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

Press it. >> Welcome to Habits and Hospital where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, athletes, and top experts to uncover the habits, strategies, and mind set shifts that actually move the needle in your health, happiness, and success. Today, I'm sitting down with Rinden Horrory, who is the co-founder of Spinmaster.

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. Rindenth built one of the biggest children's entertainment companies in the world by moving fast, trusting his instincts, and figuring things out before we had

the perfect plan. In this episode, we get into how a weird grass toy became his first big win,

and why 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. [ Music ] >> Welcome to Habits and Hospital. 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. I'm talking like a legit baller. He started the, basically, founded one of the most successful toy companies on the planet called Spinmaster. It is equivalent to like a metal, like where is it in the in that world? >> It's Lego Hasbro, Mattel Spinmaster.

“>> 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 going to 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. >> I'm so glad you're so nice to be here. >> That's so happy.

By the way, his name is Ronan Hirari, I forgot to say that. I don't think it's said your name, and he wrote a book called No Experience Necessary. I was saying before we even started,

what I found so interesting about what you're, I never, I never found it a multi-billion dollar

company, found it a few other ones that weren't not like that, but what your pillars are about how to build success and get success. It's literally like, it was like really 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 want to dive into this book, but my first question is like someone like you who's already like made so much money, has that so much success, why would you

“and like, why are you writing a book? Why do you even want to do this whole grind in the first place?”

>> It's a great question, I think that part of us to get back for me. >> Okay. >> And I, in a way, I kind of wanted a book like this to be written when I was a kid, and it's because the book is there to be a supportive parent to you and to encourage you to do what you want to 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 looked back when I hit in my 40s, I was like, there's something so special about the 20s. There's something so special about that decade. >> So true. >> Yeah. >> And I wanted to put it down on paper and explain what's so special about that decade and what it crews to during that time. And I'm reading books, and I was challenged from it, and it's kind of an irony because I grew up with learning a bit of disability called

dysgraphia, which is all about the inability to get your thoughts out through your hands. So it was kind of 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 need a project. >> No, no, I think that's a great reason,”

that was a great, I think everyone needs to have something to do, a purpose, and a project, right, because then what, especially someone that's built the way you are, it seems that you are,

but when 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? >> Correct. Like if you ask me to sign the book for you, and write a note, okay, you'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. >> Right. >> Okay, so basically, as I start writing, my hands starts to cramp up, and then I can't even read my own handwriting, so then I got to 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 basic, I got to beat my thoughts to actually start again. So it slows you down, and I have some other, you know, learning disabilities around spatial stuff, and please go ahead.

you did mention in there how 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, is like, a lot of people like spreadsheets and graphs, and like doing a lot of the, it's like busy, admin work, or like power points, it was about a power point, 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, right? And the second someone says,

“you have to be giving me a power point, and this type of agreement in contact, like,”

I get so like anxieties for, I'm like, I can't do that, that's not how I work, because not

everybody learns and succeeds in the same way. 100% why I've never done a power point in my whole life.

Yeah, neither have my other way. It's a very, very similar. Yeah, so I mean my brain process, it's, the thing about learning disability is not a sign of black 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 is no way that I would have made it through school, and I probably would have been other in jail or something else. Interesting, because normally I would say, if you were born today, right, they would say that, I don't even know if that would even, well, actually it's not true,

because I would say they would actually give you a lot of like, it would actually be different. What I was going to 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 fall back on, well, I can't do it. How did you negate that, and not let that become the who you are? When you're young, you think, oh, I'm stupid, I can't do this. I have

something wrong with me, all those things. The irony is that it was never talked about my family,

and my parents never recognized it, so I hit it from everybody, no one even knew, even my classmates didn't even know. I was the guy in the classroom where he was like, where were you, Renanne? We just wrote the exam, and I was like, yeah, you know, I was like, the king of stories, okay, I was the king of stories, and I never told anybody about my learning disability, okay, the knock-on effect of that is like, group with a lot of shame as a result. Yeah,

right, so it 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 to, I could be like everybody else, and maybe that was the thing that got me through, or it was just like, and also the accommodations at the end of the day, like it gave me the ability to like figure it out, right, and then the gift to gave me was actually it turned me into a person that was able to overcome challenges to like constantly

had to do it. Like, I had the muscle memory, but it's time to graduate it. I had the muscle memory

“on powering through things and anything, and I think that taught me that anything was possible.”

If I could 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. Right, it made you much more resourceful because you had to be 100%. Right, but that's interesting, so you dig her up with the shame, but yet the shame worked to your advantage, because it it worked as a positive as a strength, right, because, you know,

you were, it was kind of 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 come more. No, the shame was, that's, that was a negative. I don't wish it on anybody. No one should grow up like that. How did your parents not even know? When you got tested at 10, they didn't know that you got tested at 10? No, they didn't, they didn't. Yeah, I was like, the people at school just come up to you, or not? They didn't know how to deal with it.

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

“okay, so that's what you meant. Yeah. And so then like they gave you extra time. Like, so the school”

tested you, they knew, but it was never like me, you weren't caught all that home because of it.

Correct. Like, exactly. Like, I'm like, I'm the king of seas. Okay. I got lots of seas. Yeah, that's the king of seas. Yeah, occasionally got a bee, and they come home with their pork, or everyone's were like, why's it just a sea, you know? But it wasn't like, oh, it's a sea because we understand that you got some other issues going on. Right, right, right, right, they did it. And that worked, though, for your, for your, for your advantage, because they

didn't, like, emphasize it all the time. They were not caught only. There was a real caught one. I know. I mean, okay, so let's talk about the shame for one second. So how did that manifest itself?

you know, naturally a bit more of a shy introverted person. Like, somewhere in the middle, but it caused 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 issue. There's a whole lot of knock on a vaccine. No, but that probably for another product. 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 that 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 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'd like deal with it the right way, right? Like, you started a business.

“You were 23 or 22 years old. I think I could have gone there without it. Why do you say that?”

