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So in June of 2000 you were selling a million a month.
Yes.
And January of 2001, you couldn't sell one.
The sales stopped?
Yes.
It doesn't make sense.
It makes no sense.
It doesn't make sense unless you understand crazes.
It happened to me so many times.
And 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.
Yeah.
Like this time, it's going to sell a million a month for the next three years.
And they can't even just do simple math that there's not that many people.
Welcome to How I Built This a show about innovators entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built.
I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how Carlton Calvin helped turn a craze into a classic toy and built a massive company around scooters, hoverboards and bikes.
Razor.
In the summer of 2000, kids all across the US couldn't get enough of one thing scooters.
But not the clunky ones you might remember.
These were sleek, made from aircraft-grade aluminum.
They had polyurethane wheels that glided far and fast, and the scooter was compact enough to fold up and carry anywhere.
They were called Razor scooters, and within months, demand was out of control.
A million scooters a month were rolling out of a small warehouse in Cerritos, California.
And at the center of it all was a man named Carlton Calvin.
Carlton didn't invent the scooter.
That credit goes to Gino Tsai in Taiwan, along with his partner, Robert Chen.
But Carlton helped launch the Razor in the US and he knew how to make it a craze, because he'd been chasing toy crazes for years.
He tried yo-yos.
He sold fingerboards.
He was in the pogs and slammers business.
Carlton understood something important, and it was almost intuitive.
Kids are loyal to a toy one minute and then abandon it the next.
And his business was all about timing.
Spot the craze, ride it high, and then scramble before it fizzles out.
But Razor was different.
It was bigger, faster, and hotter than anything he had ever touched.
But just as quickly as it rose, it collapsed.
Sales dried up almost overnight.
But Carlton hung on. and slowly rebuilt Razor into a bigger brand.
And over time, Razor became more than a craze.
It grew into a powerhouse.
Manual scooters, electric scooters bikes hoverboards, even a skateboard that twisted and swerved called the Ripstick.
But before all of that happened, Carlton grew up in St.
Paul, Minnesota in the 60s and 70s.
His mom was a schoolteacher and his dad was an entrepreneur who started out in direct mail.
Carlton went to law school, but he hated it.
So in his early 30s, he decided to pursue another interest, becoming an entrepreneur himself.
You know, I've always wanted to be an artist, believe it or not.
And I made that pitch to my wife.
But I also felt, you know, like I needed to earn some money.
And so I thought, I'll work with illustrators and do children's books.
So I thought of this idea called Masterpiece Fairy Tales, where I would tell the classic fairy tales but I would take the paintings of the great, like impressionists, and retell the story in their style.
So it might be Van Gogh told the story of Puss in Boots.
And you'd find an artist to kind of paint.
That's right.
I found really great artists who could paint in the style of these famous painters.
Now you could do all that on ChatGPT.
Oh, it's terrible.
It's terrible.
You just say, paint me Puss in Boots in Van Gogh style, and it would do it.
I had Puss in Boots for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
All right.
So you're going to come up – and that's great, because all these stories are not – I mean, they're in the public domain.
So you could have a fairytale book and hire some artists and you get a children's book.
Okay.
Did you pitch this idea to anybody?
So the problem was I didn't understand business at that point at all but i did get.
I got a lot of meetings out in new york, was very fun.
I read, you know, went to the big beautiful publishing houses and i now i know that what you do when you have an ideal diet, that is, you print up the books and you go to the book shows and you start selling to the bookstores and you build a teeny little company that eventually gets big.
Did not understand that at that time.
But while I was doing it, I was working with illustrators, and some of the illustrators were involved in this craze called Pogs and Slammers.
And that's what got me interested in Pogs and Slammers.
Okay, so let's wind back for a sec.
You are pitching a fairy tale book idea.
Yes.
And you get interested in pogs and slammers, which we will explain what those are in just a second.
Okay.
Before we do that, I'm trying to understand the connection between pitching a book, a Puss in Boots with Toulouse-Lautrec style artwork and pogs and slammers.
So the connection is the illustrators that I was working with were getting work as illustrators for the Pogs.
I see, okay.
And they said, this thing is going crazy.
Okay, let's pause and explain what these are.
These are, they're like poker chips, like wafer, sort of like cardboard wafer poker chips.
Exactly right.
That you would do what with?
It's like the game of marbles.
So 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.
So they're discs and it's just like marbles.
One kid comes with five pogs and another kid comes with another five.
They stack them in a stack and then there's something heavy, which is a separate item called a slammer.
What does it look like?
It basically is a bigger, heavier disc.
You'd throw it at the stack and cause the discs to flip over, and the ones that flipped over in your direction you'd call wonderheads or tails, and you'd then collect all the pogs that were in it.
Ah, I see.
You would gamble it.
It's a version of gambling.
And I remember, this is in the 90s.
Yes.
I mean, I was already –
Leaving high school and getting it.
But I remember seeing kids playing with these.
My little brother actually would.
