PodCrash with Matt Ebert
PodCrash with Matt Ebert
He Built PAW Patrol at His Company’s Lowest Point
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You know, I love the title of the book and the concept from I got a chance to read the the foreword to it or what prologue or whatever you would call it. I got a chance to read that ahead of this. So the book's called No Experience Necessary. Yep. Yep. And what is the goal of the book in and how could you describe that to us? Why did you write it?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell You know, the book the book is it's kind of like a support of parent. Um and the book is to encourage people to lean into their 20s. And I have a thesis that your 20s is an incredible decade and an incredible time of your life. And the book is there to help you take a leap and to have take agency in your life and to go after whatever you're super passionate about. And a lot of us, you know, we grew up and you know, our parents want us to do certain things, or society wants us to do certain things. And we have this internal knowing of what we want to do. And so not everybody is is blessed to have the support system around them. So I wanted to write this book so that people can have the ability to make the case for themselves to do something or potentially not do something. And I wrote it for my lived experience of starting a business when I was 23. And uh so I share my insights and stories from starting super young.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. And so maybe we should talk about that a little bit first before I nose around the book too much, because we want the audience to definitely understand your background. There's a lot that are going to know you, I'm sure, because of the success you've had. But um maybe um what's your company and and what would be your uh your quick kind of uh history for us?
SPEAKER_02You know, our company is it's called Spin Master. We started in 1994. Um and I started with myself and my two business partners, Anton Robbie and Ben Verity. And we started out for the first 15 years designing and developing toys, and then we moved into developing TV shows and then digital games. So we would consider ourselves a full um children's entertainment company. And uh we grew it from very simple, helpable beginnings with this product called Earth Buddies, and we grew it to the fourth largest toy company in the world today. Um and you know, we're in the business of making kids happy. That's our that's our main goal and responsibility every day when we wake up is to tell stories the kids would like, create uh magical toys the kids would enjoy interacting with and learning with and playing with, and and great uh digital experiences.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell So to be clear, like I'm in my early 50s, but uh you've affected my life because my kids are seven and nine, and uh Paw Patrol played in my living room plenty of days. Um and my son, even though I think he might have been um a little bit behind the curve, Bakugongs were something that he played with a a ton. I found them frustrating because he he was too young and could never get him back in the ball. Right. Um he always struggled, but he loved them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're really magical. Yeah, no, sometimes they were super complicated. Some of them are a little bit easier to like get back into the into the ball shape.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell But Paw Patrol's by far the bigger one that everybody knows you for, I'm sure. Aaron Powell Yes.
SPEAKER_02We brought Paw Patrol out in 2013 and um and and you're you're probably just getting out of your Paw Patrol parent years.
SPEAKER_00Yep. I think so. Well, I imagine if a movie came out, I'd still be going to see it. That so they're not quite completely out. Well, we do have our movie coming in August, so maybe you should uh consider taking the kids. Is that right? Awesome. I don't mind it when something comes out that they're into because it's watching the excitement in them is amazing. Like they're just at an age where like they're shaking and they're jumping, like just seeing how happy they are makes anything worth it if they're into it. So nice. Did you grow up wanting to build toys?
SPEAKER_02You know, the craziest thing is that the answer is no.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02You would have asked me before I uh graduated university what I wanted to do afterwards. I always knew that I wanted to go into business for myself. I knew that from a very young age. Um, you know, I I grew up with a learning disability called dysgraphia. And for me, school was like super difficult. I always knew that I was so curious about business and I would always read the business section. I'd never read sports, I'd just read the business section. And you know, my parents were, you know, classic small entrepreneurs, and business was always discussed around the the dinner table. So I always knew that that was something I wanted to do. But if you would have told me that a toy business, it was never in my conscience. I actually never grew up with very many toys. I think the only toy we had in the house was Monopoly, and I wouldn't even consider the game. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Maybe maybe I'm living out some form of you know deprived childhood.
SPEAKER_00Something something like that. Um so I can I can relate because um I always wanted to own my own business and literally got into the industry I'm in by accident because I wrecked my car. So I knew I wanted to own my own business, but didn't know what it would be as a young person either. So I can definitely relate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, that's it's it's interesting. That's what I write about in in the book, is that if you want to if you wanted to go into business for yourself, um, it's good to actually make the decision first, like you made the decision, like I want to go into business for myself. And rather than wait for an idea to come and then to back into it, because I believe that like the universe won't give won't serve up the idea for you if you're actually taking a different path. Um so it's interesting that we have the same uh genesis to our story, because I I firmly believe that it's like if you want to start a business, just just make the make the claim, make the statement, and then the ideas and the insights will start to come to you in terms of where to go. And it may not be exactly what you think, um, but at least you're starting with something rather than waiting for that that perfect moment that just may not come.
