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

28:48It was those two things together. So speed and being able to scale. I think the speed because people sit too long and then someone else comes and does it. It was there. It was there in the ether. It was in the zeitgeist. That's why I asked you about why you didn't license it from Israel. Because that would be the most obvious thing, right? Like just license the thing. But it actually would have, you said It's something that it would have taken way too long to do that. I couldn't even look the one Kmart, Adrian's axe in the face, and say I can deliver the half million pieces for him if we didn't have our own factory.

29:20I mean, that's pretty amazing. We were like unshackled. It was like, it was our... Because you did it. You owned it right away. So you didn't... A lot of people do third party stuff. stuff. So 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 specifically what type of businesses people have. I do think the more vertically integrated you are, the better it is because A, your costing is better.

29:56Your 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 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 business. Okay. Fair. Itself. Okay. Now go into how it started. So, so it's like, so we were in the horticulture business and we did, we did, we did one follow up. We did one thing which is called the herb garden and it bombed.

30:31It was like, it was like basically growing herbs and my sister was on the package. Oh my God. But, um, so we knew that EarthBuddy was going to have a life to it. And about six months into the EarthBuddy, I started to notice the kids in Toronto were playing with this product called Devil Sticks. So I don't know if you ever remember those. It's just a three piece juggling set for kids. Old two sticks and you got this bigger stick that's weighted on the end. It's got tassels and you hit it back and forth. It starts to spin. I kind of do. Maybe, you know, if you were a hippie back in the 80s and you went to Grape of the Dead shows, you would see it.

31:03I kind of do. So I went to a lot of Dead shows. Yeah, I can see that. I could totally see you being a huge deadhead. You probably still are. Did you go see them at the Sphere? I have not been at the Sphere. I am so upset I did not see them. You missed that? Oh, you would have loved it. Before Bob died? Yeah. Yeah. So I used to play with them myself. And then I started to notice the kids were actually playing with them in the schoolyards in Toronto and they were making them themselves. So I kind of put it together as like something's here. Maybe there's a fad going on. And we had our factory. So I said, why don't we actually make some ourselves and see how it goes?

31:44And so we made our prototype. We made some packaging through the company that bought the 26 ,000 pieces from us for Walmart. they knew a rep company in the united states and next thing i know myself anton and my ex-girlfriend melissa are at new york at uh the toy fair in 1995 and we're there in like this back room with our like one prototype of the devil sticks and uh and whenever the you know buyer would come in you know i would go out and i would juggle the sticks and i'd go behind the curtain again and and these reps broke us into toys r us and kb toys and suddenly we shipped the product into those accounts and devil sticks was such a something was in the ether there'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 two for two kind of like you found these two juggernauts basically first was the earth buddies that you found correct and second is this stick thing correct so at the at the end of that year of selling the stick things devil sticks yeah devil sticks yep aka devil sticks aka devil six so we sold a million and a half the devil sticks we manufactured and shipped a million and a 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 sounds a lot more 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 he didn't like the manufacturing anton had the insight he's like let's bring ben back into the business ben comes back and ben's living with jen erwin do you remember erwin toys they were the biggest canadian toy company back in the day i never remember so the erwin toy family says to us you know if you guys are going into the toy business there's this list of 200 inventors around the world 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.

33:48And that's how we got into the toy business as a result of... 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 to meet with hundreds of inventors yeah what was the first one that you actually bought or licensed the and i just want to i do want to say that after 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 air hogs it was an airplane and you pumped it up it had like a pt bottle and a little pneumatic engine and a propeller on it and it would fly I ran for 45 seconds.

34:39And so these two British inventors, John Dix and Peter Manning, came to show it to me and Ben. And it was like the funnest day of my life. Okay, we'd go to the park. Okay, we flew the plane. You got to understand back in the 90s, they only had the Balsa planes or the Cox gas power planes, which took off your finger. And so we go fly this airplane. And all I wanted to do was I wanted to pick it up and fly it again. And Ben wanted to fly it. 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 license this from you. and we spent two years developing this product.