Because I think that for me, I'm, I'm a very curious individual, right? And I'm curious. And I have some boldness in me. And I like trying different things. I like bring things into the world. So I think it could have been an easier journey. I don't, I, actually, I'm not an advocate or I don't subscribe to the, what we're, what we're talking about here, that like, deep, deep diversity brings you to success. 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 can be, and they're just, they're, they're just there, and they can be expressed in many different ways. And I don't believe in people having to suffer their ways and get to success. Right? What you don't have to, but sometimes that is the path, something, 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. I agree. I just don't, I just, I don't, I don't, I don't wish to knock on effects on anybody. Yeah. And I 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. Right, right. You know, and I, and I, and I was surround my parents were, you know,

small business entrepreneurs and business was discussed in the house. And I got exposed to a lot of your interesting people. And so there's a lot of things that led me, what did you do? So this path, my parents were classic entrepreneurs and they had a gallery in Toronto that sold Persian carpets. Really? Yeah. So Persian carpets. And I was like, and then I knew I used to go to my dad's place every Saturday and work and he said, like, roll the rugs. I was like, a good roll

rucker and, like, roller and fold in the belly. And I knew exactly that I did not want to go into retail. That's right. That's, okay. Good. So the process of the, of the limitation 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. Well, it started when, uh, we were in the university

and online as my business partner, um, who, we're best friends growing up and we swore we'd never

go into business together. Really? Yeah. We swore we'd never go into business together until we had to pay for school. And they were like, okay. And we were selling fertilizer door to dirt after

“first year. Where did you go to school, by the way? I went to Western. I went to West West, that's what I thought,”

okay. I went to Western. And we were selling fertilizer door and I was like, not so much fun. And we had noticed these sophomores that had just graduated, they created this product called campus. We called the campus space. It basically was a collage of these posters, sort of collage of students that were taken during frost week. And then around the collage, while these pictures, they would sell advertising and they'd print up 9,000 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, dance, I'm like, why don't we just do it? And that's what we did. Within two weeks,

we basically sold all the advertising and took the deposit of $4,000. I remember it took $2,000

for and went to your heart. I came, I came back and we finished, we produced posters and we distributed them. It was great. And then we ended up doing them at five other schools by time and graduated. And Anton was went to business school. And we kind of said to ourselves, we're going to do something and 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 defined 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 is really newspaper called The Idiot Drop. We're not. And in there, there was a two-page spread of these six different people that were manufactured in this product called the grasset. It was small little kind of like, oh, it's kind of like a new age version of a chipet.

And you put it in water and a grow grass for hair. And in the article, okay, classically, those realies, you know, they love sharing all their secrets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so they've basically said that they, that I added it up. It said that it sold like 300,000 pieces

in the country of 10 million. And no one was doing it in Canada. So I drove up to Western. I said

to Anton. I was like, why don't we make these? And he thought it was crazy. And he basically said, I'm not in. And it was a convincedome. And finally, two weeks later, he said, I'm in. He graduated. Next thing I know where it came up, we're buying all these raw materials, nylon, panty hose, sawdust, you know, like everything. Actually, no sawdust. It didn't sell it. But anyways, and then and then I got my brother-in-law, we gave him some profit sharing to help us figure out how to

manufacture them. My sister to design a packaging, we gave her profit sharing on it. And we decided to make 5,000 pieces from others. And it was the most magical 20, 20 days of my life, like, just like figure out how to like, like, she was made them yourself. Yeah, we made them sort of. 5,000 pieces.

“5,000 pieces. I remember having this conversation with my mom. She's like, why don't you just buy it”

from the people in Israel? I was just saying that that was why I'm confused. Why don't you just license it from them and just bring it to Canada or wherever? Because I didn't want to give up the control. I didn't want to wait the time, you know. No deal, the whole thing. I didn't want to be, I don'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 in figurative. Was it the earth body one? Is this the earth body? That's the earth

body. Yeah, so that was our product. Okay. So make 5,000 pieces from others day. We start selling them in the streets of Toronto. And we sell like 700 pieces and we're like, oh, we've formed the warehouse.

But that was a lot to make on your own. Well, try a million. I can't have it back. But the

two little kids, you know, like two young guys doing it with their family, you know, it's a lot. Well, I, you know, it's amazing. My brother and I was like, and my ex brother and he's an auto deck. 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 maybe these 5,000 pieces and then we came back to work on Monday. We're like, we got more to sell. And two weeks later, we sold 26,000 pieces.

How are you selling them? 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 a strange, just meaning, ever, okay, it was like in downtown Toronto. And they sell clothes out toys. Okay. And so for anybody listening, clothes out toys are like, what you sell to sell from one, when it went, it's like, you can't sell them anymore. So we have this brand new product. We take

it to a clothes out person. And they're a lovely family, the costs are 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 26,000 pieces? Because they sold it to Walmart and Canada. Wow. Okay. Wow. So then we moved factories. We hired more workers.

It's stuff like this. And then the most magical thing happens was we got an order for half a million

pieces from came work. Was it how, giving the time frame? From when you started to make these in, you know, you went to came work to get the seed, whatever, all the stuff. And you sold 700 on the street. How did it look, what was the time frame between the 700 and the gain that peat, like the purchase order for that many? So basically, from the time we hit, started selling on the street to the time we got the 26,000 pieces, was two weeks. And then we sold, then we sold to roots. Remember,

we said that? Yes, I know. Yes, I know. Okay, roots was roots put us on the front counter of

“the store. So it's so wonderful. How did you do that? You don't Michael. But man, is that his name?”

