Carlton Calvin
Founder & CEO, Razor USA. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiverazor.com ↗
Carlton Calvin is the co-founder and CEO of Razor USA, where he turned the aluminum Razor kick scooter into a global phenomenon and expanded into electric scooters and ride-ons. Prior to founding Razor, he left a career in corporate law to produce playground toy crazes, including custom Pogs slammers and fingerboards.
1shows
2appearances
29statements
5resolved
2supported
0contradicted
40%fully supported
Everything Carlton Calvin said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Tech Deck falsely accused Carlton Calvin of infringing their intellectual property
“And at the time they sent around a letter saying that I was infringing their intellectual property, even though the exact opposite was true in, you know, it was really, so it was really dirty actually in my understanding of the world.”
Calvin: Hacky Sacks Are Making a Massive Comeback
“One that's probably people already know just burst like maybe two months ago is hacky sacks are coming back in a huge way. And razor already has hacky sacks in the, you know, in the store start shipping this week.”
Calvin: Founders should ride prevailing cultural trends instead of fighting them
“Don't fight the culture. Just like because American Idol, you know, came out and, you know, did a you know, singing contest on TV, you'll notice there were 27 other singing contests that came out after them. Some of them exceeded American Idol. And being secon…”
Calvin: Retailers always mistakenly believe consumer product crazes will last forever
“No matter how many times the retailers go through this, no matter how many times I went through this, everybody's thinking to themselves, this time is different. Like, this time, it's gonna sell a million a month for the next three years, and they can't even j…”
Retailers repeatedly misjudge novelty crazes by ignoring demographic saturation limits
“No matter how many times the retailers go through this, no matter how many times I went through this, everybody's thinking to themselves, this time is different. Like this time it's going to sell a million a month for the next three years. And they can't even …”
Kick scooters are more foundational than skateboards because they require less talent
“It's even more than a skateboard because it doesn't take as much talent as a skateboard to ride.”
Calvin: Suing Small Copycats Costs Millions With No Financial Recovery
“So it costs millions and millions of dollars to do a patent case. And then you get nothing except helping to clean up the market. It's very, very challenging.”
Calvin: Toy creators should license if they love inventing, not running businesses
“If you love being in business, be in business. If you love inventing toys, then I would say you know, I would license it for sure. I work with inventors and they've done extremely well from me.”
Carlton Calvin secured a $600,000 toy show order for scorpion slammers
“A guy walked by who was a, happened to be in the pog and the slammer business, was a toy distributor, and he said, if you don't leave this toy show today, you know, it's the first of three days, if you don't leave today, and you sign an exclusive contract with…”
A toy distributor wrote Carlton Calvin a $75,000 check on the spot
“He wrote me a check for 75,000 dollars that day, and
Guy Raz: On the spot.
Carlton Calvin: On the spot.
Carlton Calvin: On my face.
Guy Raz: As a deposit.
Carlton Calvin: As a deposit, so that I could open up a factory, try to figure out how to make them.”
Novelty toy crazes inevitably collapse due to a lack of repeat buyers
“Essentially, with these crazes, eventually, my theory is everyone gets it. You don't, you can't sell, you know, Infinite number of yo-yos to the same people, essentially.”
Walmart and Toys R Us paid cash on delivery for Razor scooters
“These Toys R Us and Walmart were paying COD for scooters to me.”
Razor sold one million scooters per month during its 2000 retail launch
“So I was selling a million scooters a month.”
Razor captured only one-third of the scooter market during the 2000 boom
“And so I maybe only had a third of the market, believe it or not.”
Razor held one million unsold scooters when warehouse demand plummeted to zero
“We still had like a million scooters in the warehouse for the next month's sales, which then were zero.”
Electric ride-on toys resist knockoffs through engineering complexity, not patent protection
“These electric motorcycles and scooters, they just keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger, and they're not as easy as To knock off as the scooter. You know, they're not, it's not so much the patent, but the actual technology in making them is quite ch…”
Calvin: Classic Razor Scooters Still Sell Close to 1M Units Yearly
“I think it's our, still our largest selling item by volume. So, you know, close to a million units a year I would say..”
Carlton Calvin imported dead scorpions from China starting at seven cents each
“I think they started at like seven cents a scorpion, but as I got more popular, And I wanted to order more. The price rapidly increased.”
Carlton Calvin hired 75 scorpion arrangers and converted bakery racks into ovens
“I had like 75 scorpion arrangers, and then I took bakery racks. And converted them into makeshift ovens with light bulbs, with, like, insulation on the outside of a bakery rack, and I would stick bakery trays in there of scorpions.”
Carlton Calvin sold millions of Scorpion Yo-Yos globally
“So I started to get my big, my first big customers, and I sold millions of Scorpion Yo-Yos globally.”
Toys "R" Us was Razor's biggest customer for a long time
“I think for a long time they were my biggest customer, even for the Raid scooters and stuff like that.”
Razor secured a preliminary injunction against knockoff scooter manufacturers in 2000
“We prevailed quickly. We, I believe we got a preliminary injunction. I believe that the lawyers were great, and we were able to have an injunction against everybody.”
Razor established a baseline of two to four million annual scooter sales
“After a certain amount of time, the retailers were able to work through their inventory of their extra inventory. And then they needed somewhere between two or four million scooters a year to keep going.”
Toys "R" Us's bankruptcy caused significant, irreplaceable sales losses for Razor
“The most saddest dramatic shift for razor has been the loss of Toys R Us. You know, not only is it a loss from the kids perspective of a fantasy place to go, but they actually always carried our entire line. And when we came out with something innovative, they…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Carlton's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Razor USA | 2 | 29 | 40% 2/5 | full record on How I Built This → |