SPEAKER_00So for you, um how did the idea how did the how did you work your way into it then? What what was the first idea and where did it go?
SPEAKER_02Well, we actually had really humble beginnings. And I had started a a business called Campus Faces during university with my uh uh business partner Anton. And then after we graduated from school, we were going to continue, it was it was a marketing business. And just before we graduated, my mom was reading this newspaper. Um, my parents originally from Israel, and in this newspaper from the Israeli newspaper, there was a story about these six different people that were manufacturing this product called a grass head. It was a small little potato head, had a little happy face on it, was filled with grass seed nylon sawdust, you soaked it in water, and then it would grow hair for uh it would grow grass for hair. It was kind of like a chia pet. I was gonna say, like a soft chia pet. Exactly. It was a soft chia pet. And in this article, it uh you know, in classic Israeli form, they were they were they gave away all their secrets. So it was like six different people, and they talked about all the products they had sold. And when I added it up, they had sold over like three, four hundred thousand pieces in Israel. And it's a you know, tiny. So people liked them, people wanted them. It was like the pet rock, everybody loved them, and so no one was making them here in North America. So I drove to Anton's place, I said to him, What do you think about this this uh this product? And he thought I was crazy. And I think that's not I think, but he was he was kind of interviewing to go work in Nabisco. Oh, really? Okay. He didn't get a job. Anyways, the bottom line is that I finally convinced him to go forward with it, and we said, okay, let's let's make 5,000 pieces for Mother's Day. And I got my brother-in-law, who was an incredible autodact, and he helped us figure out how to manufacture it, and we gave him 5% of profit sharing on that product. I got my sister to do the packaging, gave her 5% of profit sharing. We uh found office space, we figured out how to source the raw materials, and then we ended up on the streets of Toronto um selling the product. And we sold about 700 pieces the first day, and then we came back in the office and we were like, oh, we still got a lot of inventory. And so we started meeting with uh uh flower distributors and we found a gift distributor, and then I ended up meeting someone through a contact with my mother, and they called us a couple weeks later, and we got an order for 26,000 pieces. So that's a lot. And then a few weeks, and then a month later, the whole story, we got an order for half a million pieces from Kmart. So within the course of a year, we have manufactured and sold about a million pieces. And because it was a novelty product, um, we knew that the lifespan was going to be short. And there was another product that came along, which was called Devil Sticks, and we started manufacturing that product and went to Toy Fer in 1995, and that did really well. And then after that, we started to meet with toy inventors and started to get a steady stream of ideas. And so we and that kind of the Devil Sticks launched us into the toy business. We didn't have a business plan and say let's get into toys. It just naturally Okay. It just naturally happened.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah, I was gonna ask, like there it doesn't seem like this was a product that you absolutely loved. It seemed like a product that you researched and thought that would sell. Is that the true description?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell No, the Earth Buddy, I I loved the Earth Buddy, our first product.
SPEAKER_00Oh, did you? Okay.
SPEAKER_02You really liked it too. No, it was really magical. There was something uh quite beautiful about it in terms of you know seeing something grow right in front of your eyes. Uh no, no, we I think that I wouldn't do anything unless I'm passionate about it. Um it just happened to be something that you know we'd never thought of before. Does it still exist? No, the Earth Buddies doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anymore. No, it actually does exist. People make them in schools, so it's quite educational for kids to make them.
SPEAKER_00How to put them together? Yes. Oh, cool. So it seems like, though, like you got some consistent success, which is amazing. Like, not a failure tied in there somewhere because one product working, another product working, the third product working, that's probably not how it works out for everybody.
SPEAKER_02We were very lucky with our first two products. Um our third and fourth product were very um uh basic products. I would call them paying the bills types of products that weren't very uh that weren't that exciting. Um but we were ready to build up an infrastructure. But um we did have failures along the way. We definitely had some in yeah, yeah, year five and six. Happy to talk about them if you want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's talk about it. Like um because we all learn from those, right? Like um so yeah, I'd be curious to see what a couple things that you had to learn.
SPEAKER_02Well, we had to learn that not everything after you have successes, not everything you touch turns to gold. And be careful. That's important.
SPEAKER_00Because I feel like as an entrepreneur, you get some confidence that you can make anything work. Just a mat like I feel like I can make something work, it's just how much money and how much time, but I'll get it to work.