So this just went wild.
Yes.
Explosive.
But at this time, so many of the crazes that were sweeping across the country would start in Los Angeles.
So very fortunate to where I was.
All right.
So you're talking to artists and they're like yeah, we're just making art for these things called pogs.
And you're thinking, oh, this is interesting.
So what did you do?
The next step was I wanted them to make pogs for me.
So I was going to have them illustrate and I was going to print the pogs and I was going to sell them.
But while I was doing that.
My wife is also a lawyer and we were driving through Arizona to go on a case and I was just going along for the ride.
And you stop at the rest stops and they sell these paperweights with real scorpions embedded in plastic.
And they're like domes.
And I looked at it, and I got an idea.
Which was?
You could make a slammer, one of these bigger discs.
I bet I could embed a scorpion in clear plastic, and kids could throw it at these discs.
So the scorpion slammer.
Yeah, the real scorpion slammer.
Inspired by the scorpion paperweight.
That's right, called Stinger.
Stinger was my brand name.
Okay, so this is like a lightbulb moment that goes off in your head on this road trip, and...
Okay, but now you've got to find somebody who is going to – first of all, you've got to get the scorpions.
And then you've got to figure out how to embed them in plastic.
And then you've got to find somebody to make it for you.
So let's break this down a little bit.
What did you then do?
So I turned the paperweight over.
And I saw they put their company on the back.
Just the name, Mac.
I still remember it.
This is, you know, 30 years later.
And I thought, you know, I'll call them up and ask them to make these discs for me, right?
You know, it'll be no problem.
I called them up.
They said, there's no way we're going to make these discs for you.
But we can sell you some scorpions if you want to try to figure out how to do it yourself.
So I ordered – I got 100 scorpions in a little jar of alcohol.
It came in the mail or UPS.
And I went into my garage.
I was renting a house in Pasadena.
Went into the you know from old craftsman house, happened to have a garage classic.
Started my business in the garage story.
Went in there for six months.
My wife thought I was crazy.
Trying to figure out, it's not trivial, how to get a scorpion inside a little plastic disc.
And so what would you do in your garage?
Were you, like, melting plastic and pouring it into mold?
Oh, it's so cool.
First of all, I did all the reading I could and I went down to the Natural History Museum in LA where they actually embed specimens in plastic, and I talked to them and I checked out a book from the Natural Library on embedding specimens in plastic.
But, of course, they're not making—there's a couple problems.
One is—
I wanted mine to be shatterproof and like the globes and other things are not shatterproof.
So I did research on materials.
I called actually industrial chemical companies in LA and arrived at polyurethane as the kind of plastic that wouldn't break.
But all kinds of problems, just like you might imagine.
The first problem was you know scorpions, if you don't dry them out took me a long time to figure this out they turn white and you can't see the scorpion.
So then I took I went to Goodwill and I bought like five or six old ovens and I then put light bulbs in them to heat them.
And then I would desiccate the scorpions inside.
Just dry them out.
Dry them out.
Under low temperatures.
Under low temperatures, light bulb temperatures.
Yep.
And then I'd pour the rest of the plastic on top.
And that's how you got it.
Wow.
So it's so all right.
So eventually, I'm assuming you figure out how to how to make this.
Yes.
Okay, six months.
So you you successfully figure out how to embed a scorpion and polyurethane as a slammer for pogs.
And then what?
This is when I started to behave like a regular business person.
Somehow, gradually, I learned about business.
I went to a toy show, the Pomona Toy Show, which you know.
Back in the olden days there used to be small toy stores.
And in order to buy toys, toy stores would go to these toy shows.
There was one in Pomona, a major one for the West Coast.
And I rented corner of a booth well, i mean like a tenth of a booth and i had one aquarium with the all total of six scorpions that i made that i'd ever figured out how to make in this, in a little aquarium.
And i was know talking to people.
People were walking by and a guy walked by who was a he 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 me, I'll buy 200000 of these at 3 a piece.
Wow.
Who was this guy?
Mickey.
He had a warehouse in commerce.
Big, big toy distributor.
Most of toys.
You know there was a whole business back then of importing toys from China and They were kind of unbranded and like talking parrots and all kinds of stuff.
And he would do that.
That was his job.
But you know, the Pog and Slammer business was again an open system and everybody was getting into it.
And he was in it too.
So he said he loved these so much.
He was like, I want an exclusive deal.
All there are $200,000 of these.
At what price?
At $3 a piece.
So $600,000 was my first sale ever in business.
And he was going to manufacture them?
Nope.
I said... He needed you to figure that out.
Yeah.
I got to figure him out.
And I didn't have any money.
So I said... But did you even know that, like... that you could make them?
I mean, absolutely not.
You know how much it was going to cost?
It might have cost you a million dollars.
You had no idea.
I had never bought a Scorpion before.
I knew a little bit about how much the plastic costs.
But I figured, you know, but that was it.
That was my only cost that I knew.
But I wouldn't even, at that age, it's just so hard to remember how naive I was.
