'No Experience Necessary': Betting on Yourself in Your Twenties

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1:02Carol Massar:Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio Carol, you know what they say Yes Youth is wasted on the young They do say that a lot The older I get, the more I think that's true I totally agree Like, I look back now and I'm like, wait What was I so worried about, you know? Yeah, I wonder how much And taking risks and just lots of different things Well, let's talk about taking risks and betting on yourself, especially when you're young. Ronan Harari is the co-founder and former CEO of Spin Master. The company Spin Master, the company brought us Paw Patrol.

1:40And so much more. And more. Air Hogs is what I'm thinking of. He's also the author of a brand new book. It's called No Experience Necessary. Why betting on yourself in your 20s is the best decision you'll ever make. We're going to talk about the book in a second. But I mean, how much of your work life have you spent playing with toys? Like literal toys for kids. The first thing is I didn't play with any toys growing up as a kid. And if you would have asked me in university if I was going to go into the toy business, I would have told you, like, you're probably crazy. So the first part of my life, not very much.

2:07And the second half, a lot. So you made up for it as an adult. Correct. What makes it, what, well, there's, I have so many questions about, like, toys today versus toys, you know, in my era, which is a lot of what you were bringing to us. But I'm curious about what makes a toy successful. You know, it's, the toy business is half art, half science. and at the end of the day, you're looking for something that creates imagination in the kids. There's some sort of magic, some sort of pixie dust that wasn't there before. And we sift through thousands of ideas every year to get down to the four or five or six ones that can actually bring the innovation.

2:44Is the magic still there in a world of screens? Yeah, very much so. I think if you would have asked me in 2012, I would have said to you, it's not going to be good for the toy industry, but people still love the physical toys. They love the interaction. They love the magical transformation with our toys like Bakugan and stuff like that. We made an acquisition with Melissa and Doug, which is all about wooden toys, and it's open-ended play. And parents love when their kids are using physical things with their hands and their imaginations going.

3:14Carol Massar:Love their stuff. Every parent of a certain era knows Melissa and Doug. Well, and I would say in our house, too, an old-fashioned wooden dollhouse. And like my daughter just would love like all her little guys, we used to say, and just the little toys that she would play with. And it was just just great, like not in front of a screen or anything, but we just play for hours and hours. Yeah. And if anything, I think there's a trend back where parents want them off the screen. I think that there's room for both. And I think the actually industry is actually on screen and off screen. They're very complementary to each other.

3:46Well, more toys than more toys than reading. okay uh what about areas of innovation right now in the in the toy industry i think the toy industry is actually almost a tale of two cities or two worlds um you know like fashion dolls are down um uh games and puzzles are up trading cards are up big time yeah um activities are down so it's kind of a mix uh but if you're into collectibles it's a good space to be in i want to I want to talk to you about being in your 20s and what's so magic about that, especially it is essentially your story of just having kind of the world at your feet and you maybe don't even know it.

4:29Carol Massar:In a world where we are so much kids go to school for four years, do this for, you know, like tell us about that. Yeah, I think the most, you know, it didn't dawn on me until I hit middle age. But I look back and I said, you know, there's so many magical things that accrued to you in your 20s. like for example everybody's rooting for you everybody wants you to win you don't realize it when you're young and everybody wants to be around you they love your energy and we had magical things like for example alan hassenfeld from hasbro when we were 25 when we went into the toy industry he took our phone calls he was so happy for us to be in the industry anything we can do for us he did um there's a power of not knowing yeah right it's very magical sometimes when you know too much like i turned down a hundred million dollar live action film by universal when i was 40 when i was 26 we we created air hogs which you told me that you played with and at the time he's pointing at me not carol all right all right and and uh air hogs this airplane you pump it up you flick it flies around 45 seconds um and we we spent a year and a half developing the product brought it to market it took our company from seven million dollars in sales to 35 million dollars in sales and we did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales post that in flying toys.

5:37But three quarters of the way through in the development, we found out that Hasbro and Mattel passed on the product. And they passed for good reason. But for us, we thought about the issues for a while. And we were just like, we can figure it out. And I think if we were older, we would have actually not done it.

5:55Carol Massar:Well, talk to us about really your first product in EarthBuddies. Carol, you want to go way back. I do want to go way back. It's like adorable. And I think we have pictures and stuff. But I just, you know, you go through meeting with someone at Kmart, but initially it was the wrong buyer and getting to the right person and how maybe if you had been 40 years old, it wouldn't have played out. Correct. Well, when we started our business, four months. I know I'm jumping, but. No, but it's fine. So we came across this product called the Earth Buddy, a little softball, you put them in water, grows grass for hair.

6:32we decided we're gonna make 5 000 pieces for mother's day yeah that's what we did and two months later we had an opportunity to go down to kmart it was through a contact of and they were massive yeah kmart back in the day was amazon today in the 90s right yeah thank you and i drove down from toronto did not stay in a hotel because we were saving money got there for the nine o 'clock meeting pitched the buyer for 30 minutes and after 30 minutes he looks at me he says i'm not the buyer for this product.