35:08Little did we know, and this is like the thing about being young and all the amazing things that happened to you, everybody had turned down the product. Wait, all the... They had shopped it to all the toy companies. So, oh really? Okay, but they didn't take it out to the stores? No, no, no, it was still a prototype. It was still a prototype. So all the other Mattels of the world, Erwin, whoever. Mattel and Hasbro, the biggest guy, they turned it down. They all said no, okay. They all said no. But we didn't know it until about a year and a half later. Really? Okay, so you guys said yes, and then what happened?

35:39And then we basically took all the money we made from EarthBuddies, all the money we made from Devil6, all the money we made from these small little tchotchke products that we're selling, and we put it into engineering and developing this very highly complex product. So you believed in this product that much? You put all your money into that? Everything. How much did you sell of that product? That product, at the time that we brought it to market, which was in 1998, we were doing$7 million in sales. And the year we launched the Air Hogs, we jumped up to about$35 million in sales. So that was a great bet.

36:11It was an amazing bet. And then we became the kings of flight. We were producing flying toys for 15 years. So who was the person that said, we have to go out with this one? You? It was myself and Ben. Us together. Okay.

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37:39it sounds like you know you've had some really good idea like you've got a very good vision for what's gonna like 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 were still producing them, but we wanted to get into new categories and meet new inventors. Okay. And all three bombed. Which ones were they? Don't Free Freddy. Okay. Tickle Secrets Baby. I can't even pronounce the name. It wasn't even a great name. Okay. And Key Charm Cuties. Okay. So let me ask you a question. When did you get the Rubik's Cube?

38:14The Rubik's Cube, we acquired it in 2016, maybe 2018. Okay, so this was obviously a license because this has been around for 100 years, right? No, we actually acquired it. We bought it. Okay, but wait, so 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 that's got like 99 % word of mouth awareness, 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.

38:52Really? How many Rubik's Cubes have you sold in the last 10 years? I don't know the number, but I think we do, you know, it's millions of cubes a year. You sell millions of these still a year? Oh, yeah. So what would you say? The crazy thing about the Rubik's Cube is it's part of culture, it's part of society. I was going 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 rubus cube fall as one of them in iconic in icon history probably the top three no i wouldn't say top three but maybe top 10 what's number one probably barbie oh barbie 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.

39:43Number one? Ronan. Ronan, I say Ronan. Ronan. Number one is Barbie. Barbie. Number two is Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels. Number three is Lego, you said? Lego. Four? Four. This? No? No. You don't think so? What else have we got in our... I'd say, you know, I'd start to go things like, um, things like, but their licenses, like I'm thinking about like Star Wars or the pure play toys from scratch. Those are the three, the three biggest. There's things like Etch-A-Sketch. I bet you if we chat GPT it, it will tell us. You did? What is it? Rubik's Q. I was right. Seriously? Rubik's Q was number one. According to who?

40:32Chat. Okay. So, okay. I'm not even in the toy business, my dear. You know, you're hired. You should have hired me for innovation. Was that not right? So Rubik's Cube is number one. What's number two? Lego is number two. What's number three? Barbie is number three. Hot Wheels number four. Yo-Yo is number five. So I sold this a little short. Oh my gosh. But I had the top three. You own 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 about 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 that's our baby okay if you're a parent listening to this episode this is insane paw patrol's pro i'm surprised paw patrol is not even on that where's paw patrol on that you must have sold what a hundred 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.

41:57300 million? It's a lot. 400 million? It's a lot. Because this is how people like these facts. We're going to clip this because this is going to go viral because people, if you're a parent or someone who knows, you know, I would say what, a half a billion a year just on Paw Patrol? 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, no, no. Now you're going a little bit. I'm going to tell you why I say this. You're going a little bit, getting a little excited. One of our, one of our Chaim Saban, another Israeli, he created the Power Rangers, his company, right?

42:33And 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 you're worth. I can't even imagine. Paw Patrol is like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like not even something where you're even talking. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know. You didn't even know that Rubik's Cube was number one in the world in iconic products. This is absurd. I mean, what you guys have created is like, it's, this will live on in like forever for every, with every child in the world.