And I didn't even understand what margin was or how much you need to manufacture something.
So I just went ahead at that point.
But I didn't have any money.
So believe it or not, the world is a great place.
He wrote me a check for $75,000 that day.
On the spot.
On the spot, on my face.
As a deposit.
As a deposit, so that I could open up a factory, try to figure out how to make them.
So, all right, so you get this deal.
It's amazing.
It's amazing that a scorpion embedded in polyurethane But yeah, I mean, these slammers were going crazy.
Kids were buying these cardboard pogs and the slammers.
I know what 10-year-old boys like is really the answer.
It's just like irresistible.
How did you develop that talent?
I think that's inborn.
And that is like the secret is that I didn't stray too far from what I am.
Like I am a 10-year-old boy.
My favorite story is I got into trouble while I was a law clerk because I snuck into my judge's chambers in the middle of the night because he had the most powerful computer to do video gaming on.
You know, I just have a 10-year-old boy's mind for the longest time.
Okay.
So now you've got a $75,000 check.
You're in L.A.
Yes.
How are you going to make these?
How are you going to make $200,000 of these things?
I mean, I didn't know.
But I began to go look for a warehouse near my house in South Pasadena where I could set up a factory.
But the bigger problem was I immediately called Mac and said, I need 200,000 scorpions.
And they said, no, no, you completely misunderstand the scale of our business.
We go out with our kids at night in the desert with black lights.
And pick up scorpions.
Yes.
And turn over rocks.
Wow.
And grab scorpions.
Like I could maybe eventually get you a thousand.
That is a hazardous job.
It is a hazardous job.
Fun, but hazardous.
God.
So they're saying to you, hey, we can't give you 200,000 scorpions.
It's impossible.
So what do you – I mean this is like 1992, 1991.
1995, I think.
1995.
1995.
All right.
So –
I mean, really kind of pre-internet.
I mean, the internet's around, but not quite.
It was definitely pre-internet for me.
Like I had no notion of internet or email at that time.
So what are you going to do?
You got to get 200,000 scorpions quick.
So I had a Chinese friend and they said we eat scorpions in China or they eat scorpions in China.
And I figured if they're going to, there's a lot of people in China, if they're eating scorpions.
There's a lot of scorpions.
I'm just thinking there's got to be a lot there.
So I went down and at that time there was something called the Hong Kong Trade Council in downtown Los Angeles.
And I went physically down there and talked to them.
And they gave me, and again, this was at the early days of China turning into a market.
And they had, you know, they had people who were importing products from China on a list.
And they gave me a hand, you know, a printout, you know with a dot matrix printer, of a list of Chinese importers.
I called, I had 20 of them.
I called them all.
You know, I only found one that could find me scorpions, but he did.
Wow.
And obviously these are dead scorpions that are going to be sent.
Yes.
But just out of curiosity, was it going to cause a problem or challenge?
Like is it hard to import 200,000 insects into the U.S.?
You know, at that level of sophistication, I didn't even think about it.
Like I didn't even understand.
Like, oh, well.
Are they going to be annoyed that there's scorpions coming into the United States?
And they put them in gasoline jugs filled with alcohol to preserve them.
And I suppose it makes them food safe, too, for how they eat them in China.
That's how they transport them.
Nothing ever happened with customs that I remember.
So you found somebody who was going to enable this.
And do you remember how much it was per scorpion?
Yes.
And of course, a little bit interesting.
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.
Wow.
Okay.
So it started at 7 cents for 200,000 scorpions.
And then who was going to... You get the scorpions, but who was going to manufacture the discs?
So then I asked my Chinese friend to help me find, you know employees, and she did, and um, i hired her to sort of supervise them and i opened up this chinese scorpion factory in in in southern california, in like a warehouse, you a warehouse, and you put what in there, like tables.
You, you were going to hand make 200 000.
We handmade 200 000 in america.
How is that possible?
Like you hand poured the polyurethane?
That's right.
That's right.
How many?
You just hired a bunch of people to just get this?
I had like 75 scorpion arrangers.
And then I took bakery racks.
Yeah.
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.
It was wild, you know?
All right.
So you, how long did it take you to make 200,000 discs?
Do you remember?
It probably took three months.
Three months to fulfill this order, and you deliver it to this guy.
Yes.
You know, a bit at a time, yes, as they came off the rack.
And where is he selling them?
All around the country.
Just at toy stores?
Yes, and everybody, a lot of people knew.
Well, toy stores everywhere, magazine shops.
I mean, it was a craze.
So they had these—
You know, Pogs and Slammers almost at newsstands and anywhere.
And I'm assuming these Slammers did well.
They did great.
Everybody knew about the Scorpion Slammer.
And it said Stinger on the side.
I had it engraved into the mold.
So it was really cute.
And was that the name of your company, your business?
Did you file like an LLC?
No, it was Small Minds Press.
Oh, so it was still part of the original idea.
I mean of the idea.