Yeah. So it was my, but we, we went there ourselves and, and you did. And we showed in the product. And he was so nice. He was like, let's fits with our brand and our ethos. And then we shipped a live, grown earth by its every store. So they can have it on display. Wow. Yeah. And then we broken to Zellers and to their. Zellership. Remember Zellership? That's crazy. God, this is like so nostalgic. Okay, go on. Yes. And then the craziest thing happened. So Anton was back back in the

year before in Europe. And he met this guy by the name Aaron Hermann. And Aaron lived in Detroit. Yes. I remember this from the book. Yeah. Tell me. I love it. And so Aaron lived in Detroit. And his uncle owned the palace, where the Detroit person is played. So we kind of figured maybe they have some connections stuff like this. So he called me said, can you get us a meeting? A came our corporation. And at the time, came our was the number one retailer in the world in the

90s, bigger than Amazon, bigger than Walmart. They were it. So he says, yes, you 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. Why did you go? Why did Anton not go? You know, I have to tie. I don't even know. You know, don't tell the study. I don't know why. Maybe it was on to the weather or something. I can't

“remember. So I go and I drive it. I leave my house like three three in the morning. I didn't even”

think of a staying in a hotel. Okay, and getting a good night's rest. Yeah. Exactly. You're like, I got this good. No, save money. Yeah. And you're in 20s. You know, you're saving money. You've got the energy to do. Of course, I go wake up at 330. And then I go there and I get there for nine o'clock,

gentleman. I'm in his board room, board room. 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 pitched him for another 15 minutes. And he doesn't say anything. And then after he says, I'm not the buyer of which I said to him, well, we'll give it to you on consign sales. And if it sells, you know, like, his past. He said, I'm not the buyer. That which point I was like, if you're giving someone something for free.

“And they still don't want it. And they still don't want it. So I said, who was buyer?”

And he came back with this name, Adrian Zax on a piece paper. I shook his hand. And I started walking around came our corporation looking for this woman. And I was super lucky. She was sitting under desk. And I did, like, I said something to her over 30 seconds. And she said, I'll meet you at 330. You can come back to my office. I go downstairs. And the guys are like, what happened? I'm like, could I just left them? I didn't even say anything. I just like, yeah, you just walked

it. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and I was really lucky. I was so young. Because I look back now. I thought it was like probably 40. They were to kick me out. And I think they, they probably thought it was someone's kid. Probably. You're like, 22 years old. Yeah. 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 330. And I walked into our office. And it was so nice. It was like,

it wasn't in the boardroom. It was in our office. It was tiny office. This desk and she was sitting behind it. And it was like cluttered with stuff. And she was a quarter culture bar. 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 hats from other people. Anyways, again, we're the whole spiel and told her everything about like the earth bodies and and the factory

and the campus faces. I told her everything about like, 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 48,000 pieces. And if it goes well, I'm ordering half a million pieces from it. And it's. And then I asked her for her garden known. Which is the strange thing.

“You did. Why did you ask her for that? And I just wanted something to like remember the occasion.”

I did, I was almost like surreal. I didn't believe it was almost. It didn't believe it was true. So you got 48,000 from her. How did you find 48 48 and then a half a million?

Yeah, then a half a million. But I was going to say for the 48,000 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 were making them yourself. If you made 5,000, I'm going to have you made 5,000. You, you had to like find the fact, you had to find a factory at some point to like make this quantity, right? No. No, we open our own factory. Well, okay, okay, okay. I've ready at this point at 22, 23 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. At 23. Okay, so this time frame is insane. So then you guys opened your own factory,

hired factory workers. How did you do all this and like set you such a be the amount of time? 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? Well, first of all, we built the machines ourselves. Oh, even more so. 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.”

Ben, okay, what a Ben do for the company. 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. I mean, this is crazy. He ran the factory,

but amazing things happen. Okay. Can I say, 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 subant. And he came into Ben's office 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 gant charts already all figured out the

guy figure out like the whole line flow. This is a man from a homeless shelter. So just the universe just kind of like coalesced to bring the right people to us to make it happen. And we worked really are like my brother-in-law came every night after he was a lawyer and he come to our factory and he worked from like 6 to 11, 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 have people

from Vietnam, I'm shooting like like all these different agencies. We're giving us workers and and Ben was running the factory and I was not wearing the raw materials and Anton was out doing

sales and we started hiring people just kind of just happen. So you basically then make a million

of these first buddies. Right. And then there's your question how we got into toy business. So now we're getting, now we're getting to the toy business part. But wait, I'm still on the first body thing because the fact that the amount that like 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, we're listening to this. They get

stuck in Manusia like analysis paralysis for even like the first step like okay how do I

or not, when they're sitting on their couch and there go, I don't know how to, 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? Think about, first of all make, make bite-sized decisions, right?”

Because we say we're going to make 5,000 pieces from others. We didn't say we're going to sell annoying pieces. So that was a bite-sized decision. The reason why we got 5,000 was because that was the minimum order quantity, the printer would defress. We probably would have done 2000, right? So it was like 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. So everything's about momentum.

It's all momentum and momentum brings you the lock 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 out and doubt as the anti-lock. So that'd be the first thing. The second thing I would

say is, think 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 network and you can do things on a project basis, not like, you know, we gave profit here. My brother and I got 5% profits on the earth buddies. My sister

got 5% profits. We didn't pay him a cent. They didn't put it. 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, 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 close out guy, I didn't even know that close it. And he surprises with 26,000 pieces. And then we went to roots. And like, so it's, so you made off of that one earth buddy. How much did you make off of that? In the first nine months, I think we, we grossed, probably upwards of like, I think it's like

three million dollars at that nine months. And you guys, and like this was like your first main

pro, major project. So you were, like, how much does it make? How much did it cost you to make one of those? It cost us about about 60 cents. And how much were you selling them for? Well, then average, like around 250. So much that. Wow. So then here you get the million dollar, all those, and how long were you selling those for? How did that ricochet into a toy company? Well, we sold the earth buddy's name 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. This, this was the fat. It was a chia pet. It was like a moment. There's something magical at doing it once. But you're not going to do it more than multiple times. There's no longevity.

“You knew there was no longevity. Yeah. We knew that going in. And there was a moment. And that's why we”

wanted to be like first market. And so you weren't even for other people were doing. You said that woman in the office had five different competitors, like five different green things. But I would say that we probably got at least 50% 60% of the market. Why do you think that is? Was it a better product or was it because we didn't wait to get her from Israel and we didn't speed. It would speed to market all that. We were the quickest. And we were able to scale those two things together.