43:17Like my kid, you know, someone who's getting born right this second, 20 years ago. They all play with these things. Is that not insane? I'm taking it all in as you're talking about it. It's pretty remarkable. I'm just thinking of when I first moved to LA, when I met Chaim Saban, and everyone was like, he was such a big mothler, which is a big deal, because he's old Paw Patrol, all these billions and blah, blah, blah. And 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, you know, Paw Patrol, which is much bigger than Power Rangers.

44:02And you're like, I don't know. I don't know. It's like it's not even part of the conversation. What are you doing? Like it's like a throwaway because there's been so many others. Paw Patrol is big, but like, okay, this. This is big. This is massive. Listen, first of all, nothing's a throwaway. Everything is like so much time, care, attention. How did that happen? Stuff doesn't just happen. Anton, he actually was running mergers and acquisitions for us for many, many years. And he managed the relationship with the people that owned Rubik's for probably 15 years. He kept in touch with them. He was always calm.

44:41Did you distribute them in the beginning? No, we didn't have any relationship with them. We just knew them as a result of being in the industry. You know, our whole thing, Spin Master, like we went to every trade show, every event, anytime we could be in front of people. Right. Our whole ethos in our business is, okay, we're open to ideas wherever they come from. That's our ethos. Okay. Okay. And we'll partner with people. We're the partnership company. Right. Oh, okay. Right. Because you can do bigger things when you partner with other people. Totally. Especially when you don't have the equities at the beginning.

45:11Right. And when I say equity, I'm just talking about like competence. So he maintained that relationship. so anyway so yeah i'm going a bit far afield but he managed that relation for many years and then when they were ready to sell and it was actually complex it was actually owned by like four different people and they had a bit of there was issues there and anton was able to manage it and that's his gift is managing people and and and then we bought it like a people person yeah it was just a moment in time yeah it's a good moment in time but it's 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 the magnitude of some of these iconic brands that you know they're blockbuster movies being made of there's these are like his this is like historic brands that have like really impacted like life like my kid used to love pop like i would put on paw patrol every single morning right because then like that would calm them down you know what i mean like they also my daughter like the piggy one what was that peppa pig a great show amazing show do you own peppa pig no no no no you should can you get the rights for that can you buy no hasbro hasbro paid three and a half billion dollars for e1 and in the e1 deal came peppa pig so i i don't think oh that's a that was a juggernaut also yes it's great i love the show pepper it's a good show also created by british people and paw patrol was also created by a british person okay so tell me how paw patrol happened you know paw patrol happened in first of all happened at the lowest point in our company okay because our company was doing about a billion dollars in sales at the peak of bakugan and then we went we lost half our sales for 16 years 16 years in a row our company was profitable and then in year 17 and 18 we lost money for two years straight why because there's too much hubris right and hubris too much hubris too much believing like everything you touch is going to turn to gold.

47:03Everything's going to be great. Um, you can do, we can launch tons of products at the same time. We weren't being very judicious at that moment in time. We got ahead of our skis. We hired so many people. We were just like, everything's just going to work out great. And we didn't have the experience to realize that, you know, as fast as something like a bucket gun can go up, go up, it can also come down. And also you need to have the consistent reoccurring revenue underneath to maintain growing your company. And so that was one of the most painful moments in my personal career because we had to let go of 350 people in our company um we had to do four restructurings right and we weren't even mature enough at the time like we probably could have got it done and we should have gotten done it too but like to be able to to do it four times people felt so unsettled in that 24 months period right so during that that time we 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 wanted to stay in the entertainment business after bakugan started to go down so we said what else can we do and we actually launched three shows post bakugan they all failed reticai tenkai knights and little charmers you could not give away the show and you cannot you cannot literally take the product off the shelf at retail like i thought it was like stuck with glue okay like really because there was 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 uh there's an abundance of your product over there for a while say again there's an abundance of your tv products or yeah you go in one week you come back next week it's still saying nothing about the show it was like stuck it's hilarious it's funny but not funny you're just like that's not funny so so uh but we still wanted to stay in kids and so we said to ourselves let's try to do something in preschool and let's try to do something around preschool and transformation because transformation is such a magical play pattern for children and so we created this brief and we sent it around to five different creators around the world and the creator that i really wanted to work with was keith chapin he created bob the builder and yeah which is a great show i love that one too and so i have this i have this whole thing where i love i love being around lucky people right i'll 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 think you're pretty lucky how do you know i don't know you got good energy thank you got energy thank you so and you make things happen i do right so so do you obviously so anyway so keith chapman was like i really wanted to i really wanted to work with him and he came back with this really interesting take about these five pups that go on these rescue missions it was originally called robbie and the rescue pups okay and uh but the crazy thing was that he didn't actually follow the brief the brief was about transformation so he gave us this story about robbie and the rescue Pops, but had nothing to do with transformation.

