and we sold it and we partnered with Nickelodeon. So they're a partner on the sales, distribution and licensing merchandising.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Do you have a swimming pool of money that you just swim in and dive into every day?

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Well, listen, a lot of it gets reinvested back into the business and all the people.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  There's like a million of like, it's, this is remarkable. Your mom must be like, just like, like, she must be just like unbelievably like so proud of you. She's velling every minute of the day. I'm sure. Like, that's a Jewish word, people. Is she just like going around bragging about her son on a regular basis? Like what you've done from an immigrant parent, I understand what a massive, this, on every level, this is amazing. Between the disability, learning disability of immigrant parents, you weren't handed a bunch of money. You literally did this on your own.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Legitimately, you did this on their own. Like, I have to again say, and I say this a lot on this podcast, I'm a big believer of like, you know, self-made. And there's very few people are ever really self-made. They sit here and they like go on and on about how they've done this and that, the other. Meanwhile, they were given a majority of it. You are like legitimately like full on self-made, which is why you're so impressive to me. I think it's incredible. Your mom missed.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  You guys are like two peas in a pod.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Really?

• 52:05Speaker 00

  I gotta introduce you guys.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  I want to meet your mom. What, did she say the same thing to you?

• 52:11Speaker 00

  In terms of what?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Did she say this to you? Did your mom say this to you?

• 52:14Speaker 00

  Once in a while.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  I bet her talks. I want to meet your mom. When can we make that happen? Is your mom, where does she live now?

• 52:20Speaker 00

  She's back in Canada for the summer, so we can.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Is she, where, where is she? Where? In Toronto?

• 52:25Speaker 00

  She's in Toronto. Most of the time she's in Israel, but she's back in Toronto.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Is she feisty? I bet you she's like.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  She's, she's like, if my mother was 20 today, she would have like 10 million followers on Instagram. She has no filter, you know.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  I love your mom already.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  I love her. I love her.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  She's like super chatty. She's a people person. She loves, loves people and, and she just tells it too straight.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  I love, she's straight. Good. You're right. We'll be BFFs. I love her already. I, I really appreciate people like that. Because we don't have enough of them anymore. Everyone stands on ceremony and has to care so much of how they appear and look and feel and I hate that.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  No, not my mother.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but this is probably why you are who you are. Your mother, like your mother created something, you. And she believed in you and she let you do whatever you wanted to do. That's why, oh, you love your mom. I love, oh my God, I love you because you love your mom. Oh my God, I'm so in love with you right now. Because you love your mom. Oh my God, you're so good. You're such a great little, I love you. Okay, I'm gonna cry, so let's move on. Okay.

• 53:31Speaker 01

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• 54:13Speaker 01

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• 54:54Speaker 01

  Paw Patrol. So then here you are doing the Paw Patrol and then what happens?

• 54:59Speaker 00

  And then?

• 54:59Speaker 01

  The rights, I mean, you do all the TV and then that was a juggernaut in itself.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  You know, it was, it was, we took it to Nickelodeon. We actually pitched them. And it was myself and Jen and Keith Chapman and Adam Beeter. And we brought a bunch of toys that we made. And Seema, who was the president of Nickelodeon at the time, she said, okay, let's partner on it. We're gonna buy the show from you. And yeah, and it was just a magical thing. We'd never produced a preschool show and they were our partners and they helped us, you know, with giving us notes on the show. They get full credit for the theme song, right? Because we tried to break the theme song. We just couldn't get it right.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  And they, they pointed us in the right direction to work with these people who are incredible at writing music. And, and then it hit the air in 2013. And I, I knew, and you're a social media person, so you'll appreciate this. I used to go on Instagram, okay? And I used to check in the first like two, three, four months, how many birthday cakes were being made for kids with Paw Patrol?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Characters. And I kept on seeing, I was like more and more and more and more. And then I was like, then I kinda, I knew that something was, was happening here. And, and then our toys hit and our toys did really well. And then, and then we put our second season. And then we said, okay, let's try to get Paw for five. Let's try to get five seasons of Paw Patrol made, done. Let's not jump the shark. Let's keep the same tone and tenor. And then we hit five years and then after five, we said, let's do Paw for 10. And then we did seven seasons of Paw Patrol. And then by our seventh, eighth season, we said, okay, let's change the mantra. We're gonna do Paw forever.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Forever?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Forever.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Forever. You said Paw, we're gonna do Paw forever.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Forever.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Like ever, ever?