So speed and being able to scale. I think the speed because people stood too long and then then someone else comes and does it. It was there. It was there and it was there in the ethers and it was like, that's why I asked you about what about why you did a license it for Israel because that would be the most obvious thing, right? Like, just license a thing. But it actually would have, you said something that it would have taken way too long to do that. I couldn't

even look the one came or the Adrian's ax in the face. And say I can deliver the happenings for

if I wasn't, if we didn't have our own factory. I mean, that's pretty amazing. We were like

in shackled. It was like, it was our, because you did it, like, from like owned it right away. So you didn't, a lot of people like do second, like, you know, 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? It's hard to make a blanket statement and not knowing what's specific. 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 all the pieces that”

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. Okay, fair. That's all for this. Okay,

we did, we did one follow. We did one thing, which is called the Hobgarden and it bombed. It was like,

“it was like facing growing herds and my sister was on the package. Oh my god. But so we”

need that earth buddy was going to have a life to it. And at about six months into the earth, buddy, I started noticing kids in Toronto were playing with this product called Devil Stecks. So I don't know if you ever remember those. It's just a three piece jogging set for kids, old two sticks, and you got this bigger stick and it's weighted on the end. It's got tassels, and you hit it back and forth. It starts to spin. I kind of do. Maybe, you know, if you were

a hippie back in the 80s and you went to great for dead shows, you would see it. I kind of do. So I went to a lot of dead shows. And so you could see that. Do you think I could tell you see where you dead head? You know, I still are. Did you go see them at the sphere? I have nothing. I'm so upset. I didn't see that. Oh, you would have thought about it. So I said play with them myself. And then I started to know as the kids were actually playing

with them in the school yards 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 fat going on. And

“we had our factory. So I said, why don't we actually make some ourselves and see how it goes?”

And so we made our prototype. We made some packaging through the company that bought the 26,000 pieces for us for Walmart. They knew a rep company in the United States. And next thing I know, myself, Anton and my ex-girl from Melissa are at New York at the toy fair in 1995. And we're here in this back room with our like one prototype of the devil sticks. 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 these reps broke us into toys arrest and KB toys. And suddenly we shipped the product into those accounts. And devil sticks was such a something was in the ether. There's something like in the zeitgeist for kids around this particular product that the moment we shipped it, it just took off. Really. It just took off. So you're too for two kind of like you found these two juggernaut, basically. First was the earth buddies that you found. Correct. And second is this stick thing.

Correct. So at the end of that year, I'm selling the stick things. Yeah. Yeah, devil sticks. Yep.

Other AK, devil sticks. Okay, that was six. So we sold a million half of that was six. We manufactured

shipped a million half. In how long? In that year. In that 12 months. Wow. 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 toys. That was a lot of fun. Is that really what happened? 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, because you didn't like the manufacturing. Anton had the inside. He's like, let's bring Ben back into the

business. Ben comes back and Ben's living with Jen Irwin. Do you remember one toys? They're the biggest Canadian toy company back in the day. I know you remember. So the Irwin toy family says to us, you know, if you guys are going to the toy business, there's this list of 200 inventors around the world that 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 toys and 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. How does that work? Do you pay the inventors for ideas?

How does that work? Yeah, 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. So what was the first thing you took from that inventor? Well, we started with hundreds of inventors? Yeah, it was the first one that you actually bought our license. And I just want to, I do want to say that Thursday the devil sticks. We were marketing some like open source products and they were like very fancy, just to pay the bills.

But the first one we our first big toy product was a thing called AirHogs. It was an airplane and you pumped it up. It had like a PT bottle and a little nomadic engine and a propeller on it and it would fly around for 45 seconds. And so these two British inventors, John Dickson, Peter Man, he 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 90s. They only had the

balls of planes or the Cox gas power planes, which took off your finger. And so we go fly as airplane and all I want to do is I wanted to pick it up and fly again and Ben wanted to fly it. 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 him. And we spent two years developing this product.

Little did we know. And this is like the thing about being young when all the amazing things

that happened to everybody turned down the product. We all the, all the, all the, they had shot, they had shot up to all the toy companies. So, oh, really. Okay, but they didn't take it out to the,

all the other, like, Mattels of the world, or when, whoever, Mattel and Hasbro, the biggest guy,

they turned it down. They're all said, no, okay. They all said no. But we didn't know until about a year and half later. Really, okay. So, you guys said, yes. And then what happened? And then we basically took all the money we made from earth buddies, all the money we made from devil sex, all the money we made from these small, low, tragic products that we're selling. And we put it into engineering and developing. This is very highly complex product. So, you believed in this product that much. You put all your money into it.

Really? How much did you sell that product? That product, at the time that we brought it to market, which was 1998, we were doing $7 million in sales. And the year we launched the air pods we jumped

up to about 35 million dollars in sales. So, that was a great bet. It was amazing. And then we became

the king of the flight. We were producing flying toys for 15 years. So, who is the person that said, we have to go out with this one. You? It was myself and Ben. Let's together. Let me share my daily routine game changer with you. It's the momentous three. I've been using their protein, their creatine, and omega-3 combo for months now, and the results are undeniable. These nutrients are key for long-term health and performance. But hearty get enough of through diet alone. The create pure

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me. You'll be happy you did. It sounds like you've had some really good ideas. You've got a very good vision

“for what's going to be where the puck is going, not where the puck is. Do you know what I mean?”

Well, sometimes I can tell you that our three follow-up products after air hogs, we are still producing them, but we wanted to get into new categories and we need new inventors, okay, and all three bonds. Which ones were they? Don't, don't, don't, free-freddy. Okay. Take a whole secret baby. I can't pronounce the name, so it was like, wasn't even a great name. Okay. In key term cuties. Okay, so let me ask you a question. When did you get the Rubik's Field? The Rubik's Cube, we acquired it in 2016,

maybe 2018. Okay, so this was obviously a license, because this has been around for a hundred years, right? Like, no, we actually, we acquired it, we bought it. You bought, okay, wait, you bought it. We bought it. You didn't license it originally? No, no, we had nothing to do with the Rubik's Cube up until 2018. You bought it. What made you buy it? In the toy business to have an iconic brand, it's got like 99% boredom out of the awareness. It's like, it's, it's very rare that it comes along.

“So, how much did you buy it for? We paid about $55 million for it. Did you make your money back on it?”