50:07Right. But we loved it so much, and we loved him. And we said, okay, let's start. And we went and started developing it. We found an incredible director, Jamie Whitney, incredible writers. We found an incredible studio. Just by the way, like, Pop Patrol is 100 % Canadian. Canadian director. I was just going to say that. Does anybody know that Pop Patrol is Canadian? No. No, very, very. I can't believe this. I can't believe that Pop Patrol is Canadian. Yes, 100 % Canadian. That's why all the pups are so nice. Of course. Captain Turbitt. Adventure Bay is from British Columbia. It's modeled off a bay in British Columbia.

50:44Do you own the TV show? Yeah, it's ours. You own the rights and all of that? Yeah, we created it and we sold it and we partnered with Nickelodeon. So they're our partner on the sales distribution and licensing and merchandising. Do you have a swimming pool of money that you just swim in and dive into every day? Well, listen, a lot of it gets reinvested back into the business and all the people. There's like a million. This is remarkable. Your mom must be just unbelievably so proud of you. She's compelling every minute of the day, I'm sure. That's a Jewish word, people. Is she just going around bragging about her son on a regular basis?

51:22What you've done from an immigrant parent, I understand what a massive... On every level, this is amazing. between the disability, learning disability of immigrant parents, you weren't handed a bunch of money. You literally did this on your own. Like legitimately you did this on their own. Like I have to again say, and I say this a lot on this podcast, I'm a big believer of like, you know, self-made and there's very few people are ever really self-made. They sit here and they like go on and on about how they've done this and that and the other. Meanwhile, they were given a majority of it. You are like legitimately like full on self-made, which is why you're so impressive to me.

52:00I think it's incredible. Your mom You guys are like two peas in a pod. I've got to introduce you guys. I want to meet your mom. Did she say the same thing to you? In terms of what? Did your mom say this to you? Once in a while. I want to meet your mom. Where does she live now? She's back in Canada for the summer. Where is she? In Toronto? She's in Toronto. Most of the time she's in Israel, but she's back in Toronto. Is she 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. Oh, I love your mom already?

52:39Yeah. I love her. I love her. She's like super chatty. She's a people person. She loves people. And she just tells it to you straight. She's straight. Good. You're right. We'll be BFFs. Yeah. 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 so much of how they appear and look and feel. I hate that. No, not my mother. Yeah, but this is probably why you are who you are. Your mother created something like you, and she believed in you, and she let you do whatever you wanted to do. That's why, oh, you love your mom.

53:14Oh, my God. I love you because you love your mom. Oh, my God. I'm so in love with you right now. Okay, let's move on. No, because you love your mom. Oh, my God. You're so good. You're such a great little, I love you. Okay, I'm going to cry, so let's move on. Okay.

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54:53Paw Patrol. So then here you are doing the Paw Patrol. And then what happens? You get the rights. I mean, you do all the TV and then that was a juggernaut in itself. 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 Seema, who was the president of Nickelodeon at the 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'd never produced a preschool show and they were our partners and they helped us, you know, with giving us notes on the show.