SPEAKER_02Yes. You know, in the toy business is slightly different because once you it's this toy business is a crazy business. Once you get the product out to market, you'll know within two to four weeks by reading the POS, the sales, whether or not the product has a shot or not. And if the sales are not good, there's really nothing you can do to the product to actually turn it around. I don't think I think there's only been one time in our whole history that we've relaunched a product that didn't do well. Um, but other than that, if the kids don't like it, they just don't like it. And so it's yeah, I believe I believe that. And trust me, I've tried. Um but it's pretty binary. But we had a really big success with a product called Air Hogs, which was airplane. Um, you pumped it up. It's it had this one-cylinder pneumatic engine. You flicked the propeller, flew around for 45 seconds. And it was back in the 90s. Um, you know, when you had, you know, remember when you we grew up, we had, you know, rubber band, balsa planes, and we had gas-powered planes. So complete revolution in terms of flight, super safe for kids. Um and that was our really that was our big toy product that launched us into into you know some notoriety in terms of the toy industry. Okay. And after that, um, we were like, okay, well, let's get into some other categories. So we launched this other product called Keycharm Cuties, which was the small little uh small little dolls, and they had this unique uh material that you can dress up the dolls with, and they came in purses that opened up into playsets, and had a big rolling um suitcase that opened up into a play set. And we thought it was innovative and different. Um it didn't have like a super magic to it, but we were working with inventors and we thought that it could it could have a shot. And we spent about a year and a half working on it, developing it, super excited to get into the the girls category. Um and it just it just didn't resonate with the consumers. And the lesson we learned on that one was like if you're gonna go up against competitors like Mattel, who were like the lead who are still the leaders in dolls, your marketing has got to be exceptional. Your design and development has got to be exceptional. Your marketing materials have to be exceptional. And the product has to be that much better than everything else that's out in the marketplace. So we did that product. We did another one called uh Tickled Secrets Baby, um, to go into the uh the doll cat the baby doll category. We did another one called uh Don't Free Freddy, which was this Oh really? This plush monster that uh you know he was he had these handcuffs on him, and then you'd open it up and you'd be like he'd start to roar afterwards, and and that didn't do well. So we had like three failures in a row. And what did that do to your overall business? Yeah. You know, we had other stuff that was going that was doing well over here, and that represented probably maybe 40% of what we were prone to bring to market at the time. So the business the business kept on growing. But the real thing that it the real thing it did for our business, which is quite amazing, was that it it kept us in the momentum and it kept us in the and so we were able to meet new buyers, learn how to develop different categories, work with different factories, um create different commercials, understand the categories a lot better. So the business itself was was still healthy because there was other products that were doing well. And then these learnings really started to sh hone in our skills to become better developers when it comes to toys and better marketings when it comes to toys. And the one thing that I'm really passionate about is is just making sure that people that you're always in the doing. Because if you're in the doing, you're learning. And you know, I I write in the book a lot about luck and um the ability to generate luck. And for me, there's there's uh there's even luck in the fail in the failure, right? Because you're because you're just constantly moving.
SPEAKER_00I believe that that too. Like you gotta be taking chances uh in order for luck to luck to kick in. If you're not taking any action, uh luck's luck doesn't just fall out of the sky. You get lucky because you're trying things and you catch the right timing or you catch the right meeting, you catch the right break, you name it, but you gotta be in action in order for that to happen. You uh you in other interviews talked about um, you know, the one thing that you learned that I learned too is growth in a company can also hide some some sin, so to speak. You learned that lesson too, I think you've said, right? Like when the when a period of growth stopped, then you had to take a look at the the business and see what you could fix, how you could respond.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know which time period you're referring to, but after Bakugan, we got way ahead of our skis. And we started, you know, we leaned in, we started hiring, um, we were growing, and we we upped the game in terms of hubris compared to the examples that I had just cited before. We started to have like a crazy amount of hubris that anything we thought we'd bring to market would turn to gold. And not only that, but we would actually branch out into even more categories and try even more things. And after Bakugan, um not after Bakugan, but Bakugan we launched in 2008, and our company was doing about $450 million in sales in 2008. By 2011, we had grown to a billion dollars in sales. And that's great. Yeah, it's great as long as you can hold the billion, you can grow from the billion. It's not great when it goes down to $450 million within two years. And so we had this like incredible run-up, and then we had this incredible run down. And it was a very humbling experience because the hardest thing that we had to do in that time period was we had to rewrite the ship from an overhead perspective. And so we had four restructurings that happened in two years. We had to unfortunately let go of 35% of the people that worked in the company. We had to um and because we weren't that experienced, we did it four times. So it it just jerked the company so much a lot over the course of 24 months. And uh and then we and then the biggest lesson we got was you know, be much more judicious with what we're actually applying capital to, what we're bringing to market. We widened our funnel on the top, we became very judicious on the on the on the bottom in terms of what we're gonna bring to market. And then we were like, you know, everything's gotta have like a magic to it. There's got to be something special. You know, the level of attention to detail that we're gonna have to bring to whatever we're to our whole business as a whole has to be super high.