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Ever, ever, ever. Every single year, we're going to come out with 52 new episodes of Paw Patrol. Okay, with special themes every single year without fail.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  Right. And that's what we've done. Now we're in, I think we're shooting our 50th season.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Okay, how is it doing now versus how it was doing back then?

• 56:55Speaker 00

  It's doing very well.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Like, what's the, like, I'm curious, because like, I remember when my kids were small.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  We're very blessed. It, it airs in over 180 countries around the world and it's the number one. It's the number one show for preschoolers in the globe.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Still.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  And it touches, it touches probably, you know, I'd probably say, you know, 12 million new kids every single year. And if you add it up over the years, it's touched over like 200 million kids.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  You don't understand. I know, because I had a Paw Patrol cake for my kid.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  I probably saw it on Instagram.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  So where is it? Where is it? Can you chat GPT this? Where is Paw Patrol in relation to Peppa Pig, Bob the Builder? There's one other one that everyone used to watch too.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  There's Dora the Explorer.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Dora the Explorer.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  There's today, you have Peppa the Pig, you have, you have Bluey, which is very popular today. That's our biggest competitor today.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Bluey?

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Peppa Pig was the one I honestly, that's the one people always talk about. I remember.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  Classic.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  It's classic.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  It's been running probably for 20 plus years.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, number one, Jesus Christ. Oh, that's, that's it. I forgot about Daniel Tiger. I loved.

• 58:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, Daniel Tiger is a good show.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Daniel Tiger is a great show for kids too. And so what, well, Sesame Street's a, you mean Paw Patrol beat out Sesame Street? Do you walk around with like seven security guards?

• 58:18Speaker 00

  No, I have zero.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  You should. I mean.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  I have no.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  You're telling me that.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  You know, I have no social media, so.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  I know, nobody knows anything about anything. So you're trying to tell me that Paw Patrol is the number one, you own the number one show and number one toy of all time? Yes.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  I guess so, according to chat.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  And you didn't even know this?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  Well, I knew the stat on Paw. I didn't, I wasn't, but I think it's, I think the real, the real thing is longevity. Right?

• 58:41Speaker 01

  You have it.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  It's the longevity and, and, you know, we actually, it was, it was something we learned from, from Bakugan. Because we weren't able to do it, keep Bakugan going. And there was a lot of lessons there. There was a lot of failures that we applied to, to Paw. So like, the one thing I would say is like this, like Paw Patrol didn't happen. It's Paw Patrol happened in our 19th year of business. So we were in business for 19 years. Okay. We were students of animation and how people producing shows. We were going to MIPCOM from like 2001. We'd go to France every single year. We were reviewing everybody's TV shows and we were learning the business. So all this type of stuff, like it's just, it's important to know, like it doesn't just happen. It was 19 years worth of work before we.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  But you, but you, but out of the gate, you were fortunate enough to have a big success with the Earth Buddies. You bought the Rubik's Cube in 2016, you said, 13?

• 59:30Speaker 00

  13.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Massive. That airplane thing, $35 million. So yes, you could say 19 years to find, to get to Paw Patrol, but you had one, you had one massive success. Yeah, you had some failures and then you had another success. I think the real big point is that you, people should not be giving up if they fail because you never know what's around the corner, right?

• 59:53Speaker 00

  Totally, totally.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Right? That's the big, that's the big thing. Like, life is full of.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, we.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Hills and valleys, basically.