55:31They get full credit for the theme song, right? Cause we tried to break the theme song. We just couldn't get it right. And they, they pointed us in the right direction to work with these people who were incredible at writing music. And, and then it hit the airs in 2013 and i i knew and you're a social media person so you'll appreciate this i used to go on instagram okay and i used to check in the first like two three four months how many birthday cakes were being made for kids with paw patrol yeah characters and i kept on seeing i was like more and more and more and more and then i was like then i kind of i knew that something was was happening here and uh and then our toys hit and our toys did really well and then and then we put out our second season and then we said, okay, let's try to get PAW for five.

56:14Let's try to get five seasons of PAW Patrol. Made, done. Let's not jump the shark. Let's keep the same tone and tenor. And then we hit five years. And then after five, we said, let's do PAW for 10. And then we did seven seasons of PAW Patrol. And then by our seventh, eighth season, we said, okay, let's change the mantra. We're going to do PAW forever. Forever? Forever. Forever. You said PAW, we're going to do PAW forever. Forever. Like ever, ever. Ever, ever, ever. Every single year, we're going to come out with 52. New episodes of Paw Patrol, okay, with special themes every single year without fail.

56:47Okay. Right. And that's what we've done. I think we're shooting our 15th season. Okay. How is it doing now versus how it was doing back then? It's doing very well. Like, I'm curious because 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 one show for preschoolers in the globe. And it touches probably, you know, I'd probably say, you know, 12 million new kids every single year. And if you add it up over the years, it's touched over like 200 million kids. You don't understand. I know because I had a Paw Patrol cake for my kid.

57:26I probably saw it on Instagram. So where is it? Can you chat GPT this? Where is Paw Patrol in relation to Peppa Pig, Bob the Builder? There's one other one that everyone used to watch too. There's Dora the Explorer. Dora the Explorer. There's today you have Peppa the Pig. You have Bluey, which is very popular today. That's our biggest competitor today. Bluey? Yeah. Peppa Pig was the one I honestly, that's the one people always talk about. I remember. It's a classic. It's classic. It's been running probably for 20 plus years. Yeah. Again, number one. Jesus Christ. Oh, that's it. I forgot about Daniel Tiger.

58:05I loved... Yeah, Daniel Tiger's a good show. Daniel Tiger's a great show for kids too. Good show. And so what... Well, Sesame Street's a classic. You mean Paw Patrol beat out Sesame Street? Do you walk around with like seven security guards? No, I have zero security. You should. I mean, you're telling me that... You know, I have no social media. I know nobody knows anything about anything. So you're trying to tell me that Paw Patrol is the number one, you own the number one show and number one toy of all time. Yes. I guess so, according to chat. And you didn't even know this? Well, I knew the stat on Paw, I didn't, I wasn't.

58:37But I think it's, I think the real, the real thing is longevity, right? You have it. It's the longevity. And, and, uh, 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 and there was a lot of failures that we applied to to uh 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 going to mip comp 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 just it's important to know like it doesn't just happen It was 19 years worth of work before we...

59:21But out of the gate, you were fortunate enough to have a big success with the Earth Buddies. You bought the Rubik's Cube in 2016, you said? 13? 18. Massive. That airplane thing,$35 million. So yes, you could say 19 years to get to Paw Patrol, but you had one massive success. Yeah, you had some failures, and then you had another success. I think the real big point is that people should not be giving up if they fail because you never know it's around the corner, right? Totally. Right? That's the big thing. Like, life is full of hills and valleys, basically. Yeah. We got super lucky with our first animated show called Bakugan, which ran four seasons, and then our three next shows, which we talked about.

1:00:07Failures. Failures. So we could have given up, but we didn't. We were just like, let's keep staying at 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 lose because they pick badly, right? What do you think the secret sauce is to partnering? And how did you guys make it work? Because personalities usually can clash, especially as you get bigger and bigger and more successful. Yeah. I think that the ability to say sorry. Sorry. Sorry is a strong one for partners. Yeah. Like if you can't say story to your partner, like just like give up and just, you know, move on to something else.