SPEAKER_00Um so interesting on the um on the the people part. So I've we took over a bankrupt company um and combined it with ours, you know, a few years back. And in the process of like turning that around and integrating them, we had to do the the you know, the let some people go. And what I what our mistake was, which sounds like maybe the same as you, look, like you don't want to you don't want to have to do that, like and you value the people. Um and so I think the mistake we made is we we did it in in smaller bytes because we were trying not to do it. And if we'd have just did a bigger one once, it'd have been way less disruptive. We ended up creating an environment where everybody was nervous that a month later another group of people are gonna go, we'd have been way better off going bigger sooner than kind of three-phasing it along the way. That's what I learned. If I ever have to do it again, or if anybody listening ever has to do again, it seems like the better move is to go bigger first, as painful as it is, because you create a whole lot of insecurity if you keep doing it. It's exactly right.
SPEAKER_02If I had to do it over again, I I I'd be like, let's do it in two, not four. Yeah. It's just such human nature. Like you're you're bringing me back to that time, Matt. It's like it's such human nature because everybody believes things are going to get better when sometimes it's just not going to get better.
SPEAKER_00They're just not that's exactly what we did. We thought we could build up the sales and we'd be able to keep the people. And the sales just never were coming. It's exactly right.
SPEAKER_02Trevor Burrus, Jr. Matt, it never came for two years. Okay, for the first 16 years of Spin Master's life, we grew for 16 years straight, always profitable. Yeah. For year 17 and 18, okay, I saw brackets. I never even knew what a bracket was. Okay. And the losses on a financial statement. Yeah. The losses on a financial statement, I never knew what it was. Okay. And I got a rash. Okay. And we missed we missed our numbers for twenty-four months. Every single month, we thought it was going to get better, and it went down, it went down, it went down.
SPEAKER_00Every month. Yeah, I get it. Um and so you did the things you have to do, including what you hate to do. Um, and it was our people on sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Like to bring people on when you don't have the revenue to back up, back it up is not the right thing to do in business. So it's that was a big learning too. Like, don't hire if you don't have the revenue to support the people that are coming into your business.
SPEAKER_00Great lessons. So, you know, Paw Patrol, outsider looking in, it seems like you got a hit there or a winner there that can be not just a fad. Like I think the great I I I don't know how you if it's true or not, but it seems like Paw Patrol can be very durable through generations of kids like you see like Disney products being things like that, whereas maybe Bakugan was more of a fad that that isn't gonna hang didn't hang around forever. Do you feel that way about Paw Patrol?
SPEAKER_02Because it Paw Patrol is I do. I do feel that way about Paw Patrol. Paw Patrol is now going into its thirteenth year. Um and It's already proved durability. Yeah. Yeah. So but we're always, you know, we're never lying back on our laurels. You know, every year we bring out our new season. There's new themes within the the seasons. Um, we're coming out with our third movie. You know, we brought out our first movie in 2021. No one ever thought you can actually bring out a feature-length film for a preschool audience. Um and we were able to Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, the ability to wait. So uh is Lego like not a preschool audience? Is that an older audience? I know that's a competitor, sorry, but like they made films, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, Paw Patrol's age group is from like two to six, maybe to seven, and Lego is is you know from three to to like fifty, sixty.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah, that's right. Okay. I get it.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So a little bit different. Okay. But it's it it's interesting that you bring up Paw Patrol after after we talked about um, you know, uh our loss of sales and the brackets because Paw Patrol was born at the lowest point of our company.