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, we were super lucky with our first animated show called Bakugan, which ran four seasons. And then our three next shows, which we talked about.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Failures.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  Failures. So we could have given up, but we didn't. We were just like, let's, let's keep staying at it.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  What would you say, I think, because this is what's interesting. You have these two business partners, Ben and Anton. A lot of times people fail, or sorry, or, or yeah, fail or lose because they pick badly, right? What do you think the secret sauce is to, to partnering? And like, how did you guys make it work? Because personalities usually can clash, especially as you get bigger and bigger and more successful.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that the ability to say sorry. Sorry is a strong one for partners.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  Like, if you can't say sorry to your partner, like, just like, give up and just, you know, move on to something else.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  We fought all the time. We micromanaged each other for years and there was so much like, you know, tension that came out of the micromanaging. But we had healthy debates. I think the thing that, the thing that led to better decisions and not always the right decisions, but good decisions, came from the healthy debate that we had amongst the three of us. And that was cascaded out to a larger group as the company grew. It was the ability to have that conversation. But at the same time, when the right idea popped out in the conversation, to recognize it and don't have any ego attached to it.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  And then you're like, okay, and let's just run with it. And we were, we'd repeat that, repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. And then there was other parts, which was just the trust and respect. And then there was other parts in terms of like, we had the same ethics, right? We always wanted to be, treat our partners well. Ben was always like, you know, it's okay if we paid an event or an extra half a point or an extra point. Like, if they're making money, like, that's great. And we're making money, that's great. So we always had the same ethos. You know, I had this, we had the situation in our second year of business. Someone wanted to actually encourage us to buy a whirlpool for a buyer.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Hmm, a whirlpool for the, okay.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, you can, you can do more business at this retailer if you buy the buyer at World Point. Yeah, so it's back then.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  That's a strange thing to buy, but okay.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  We wanted it for his backyard.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I figured not for like his office. You know what I mean? I didn't think he was buying it for his, you know, bathroom. Yeah.

• 1:02:11Speaker 00

  Anyway, so I was like.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  He wanted to, he wanted a bribe, basically.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I, I was, I was picking up what you were putting down.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  You know, we didn't even consider it. So like our ethics were always aligned. So like ethics or work ethic.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Right? The work ethic is a big one. Like, we were all working super hard, right? And we, and we recognized that there was also a big thing which was, which was, we recognized that we worked differently and we respected that. Do you know, like?

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Big one.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Like what was, I know how you work, right? You, you don't like graphs and PowerPoints. What is your methodology?

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  No, what I'm just talking about like, like.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  No, no, I know what you mean, but I'm saying like everyone does it differently. How were they? What was their, how did they work? How did you work? Like what was, what was your lane? What was his Anton's lane?

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  In terms of things we actually did in the business?

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Did, and also like.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Style?

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yes, style and focus.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Well, I, I did in the early days, product development, operations.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  And then I moved into the entertainment side of the business. Ben did product development and creative and Anton did like HR and sales.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Okay. Were you guys all like equal partners?

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  Anton and I were equal partners because we started the business and Ben was an equal partner in terms of being treated as a partner, but his equity stake was lower than, than ours because he came in afterwards.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  So what happened, by the way? You guys stole the business or you guys?

• 1:03:30Speaker 00

  No, we took the business public in two thousand and fifteen.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. Oh, that's right.

• 1:03:34Speaker 00

  So we're, we're a public company today.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  How's the stock?

• 1:03:38Speaker 00

  Not great. Not great.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Why? You have all these massive.

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  Listen, that's the whole podcast in itself.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  It is, but it's, this is what we, people want to, I want to know. You can come back again. You don't live here, though, but.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  It's, it's basic, I can tell you that the, it's, it's very multifaceted, but the most important thing of your public company, you never, you should never miss your numbers. And if you miss your numbers, then the street loses competence in your ability to grow consistently. And no one loves anything inconsistent. So that's, that's the root why we, why we're missing some numbers. We've missed our numbers over a number of years. One is like some bad luck, things like tariffs, you know, it doesn't, doesn't help our business.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  That was my next, I had a question about the tariffs.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Like tariffs and this year it's oil and stuff like that. Uh, but we're back on track, but a lot of it, the root is that we, um, when I stepped down from co-seeing the business, myself and Anton, the transition to bring in outside CEO, we didn't manage it as well as we should manage it the first time. And there's a lot to be said about culture. The most important thing in a business is culture, right? And the most thing, the thing that you have the most valuable asset, which is more valuable than even the brands and the franchises is your culture. Because your culture is your ability to replicate what you've done over and over again. And if you lose that part of the culture, that replication factor, then your company can't continue doing what it's done before.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  And so our culture shifted in the last number of years and we're on track to bring it back. But I think that's a big part of, of why the stock is not where it is, where it's, where it's truly valued. Because it, it is not really representative of what, where the company is.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's not at all, right? When did you step down as CEO?

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Two thousand and twenty-one.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Oh, so you did, okay. What, what made you just step down?

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  You know, it was a combination between the co-CEO model wasn't working anymore.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Wow. So you guys were co-CEOs this whole time?