1:00:46Yeah. We fought all the time. We micromanaged each other for years and there was so much like, you know, tension that came out of the micromanaging. But we had healthy debates. I think the thing that the thing that led to better decisions and not always the right decisions, but good decisions came from the healthy debate that we had amongst the three of us. And that was cascaded out to a larger group as the company grew. It was the ability to have that conversation. but at the same time when the right idea popped out in the conversation to recognize it and don't have any ego attached to it okay and then you're like okay and let's just run with it and we were we'd repeat that repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and then there was other parts which was just the trust and respect and then there was other parts in terms of like we had the same ethics right we always wanted to treat our partners well ben was always like you know it's okay if we paid an event or an extra half a point or an extra point like if they're making money like that's great and we're making money that's great so we always had the same ethos you know i had this we had the situation in our second year of business someone wanted to actually encourage us to buy a whirlpool for a buyer a whirlpool for that okay yeah you can you can do more business at this retailer if you buy the buyer a whirlpool yeah so that's a strange thing to buy but okay Well, he wanted it for his backyard.

1:02:04Yeah. Well, I figured not for like his office. You know what I mean? I didn't think he was buying it for his, you know, bathroom. Yeah. Anyway, so I was like. You wanted a bribe, basically. Correct. Yes. Correct. I was picking up what you were putting down. Yes. Yeah. You know, we didn't even consider it. So like our ethics were always aligned. So like ethics, our work ethic. Yeah. Right. The work ethic is a big one. Like we were all working super hard. Right. And we recognized there was also a big thing, which was we recognized that we worked differently and we respected that. Do you know, like.

1:02:37Big one. Yeah. Like what was, I know how you work, right? You don't like graphs and PowerPoints. What is your methodology? No, what I'm just talking about, like. No, no, I know what you mean. But I'm saying like everyone does it differently. How were they? What was their, how did they work? How did you work? Like what was your lane? What was his, Anton's lane? You mean in terms of things we actually did in the business? And also like 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. Ben did product development and creative and Anton did like HR and sales.

1:03:13Okay. Were you guys all like equal partners? Anton and I were equal partners because we started the business and Ben was an equal partner in terms of being treated as a partner, but his equity stake was lower than ours because he came in afterwards. So what happened, by the way? you guys sold 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 it's this is what we people want to i want to know you can come back again you don't live here though but it's it's basically i can tell you that the it's it's very multifaceted but the most important thing if you're a public company, you should never miss your numbers.

1:03:58And 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 the route, why we're missing some numbers. We've missed our numbers over a number of years. One is some bad luck, things like tariffs. It doesn't help our business. That was my next, I had a question about tariffs. Yeah, like tariffs and this year it's oil and stuff like that. But we're back on track. But a lot of it the root is that we um when i stepped down from co-seeing the business myself and anton the transition to bringing outside ceo we didn't manage it as well as we should manage it the first time and there's a lot to be said about culture the most important thing in a business is culture right and the most thing the thing that you have the most valuable asset which is more valuable than even the brands and the franchises is your culture because your culture is your ability to replicates what you've done over and over again.

1:04:54And 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 is, where it's truly valued, because it is not really representative of where the company is. No, I mean, it's not at all, right? When did you step down as CEO? 2021 oh so you did okay what made you to step down you know it's a combination between the co-ceo model wasn't working anymore wow so you guys were co-ceos this whole time yeah the whole time yeah yeah wow okay so what made it stop working it was just it just it just got tired a little bit old and yeah it just it just got tired it just got tired it's like being married for a long long long time you know what i mean this is like to be married for a long time i understand have you ever been married i've never been married and you know kids i don't have kids but you have a toy company i've been married to two business partners you know but personally i haven't been married so then you decide to step down and then who becomes a ceo yeah so we we search for like a year and we brought someone in from the outside who who is the guy his name is max wrangle where Where did he come from?

1:06:14He came, he did a lot of his career at P &G. And he, his, before he came to us, he was at SC Johnson. So he was a classically trained. Yeah, he was a trained CEO. Classically trained CPG CEO. Which, listen, he did a great job. But I think that the biggest learning for us is like, first of all, any transition with a CEO is very difficult. And you have the highest chance of success if you bring someone in from the inside. Right? It's very hard to bring people in from the outside. Very. Especially when they're classically trained to be a CEO. It's a different mindset than someone who grinded it out.