SPEAKER_00So it was born It's sometimes how it works, the darkest before dawn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the night before the light. Uh yeah, so that that's our goal with Paw Patrol is to make an intergenerational. You know, we started with Paw for five. We were like, let's get it for five years. Okay. That's what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_00Now let's maybe try to talk about some of the messaging in the book. Because again, I got it resonated with me. I got super excited about it. I hope young people take a look at it and it encourages them because um interesting what I remember you I think I read it in in what the little bit that I got to read. You talk about like if you had to build it again, like you couldn't do it again today, even with the even with the experience and the money, you couldn't recreate what you were able to create. Why do you think that is? That was a no chance.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh because I'm a little tired. Uh you know, it's interesting because now I I look at the company almost as as the product. Okay. And to turn a company into a product where it's got all the processes, procedures, it's got a culture, um it's got a way of it's got a rhythm on how to bring things to market and how to do things and how to um innovate, it's just so much easier when you're younger, right? Because to build a company to last, and that's one of our biggest goals in our company, you need a lot of repetition. You need a lot of cycles. It's year after year after year after year after year, and the thing starts to starts to build out. And so to do that, it's just great to start younger because you'll get the compounding effects later on as it as it as the years go by. You know, your your investment in your career, if you're a musician or an artist or a business person, everything's gonna count compound through the repetition in the practice. And so if you're if you if that's what you want to do, you might as well start younger so you get the compounding effects. And also you just have the ability to have the energy um to do things that that you want to do. And there's certain things that accrue to you at a very young age, like you know, I write about the power of not knowing. There's okay, there's a lot to be said about taking on doing certain things that if you if you knew too much about it, you probably wouldn't bring it do bring something to market. So, like the airplane that I talked about before, the the air hogs, um, we loved it. And halfway through the development process, we found out that Hasbro Mattel turned out the product. Okay. And I think interesting. Yeah, because for them, they were like, it's an airplane that flies, you know, a flying airplane that's gonna crash, it's gonna break, there's gonna be high returns, um, you know, there's safety issues. There's just too many things, too much hair around it to go for it. But we were young and we were like, it's so magical, it was so much fun to fly. I just wanted to keep on flying the prototype over and over again. So we're like, if I loved it as a 25-year-old, of course an eight-year-old is gonna love it, or a 10-year-old is gonna love it. And we just applied that type of logic to it and just use the use our intuition and use our passion and our excitement. I I write in the book, passion delevers risk, right? And so when you're super passionate about something, you can, for most part, you can make something work if you're passionate about it. And so so uh we didn't know what we didn't know, but we were passionate about it, and we had high intuition, and we just went for it. And it took us from doing about $7 million in sales up to $35 million in sales in year five. And then made us the leader of flight, and then we were producing flying toys for the next 15 years. I think probably we generated in flying toys over five, six hundred million dollars in sales over the course of 15 years. And so you have that when you're young.
SPEAKER_00Just that I can totally relate to this. It resonates with me. I I I describe it too as like I had nothing to lose. So like in starting my first business, I cash advanced $100,000 on credit cards to do it. Like um and like people would some people look at that and say, that's nuts. Well, it it it was, but I didn't have anything to lose anyway. So like it wasn't it wasn't as painful of a risk as it it might seem because what else could I do? Just stay and have nothing as I did before I took the chance, I guess. Right. So nothing to protect when I'm young. Yes, you're today it's different.
SPEAKER_02Much less much less to lose. Um I think I don't know if you have any partners in your business, but I think it's like such a wonderful time to find partners in that decade.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I always had a partner. Um I had one partner in the shop that we started um for 15 years before I bought him out, spent a few years without a partner and then brought in partners in in private equity. So the majority of everything I've done has been with a partner. Maybe we can talk about that for a few minutes because a lot of partnerships don't work, but mine have. Mine have worked well for me, and yours has worked worked well for you. What do you think is the difference and why our partnerships ended up working where I've seen partnerships where they hate each other.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um I think I think I can attribute our partnership to uh the ability to say sorry.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh maybe that's the same at home too in marriage. Like uh that's probably true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, it's I think that our partnership worked because A, we were very different. Like we're complete opposites. Um we all have different skill sets, we bring something different to the table. But at the end of the day, we we had the same level of passion for what we wanted to do. We had the same work ethic, we had ingrained trust. Um, you know, I knew my one business partner since I was 12 years old. And then my other business partner, he knew Ben. They went to university together, they did business school. Anton used to make him soup to get his notes because Ben was a great note taker. So I gotcha. We we knew each other from a very young age. Um, and as a result of knowing each other from a young age, uh, we we just had a very tight bond early on. But really, it was at the end of the day, it was the ability to um grow the company to a certain size that everybody had their own areas that they can actually contribute in. But at the same time, um uh at the same time to be fully aligned in terms of where we're going and what we want to build uh at the end of the day. And then be able to fight and then and fight a lot. You know, we had we had we had we fight we fought a lot. I think the nicest thing I was very lucky because, you know, I have two business partners and and there was always diversity of thought in the room, but at the same time, there was low, low enough ego that when the right idea serviced as a result of the healthy dialogue, we just went and we ran with it. And and also with the things that went bad, like we talked about before with our failures. Um, I had business partners that we we never attributed blame to anything because we were very we were never we were very cognitive of the fact that we're in a creative business, and it's not just one thing or one element that makes a product go well um or not go well. And and the same thing with like, you know, getting ahead of your skis. So there was never any like I don't think we've ever looked back and assessed the failure in our business. We always just have this constant let's move forward uh mantra and attitude. And as a result of moving forward, um, we're just just let's just keep the momentum.
SPEAKER_00For us, momentum is the most important thing. Aaron Powell It sounds like a pretty clear realization that look, everybody's going to make, especially in business trying to get things right, you're going to make mistakes. You didn't spend a whole lot of time when mistakes happen, blaming each other. You if it was your mistake, you could say sorry and everybody moved on, or vice versa. Correct. Correct. Yeah, very much so. Aaron Powell Is there a big one that happened that one of you had to is there a big mistake that really tested that ever? There was many. Okay.