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, the whole time. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Wow. Okay. So what, what made it stop working?

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  It was just, it just, it just got tired, a little bit old and yeah, it just, it just got tired. It just got tired. It's like being married for a long, long, long time.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:48Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? This is like being married for a long time.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  I understand. Have you ever been married?

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  I've never been married.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And you have kids?

• 1:05:57Speaker 00

  I don't have kids.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  So you have a toy company?

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

  I've been married to two business partners, you know, but personally I haven't been married.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  So then you decide to step down and then who becomes the CEO?

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. So we, we searched for like a year and we brought someone in from the outside.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Who? Who was the guy?

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  His name is Max Rangel.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Where did he come, where did he come from?

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  He came, his, he did a lot of his career at P and G and he is, before he came to us, he was at S C Johnson. So it was a classically trained.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was a trained CEO.

• 1:06:24Speaker 00

  Classically trained CPG, C P, CEO, which he, listen, he, he did, he did a great job. But I think that the biggest learning for us is like, first of all, any transition with CEO is very difficult. And you have the highest chance of success if you bring someone in from the inside, right? It's very hard to bring people in from the outside.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Very.

• 1:06:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Especially, especially when they're classically trained to be a CEO. It's a different mindset than someone who grinded it out.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Correct. So now we're on our second CEO, female, Christina Miller.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  When did that start?

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  Uh, she came about 10 months ago.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  And where is she from?

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  She, most of her tenure was at Cartoon Network. So she came from the entertainment background.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  What was she doing at the Cartoon Network?

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  She was president. She was running the, the network there.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  And then how many employees did that place have?

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  I think that part of it was maybe a couple of thousand.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  How many employees? You guys have thousands though, right?

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  We're about three thousand.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Around the world?

• 1:07:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Okay. So then you've stepped down. So what would you say? Okay. I have a couple of questions. I'm going to do some rapid fire with you if you don't mind. Do you mind?

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  Don't.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Don't you have a plane to catch? Or is it your plane to, I'll wait for you, Tony Stark?

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  No, it's not my plane. I can fire up the chat. No, I need to go back to the office and actually shoot some social media stuff.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  You're gonna shoot some social, is he really making you do this?

• 1:07:42Speaker 00

  No, listen, no one's making me do anything.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Why do you want to do it? Why do you want to do like, what, like what is the?

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  That's not.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  If I were you and I had all the money like you and I was all the success as you, why would you put yourself like on display like that? Just, what's the point? You don't need to.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  It's to, to get the book out. And I think the book will.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Is it all for the book?

• 1:08:03Speaker 00

  It's all for the book. There's nothing else. I have no other reason to do it.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Like you're not gonna do a fitness video. You're doing squats and lunges on there. Okay, wait.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  I, I truly want the people to find out about the book. So I'm trying to meet people where they're at.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Okay. So you're basically going to go back to the office and do some what? Some like chit chats about the book?

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, like people are gonna interview me and I'm gonna give answers.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. All right. Can I, I'm gonna interview you some more and you can give me answers. Are you ready? Okay, here we go. First question, what, and, and try to keep it brief so I can make it into like a clip. Can you do it?

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  I'll, I'll try. I'm not, it's not my skill, but I'll try.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Okay, try your best. When someone has a creative idea they are excited about, how can they tell if it is actually worth building into a real business?

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  If they feel it in their body.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Okay. So you felt the earth buddy in your body?

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, if you, if you actually, if you feel it in your intuition, your own internal knowing, it's a good sign. And I would also say if you have a lot of resistance, it's a good sign too.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  Because usually people are more resistance, resistance comes up when you want to, when you really want to go towards something.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Interesting. That could be with anything in life. What separates someone who struggles to get their idea off the ground from someone who builds a hundred million dollar company? Or a billion dollar or multi-billion dollar company?

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  The inability to overthink things.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  This is not on my list, but what do you think makes a really good entrepreneur?

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Instincts.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  If someone has a business idea, but no money to build it, what is the smartest first step?

• 1:09:41Speaker 00

  Make a prototype and meet as many people as you can to pitch.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  What if the prototype costs money?

• 1:09:48Speaker 00

  Make even a smaller prototype.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Okay. What do you say the most important character trait someone has to have in order to be successful? That's my question. Not on here.