I had an LLC that was all set to make children's books.
Books.
Yeah.
Okay.
Small Minds Press was making these.
So now you have... you're, you're like, you get a taste of what it's like to have a cool.
And, and did he order more?
I mean, was that it?
Just 200,000.
So this is.
And then, the day I delivered the last scorpion, the pog craze collapsed and They're like nobody.
Nobody was buying Boggs and Slammers.
It just stopped.
It stopped.
The whole industry shut down immediately, like in a matter of hours, it seemed like.
It's wild.
It was like the hottest thing.
Yes.
And you probably, you know, cleared, your margins were probably pretty good.
Yes.
You probably cleared like three, four hundred grand on that.
Maybe, yeah, maybe $200,000.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
But that was it.
Yeah.
But of course I was naive and I thought, oh, this goes on forever.
This is my first crazy, you know.
So I I'm saying I'm selling, you know, 75000 scorpions, slammers a month.
I need to order like a few hundred thousand more scorpions to be ready to and that and the price of the scorpions went up.
So all my profits were tied up. in my second order of scorpions.
Oh, I see.
So you basically took the cash and ordered more as you would.
Yes.
But you could not sell those.
Nope, zero sales.
So were you left with a surplus of scorpions or slammers or both?
Yeah.
So I had scorpions, lots and lots of scorpions and lots and lots of employees that I was very sad and didn't want to let go.
How many scorpions did you have?
Like a couple hundred thousand at least.
What did you do with them?
So I did not know what to do with them, honestly.
And again humiliated in front of my wife.
You know this is like oh my God, you're All your profits.
Like, where's the money guy?
And so I took them and started to just, like, make keychains.
And, you know, for, like, I was back in, you know, back in the market where I saw max paperweights.
I was in, you know, Arizona selling scorpion keychains, you know, by the hundreds.
It was a really sad moment.
For my career.
But while I was in the process of making these scorpion key chains and anything else I could think of with a scorpion in it, I was in Pasadena and I walked into a shop and, like a random shop, was selling yo-yos.
And I'm like, Wow, that's kind of weird.
Weird because yo-yos were like a 50s thing?
Yeah, or just like it's not a toy shop.
You know, that's a good sign for a craze.
Like, yeah, I didn't explain that.
Yeah, it was like a random I don't even know what kind of shop it was at this point, but they had some yo-yos.
And they had like a $100 aluminum yo-yo.
And, you know, it just seemed like, wow, that's interesting.
And then I got the idea.
I could put a...
Scorpion in a yo-yo in a yo-yo.
Yes.
Yeah.
Now that was at that point.
It was just.
I didn't understand.
It was a craze, but I understood that it would just be like key chains.
Like it would be another thing that I could be doing to get rid of my 200,000 scorpion.
And so I did, and I didn't have a way to make the yo-yo.
So I started to make the yo-yo itself in China, but I still embedded them in my factory in South Pasadena.
I see.
So you get the yo-yos made in China and then you would sort of put the polyurethane disc, basically the slammer, into the yo-yo.
It turns out that we were on the cusp at that time of the greatest yo-yo craze in the history of yo-yos.
Wait, why?
What happened?
There was a guy who invented something called the brain, which was a yo-yo.
That was a high-tech yo-yo that could sleep, which means spin at the end of the string automatically, without any talent.
That is the essential move of yo-yo-dom.
If you're an old-school yo-yo, you would need to learn how to make it sleep, but this would sleep automatically and caused a huge explosion of interest, because everybody could look like a pro.
All of a sudden, every kid wanted a yo-yo.
Yes, and that's exactly right.
But you were not making the sleeper yo-yo.
You were just making a regular yo-yo.
But again, I wasn't making the original pod, but I was involved in a major craze that's sweeping through the culture.
Again, 10-year-old boys.
And I went to like there was a science store from public television.
That was in the malls at that time.
And a scorpion yo-yo was perfect for them.
And so that was my first time I ever sold directly to a major account.
So how did you have?
I mean, with the pogs and the slammers, you had a guy who bought, you know who bought them from you and then distributed them.
But now you had the yo-yo.
So I'm assuming you had some connections in the industry at this point where you could find somebody willing to buy them and distribute them.
No, it was, you know, I just was learning how to be in business.
So at this point, I personally contacted the buyer at the science store.
And then somebody told me, that you can't do all these sales yourself.
You know, you can't expect to do well if you're just going to call the buyers at the major stores.
You need an organization and you need sales reps, essentially.
And I hired a sales manager and that's what transformed my business.
Yeah, so you hire a sales manager to basically go directly to these retailers.
That's right.
And actually hire a group of reps that would go to all the retailers in the country.
Put a nationwide sales network together for me overnight.
Basically, sales reps know people all over the country.
And so, Scorpion Yo, it turns out you don't just have to sell them to science stores.
They also sell extremely well in Toys R Us.
So I started to get my big...
My first big customers.
And I sold millions of Scorpion Yo-Yos globally.
Wow.