SPEAKER_02There's many, but it was That's honest. Yeah. There was many. But again, like I I don't think that we it's a bit of a mindset because it's never one person at the end of the day. It really is never one person. Plus plus also if you're leading something, you want your partners to support you with something that you're passionate about. And you know, like my if you're passionate about international, or if you're about passionate about bringing this product to market or making this acquisition. So if you're not supportive, and then you just really get down on your business partner afterwards for for leading that, like how are they going to treat you when you're passionate about something? So it's it's in that ethos and also realizing that not everything's within your control at the end of the day. And um Yeah. And sometimes you make a judgment and you're like at a wrong, you know, could be, you know, my partner Ben talks about he's like, you know, in the creative industry, you have these moments where you're super creative. You have the years that you're super creative, and you have years that are you're not creative. Like I can tell you, I personally produced 10 television shows in my career. Two have done well, and eight have not done well. And I have not, I have personally not produced a big, big success post-Pop Patrol. And I've tried and I've tried really hard. I've produced that second album. It's that second album that's hard to do, right? Well, it's the third. Because we did Bucky Gun, we got super lucky, and then three shows after Bucky Gun didn't do well, then Paw Patrol, and now post-paw patrol. I haven't been able to do it. Yet. Yeah. Thank you, Matt.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. So um you talk in your book uh, I think a little bit too about a distinction between risk and resistance. What's the difference in in what it what are you wanting to teach in that statement?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that uh naturally as human beings, uh the things that we really want to do the most in life, we run up against the most amount of resistance. And okay. And I think that resistance is a good telltale sign to potentially lead into lean into something. And I I personally think there's freedom on the other side of resistance. Um and I'm not saying to like blindly to run into things. You should always check, do your market research, ask your questions. But at the end of the day, your decision to do something, um, it's gonna be yours. It's not gonna be anybody else's, and best not to outsource it to anybody else. You own it, you own your life, it's your life, it's your knowing. As much as your parents understand you or people around you, your peers, you have that own internal knowing that is very specific to you. And so it's it's all about pushing through that. And I write in the book about this notion of what I call the inverse risk. And so I actually wanted to title the book The Inverse Risk, but I didn't I didn't. That won't sell though, probably. It probably won't sell. Well, I'm I I will not have the opportunity to find out.
SPEAKER_00You got some resistance and caved, it sounds like I did get some resistance and I did cave.
SPEAKER_02Um Listen, the the publisher, they they won that bottle. But they know the but they know the book industry better than me, so I have I I I had some hubris here. Um or not humor, I had some humility here. But what I wanted to share with you on the inverse risk is I have this notion that when you think about opportunities, it's easier to game out the downsides than it is to game out the upsides. Okay. It's easier to know why things are going to what bad things that potentially could happen if you do something. But the upside, it's so hard for our imagination to understand what potentially will happen once you start the people that you're gonna meet, the opportunities that are gonna come your way, the doors that are gonna open. And so it's it's it's that's why I write that it's the inverse risk. It's like it's riskier potentially not to go through that door and fight through the resistance and see what's on the other side because what's on the other side is super magical. You just don't know what it is. So you need just a high level of faith, okay. Like I would have never known when I started with the Earth Body, when we started with the Earth Body, that 15 years later we do Bakugan and 19 years later we do Paw Patrol. Like, how do you how do you get from a plant? Yeah, connecting those dots is like how do you get from a plant to Happy Face, okay? There's some flying toys to some dolls that don't do well, okay, et cetera, et cetera, to big animations, etc., to being a public company, you just you never think about them like that. And if you and if you did, um you you can't make the stuff up. Your own personal life and your own personal journey, once you fight through the resistance, is your own Hollywood movie. It's your own Hollywood movie in the in the makings. Um, so I'm very passionate about reframing what risk is all about, and that it's riskier not to try. And it's riskier to not take to take your path because you just don't know, right? How can you give up all that unknown? And even if it doesn't work out, the the fact that you're actually in the doing and you're moving and you're you're just you're just moving, you unlock so many things. I believe that that you know you can generate your own luck. And if you're in the doing, the universe will meet you halfway. And you will only get the the universe will only meet you halfway when you decide to take those risks. If not, you know, it's just it's it's it's just gonna stay, you know, potentially could stay baseline.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell I think you're exactly right. And you know, friends and family are are well meaning. I mean it's just the way your minds work, right? Trying to pr protect you. Well, the way to protect you is to encourage you not to take a not to take a risk, but nobody's nobody's looking at it. I love the way you described it. The like on the other side of that risk is where all the magic is gonna could be. And if you don't, there's no way they can calculate that. And they don't have the same passion or drive that you do about it. So like they can't even imagine the energy or the the emotion or the the desire and drive that you have behind it. They're trying to be nice and and encouraging in their own way, but they just can't plug into your head and understand that the confidence you have behind it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02No, you're it's it's exactly right. And then and I think the passion delevers the risk, right? And no one can understand the passion you have and how much you passion you apply to something to delever that risk. It could be risky for them because they don't have the passion for it, too, right? But for you, it's