• 1:09:58Speaker 00

  Integrity and passion.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  If you can only say one quality.

• 1:10:02Speaker 00

  Integrity.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Because everybody that you partner with and everybody that you interact with is going to make their decision based on who you are as a person. It's, it's, most people make things rational decisions, but most of the decisions people make is based on a feeling. And if they trust you, they're more inclined to say yes to you.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Which is a good segue into my next one. What do you think is more important to be successful in life? Likability or competence?

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  Competence.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Competence?

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Competence.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Really? Why do you say that?

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  Good, good, good. Cause at the end of the day, like it's your confidence that's going to deliver the end result. And at the end of the result, that's, that's what really matters.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  We're living in a time when you don't have to be competent. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be capable. You know, it's all about facade, right? Like, for example, like I did, I did this whole talk about, I believe, the, the most undervalued quality in somebody's success is likability. Because it's the likable person, like your competence or your degree can get you in the door, but your likability will get you the job, right? Your competence may get you to do the busy work, right? Like the, the C student will be the boss to the A student, right? I'm a big believer in that. Like, I think people want to be around, work with, date,

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  all the things with someone that they like, not with someone who's just competent. That's my opinion.

• 1:11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I totally.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Not because it's right, not because it's right, but because it's what actually human nature gravitates you to.

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  I totally agree with you. I, I would love to say that you need to, you need to have both.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Ideally, if you have both, you're, you're, you're set. Like, I'm also, you know, what do you think is more important? Talent or work ethic?

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Work ethic.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Work ethic, me too.

• 1:11:57Speaker 00

  Work ethic, for sure.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  One hundred percent.

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  You could be the most talented person in the world. Like, I'm a big work ethic, work ethic person. I don't believe in balance. I think that's a load of shit. I don't think most people have, I think people who could say, I want it out of balance, like.

• 1:12:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Who, like, if you're going to be successful in anything, there's going to be an imbalance. It's just what it is. You have to be obsessed, in my opinion, for something to really take off.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Yep, hundred percent.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Do you agree with that?

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  It has to be very, very important to you. And you got to have the passion for it to, to break through.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Like, how, how important was being successful to you? When you were.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  I think, first of all, the definition of success is so different to so many people.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  What is your definition of success?

• 1:12:38Speaker 00

  I think the definition of success for me is living an aligned life, doing the things that match with what you, how you want to be in the world. And if you're, if you're incongruent to that, then you're unsuccessful, right? So.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree with that. So what is a successful life look like to you?

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  I think successful life is giving yourself the permission to do the things you want to do in your life that's successful.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  I think that betting on yourself is an important thing about success in life, listening to your own internal knowing and following what, I know it sounds trite, but at the end of the day, like, only you know what you want to do in your life. And everybody around you, everybody's well-meaning, they got great intentions for you. Okay, right? But I think about this a lot, like, it's hard for us to put words to things, right? And, and so at the end of the day, sometimes it's, it's counterintuitive, but to trust yourself and to listen to yourself and to listen to different parts, not to over-intellectualize everything. It's a very different, we're not, we're not trained to do that. We're not,

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  we don't live in a society like that. But I think that if you can, then you're being true to yourself. And there's nothing more successful than being true to yourself at the end of the day. And you're not living anybody else's life.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Right, you're living your own. Yes, a hundred percent agree with that. What would you want someone, if they can only have one takeaway from this book, what would you want it to be?

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  That you own your decisions in your life and that it's important for you to make them. It's, it's important for you to surround yourself with good people and open and have discussions. But I, but at the end of the day, it's your decision. And what I would say is like, I'd love for the book to be a, a creative, resourceful tool to create discussion and dialogue with the closest people around you, given what you want to potentially do in your life, whether or not it's business, or whether or not you want to do something in arts. Use it, and you're in your twenties, use it as a tool to create dialogue and discussion with yourself and with others, and, and see what comes from it.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  One question I wanted to ask you, because it's very aligned with what I speak about, is you talk about the power of not knowing.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Right? And I talk about the super, your naivety as a superpower, right? Do you want to give us an example of something that showed up in your life where that was so evident?

• 1:15:01Speaker 00

  I think it plays out in my, I, I think it, it plays out in my life.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 1:15:06Speaker 00

  All the time. Okay, like, even, even as I've gotten older.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Yes, I was gonna say, it doesn't really stop, right?

