The Exchanges

Q But, but before you started to, when you guys said, let's make 5000 of these for Mother's Day, presumably you're thinking, we're, we're gonna sell these, so where were you gonna sell them?

A Well, we, we sold them on the street. We set up tables at eight different corners all around Toronto, and we sold basically 800 out of the 5000, and we came into the office Monday morning, and we're like, okay, well, we've got to figure out some other distribution, and then we found a gift distributor who took on the product and started selling it to the gift channels, and then again, through my mom, she had a contact of a company that sold toys, and Called Samco Sales, and showed them the product, and I said to them, would you guys be interested in distributing the product for us? And they said, sure, no problem. And two weeks later, they called us with an order for 26,000 pieces.

AI assessment note: “we sold them on the street. We set up tables at eight different corners”

Q You've got Earth Buddy, Devil Sticks, You know, you're probably doing four or five million dollars in revenue by year two. How big were your ambitions? Were the three of you already in year two of your business saying, we're going to be a huge toy company? Was that the ambition? Or was it just like, let's just get this thing, sell this, and we'll figure out the next thing?

A It was, let's just keep on going. Let's find some other products to sell. We did make a couple of strategic, like, macro decisions, which were, we didn't want to, after Earth Buddies and Devil Sticks, which were both, you know, call it public domain products, we said we want to design and develop our own products, and we want to sell them globally around the world, and we don't want to just be a Canadian distributor. And then we said, we're open to ideas wherever they come from, and let's go search for, for these ideas. So, In 96, we started meeting with, ah, toy inventors. And so, Ben was living with this girl by the name of Jen Irwin from the Irwin Toys family, which is a famous Canadian toy company. And-

AI assessment note: “It was, let's just keep on going. Let's find some other products to sell.”

Q But, but before you started to, when you guys said, let's make 5000 of these for Mother's Day, presumably you're thinking, we're, we're gonna sell these, so where were you gonna sell them?

A Well, we, we sold them on the street. We set up tables at eight different corners all around Toronto, and we sold basically 800 out of the 5000, and we came into the office Monday morning, and we're like, okay, well, we've got to figure out some other distribution, and then we found a gift distributor who took on the product and started selling it to the gift channels, and then again, through my mom, she had a contact of a company that sold toys, and Called Samco Sales, and showed them the product, and I said to them, would you guys be interested in distributing the product for us? And they said, sure, no problem. And two weeks later, they called us with an order for 26,000 pieces.

AI assessment note: “we sold them on the street. We set up tables at eight different corners”

Q And what did he know about, like, manufacturing, and, you know, was he an expert in, in, like, how to run a factory?

A He actually had no manufacturing experience. He came to our office, and we literally made a deal within 45 minutes, and then he went down and started running the factory. You know, Ben was, he's a smart guy. I mean, he went to business school, and he just figured it out. Um, but Ben would tell you that he wouldn't have gotten through the manufacturing. If it wasn't for this gentleman by the name of Bob Wakelam. So Bob actually, when we started, the first place we actually went to look for people to work in the factory was we went to homeless shelter. It was just people that needed work, so that's where we went. But there was two individuals. There was Bob and this other gentleman, Grenville, who ran shipping.

AI assessment note: “He actually had no manufacturing experience.”

Q So this was a product that existed, uh, Tell me the story. You, you, you kind of renamed them devil sticks. How did you come across them?

A You know, I actually, I played with them when I was in high school. For some reason in 94, we started noticing that a lot of kids in the schools were actually playing with the devil sticks. So maybe there's a little bit of a trend going on. We had our factory. So we said, well, why don't we figure out how to mass produce the devil sticks and we'll, we'll sell them. So it was just based on this trend that we saw. And so we designed this packaging and the same distributor that got us The sale at Walmart Canada, they introduced us to their partner in the United States called Uniworld, and so suddenly we found ourselves at Toy Fair in 1995.

AI assessment note: “I actually, I played with them when I was in high school.”

Q And what did he know about, like, manufacturing, and, you know, was he an expert in, in, like, how to run a factory?

A He actually had no manufacturing experience. He came to our office, and we literally made a deal within 45 minutes, and then he went down and started running the factory. You know, Ben was, he's a smart guy. I mean, he went to business school, and he just figured it out. Um, but Ben would tell you that he wouldn't have gotten through the manufacturing. If it wasn't for this gentleman by the name of Bob Wakelam. So Bob actually, when we started, the first place we actually went to look for people to work in the factory was we went to homeless shelter. It was just people that needed work, so that's where we went. But there was two individuals. There was Bob and this other gentleman, Grenville, who ran shipping.

AI assessment note: “He actually had no manufacturing experience.”

Q You've got Earth Buddy, Devil Sticks, You know, you're probably doing four or five million dollars in revenue by year two. How big were your ambitions? Were the three of you already in year two of your business saying, we're going to be a huge toy company? Was that the ambition? Or was it just like, let's just get this thing, sell this, and we'll figure out the next thing?