Yes. Really? I don't know. I don't know the number, but I think we do, you know, it's millions of cubes here. You sell millions of these still a year. Yeah, yeah. Well, so what would you say? It's crazy thing about the Rubik's Cube is like, it's, it's part of culture is part of society. I want to say that. 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 the one of them in iconic in icon

history? Probably in the top three? No, I would say top three, but maybe top ten. What's number one? Probably Barbie. Oh, Barbie. Oh, Barbie. Hot wheels. Lego. Right. It'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? Ronan. I say Ronan. Ronan. Ronan. No. Number one is Barbie. Barbie. Number two is hot wheels. Hot wheels. Number three is Lego. Lego.

“Four. Four. This? No. No. No. I don't think like, you don't think so. What else have we got in our?”

I'd say, you know, I'd start to go things like things like, but their licenses, like, I have things like Star Wars or the pure plate toys from scratch. Those are the three, the three biggest. There's things like edge of sketch. I bet you if we chat GPT it will tell us the two ones. Yeah. What is it?

okay. I'm not even in the toy business, my dear. You know, you're hired. I'm not. You should have hired me for innovation. Was that not right? No. So Rubik's cube is number one. Was number two? Lego is number two. Was number three. Barbie's number three. Hot wheels. Number four. Yo-yo is number five. So I sold this a little short. Oh my gosh. You owe this. And you didn't know it was the number one toy of all time. Because I'm maybe I'm looking, I'm thinking of sales and

revenue and other topics. 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. No, we created it. So you actually created Paw Patrol. It's our baby. Okay, if you're a parent, listen to this episode. This is insane. Paw Patrol's

“props. I'm surprised Paw Patrol's not even on that. Where's Paw Patrol on that? You must have”

sold 100 million dollars a year on just Paw Patrol. More. 200 million a year on Paw Patrol?

I can't tell you the exact number. It's a lot. 300 million? It's a lot. 400 million? Because 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 billion a year just on Paw Patrol? It's a multi-billion dollar franchise. That's what I can tell you. This is what I'm going to say. Okay, I would say maybe even a billion dollars a year on Paw Patrol.

No, now now you're going a little bit. I'm going to tell you why I say this. I'm a little bit getting a little excited. One of our, one of our Himesuban, another is really. He created the Power Rangers his company, right? Right. And when he sold it to Fox, he made $4 billion. 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, your worth. I can't even imagine. Paw Patrol's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, I miss something where you ever talk. You're like, 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. Like, at my kid, you know, someone who's going to be born right this

second 20 years ago, like, they all play with these things. Is that not insane? You know, just,

it's, it's, it's, I'm taking it all in as you're talking about it. It's pretty, it's pretty remarkable, like, you know, I'm just thinking of, you know, when I first moved to LA and when I met Himesuban, and he was like, everyone was like, he was like, such a, like, everyone was like, such a huge big muffler, which is like a big deal, you know, like, because he's a little Paw Patrol there. So he had all these billions of blah, 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, what Paw Patrol is much bigger than Power Rangers, and you're like, I don't know, I don't know. It's like, it's not even part of the conversation. We've been operating like, it's like, it's like, it's like a throw away, because there's been so many others. They pop patrols big, but like, okay, this, this is big. This is massive. Listen, first of all, and nothing's a throw away. Everything is, like, so much time,

care, attention. Like, like, stuff doesn't, 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 own Rubik's for probably 15 years.

He kept in touch with them. He was always calm. Did you just treat them in beginning?

No, no, 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. Okay. No, our whole thing has been an answer to, like, we went to every trade show, every event. Anytime we could be in front of people, right? Our whole ethos and our businesses, okay, we're open to ideas wherever they come from. That's our ethos. Okay. And we'll partner with people.

We're the partnership company. Okay. Right? Because you can, you can do, you can do bigger things when you partner with other people, especially when you don't have the equities at the beginning, right? And when I say equities, I'm just talking about the confidence. So he maintained that relationship. So anyways, so yeah, I'm going a bit far. I feel, 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, his managing people. And, and then we bought it.

But it's also, so everything's like nothing's, nothing's throwaway. Like it's, well, no, what I mean by the throwaway is when you think about 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 like life. Like my kid used to love pop. Like I would put on pop patrol every single morning, right? Because 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?

“Peppapack. Peppapack. A great show. Amazing show. Do you own Peppapack? No. No. No. You should,”

can you get the rights for that? Goodbye. No, has, has, has, has, has, we paid three and a half billion dollars

for E1 and in the E1 deal can't Peppapack. So I don't think they're going to be. Oh, that's, that was Jecker not also. Yeah. That's great. Oh, that's a good show. Also created by British people and pop patrols also created by a British person. Okay. So tell me how pop patrol have been. You know, pop patrol happened in, first of all, happened in the lowest point in our company. Okay, because our company was doing about a billion dollars in sales at the Peppa Pigun and then we went, we lost half

our sales. For 16 years and 16 years in a row, our company was profitable and then year 17 and 18, we lost money for two years straight. Why? Because there was too much hubris, right? And hubris, too much hubris, too much believing like everything you touch is going to turn to gold or then it's going to be great. 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're just like, everything's going to work out great. And we didn't have the experience to realize that, you know, as fast as something like a bucket gun can 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 moments in my personal career because we had to let go of 350 people in our company. 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 do it four times, people felt so unsettled in that 24-year period, right? So during that time, we said, okay, we really need to be much more judicious with what we're doing

and give everything a lot more time, attention and care. And we still want to stay in the entertainment business after Bucketgun starts to go down. So we said, what else can we do? And we actually launched three shows post-Bucketgun. They all failed, reticoyed 10k nights and little charmers. You could not give away the show and you could not, you could not literally take the product off the shelf at retail. Like, I thought it was like stuck with the loop. Okay, like a trolley. Because there's

so much product there. Like, it was like, no one was taking it. You know, like, it was that bad.

Wow. The most important, like when you walk retail and you see the empty shelves, you know that

that brand's doing well. Really? Yeah. If the shelves are full, it just tells you straight away. Easiest way to know if something's doing well or bad. And just the abundance of your product over there for a couple of months. Say yes. There's an abundance of your TV products or you go in one week. You come back next week. It's still safe. Nothing moved off the shelf. It was when it looked like stuck. It's hilarious. It's stuck. Yeah. It's funny, but not funny. Yeah.

