The mic is back on :: I Make Sex Toys Season 2 Episode 1

We pressed pause on the podcast mic to fix the machine—and it worked. After a year spent turning the business inside out, we’re back with a clearer purpose: build gear that sparks real sensation, show it face to face, and put fun at the centre again. From a humming 3D print farm to sold-out ring racks, we share how making in-house gave us control, speed, and the courage to try ideas that only make sense when you can iterate fast and listen to your community in real time.

We trace our path from tiny fetish fairs—just a table, a few boxes, and a lot of explaining—to a 21-year milestone in sex tech. Those early Sundays taught us everything: how consent shapes a demo, how education unlocks pleasure, and why seeing a sceptical look turn into a grin is worth the work. Growth pulled us into efficiency and scale, but we missed the spark that started it all. So we shifted back, choosing craft over catalogue, clarity over hype, and live demos over guesswork. That reset sets the stage for our next move.

We’re heading to Altitude Intimates in Las Vegas, one of the biggest trade shows in the US, with the same mission we had on day one: help people feel what great electro play can be. Caz joins me, and we’re bringing Ian and Rachel from Joanne’s Reviews, who know our devices from retail counters to bedroom testing. Expect honest stories from the floor, practical tips for safe and thrilling demos, and a few guarded hints about what’s in the pipeline. We won’t release until it’s ready, but we’re not showing up empty handed. If you want the unfiltered journey—the wins, the wobblies, and the jet lag - come along with us.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves sex tech, and leave a review to help more curious minds find us. Got a question or a demo you want to see in Vegas? Tell us and we’ll try to film it.

"I make sex toys" is the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, the Director of E-Stim Systems. Creating E-Stim Technology since 2004, Find out what really happens behind the doors of a specialist sex toy company.

Please Note the content of these podcasts are not designed to be Explicit or Erotic but we may discuss adult topics and therefore these podcasts are not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned.

If you are interested in E-Stim Systems the company, or any of our products, have a look at https://estim.store