It was crazy.
And Toys R Us still in the late 90s was probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest...
Absolutely.
I think for a long time they were my biggest customer, even for the rate scooters and stuff like that.
That and a Happy Meal at McDonald's were two, and I didn't get them very often.
It was just amazing.
Amazing.
Yes, and it's a great sadness that we don't have a specialty toy store nationwide anymore.
All right, so you get these yo-yos, these scorpion yo-yos, and what?
Like, all of a sudden, basically, your gamble on all these scorpions pays off.
And I have to order more.
Absolutely.
I have to order many more.
I have to order millions of scorpions, and the price keeps going up with the scorpions.
And I have all these employees.
Still making them in a warehouse in L.A.?
In South Pasadena.
I could never get anybody else to make them.
Never could figure that out, you know.
Wow.
Because you knew that the craze would end.
Yes.
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.
So already once those those yo-yos went and they sell, they sold well.
Extremely well.
Order, reorder, reorder, reorder.
Yep.
So you were like making pretty decent money already.
Yes.
At that point, I was on paper making lots of money more than I way more than I would be as a lawyer.
Right.
Right.
And I'm very grateful to my wife for her patience because she was a lawyer.
That meant I could reinvest all the capital to keep the business growing.
So I didn't really wasn't really able to take out a big salary or any salary, really.
All right.
So you are – you know that this is not going to last.
And does that mean you're already starting to keep your eyes peeled for what the next – Absolutely.
And what were you doing?
Were you just reading, looking, like going – I don't know.
I don't know.
Honestly, I don't know why this is part of my personality.
Like I don't know exactly why, but I'm just just keeping.
The only way you can describe it is keeping your eyes open and talking to everybody and seeing what's happening.
And somebody I met introduced me to somebody who was selling something called fingerboards.
Oh, yes.
And people know them today as Tech Deck.
Yeah.
They're like little skateboards.
Miniature skateboards.
That's right.
And you'd use your fingers to, like, you know, play with them.
I remember my nephews used to play with them.
Yes, exactly right.
And they still do.
But this was a very, again, Southern California, very organic movement.
First, you know, it was just kids doing it with cardboard cutouts of skateboards.
Then the person that I met had the idea to brand them.
He had arrangements with all the skateboard companies to put the branding of the skateboard on.
In the fingerboard.
And they were called fingerboards.
But the person that invented it didn't have access to major companies like Toys R Us and Walmart and all that kind of stuff.
Right.
And I did.
So we struck a deal and I manufactured them.
And these were just finger skateboards.
Finger skateboards at first.
This was a major craze.
And of course, you know, by this time I learned about product differentiation.
So I made all kinds of like parts of the street landscape, like barrels, 55 gallon drums and little barrels and street cones, so that kids could fantasize playing with their fingerboards.
And then i also um branched out into things like DMX bikes and surfboards and pretty much any other extreme sport.
I would go and get a famous brand and put it on it and, you know, sell it.
And where were you manufacturing these?
China.
The guy who made the yo-yos was my connection.
And he started to make all this stuff for me.
It was, again, they were flying off the shelves.
And I had, of course, the original brand name, which was Fingerboard.
Tactic came out as a competitor and And they were more authentic-looking than mine at the time.
You know, I had the original old-school one, and they had a sort of more authentic-looking piece.
The company's called Tech Deck?
Yeah, it was called Tech Deck.
Now it's owned by Spin Master, who are good friends of mine.
And they basically kind of copied the idea?
Basically, they did.
Yes, absolutely.
And so...
What happened?
I mean, you had these products.
Did they kind of take your market share?
They did.
Yes.
I had a niche, but they were far more experienced and advanced in the toy business than I was and had deeper relationships with all these retailers.
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, my understanding of the world.
All right, so you're kind of pushed out of this business.
A little bit.
But I also knew that, whatever the situation is, it's not going to last forever, because it's such an amazing craze.
Carlton, let me ask you a question.
Yes.
Did you ever get like already at this point?
Were you thinking in your mind I have got to find something that is more long-lasting, like a more enduring toy.
No.
No.
I mean, I just couldn't.
This is how I thought toys were.
Period.
This is I mean, this is my only niche.
And I was just moving a million miles an hour.
And it was emotionally draining to have your whole business collapse every year or year and a half.
So at any moment, I thought this whole thing is going to just stop, you know, the whole business.
Yes, absolutely.
It was terrifying.
When we come back in just a moment, Carlton goes through yet another boom and yet another bust.
This time with the Razor scooter.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz.
So it's 1999 and Carlton has lost his grip on the fingerboard craze.
And he's looking for an idea that could be just as popular.
So I'm reading an article in the L.A.
Times.
And there's an article about adults in Japan, in Tokyo, riding scooters called the Razor scooter.
And I immediately thought to myself well, I'm in the craze business and I also make miniature extreme sports items.
This is going to be my ticket to kill, you know, tech tech.
You know I'm going to be the guy that gets the Razor Scooter license to make miniature Razor scooters.