It's like, it's not funny. So, but we still want to stay in kids. And so we set to ourselves, let's try to do something in preschool. And let's try to do something around preschool and transformation because transformational, 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 was Keith Chapman. He created a ball of the builder. Yeah. And yeah,

which is a great show. I love that one too. And so I have this whole thing where I love, I love being around lucky people. Right. All mark a person, like you're a lucky person.

“Right. So I just want to like be close to you. Are you sure I'm a lucky person?”

I'm pretty lucky. How do you know? I don't know. You got to energy. Thank you. Got to energy. Thank you. So, and you make things happen. I do. Right. So. Don't do you. Obviously. So anyway, so Keith Chapman, I was like, 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. Mm. Okay. And but the craziest

thing was that he didn't actually follow the brief. The brief was about transformation. So he gave this story about Robbie and the rescue pups, but had nothing to do with transformation. Right. Though we loved it so much. And we loved him. And we said, okay, what's starting? We went and

start developing it. We found an incredible director. Jamie Whitney, incredible writers. We found

an incredible studio just by the way, like, pop trolls 100% Canadian. Canadian director. I was just going to say that I had no idea. Does anybody know that pop trolls Canadian? No. No, very very kind of. I can't believe that pop trolls Canadian. Yes, 100% Canadian. That's why all the pups are so

from British Columbia. It's modeled off a bay in British Columbia. Do you want the TV show? Yeah, it's ours. We put it on the right, but in all of that. Yeah, we created it and we sold it and we partnered with Nickelodeon. So there are there are partner on the sales distribution and licensing

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

Well, let's see, a lot of it gets reinvested back into the business and all the people.

There's like a million of like, this is remarkable. Your mom must be like, just like,

like, she must be just like unbelievably, like, so proud of you. She's compelling every minute of the day. I'm sure. Like, that's the Jewish word people. She is she just like going around bragging about her son on a regular basis. It's like what he's done from an immigrant parent. I understand what a mass of this on every level. This is amazing between the disability, learning disability, immigrant parents. You weren't handed a bunch of money. You literally did this

on your own. Like legitimately you did this on their own. Like, I have to again say, and I said, it's 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 done this and not the other. Meanwhile, they were given a majority of it. You are like legitimately,

“like, full on, self-made, what's just why you're so impressive to me. I think it's incredible.”

Your mom, missing. You guys are like two peas in a pod. Really? I got introduced. You guys, you guys. I wanted to be mom. I wanted to be mom. I wanted to be mom. She said the same thing to you in terms of what? Did she say this to your, is your mom say this to you? Once in a while. I've ever talked, I want to meet your mom. Wait, wait, wait, wait. That happened. Is your mom and is where she live now? She's back in Canada for the summer. So we can, where she,

where is Toronto? She's in Toronto. She's in Toronto. Most of the time, she's in his robot. She's back in Toronto. She's feisty. I bet you she's like, she's like, if my mother was 20 today, she would have like

10 million followers on Instagram. She has no filter, you know, she loves to love. She loves to love.

I love her. I love her. She's like super chatty. She's a people person. She loves loves people. And she just tells it to you straight. She's straight. Good. You're right. We'll be BFFs. I love her already. I really appreciate people like that because we don't have enough of them anymore. Everyone stands on ceremony and has to care as much of how they appear and look and feel. And I hate that. No, not me, but yeah. But this is probably why you are who you are. Your mother

taught like your mother created something like you and she believed in you and she let you do whatever

“you wanted to do. That's why you love your mom. I love you because you love your mom.”

Oh my god. I'm so lucky. You're so good. You're such a great little. I love you. Okay, I'm up in a price. So let's move on. Okay. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor TheraSosh. Their try and light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with

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it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to TheraSosh.com right now and use code be bold for 15% off. This code will work site wide. Again, head over to TheraSosh. THER.A-S-A-G-E.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. Pop patrol. So then here you are doing the pop patrol and then what happens? The right, I mean you do all the TV and then it was a juggernaut and it's hell. 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 Beater and we brought a bunch of toys that we made and Sima, who was a President Nickelodeon, and time she said, "Okay, let's partner on it. We're going to buy the show from you." And yeah, and it was just

a magical thing. We never produced a preschool show and there are 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. And they pointed us in the right

And I knew in your social media presence you'll appreciate this. I used to go on Instagram.

Okay, and he's to check in the first like two, three, four months. How many birthday cakes were

being made for kids with pop trolls? Yeah. Characters. And I kept on seeing. I was like more, more, more, more, and more. And then I was like, then I kind of, I knew that something was was happening here. And then our toys hit and our toys did really well. And then we put our second season and then we said, okay, let's try to get Paul for five. Let's try to get five seasons of pop 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 pop for ten. And then we did seven seasons of pop troll. And then by our seventh eighth season we said, okay, let's change the mantra. We're going to do pop forever forever forever. Forever. Forever. You said pop, we're going to do pop forever forever. Like ever, ever, ever, ever, ever single year. We're going to come out with 52 new episodes of

“pop patrol, okay, with special themes every single year without fail. Okay. Right. And that's what we've”

done. That we're, I think we're shooting our 50th season. Okay. How is it doing now versus how it was doing back then? It's doing very well. Like we're not like I'm curious because like I remember when my kids were small. We're very blessed. It airs in over 180 countries around the world. And it's the number. It's the number one show for preschoolers in the globe. Right. And it touches, it touches probably, you know, I 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. You don't understand. I know because I had a pop patrol cage. I probably saw an Instagram. So where is it? Where is it? Can you chat GPT this? Where is pop patrol in relation to Peppa Pig, Bob the Builder? There's one other one that everyone used to watch too. There's door that explorers. There's today, you have Peppa Pig, you have the Blueie which is very popular today. That's

“our biggest competitor. Blueie? Yeah. Peppa Pig was the one I honestly, that's the one people”

always talk about. I remember classic. It's classic my kid. It's been running. It's been running

probably for 20 plus years. Yeah. Again, number one. Jesus Christ. That's it. I forgot about Daniel Tiger. I loved. Yeah. Damn, I was good show. Daniel Tiger was a great show for kids too. And so what well, Sesame Street is a, you might pop patrol beat out Sesame Street. Do you walk around like seven security guards? No, I'm zero. You sure, I mean, I have no, you're telling me the pile. I have no social media. I know nobody knows anything about anything. So you're trying to tell

me that pop patrol is the number one you own the number one show and number one toy of all time. Yes. I guess according to chat. And you didn't even know this. Yeah. Well, I knew the stat on pie. And I wasn't, but I think it's, I think the real thing is longevity. Right? It's, it's the longevity. 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

failures that we applied to, to, to, to paw. So like the one thing I would say is like this is 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 one of 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 important to know that

it doesn't just happen. It was 19 years worth of work before we. But you, but out of the gate, you were fortunate to have a big success with the Earth buddies. You bought the Rubik's Cube in 2016, you said. 13. 13. Big massive. That airplane thing, 35 million dollar. But like, 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?