1:06:51Correct. So now we're on our second CEO, female, Christina Miller. Where did that start? She came about 10 months ago. And where is she from? Most of her tenure was at Cartoon Network. So she came from the entertainment background. 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 of it was maybe a couple thousand. How many employees? You guys have thousands though, right? We're about 3 ,000. Around the world. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then you've stepped down. So what would you say? Okay.

1:07:23I have a couple of questions. I'm going to do some rapid fire with you, if you don't mind. Do you mind? No. Don't you have a plane to catch? Or is it your plane? So I'll wait for you, Tony Stark. No, it's not my plane. I'm going to fire up the jet. I need to go back to the office and actually shoot some social media stuff. You're going to shoot some social media? Is he really making you do this? No, listen, no one's making me do anything. Why do you want to do it? Why do you want to do it? Like, what is it? If I were you and I had all the money like you and I had all the success as you, why would you put yourself like on display like that?

1:07:56Just 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 have no other reason to do it. Like you're not going to do 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 chit chats about the book? Yeah. People are going to interview me and I'm going to give answers. Oh, okay. All right. I'm going to interview you some more and you can give me answers.

1:08:30Are you ready? Okay. Okay. Here we go. First question. And try to keep it brief so I can make it into like a clip. Can you do it? I'll try. It's not my skill, but I'll try. Okay, try your best. When someone has a creative idea they are excited about, how can they tell if it is actually worth building into a real business? If they feel it in their body. Okay, so you felt the earth body in your body. Yeah, 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 resistant.

1:09:10Resistance comes up when you really want to go towards something. Interesting. That can be with anything in life. What separates someone who struggles to get their idea off the ground from someone who builds a$100 million company or a billion dollar or multi-billion dollar company? The inability to overthink things. This is not on my list, but what do you think makes a really good entrepreneur? Instincts. If someone has a business idea but no money to build it, what is the smartest first step? Make a prototype and meet as many people as you can to pitch. What if the prototype costs money? Make even a smaller prototype.

1:09:50Okay. 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? 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. 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?

1:10:31Likeability or competence? Competence. Competence? Competence. Really? Why do you say that?

1:10:42Because at the end of the day, it's your competence that's going to deliver the end result. And at the end of the result, that's what really matters. We're living in a time when you don't have to be competent. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be capable. It's all about facade, right? Like, for example, like I did this whole talk about, I believe the most undervalued quality in somebody's success is likability. Because it's the likable person, like your competence or your degree can get you in the door, but your likability will get you the job, right? Your competence may get you to do the busy work, right?

1:11:21Like the C student will be the boss to the A student, right? I'm a big believer in 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 opinion. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Not because it's right, but because it's what actually human nature gravitates you to. I totally agree with you. I would love to say that you need to have both. Ideally, if you have both, you're a set. I'm also, what do you think is more important, talent or work ethic? Work ethic. Work ethic, me too. Work ethic, for sure. 100 percent for sure you can be the most talented person in the world like for sure big worth at work ethic person i don't believe in balance i think that's a load of shit i don't think most people have i think people who could say i want it out of balance like right 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 100 do you agree with that it has to be very very important too and you got to have the passion for it to to break through How important was being successful to you?

1:12:31I 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 aligned life, doing the things that match with how you want to be in the world. And if you're incongruent to that, then you're unsuccessful. Yes, I agree with that. So what does a successful life look like to you? I think successful life is giving yourself the permission to do the things you want to do in your life. That's successful. Okay. I think that betting on yourself is an important thing about success in life. Listening to your own internal knowing and following what, I know it sounds trite, but at the end of the day, like, only you know what you want to do in your life.

1:13:17And everybody around you, everybody's well-meaning, they've got great intentions for you. Right, right, right. Right? But I think about this a lot. Like it's hard for us to put words to things. Right. And, and so at the end of the day, sometimes it's, it's counterintuitive, but to trust yourself and to listen to yourself and to listen to different parts, not to over-intellectualize everything. It's a very difficult, 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 true to yourself and there's nothing more successful than being true to yourself at the end of the day.