like it's pretty clear. Like, I love the space, I like, you know, I I I want to open up a restaurant, I want to, I want to be a chef, I want to be a musician, right? Like that is of like I I'll never forget I've I've one good friend of mine, and he is a true artist. He's a true, true artist. His whole his whole life dream was to be an artist. And he went into real estate and he's done really well in real estate, and now he's 50, and now he's gone back to being being an artist. He's doing half and half. But he said to me how one mentor of him, of his told him the hardest thing for you to do when you're young is to just be an artist. Because it's harder than even a business. Like it's you know, it's it's yeah, you gotta eat, right? Yeah, exactly. You gotta eat. You gotta eat. And so but I know deep down inside, like he would have wanted to take that other path. Okay, but the risk was was so high. Um, but he had the internal knowing. And he's happy with how his life turned out. It's great. Uh all I'm saying is that I I am acknowledging the fact that this does take a lot of courage, and it just it does take a lot of courage at the end of the day to fight through that resistance um and to go after what what you truly want over and above um, you know, cont conventional norms.
SPEAKER_00Do you live by that still today? Like, and how I'm framing the question, I guess, is do you find yourself being more conservative in your choices in in the business today? Like you haven't found the next Paw Patrol yet. Is is that because you're not taking enough risks, or um you're just as risky and uh with the ideas as you you were when you when you started?
SPEAKER_02I think that we definitely have become a bit more conservative. The company is bigger, so it's more bureaucratic, more layers. Uh we're not as fast as we used to be. We need to do more MA to get our growth in our business today.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell But that goes to the now you got stuff to lose, so you have to be you you it it's almost necessary. Like you you you you want to balance it with recklessness when there's a lot to lose, where you can be reckless if there's nothing to lose, I think. Like I don't want to put it to those two extremes, but it seems like there's stuff to protect now.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Yeah, I I don't know I don't know if I if I would call it reckless, the you know, being having an ability to be reckless uh gives you the ability to be super innovative and different. Um I think it's probably a wrong word choice. I get it. Yeah it's just um there is more to lose and it's harder to move the needle uh at this stage of the game um than it was before. And also there's a lot more people in the mix. I think when you're smaller, when you're smaller, you can be that much more innovative, that much more dynamic. Um I I'm a big believer in smaller teams producing products and bringing things to market. Um there are lots lots of factors in it.
SPEAKER_00So besides the book selling and maybe getting a bestseller list um uh from it, what would be a success uh uh message-wise? You know, if the audience understands what um would make it a huge win for what you're trying to convey to the world in the book.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Um you know, a big win would be if no experience necessary becomes a nomenclature where people relate to it and and understand that you don't have to have that much experience to start something and to go after your dreams in the domain that you're excited about. And then the other win would be people to reframe their thoughts around risk and what does it mean? What does risk actually mean? Um, thoughts around luck, how you can actually generate your own luck, uh, reframe how people think about equity. Uh I mean, I write a whole chapter on equity in terms of, you know, how do you get equity in the world? Well, you just you just you start. And there's this magical thing about starting, and when you start something, you give yourself the equity of what you started. It's not so complicated at the end of the day. And so um if people can actually if the book can actually help people understand how they can create equity for themselves and how they can let their 20s and the time that they're putting in, because the 20s, you got so much energy. Are you do you want that time and energy to accrue to you, or do you want it to accrue to someone else? And to to just give people that moment of thought, well, maybe I do want it to accrue to myself, and if I if I do, then the book can help you give yourself the confidence to take that leap and have the crew the equity accrue to you. So it's all about reframing things, and also I'm really excited about people taking. To you know, as you know, in business is all about like finding the white space, right? Like, what is what where are the opportunities in the in the marketplace at this moment in time? And so I write a chapter on the zeitgeist. And the greatest thing about being in your 20s and when you're young, like you are the zeitgeist. You're living the zeitgeist, you're so close to the zeitgeist, and your ability to be close to the zeitgeist gives you the opportunity to see things from a completely different perspective. And if you see them from a different perspective, then you see opportunities. And it's all about opportunities of different music, you want to create art, businesses, all that type of stuff. And I think the craziest thing is that when you're when you're young, you're basically for the first 20 years of your life, yeah, you're you're observing. You're living at home and you're observing the world, you're in your parents' house, their rules, their way of living, and you're seeing the world, you're going to school, you're inputting, you're intaking. So much, so much is coming in. And you're seeing it very different than your parents are seeing it, or your grandparents are seeing it. And the world, everything's fresh for you. And that freshness gives you this, I would say boundless it gives you the ability to be super innovative. And once you're super innovative, like then you're you're you're able to like birth and create things and bring things into the world that have never been seen or experienced is just unlimited. And so that's what I'm really passionate about. It's like if you really want to know the core part, is for people to bring more innovation into the world in multiple domains. I think that we like in our company, I thought we'd run out of ideas of what we can bring to market. We never ran out of ideas. And the universe, and the universe is always expanding. There's so many ideas. And so I'd love people to have agency, bring new ideas out, whatever they're passionate about, um, and bring more competition into the world. Less monopolies.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02Less less monopolies.