Because I just know this is going to.
I sense this is going to come to the United States and be huge.
And so somehow I got the telephone number of the company, JD, you know, JD Scooter Company. that was making these scooters, invented the scooters.
And these were making, they were making them in China?
China.
And they were called Razor scooters already?
They were called everything.
But there, when they started, they put a name on the ones that were coming directly from them.
But they were a Chinese factory.
So they would make under, they were made under many different brands in Japan already.
And already they were getting orders from other people.
You know I'm not the only guy For sure that once something is super hot in Japan, they figure this is coming to the United States.
Okay, but to be clear, your vision was not to import these ride-on scooters, right?
It was to have the company that makes them make miniature versions, like a miniature Razor.
Exactly right.
But then I guess there must have been a point where you're where you're thinking wait a minute, I'm focusing on the wrong thing here.
Like, why don't I why not just sell the actual scooter like the life sized version?
Absolutely.
For the first time in my life, I was not going to be. somebody participating in a craze i had the notion that i could be the craze you know yeah and that was it i had this like like i why should i make a a knockoff essentially of a razor scooter i you know knockoff is a not a very nice word like my scorpion yo-yos weren't really knockoffs they're they're innovative blah blah blah but they were still just participating in a craze not owning a craze Right.
Right.
OK, so you you decide to sell the actual scooter in the US.
And, from from what I gather, like to get the ball rolling on this.
You connect with with two guys who will soon, eventually become your business partners.
Starting with, there's a guy in LA is a guy named Robert Chen.
And who exactly was Robert?
So he was an inventor.
And he was doing folding bikes that he invented.
So he had a warehouse in Cerritos, which is where our headquarters is now.
And also was getting interested in, you know, helping Gino with the Razor scooter business business, because it was just going crazy in Japan already.
Gino Tsai.
I'm sorry, Gino Tsai.
Sorry to introduce him.
A genius, amazing human being, wonderful human being too who was the inventor and the creator and the original Razor, Scooter guy.
Right.
Gino had been an entrepreneur, for he and Robert are older than me and they had been entrepreneurs for longer.
He didn't waste time going to medical, I mean, the law school.
And, you know, so they knew business.
He had maybe 10 different companies at that time.
He was a wealthy man already.
So what I mean?
Why would I mean?
You already had some experience clearly, with the yo-yos and the pogs and the fingerboards.
How did you convince them to give you the license?
No, this is a great question.
I mean, this is like an amazing part of, like, how this happens.
I mean, basically, it was based on trust, right?
And Robert is like, I want it.
It's hard to express how good a person and honest Robert is.
And Gino too.
And we all, and I like to think of myself that way too.
And we got in Robert and I had an immediate connection.
And you know a lot of untrustworthy people were approaching him, you know not with, and also they didn't have this grand vision.
You know, the grand vision is stop what you're doing, which is a big risk on their part, and own a brand.
And the brand is everything.
I mean, I clearly like any number of people, I had my relationships with Toys R Us and Walmart and Amazon not Amazon Target, you know all the players and I could bring them to the stores.
But, but of course they were not selling to the stores.
They were selling to distributors.
And so I was going to get them wholesale prices instead of them selling it through a middleman who then sold it to Toys R Us or Walmart.
So there was a big opportunity to capture more profit for them.
But the big concept was branding and building a company for the future.
So instead of just being a white-labeled scooter, we're going to call it Razor.
That's right.
And you were going to get the license for North America?
Globally.
And it wasn't a license.
I went into partnership with JD.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was a partnership.
So you become a partner.
Did you have, did you have to buy into it?
For not, nobody had to put any capital in.
My businesses tend not to be in capital intensive but you know you'll appreciate this.
You know business people appreciate this.
A business of this size that we formed would ordinarily require a lot of capital, but But we were in very unique times and it's exclusive to Crazes.
But these, Toys R Us and Walmart were paying COD for scooters to me.
Wow.
I know.
You would get paid on delivery, not 90 days later?
Not 90 days later, not five days later.
How?
How?
They needed them.
They wanted them.
And, and, That's I never could believe it.
But that's how I finance the company.
But this is before you.
When you I mean when you got that, when they agree to work with you, you still have to pitch it to Toys R Us.
So what did you go?
Where was Toys R Us headquarters at the time?
New Jersey.
So did you fly to New Jersey with one of these things?
Absolutely.
Yes.
And right away they were like, we're in.
Yeah.
No, this is the biggest craze ever.
Like and maybe they were already being sold by knockoffs.
Even faster than razor could get into the market in the U?
S.
They might've been being sold in like convenience stores in LA.
You know, just like the pogs, like they're in.
And, and certainly as it progressed, it got to the point where you could go to a pizza shop and they'd be selling knockoff scooters.
Wow.
Not razor scooters.
Right.
So your pitch to Toys R Us is we get these in fast and At scale.
That's right.
We've got the manufacturing capacity.
From the original.