“Totally. Totally. Right. That's the big, that's the big thing. Like life is full of, yeah,”

we hit hills and valleys basically. Yeah. We got super lucky with our first animated show called Bopagon, which ran four seasons and then our three next shows, which we talked about failures. Failure. So we could have given up, but we didn't. We were just like, let's keep staying out of it. 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 sort of, 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 personality is usually con clash, especially as you get bigger and bigger and more successful. Yeah. I think that's the ability to say sorry. Sorry. Sorry. There's a

give up and just, you know, move on to something else. Yeah. We fought all the time. We micromanage 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. Okay. And then you're like, okay. And let's just run with it. And we would repeat that 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 treat our partners as well. Then 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 role pull for a buyer, a world pull for the role. Okay. Yeah. You can, you can do more business at this retailer if you buy the buyer of a role point. Yeah. So it's a strange thing to buy, but okay. We wanted it for his backyard. Yeah. Well, I figured not for like his office. I didn't think he was buying it for his, you know, bathroom. Yeah. Anyway, so I was like, you wanted to, you wanted to, you wanted to buy based

correct. Yes. Correct. I was, I was picking up which we were putting down. Yes. Yeah. You know, we didn't even consider it. So like our ethics were always aligned. So like ethics are work ethic. Yeah. Right. The work ethics of big one. Like we were all working super hard. Right. 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, big one? Yeah. Like what was, I know how you

work, right? You don't like graph some power points. What is your methodology? No, what I'm just talking about like, like, no, no, I know what you mean, but I'm saying like everyone does it differently. How were they? What was there? How did they work? How did you work? Like, what was, what was your laying, what was his, and times? I mean, in terms of things we actually did in the business. And also like style. Yes, style and focus. Well, I did in the early days, product development

operations. Yeah. And then I moved into the entertainment side of the business, blended product development, and creative, and Anton did like HR and sales. Hmm. Okay. We guys all like equal partners. Anton, I were equal partners because we started the business. And then was equal partner in terms of being treated as partner, but his equity stake was lower than the nurse, because he came in afterwards. So what happened, by the way, you guys stole the

business or you guys? No, we took the business public in 2015. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's right. So we're, we're a public company today. How's the stock? Not great. Not great. Why, you have all these massive. Listen, that's a whole podcast in itself. It is, but this is what we put on it. I want to know, you can come back together. You don't live here, though, but it's, it's, it's basically, 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 confidence in your ability to grow consistently, and no one loves anything inconsistent. So that's, that's the route. Why we, why we're missing some numbers? Mr. Numbers over. Number years. One is like, some bad luck, things like tariffs. It doesn't, doesn't, doesn't help their business. That was my next, I had a question. Yeah, like, tariffs, like tariffs in this year. It's oil and stuff like that.

But we're back on track, but a lot of it, the route is that we, when I stepped down from co-seeing on the business myself and Anton, the transition to brain outside CO, 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. 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 why the stock is not”

where it's, where it's truly valued. Because it is not really represented. What were the companies? No, I mean, it's not at all right. When did you step down as CEO? 2021. Also, what made you just step down? You know, the combination between the COCO model wasn't working anymore? So you guys were COCOs this whole time? Yeah, the whole time, yeah. Wow. So what made it stop working? It was just, it just got tired a little bit old. And yeah,

Yeah, I had to say, have you ever been married? I've never been married.

Even kids. I don't have kids. But you have a choice company. I've been married to two business partners. Yeah. But personally, I've been married. So then you decide to step down. And who becomes a CEO? Yes, we search for like a year. And we brought someone in from the outside. Who was the guy? His name is Matt Wrangel. Where did he come from? He came. He did a lot of his career at PNG. And he is before he came.

So he was at SC Johnson. So it was a classically train. Yeah, he was a train.

“Classically train, CPG, CPG, CEO. Which he listened. He did a great job. But I think that”

the biggest learning for us is like, first of all, any transition with COs are 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. Very. Yeah. So that's especially when they're classically trained to the CEO.

It's different mindset than someone who grinded it out. Correct. So now we're on our second CEO,

female, Christina Miller. Where did that start? She came about 10 months ago. And where's she from? She, most of her tenure was at Cartoon Network. So she came from the entertainer. Did you, what was she doing at the Cartoon Network? She was president. She was running the network there. And then how many employees did that place have? I think that part was maybe a couple of thousand.

How many employees do you guys have thousands though, right? We're about 3000.

“Around the world. Yeah. Yeah. 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? Don't. Don't you have a plane to catch? Or is it your plane to a wait for you, Tony Stark? You're going to tell me. It's not my plan. I think the fire up the jet. No, I need to go back to the office and actually shoot some social media stuff. You're going to shoot some social. Is he really making me do this? No, no one's making me do anything.

Why do you want to do it? Why do you want to do it? Like what is this? That's not it. If I were you, and I had all the money like you, and I had all this success as you, why would you put yourself on display like that? Just what's the point? You don't need to. It's to get the book out. And I think the book will... Is it all for the book? It's all for the book. There's nothing else. I've no other reason to do it.