SPEAKER_00I I hear you, I agree with you. I think might might be the problem. Like when I look back to when I was young, the problem with this well, look, I did I did want to do I did just do the stuff. I did I am an entrepreneur, but I think when you're young, you your concept of time is the issue. Like you think you have energy and time forever when you're young. Like you don't understand that that goes away. Correct. I don't think. When I was in my twenties, like I was gonna have energy and and live what seemed like f forever, right? Like I was I you don't really understand how things start to not be that way a couple decades just a short couple decades later.
SPEAKER_02Right. What what year were you born that?
SPEAKER_0072. Okay, I'm 71.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah, very young. Yeah, I I tell people like it there's a difference, especially between 40 and 50. I feel it, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, I I I agree. But when you're young, there's no way you can realize that. Like you just you're you're invincible. Like you really are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So that that's that's wise. Like, if you're inclined to start a business or do something, like start. Just start.
SPEAKER_00So since you you found the success, is there something that you if you could go back and talk to the 22-year-old you, what would you what would you do you feel like there's something that you would need to say, or would you would you let it go exactly as it went?
SPEAKER_02No, for sure. I'd say enjoy the journey. Enjoy the journey. Okay. Don't don't be so intense. I I can relate to that too. Okay. I firmly believe you can enjoy the journey um and still achieve and still achieve all your goals at the same time. That's great. You know, and and be and be in the moment, like just be in the moment and recognize like all the beautiful things that are happening to you and all the beautiful people that you're meeting and they these experiences and and less anxiety. I I had a lot of anxiety in my 20s um and was always like trying to achieve and build and grow and stuff like that. And I would even trade off um sales and profits and even a slower growth curve for more enjoyment looking back now.
SPEAKER_00Have you found that sweet spot now? Are you enjoying it? Are you enjoying the ride now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, much for sure, because I know there's not, you know, I should I be blessed to live to 120? But you know, I know that it's as you said, I I know it's different over 55. I'm on the we're on the back nine. And and you know, so I'm very conscious about like appreciating every day now. Like that's I've I've done a lot, I've done a lot of work in the last 10 years to get there.
SPEAKER_00Okay. That's what I was gonna ask, when did that start to kick in for you?
SPEAKER_02And and I started my early 40s and you know, I've done you know, some good therapy, a lot of yoga, some meditation, good travel, uh breathwork retreats.
SPEAKER_00You know, yes. I've done a lot of work. Before we go, how can people get in touch with you and your work? Um Are you on any social media channels? Any or just look for the book?
SPEAKER_02You know, Matt, I'm actually not on any social media channels. Okay. I'm I'm very much an analog human, but I will be coming out with a LinkedIn page. Okay. So you can find me on my LinkedIn page.
SPEAKER_00Um and uh that'd probably be the best way to get a hold of me. Enjoying the reading the rest of the book, and it would encourage everybody else to check it out too. Um they'll be able to find the book everywhere. Yep. Yep, pretty much wide distribution. Okay. In closing, we we we're all about championing people here, and so before I let you go, given the platform, who's the person that you would champion in your life and and why? My good buddy Matt Wipes. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I give him a shout-out. I uh and why? Because he joined our company super early when he was 18 years old, and he helped bring Bakugan into existence, he helped bring Paw Patrol into existence, and now he's an independent producer and he's doing his own thing, and he's taking his own path um and putting wonderful things out into the world. And uh I'm always rooting for him, wishing him the best of luck.
SPEAKER_00It says a lot about you. He's moved on and you're still rooting for him. I I love that. Yeah, enjoy the time you spent with us. Uh good luck with the book. Thanks so much. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate everything. Great to meet you. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you want more podcast in your life, which of course you do, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Catch you next time.