Air Hogs

I think learning how to, do the development.

I think air hogs from your hometown when we were doing that, like that was our first really complex toy where you had to do, you know, AutoCAD and pro E and complex moles and multiple pieces coming off the line together that had to work.

Um, so that was probably the hardest thing was actually learning the development process and having the fortitude to stick it out.

And then all the other concerns like around safety and durability.

Um, you know, everybody thought we were crazy when we were doing the air hogs.

We thought we, we thought come just cause it's a flying toy because the flying toy, you have safety issues and it crashes.

So you're going to have, you're going to have return issues.

All the toy companies do a really good job to make their toys- Making sure.

I think my...

You know, there's so many, but I, I would say the earth- the Air Hogs back in the day, and bringing that product to market and having it being a success after two years of hard work, and actually flying the product itself.

Like, it was just, it's just, it was a, that was a high point for me.

It was just like the fact that we can get something to work over and over and over and again.

That it wasn't even really a toy.

[laughs] But I, I would say Air Hogs, bringing that to market was a, was a real high point for me, 'cause we'd never done anything to do with engineering and development like that ever before.

What about the lowest moment?

That's an easy one.

Today we have with us Ronan Hariri, a Canadian entrepreneur, television and film producer, philanthropist and co-founder of Spin Master, a global children's entertainment company.

And he's behind brands like Paw Patrol, Hatchimals and Air Hogs.

He's also just written a book, provocative book, No Experience Necessary.

Why betting on yourself in your 20s is the best decision you'll ever make.

Uh, people were so excited for us to come in the toy industry.

Um, I think that there's the power of not knowing, um, the fact that you, you're younger and you, you're drawn towards something or you have an intuition towards, you know, in our case, bring certain products out to the market.

Um, And one of them was a product called Air Hogs.

It was this airplane that you pumped it up, you flipped the propeller, it ran for 45 seconds.

Today, my guest has helped create some of the biggest children's brands on earth.

Paw Patrol, Bakugan, Air Hogs, Tech Decks.

Collectively, they've entertained hundreds of millions of kids around the world.

But this conversation isn't about the toys.

And so then we'll do the marketing, we'll do the sales, we'll do the product development, and we'll bring it to market.

But what I was going to say to you is that we went one product at a time.

So our big product in the 90s was the Air Hogs.

You know, that airplane that pumped it up, flew it around.