6:59Carol Massar:But you pitched again. I pitched again because I didn't believe him. I was slightly paranoid at 23. So I pitch him for another 15 minutes and he says to me, I'm not the buyer. You pitch him again. I say to him, no, I say, no, I say, we're going to give you the product on consigned sales. That's right. And then he says to me, I'm not the buyer. So I figure if I'm giving him the product for free and he's not taking, he's really not the buyer. So I said, you know, I drove from Toronto, who is the buyer? And he went back to his office. He's such a gentleman. He came back and he gave me a piece of paper and on it was written Adrian's axe.

7:25I shook his hand, took my box of earth buddies and I start walking around camera corporation looking for this buyer and so lucky I was like 23 I think everybody thought that it was like bring your kid to work day right right and it got so lucky and she was sitting at her desk and I pitched her for 30 seconds she said okay I'll give you a meeting at 3 30 I go downstairs the other guys that I was with they got us the appointment they're like what happened I said I got a meeting let's go for lunch I said I'm not going anywhere I stayed in the lobby okay till 3 30 I came up and then as I'm walking into her office, I see on the left side of her bookshelf, she has seven other competing products.

8:00So I know I'm in the right office. Right. And then I do quick math. Before I get into the chair, I drop my price from$265 to$165. And I sit in the chair, I pitch her, I tell her everything about EarthBuddy so far, I tell her about Campus Faces business that we started at university. And then after 15-20 minutes, she does the most magical thing. She turns around, and she grabs the vendor book, which is to become a vendor. Yeah. And she gives it to me. She said, I'm going to order 48 ,000 pieces from you. And if it does well, I'm ordering half a million for Christmas. And I was so stunned. And it was like, I was shocked.

8:35And then when I left, I asked her for something. You walked away with something. That's right. You've done your homework. So she was the horticulture buyer and she had a gnome. She had a bunch of gnomes in her office. So I asked her for one of the gnomes. I still have it today. But it was the most amazing thing because she had seven other companies she could buy from and she decided to buy from us. And I think it was A, because I got in the room and B, she was rooting for young people because two years later she called me and she said, will you go to Detroit and speak to some inner city youth?

9:03And I was like, of course. And yeah, and then that changed the whole trajectory of our company. So in that, if we play out that moment again that was so pivotal for you and your company, is it about that you were so young you felt like this was all you had to do or all you needed to do? This was your purpose in life. Was it because it felt like you were in a low risk time? Like what was it about where you were in life that, that made you as a 23 year old sit there and say, I'm not going to take no for an answer.

9:38Carol Massar:Is it you or is it like society that was just made? I'll tell you something deep. I mean, I got identified at 10 years old with a learning disability called dysgraphia. And so I grinded my way through school. And school was super tough for me. Can you write about that? Can you explain what that is and what was challenging for you? Dysgraphia is the inability for you to get your thoughts out through your hands. And so my handwriting is very illegible, even for myself. And so when I'm writing, sometimes when it becomes illegible, I got to go back and rewrite. And then I lose my train of thought.

10:06So an exam that would take you probably or anybody an hour takes me two or three hours to do. So I just had to grind my way through school. I was super fortunate that I got identified and I got accommodations and I I think it's it's one of the greatest Injustices In society where people don't get identified because lots of people don't get identified and it costs six thousand dollars to get an assessment today Which is super expensive for people And people with learning disabilities have so much to contribute So I was one of the lucky ones to make it through and I think it was just my tenacity of like that constant grinding grinding grinding that when I was in when I was in front of her I was like you know I was in the store I was like I'll find the bar I'll figure it out you know like I'll just I'll just figure it out I've been figuring it

10:54Carol Massar:out my whole life I actually told a friend of mine who who has who's had to fight for assessments and and and was telling her your story because she has a son and and it was like heartening to hear it Yeah, it's very difficult. I mean, I don't have kids, but if God willing, if I have kids, I do not want them growing up with a learning disability. It's very difficult. We've only got about a minute or so left here. Just the thought of like in a society where we do push everybody to go to college and stuff, what would you say? And college is great, but. I think it's very personal. I think going to post-secondary education is such a gift and life is long.

11:30And if you have the opportunity to go and study and learn, and I know it's very expensive, but if you can afford it, if you can come out with not so much debt or no debt at all or whatever it is that meets you. But to be able to learn is fantastic. The ability to have friends for life as a result of going to university is fantastic. So I'm a big proponent, but it's not for everybody. And it's very personal to your own life.

11:52Carol Massar:And you also, like, we didn't get into it, but what you talk about risk and when you embrace risk, what comes along with it, but by also rejecting it, there's also a cost to that too. So, so many different lessons and so, I think, relevant to the time that we're in. Renan, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me on, guys. Renan Harari, his book is No Experience Necessary, Why Betting on Yourself in Your 20s is the Best Decision You'll Ever Make. And will you bring back that toy for Tim? Airhog, I mean, yeah. Also, the company - I never hear you talk about toys. Gabby's Dollhouse, Kinetic Sand, which is used in every preschool in the United States.

12:28I know. Paw Patrol, Miss Rachel. Yeah.

12:32Carol Massar:Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Spin Master is behind it. I'll start with EarthBuddy stuff. Well, it actually ended in college. Good stuff. Come back soon. Thank you so much. We'd love to continue. This is Bloomberg.

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