Sep 8, 2025 · 1h 13m · how-i-built-this
Carlton Calvin: Razor. The wild rise, collapse, and reinvention of a mobile toy empire.
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, Razor co-founder Carlton Calvin explains how surviving the brutal boom-and-bust cycles of novelty crazes like Pogs and yo-yos enabled him to launch the iconic Razor scooter, survive a near-fatal market crash, and build a lasting global mobile toy empire.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 30.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.5 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 1.2 Guy pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 48:53 Carlton pushes back on craze disbelief
Carlton directly dismisses Guy's claim that an overnight sales stop makes no sense, bluntly pointing out that anyone who understands crazes knows market saturation exhausts customer pools rapidly.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 48:48 Guy challenges the sudden stop of salesGuy refuses to accept that a company selling a million units a month could drop to zero overnight without an obvious external catalyst, repeatedly pressing that it makes no sense.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 49:00 Schooling on retail craze mathCarlton breaks down the simple math of toy crazes, showing how Razor and copycats saturated the entire demographic of American children, leaving retailers blindsided when reorders dried up.
Guy holds their own ▶ 46:08 Guy probes legacy toy giants' inertiaGuy challenges the narrative by drilling into why entrenched toy giants like Mattel and Hasbro failed to swiftly replicate or out-distribute Razor during the initial summer boom.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masterpiece Fairy Tales and Discovering Pogs | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz jokes about using ChatGPT to illustrate classic tales and asks Carlton to bridge how pitching children's books led to discovering pogs. Carlton collegially explains that book illustrators were getting work designing pogs. | |
| The Scorpion Slammer: Garage Experiments in Pasadena | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Carlton explains the mechanics of pogs and slammers and details his garage trials desiccating scorpions in toaster ovens. Guy acts primarily as an inquisitive listener asking clarifying questions. | |
| Pomona Toy Show and the $600,000 Breakthrough Deal | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Guy expresses astonishment at Carlton accepting a 200,000 unit order for $600,000 without manufacturing knowledge. Carlton frankly admits his complete initial ignorance regarding production margins. | |
| Manufacturing 200,000 Scorpion Slammers in California | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Carlton recounts sourcing culinary scorpions from China via the Hong Kong Trade Council and setting up an artisanal assembly line in Pasadena. Guy follows along in disbelief at the sheer scale of manual labor. | |
| Sudden Crash of Pogs and the Scorpion Inventory Trap | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Carlton describes the sudden, overnight evaporation of the pog market right after filling his initial shipment. He explains how over-ordering raw scorpions trapped all his profits, leaving him stranded with dead stock. | |
| The Scorpion Yo-Yo and National Retail Expansion | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Carlton recounts pivoting remaining scorpion inventory into yo-yos and scaling distribution through sales reps into Toys 'R' Us. Guy adds color about childhood memories of Toys 'R' Us. | |
| The Fingerboard Era and the Ruthlessness of Toy Fads | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Carlton explains licensing extreme sports brands for fingerboards before Tech Deck aggressively pushed him out with legal threats. When Guy asks if Carlton sought enduring toys, Carlton explains he believed the toy industry was inherently boom-and-bust. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Sponsor Message 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Following the mid-roll ad break, Carlton details spotting Japanese buzz around folding scooters and pivoting from miniature versions to partnering with inventors Gino Tsai and Robert Chen. | |
| Structuring Razor USA and Retail Rollout | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Carlton describes establishing Razor USA and securing cash-on-delivery payment terms from national retailers due to overwhelming demand. Guy clarifies the timeline and logistics of the rollout. | |
| The Generational Summer 2000 Razor Frenzy | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Guy questions why legacy toy giants failed to outpace Razor and asks about patent enforcement against copycats. Carlton explains that large corporations moved too slowly and outlines their preliminary injunctions. | |
| The 2001 Post-Holiday Collapse and Retail Backlash | 2 | 7 | 3 | 2 | When Guy insists that sales dropping to zero overnight makes no sense, Carlton educates him on market saturation dynamics during crazes where every child in America already owned one. Carlton details refusing retailer demands to accept returned inventory. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Sponsor Message 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Following the break, Carlton explains how Robert Chen convinced him not to shutter operations and how demographic turnover of new five-year-olds turned Razor from a fad into a steady classic category. | |
| Brand Extensions: Scream Machine, Electric Scooters, and RipStick | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Guy tracks Razor's evolution into Scream Machines, electric scooters, and the RipStick. Carlton explains the shift from purely organic viral products to using broadcast TV campaigns for non-obvious ride-on toys. | |
| The Hoverboard Explosion and Losing Toys 'R' Us | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Carlton details partnering with Shane Chen for hoverboards after initial skepticism and laments the devastating blow of Toys 'R' Us's bankruptcy to Razor's full-line showroom distribution. | |
| Managing Tariffs, Supply Chains, and the Future of Razor | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Carlton breaks down the squeeze caused by import tariffs, explaining that retail price hikes pay for tariffs while eroding Razor's unit volumes. He also discusses exploring AI to detect early cultural fads. | |
| Reflections on Timing, Co-Founders, and Humility | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy invites Carlton to reflect on the balance between luck and execution. Carlton speaks humbly about serendipity, timing, and the irreplaceable role of his co-founders. |
Statements from this episode (23)
POG stands for Pineapple Orange Guava and originated in Hawaii
“Pog stands for pineapple orange guava. This started in Hawaii, and they would put this, these are the caps that would go on a bottle, and to keep it sanitary.”
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.”
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.”
Calvin lost his Scorpion Slammer profits to inventory when Pogs collapsed
“So I, I'm saying, I'm selling, you know, 75,000 scorpions, slammers a month. I need to order, like, a few 100,000 more scorpions to be ready to, and that, and the price of the scorpions went up, so all my profits were tied up in, you know, my second order of, …”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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 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 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.”
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 …”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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…”
Carlton Calvin rejected licensing the original hoverboard because it seemed too difficult
“Every year, He would show me these wild and crazy inventions that he made, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm happy to keep showing me, you know, we could try a little bit, but I don't know, it just seems too odd, and amongst the things that I…”