You don't have to deal with these knockoffs anymore.
Right.
Yes.
And Toys R Us says, all right, we're going to order these.
We're going to put an order and we want them in all of our stores.
Absolutely.
How long between the time that you get, you know, the green light until the time they're actually delivered.
Was it quick?
Yes.
I think they were like, no, like a month.
Wow.
Yes.
They were just cranking them out in China.
Yes.
Yes.
In anticipation.
And they shut down all these other, you know, customers.
So they didn't have to make them and slap all these other weird brands on them.
They could just put Razor on all of them and ship them to me, and I would ship them to Toys R Us and the other retailers.
Did you need a lot of employees in the U.S. to make this happen?
I immediately scaled up to a real company.
I had three employees selling fingerboards.
And I put together a whole team.
Like I had a you know uh president.
I had vice, you know, vice president of sales marketing, just a the skeleton.
But you know customer service, every kind of, and i didn't even know honestly, i had no idea what a company looked like, like i didn't know that you needed a marketing vp or a finance vp or a sales vp.
I had no idea.
I just thought oh, you just do it all yourself.
But that's not it, nope.
And you're eight years into doing this kind of work.
No, I'm only like been doing like serious.
You know it took me a long time to get from, you know, making children's books to actually doing the pogs.
You know, that was a and then from the pogs, it was probably just three years.
So now at this point, do you rename the company Razor?
Yeah.
So you create a completely new entity called Razor USA?
Yes.
Yep.
Okay.
With real, like, experienced people, you know, in real jobs.
And me.
Okay.
And how much was each scooter going to sell for?
The scooter sold for, retailed at $100.
And immediately I came up like really incredibly quickly, with all like good better best, classic.
Because I'd already been in business a little bit.
Yeah.
So it went from like $100 retail for the base model to like $140 for one with some parts to it.
Like a suspension or wheelie bar, all kinds of little Like.
We had the A, the A2, the A3 and we were golden.
So, from what I understand, it's around June of 2000 when they start to get sold in the US, the Razor scooters.
Yes.
And...
I mean, craze is an understatement.
Yes.
What happened?
So I was selling a million scooters a month.
From the get-go?
From the get-go.
Just because they were at Toys R Us and Walmart and where else?
Yep.
Target, I think.
Sharper Image.
I mean, everywhere.
Everywhere.
You know places that would normally All the sporting goods stores I sold to Dick's Sporting Goods Sports Authority.
You know, I don't even... It's so hard to... You know, it's like...
You know Beanie Babies or you know Cabbage Patch Kids at the time when you know parents are scrambling for them and can't get them.
It was ridiculous.
It was a once in a lifetime experience for me and just once in generational sales.
Why were these so popular?
What's your theory?
Why was there such a craze around these things?
That's a good question.
I mean, I sort of take these things on face value.
But scooters have always been popular.
But these were small, made out of aluminum, so super light.
And they had ball bearing, you know, wheels from rollerblades.
And that is made them much better at scootering. then the old fat better.
It's sort of like the brain, like a technological improvement.
They were aesthetically beautiful, which isn't always the case.
They were culturally, they were used by adults and children.
That was, I think, influential.
So adults could talk about them and ride them in a way that like yo-yos were never used by adults.
So it had a broader appeal, you know, and it had something to do with, You know, the Internet coming and they were used in Silicon Valley, you know, in warehouses.
Yeah, people would use them like they'd fling them over their shoulders.
That's right.
Unfold them.
There was this vision of future transportation where adults would be riding scooters.
There was a, my favorite thing, a cover of the New Yorker of a guy riding, you know, razor scooter.
And then another man riding a tricycle.
You know, Just infuse the culture in a way that, like yo-yos didn't or other other crazes happened before.
All right.
So this is like the year 2000.
Yes.
It's going nuts.
Yes.
And you're selling a million a month.
Yes.
And just overwhelmed.
Yes.
Just totally overwhelmed.
But this sounds like it was different, that this wasn't not going to be a flash in the pan.
This was going to be lasting.
Did you feel that way?
I had no idea.
You know, I probably in the back of my mind was thinking, how long is this going to last?
Honestly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what I don't understand is, I mean, you've got this thing.
It's selling like crazy in the summer of 2000.
Where's Mattel?
Where's Hasbro?
Where are the big toy companies?
Why aren't they jumping on this and just cranking these out?
They can't move that fast is essentially the answer.
It's just too fast for them.
And also they're probably wise.
They're like wise but incorrect.
They're like, oh, this is going to be over before we could get into it.
So we won't be able to sell any, right?
And when did the copycats start to come out?
No, they were there at the beginning.
Because they knew and that's right.
And they're quick acting.
Yes.
And did you have?
I mean, I remember you know I've ridden razor scooters and like it had the fender on the back.
That was the brake, for example.
So was was it a patent?
Was it?
Yes.
This was where my legal training came in handy.
But yes, we had a patent.
And that could also be a reason.