1:13:52And you're not living anybody else's life. Right. Yes. A hundred percent agree with that. What would you want someone, if they can only have one takeaway from this book, what would you want it to be? That you own your decisions in your life and that, uh, it's important for you to make them. It's, it's important for you to surround yourself with good people and open and have discussions. But I, but at the end of the day, it's your decision. And what I would say is like, I'd love for the book to be a, a creative of resourceful tool to create discussion and dialogue with the closest people around you, given what you want to potentially do in your life, whether or not it's business or whether or not you want to do something in arts, use it.

1:14:32And you're in your twenties, use it as a tool to create dialogue and discussion with yourself and with others and, and see what comes from it. One question I wanted to ask you, cause it's very aligned with what I speak about is you talk about the power of not knowing, 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?

1:15:01I think it plays out on my, I think it plays out on my life. All the time. All the time. Okay, like even as I've gotten older. Yes, I was going to say, it doesn't really stop, right? You know, back to Paw Patrol. We created a movie for Paw Patrol in 2020.

1:15:23And we've got our third one coming out this August. Of course you do. Well, we're Paw Forever. Yeah, exactly. That's what you said, forever? Forever. Forever. Forever. Mickey Mouse is forever. That's right. So is Paw. We want it to be Paw Forever. We're going to try our hardest to be Paw Forever. Wow. Wow. So I was naive enough to think that we can make a film. And we did. And no one believed in us, actually. We actually had to green light the film ourselves. Right. And because it was like, you know, it's like to create a film for pause, like it's for preschoolers. How are you going to do a motion picture for preschoolers?

1:15:57But I was like, there's got to be a way to do this. Yeah. And I didn't have it all figured out, but we we figured it out. We got it done. But I was naive to like, there's still a little bit of naivety and like everything that everything I still do so that's one one example um i think i think i think it's i think i think it's the most wonderful thing to actually not be that um i think it's every decisions are an art and a science you have to know your space in the competition and and what's come before you but once you've connected all the dots a little bit of naivety of what's possible dreaming a little bit yeah i connected the naivety to the dreaming, to being a dreamer.

1:16:38I also think that naivety also, like what you don't know actually is an advantage because sometimes when you're too seasoned, too experienced, that's when the overthinking happens. And then you are, like you talk yourself out of doing whatever that is. 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 a hundred million dollar live action film.

1:17:15They were ready to green light it. And we said no. You said no? Said no. Can you imagine? Why? Because of exactly what we're talking about. Because we had this thing in our mind was like, based in toy history, if a franchise has slowed down 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 and we may not get sales again this against this so now we're gonna have to wait like nine years and we said we didn't want to wait we wanted to like we were like patiently wait so i used conventional norms okay and made a really bad decision and i still look back today and i'm like who passes like it would have been so great for the franchise to do an incredible film that could have made more films and and and we wouldn't wow yeah turn i had a I worked with Scott Stewart, Pam Abdi, okay, what's her name, the head of Universal.

1:18:08They totally greenlit it. Jeff Kirschbaum. 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, I'm the only person that 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 norm. Correct. So you don't have to, you're preaching to the converted already. All right. Ronan? Ronan. Ronan. Ronan. Jennifer. Jennifer. I thought I said it properly, Ronan. All these years, I guess I've been like saying your name wrong.

1:18:43I apologize. I would say, where can people find you? But we know they can find you nowhere because you're nowhere on social media. No, I'm going. I'll be on LinkedIn. And by the way, LinkedIn's fine, but you don't have to. I'm going to tell you later that, 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. No, no, do you say it? Renan. Perfect. Thank you. Practice makes perfect by Renan Harari. And like I said, this guy is like the real deal. I am so happy that we got to do this podcast. And thank you for being here.

1:19:20I'm hoping I didn't hold you hostage too long. I loved every minute of it. It's two hours. I mean, it's not horrible, but it's not like it's been like two hours. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Like almost two hours. Like an hour and 45 minutes. Jen, you're the best. 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.