Like you're not going to be a fitness video. You're doing squats and lunges on there. Okay, wait. I truly want the people to find out about the book. So I'm trying to meet people where they're at. Okay, so you're basically going to go back to the office and do some what. Some like to chat about the book. Yeah, people are going to interview me and I'm going to get answers. Oh, okay. All right, can I? I'm going to interview you some more and you can

answer as are you ready? Okay, here we go. First question, and try to keep it brief so I can make it into like a clip. You do it? I'll try. I'm not, it's not my skill, but I'll try. I'll 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? If they feel it in their body. Okay, so you felt it worth body in your body. Yeah, 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. Really? Yep. Why? Because usually people are more resistance, resistance comes up when you want to, when you really want to go towards something. 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. The inability to offer things. This is not on my list, but what do you think makes a really good entrepreneur? Instance. If someone has a business idea, but no money to build it, what is the smartest first step? Make a prototype and need as many people as you can to pitch. What if the prototype costs money? Make even a smaller prototype. 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. Integrity and passion. If you can only say one quality. Integrity. Why? 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 the 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. Which is a good segue into my next one.

What do you think is more important to be successful in life? Like ability or competence. Competence. Competence? Competence. We're really. Why do you say that? Because at the end of the day, it's your competence. It's going to deliver the end result.

have to be competent. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be capable. It's all about

facade. For example, I did this whole talk about I believe the most undervalued quality in

“somebody's success is like ability. Because it's the likable person. Your competence or your”

degree can get you in the door, but your likability will get you the job. Your competence may get you to do the busy work. The sea student will be the boss to the A student. I'm a big believer of that. I think people want to be around work with, date, all the things with someone that they like, not with someone who's just competent. That's my epist. Not because it's right, not because it's right, but because it's what actually human nature gravitate you to. I totally agree with you.

I would love to say that you need to, you need to have both. Ideally, if you have both,

you're, you're a set like, I'm also, you know, when you think it's more important, talent or work ethic. Work ethic. Work ethic. Work ethic for sure. You can be the most talented of the world. Like, I'm a big, worth-act work ethic person. I don't believe in balance. I think that's a blow to shit. I don't think most people have, I think people who, because I want to have a balance like, 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. Yep, on the person. Do you agree with that? It has to be very, very important to, and you got to have the passion for it to break through. Like, how important was being successful to you?

“When you- I think, first of all, the definition of success is so different to so many people.”

What is your definition of success? I think the definition of success for me is living an online life, doing the things that match with what you, how you want to be in the world. And if you're in congruent to that, then you're on successful. Yes, I agree with that. So what is a successful life look like to you? I think successful life is getting yourself the permission to do the things you want to do in your life. That's successful. 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 right, 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, and they got, well, great intentions for you. Okay, all right. But I think about this a lot, like, it's hard for us to put words to things, right? And so at the end of the day, sometimes it's counterintuitive, but to trust yourself and to listen to yourself and to listen

to different parts, not to over-intellectualize everything, to very different. We're not- we're not trained to do that. We're not- we don't live in a society like that, but I think that if you can, then you're being treated yourself, and there's nothing more successful than being treated yourself at the end of the day, and you're not living anybody else's life. Right. Right. Yeah, 100% 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? That you own your decisions in your life, and that it's important for you to make them. It's important for you to surround yourself with good people and open and have discussions. But at the end of the day, it's your decision. What I would say is like, I love for the book to be 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 your arts, use it in your 20s, use it as a tool to create dialogue and discussion with yourself and with others, and see what comes from it. 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, right? Right. And I talk about the super, your naivety is a superpower, right? Do you want to give us an example of something that showed up in your life where that was so evident?

I think it plays out on my, I think it plays out on my life. All the time. All the time. Okay, like even, even as I've gotten older, yes, let's say it doesn't really stop, right? You know, you know, back to Paw Patrol. We created a movie for Paw Patrol in 2020. Mm-hmm.

And, and we've got a third one coming out this August. We're through too.

“Well, we're Paw forever. Yeah, thank you, Paw. That's what you said forever forever forever.”

Forever. They came out as this forever. That's right. So it's Paw. We wanted to be Paw forever. We're gonna try our hardest to be Paw forever. So... Wow. So, I was naive enough to think that we can make a film. And we did. And no one believed in us,

it's like, to create a film for pause, like, it's for preschoolers. How are you going to do

motion picture for preschoolers? But I was like, there's got to be a way to do this. Yeah. And they 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 anewity. And like, everything that everything I still do. So that's one example. I think I think it's, I think it's the most wonderful thing to actually

“not be that. I think it's, every decisions are an art in the science. You have to know your space”

to the competition 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. Yeah. I connected the naivety to the dreaming, to being a dreamer. I also think that naivety also, like, what you don't know actually is an advantage because sometimes when you're two season, two experience, that's when the overthinking happens. And then you are, like, you talk yourself out of doing

whatever that is. Well, 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 because I lived here from 2008 to 2010. And I

“worked on creating the Bakugan film. Okay. Okay. And because anyways, and it took me four years,”

I finally got an offer from Universal to do $100 million live action film. They're ready to

greenlight it. And we said no. You said no. Can you imagine? Why? Because of exact what we're talking about because we had this thing in our mind who was like based in Toy History, if a franchise has slowed down in 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 when we may not get sales again, it's against it. 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 use conventional norms. And made a really bad decision. And I still look back today and I'm like, Passa, like what have

been so great for the franchise to do an incredible film that can have made more films. And and we

“wouldn't. Wow. Yeah. I had a full work with Scott Stewart, Pam Abdi, okay. What's your name?”

The head of Universal, they totally greenlit it. Jeff Kershbaum, film was done in the can. It was ready. I got the call. And I worked on it for four years. Are you serious? Yeah, only person said no. Oh my god. That's crazy. Yeah. So sometimes if you overthink things and you apply the conventional norms, you miss opportunities. 100% I'm all about going against any conventional norms. So you don't have to, you're preaching to the converted already. All right,

Ronan, Renan, Renan, Jennifer. Jennifer, Renan, I sent a 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. I'm so, so media. No, I'm going. I'll be, I'll be. I'll be on LinkedIn. By the way, you don't LinkedIn is a 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. I don't know. Do you say Renan? Perfect. Thank you. Practice makes perfect. By Renan Hurari and, like I said, this guy is like the real deal. I am so happy that we've got to do this podcast and thank you for being here. I'm hoping I didn't hold you hostage too long. I love every minute of it. It's three hours. I mean, it's not horrible, but it's on like two hours. Yeah. Sorry, like almost two hours. Like an hour

and forty five minutes. Gentlemen of the bus. 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.