Transcript

Hello Again And Reset

Wayne 0:00

It's been over a year. I know. Running a business got in the way of talking about running a business, which honestly is probably the most on-brand thing I've ever done. If you've been listening since season one, thank you for sticking around. If you're new here, brilliant timing because something's happening in a few weeks that could be back in front of this microphone, and I think you're going to want to come along for the ride. I'm Wayne, I make electric sex toys for a living, and we've been doing it for the last 21 years, and we're just getting started. So what have we actually been doing for the last year or so? The honest answer is we turned the business inside out. We took a long hard look at where we're going and where we'd come from, and decided to shift back closer to our roots. Less chasing scale, more focus on using our kit creatively. The aim was to get back to being the company that makes brilliant things, rather than trying to become the next Amazon. Too many companies these days are box shifters, concentrating on profits, concentrating on how many units they shipped out the door. We wanted to move back to creating fun ideas, things that we enjoyed playing with. Part of that was a serious leap into 3D printing, not just dabbling. We built a print farm from scratch. Well, if not a print farm, then a small holding. And I won't pretend that that was straightforward. Getting a print farm up and running, dialing in quality, figuring out what works and what absolutely doesn't. It's a learning curve. In fact, it's a major learning curve. But we also managed to choose materials, TPU, that nobody likes to print, as it's simply too difficult for most people and too hard. Actually, it's not too hard because it's quite a soft material, and that's the problem. But what it did give us was control. Control over quality, control over production speed, control over the ability to try new ideas without waiting months for a manufacturer to come back to us. Some of these new ideas landed brilliantly. The ring racks. If you haven't seen them, go and look at them on the website. They sold out the entire first run in a single day. A single day. That's a pretty clear signal that we're onto something. Created bumpers for the 2B, holsters, plug-nuts, coloured spacers, even some glow-in-the-dark ones. All have been keeping our printers busy. Some of our ideas are still in the development phase, but we love the whole process of test and develop, test and develop. And we keep going until we get things right. 2025 also saw us having the fun of having to deal with global changes, the word tariffs, which resulted in major changes over the web store. A quick project that turned into three months of moving platforms, rebuilding sites, tearing hair out, but the results have turned out to be more popular than we expected. We love our new site, and hopefully you do too. September also saw us turn 21. Where are all the years gone? 21 is quite a milestone, especially in this industry. Two decades of making electric sex toys and still going. I'm quietly proud of that. We were once told by a competitor that we couldn't sustain our products or our pricing. Well, sorry guys, we're still here. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the podcast kept getting bumped to the bottom of the to-do list. I'm not apologizing for it. We built something worth building. But I am back, and I've got a good reason. So here's what's It's happening. E-Stim Systems is going back to America. We've done the ANME show in Burbank twice, so this isn't the first time across the pond, and we are going back to Amy later in the year. But this is different. This feels different. Altitude Intimates, Las Vegas. Possibly the largest adult trade show in the US. That's a different conversation entirely. And yes, I'm fully aware that a British guy who makes electric sex toys rocking up in Las Vegas is a headline that practically writes itself. To understand why this trip feels like such a big deal, you need to understand where E-Stim Systems actually began. We started at small fetish fairs. That's genuinely where this business was born. A table, some products, and a lot of explaining to do. We'd meet people, demonstrate the kit, watch their faces go from sceptical to curious to, and I've seen this expression hundreds of times. Oh my god. Oh God. Then we'd sell what we had, drive back to the workshop, build some more, and do it all again the following weekend. At events we'd love to chat, sell, and then we'd spend most of our profits buying toys from other vendors. We were having fun, that's genuinely all it was. A group of friends who found something they loved and wanted to share it. We never sat down and said, let's build a business. We just kept making things because people kept wanting them. The business grew over us, the business grew around us. The business grew. Our products. These were never boxes made to look pretty. We loved the durable industrial look. And it appears, so do our customers. These were boxes made for fun, to do something, to genuinely change the way people experience sensation. How do we know? Well, we played with them. That's where the designs came from. But as we sold more, we had to make more. And to make more, we had to become more like a business, and less like friends having fun on a Sunday afternoon. We grew online, we scaled up, and the shows fell away. Somewhere along the line we started concentrating more on efficient production than on enjoying ourselves. And I think we lost something in that. Going to altitude feels like going back to our roots. Except instead of a table at a fetish fair in the UK, it's Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada, the entertainment capital of the world. But fundamentally, it's the same idea, showing people what our kit can do for them and their customers. Just in a slightly bigger room? Now, I'm not doing this alone. First, and I could hardly leave her behind, that would probably result in divorce. Csz my wife is coming. Yep, she's my wife, she's my business partner in more ways than one. We're also being joined in Vegas by Ian and Rachel from Joanne's E-Stim Emporium. Some of you out there will already know them. They've been part of the E-Stim community for quite a while. They know our kit inside out, both from a retail perspective, and let's say a more personal one. Rachel is an absolute devotee of the ElectroPebble, and Ian loves the 2B, and they're genuinely brilliant people to have on the stand. They're also going to keep me from embarrassing myself too much. I just need to avoid spikes and biscuits. Those of you who know, no. I'll say no more. Question that might be asked, why bring outsiders into the company on a trade show? Well, unfortunately not everyone on our team is comfortable with the current administration in the US. And I understand and support that. So K will be back in the UK supporting our day-to-day operations. Are we showing anything new? No comment. But I'm not going to Vegas empty-handed, and I'll leave it at that. We were once accused of never innovating, and honestly, that's stung, because we do innovate, that's all we do. We're also very deliberate about it. We don't release things until they're ready. Ideas need time to mature, like a fine wine, or a very good cheese. And after 21 years, we're still finding new ways to play. We've got quite a few new things in the pipeline, and when the timing is right, you'll understand exactly why this trip matters. But for now, watch this space. We leave for Vegas in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to bring you along for the ride. I'm going to show you as much of it as I can. Dispatches from the show floor, the good stuff, the chaotic stuff, probably some jet lag. Maybe a bad decision or two, hopefully not, but it is Vegas, and I will be staying away from the slot machines and the little chapel of love. If you want the behind-the-scenes stuff before anyone else gets it, join the Facebook group, follow us on social media. E-Stim Systems isn't too difficult to find these days. Otherwise, subscribe wherever you're listening to this, and I'll see you on the next one. It's good to be back. Thanks for listening. Bye.