A It was, let's just keep on going. Let's find some other products to sell. We did make a couple of strategic, like, macro decisions, which were, we didn't want to, after Earth Buddies and Devil Sticks, which were both, you know, call it public domain products, we said we want to design and develop our own products, and we want to sell them globally around the world, and we don't want to just be a Canadian distributor. And then we said, we're open to ideas wherever they come from, and let's go search for, for these ideas. So, In 96, we started meeting with, ah, toy inventors. And so, Ben was living with this girl by the name of Jen Irwin from the Irwin Toys family, which is a famous Canadian toy company. And-

AI assessment note: “It was, let's just keep on going. Let's find some other products to sell.”

Q All right. I want to bring in Ronan. Ronan Island B Company, trying to figure out What kind of channels to, to go with to begin to scale this, this business? Thoughts, ideas, questions?

A Well, first of all, Felix, nice to meet you. And, uh, looking at your products online, they look amazing. And what an incredible opportunity for you to, you know, carry your parents' business forward. I come from consumer products, so this is very close to what I do. So, when I heard you at the beginning and you said, you know, honey, you can't scale honey, and it's not scalable type stuff, I don't necessarily, um, agree with that. I think everything's scalable. Um, the question is, how are you going to go about doing it? There's so many people that are starting brands from scratch, and it's based on their own personal story, and it's based on them doing innovative marketing. I'm looking at your Instagram, and all the things on your Instagram didn't match up with your beautiful branding of your product. Like, there was, there was very much a disconnect there. So, For me, I, I'd be working on the social media, the storytelling, amplification of the brand, you know, TikTok shop is great. It's a great place to go. It's, it's only increasing, but the question is like, how do you tell that story and how do you tell that story in a way that's going to resonate with the consumers? So I'll pass it back to you. Where are you on that journey and what do you want this business to be?

AI assessment note: “TikTok shop is great. It's a great place to go.”

Q So this was a product that existed, uh, Tell me the story. You, you, you kind of renamed them devil sticks. How did you come across them?

A You know, I actually, I played with them when I was in high school. For some reason in 94, we started noticing that a lot of kids in the schools were actually playing with the devil sticks. So maybe there's a little bit of a trend going on. We had our factory. So we said, well, why don't we figure out how to mass produce the devil sticks and we'll, we'll sell them. So it was just based on this trend that we saw. And so we designed this packaging and the same distributor that got us The sale at Walmart Canada, they introduced us to their partner in the United States called Uniworld, and so suddenly we found ourselves at Toy Fair in 1995.

AI assessment note: “I actually, I played with them when I was in high school.”

Q To me, it just seems like, oh my god, you guys were just playing with toys. Like, how joyful, like, how amazing, how fun, like, But this was real serious business. You guys were heads down, like, really focused, or, or was it throwing Nerf balls around the office? I don't know, what, what, what was it like?

A No, it, it wasn't that much fun and games. It was, it was serious. First of all, the toy business is very competitive, hyper-competitive business, and it's very fast-paced, and, you know, the three of us wanted to win. So we were actually quite serious. I think we were probably too serious. We didn't have the foosball tables. We didn't have the pool tables. Um, it was more about when we're in the office, let's do the work, and then let's go enjoy our time afterwards. It's intense. The other thing about the toy industry is that you're dealing with kids, and you're dealing with safety, and, and, and you got to make sure that everything's, you got to manufacture something at a low cost that's safe, that has an innovation attached to it.

AI assessment note: “No, it, it wasn't that much fun and games. It was, it was serious.”

Q All right. I want to bring in Ronan. Ronan Island B Company, trying to figure out What kind of channels to, to go with to begin to scale this, this business? Thoughts, ideas, questions?

A Well, first of all, Felix, nice to meet you. And, uh, looking at your products online, they look amazing. And what an incredible opportunity for you to, you know, carry your parents' business forward. I come from consumer products, so this is very close to what I do. So, when I heard you at the beginning and you said, you know, honey, you can't scale honey, and it's not scalable type stuff, I don't necessarily, um, agree with that. I think everything's scalable. Um, the question is, how are you going to go about doing it? There's so many people that are starting brands from scratch, and it's based on their own personal story, and it's based on them doing innovative marketing. I'm looking at your Instagram, and all the things on your Instagram didn't match up with your beautiful branding of your product. Like, there was, there was very much a disconnect there. So, For me, I, I'd be working on the social media, the storytelling, amplification of the brand, you know, TikTok shop is great. It's a great place to go. It's, it's only increasing, but the question is like, how do you tell that story and how do you tell that story in a way that's going to resonate with the consumers? So I'll pass it back to you. Where are you on that journey and what do you want this business to be?

AI assessment note: “I'd be working on the social media, the storytelling, amplification of the brand”