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  You know, uh, you know, back to Paw Patrol, we, we created a movie for Paw Patrol in two thousand twenty. And, and we've got a third one coming out this August.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  What did you do?

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  Well, we're Paw forever.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Paw, that's why you said forever?

• 1:15:32Speaker 00

  Forever.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  Forever. Mickey Mouse is forever.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  That's right. So is Paw.

• 1:15:37Speaker 00

  We want it to be Paw forever. We're going to try our hardest to be Paw forever. So.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  So I was naive enough to think that we can make a film. And we did. And no one believed in us, actually. We actually had to greenlight the film ourselves, right? And because everybody was like, you know, it's like, to create a film for Paw, it's like, it's, it's for preschoolers. How are you going to do a motion picture for preschoolers? But I was like, there's got to be a way to do this.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:00Speaker 00

  And I didn't have it all figured out, but we, we figured it out. We got it done. But I was naive to like, there's still a little bit of naivety in like, in everything that, everything I still do. So that's one, one example. Um, I think, I think, I think it's, I think, I think it's the most wonderful thing to actually not be that.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  I think it's every, decisions are an art and a science. You have to know your space, you can competition and, and what's come before you. But once you've connected all the dots, a little bit of naivety of what's possible, dreaming a little bit.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Speaker 00

  I connected the naivety to the dreaming, to being a dreamer.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  I also think that naivety also, like, what you don't know actually is an advantage because sometimes when you're too seasoned, too experienced, that's when the overthinking happens. And then you are, like, you talk yourself out of doing whatever that is.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  Well, I, I want to end on this because it's like, everything sounds rosy on this podcast. I think I'm the only person in Los Angeles.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  Because I lived here from two thousand eight to two thousand ten. And I worked on creating the Bakugan film.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  Okay. And, because, anyways, and it took me four years. I finally got an offer from Universal to do a hundred million dollar live action film. They were ready to greenlight it. And we said no.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  You said no?

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  Said no. Can you imagine?

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Because of exactly what we're talking about. Because we had this thing in our mind was like, based in toy history, if a franchise has slowed down on sales, you can relaunch to the next generation of kids seven years later. And we said to ourselves, if we do the film, it's going to extend out the franchise, even though, and we may not get sales again against this. So now we're going to have to wait like nine years. And we said, we didn't want to wait. We wanted to like, we were like patiently wait. So I used conventional norms, okay, and made a really bad decision. And I still look back today and I'm like, who passes? Like, it would have been so great for the franchise to do an incredible film and I could have made more films and, and, and we wouldn't.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, turn, I had a full, I worked with Scott Stewer, Pam Abdi, okay, what's her name? The head of Universal, they totally greenlit it. Jeff Kirshbaum. Film was done in the can. It was ready. I got the call. And I worked on it for four years.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Are you serious?

• 1:18:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm the only person that said no.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. That's crazy.

• 1:18:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. So sometimes if you overthink things and you apply the conventional norms, you miss opportunities.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I'm all about going against any conventional norm.

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  So you don't have to, you're preaching to the converted already. All right, Ronan?

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  Ronan.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Renan.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  Jennifer.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Jennifer. I thought I said it properly, Renan. All these years, I guess I've been like saying your name wrong. I apologize. I would say, where could people find you? But we know they can find you nowhere because you're nowhere on social media.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  No, I'm, I'm going. I'll be, I'll be on LinkedIn.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  And by the way, LinkedIn's fine, but you don't have to, I am, I'm going to tell you later, but whatever. But the book, how about this? The book is called No Experience Necessary by, say your name, because I don't want to screw it up.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  No, no, do you say it.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Renan.

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  Perfect.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Thank you. Practice makes perfect. Uh, by Renan Harari. And like I said, this guy is like the real deal. I am so happy that we got to do this podcast. And, uh, thank you for being here. I'm hoping I didn't hold you hostage too long.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  I loved every minute of it. It was great.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Two hours. I mean, it's not horrible, but it's not like, it's been like two hours. Yeah. Uh, yeah, sorry. Like almost two hours. Like an hour and forty-five minutes?

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  Jen, you're the best.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  You're the best. All right, guys. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know in the comments. And if you haven't subscribed, please take this moment and subscribe. Bye, bye.