But I'm not sure that other bigger companies didn't get involved because they were aware of our patent.
We certainly publicized it right away, but mostly people ignored the fact that we had a patent.
And this is already the beginning of, like you know, Chinese factories starting to just crank out copycats of products.
So you have an option here.
You can just ignore them and just really double down on your brand or you could go after them.
I think you chose to start to sue them.
We did.
We did a major lawsuit.
And this is in 2000.
In 2000, in the fall.
And did the litigation instantly stop their sales?
Like, did you have an injunction?
We prevailed quickly.
I believe we got a preliminary injunction.
I believe that the lawyers were great and we were able to have an injunction against everybody.
Did you, but did it eat into your sales?
It did not.
I sold as many as I could manufacture. during the time I was selling them.
So I couldn't have sold any more than I did.
But they sold a lot.
And helped cause the thing that always happens, which is the sales completely stopped on a dime.
Wait, how?
What do you mean?
They stopped when they stopped in spring of the spring of 2001?
Yes, they stopped on a dime.
I could not sell a single scooter out of my warehouse, Wait.
So in June of 2000, you were selling a million a month.
Yes.
Through the rest of the year.
Yes.
You're selling a million a month at least.
Yes.
And in the spring of, so like by March of 2000.
January of 2001.
Yes.
You couldn't sell one that sales stopped?
Yes.
It doesn't make sense.
It makes no sense.
It doesn't make sense unless you understand crazes.
It happened to me so many times.
Which means, so this is how it relates to the knockoffs.
They were also selling at the same time.
So between the two of us, we sold a scooter to every single kid in America who wanted one.
Literally everybody between the age of five and 11 or 12 got one.
Like 10 million scooters, maybe, maybe more.
Maybe 15 million.
Yes, maybe.
Wow.
And so I maybe only had a third of the market, believe it or not.
You know, others were cheaper.
You know, I was at $100 and $130.
There were a lot of scooters sold and.
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 just do simple math that there's not that many people.
Right.
And so.
As much as I was trying to tell everybody in my organization, we can't keep ordering scooters.
We still had like a million scooters in the warehouse for the next month, sales which then were zero.
Okay, by the spring of 2001.
What are retailers just stopped ordering?
Toys R Us stops ordering them.
Yes.
Nothing.
Nothing.
They've gone from, we will pay you whatever it takes, to we don't want these anymore.
This was the olden days.
Do you know what they said?
They said, we want you to take all these back.
We've got too much inventory.
And what did you say?
We said, no, we don't have any room in our warehouse, which has a million scooters in it.
But it was a major conflict that I had.
It was my first hardball experience with retailers.
They'd already paid you for them, right?
They'd already paid us for them.
Yeah.
I mean, my reaction was because I am... I mean, of course, I'm struggling to do everything I can.
You know, it's sort of like after the...
Pogs.
I tried to make keychains.
So I'm trying to think of anything I can do.
Yeah.
But...
Not having had a lot of success with keychains, my impulse was to fire everybody.
That was my impulse.
Just basically kind of collapsed the business and cut back.
Yeah, like I could do it myself.
Like it would be me and Robert and a couple people.
You were that concerned about the business surviving?
Absolutely.
Because I never had a craze that continued before.
I never had a craze that continued before.
And I never had a brand before.
And I didn't understand what it meant to own a brand.
I thought I just had the next yo-yo or the next you know fingerboard and that it was just all over and that there was hardly any business here.
You know that I couldn't handle just by myself, because I handled fingerboards and pogs by myself.
So you are thinking about, and how many employees did you have at the time?
Probably 45 or 50.
Yes.
This is like the fourth time that my entire business has completely collapsed.
And I'm like and now I got all these people looking at me and like okay, now come on, where's your next hit?
But I don't think I'll be able to do it again.
And I'm just a very, very frugal, you know, and not optimistic, skeptical person.
And I just said, it's over.
We should just save every penny we can.
When we come back in just a moment, how Razor scooters turn a corner after going electric.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz.
So it's early 2001.
The razor craze has collapsed and Carlton is ready to fire a bunch of people and manage the business by himself.
But his partner, Robert, he says no.
He's just like, you shouldn't do this.
You just have to have more faith that we'll be able to come up with new things and we.
You know I really respect Robert so much.
And, you know, again, for so many years, we just had this partnership where we talk over everything.
And I don't get set in my ideas, I like to think.
I think I'm open-minded.
And he has a lot of influence over me, and he persuaded me is really the answer.
And I just did.
I just kept going.
Okay, before we find out what happened...
What about the inventory that you had?
I mean, you had all of this inventory.
What was going to happen to that inventory?
Really, what happened was, so to be really candid, is that Gino was a great partner.
And, you know, these scooters did not cost very much to manufacture.
You know, he owns Razor.
But he also owned the factory that made them and he charged us a pretty penny for those scooters.
And so we owed him a lot of money for these like leftovers.
We'd already paid him for all the other scooters.
But you know, but for the leftover scooters he said listen, I'm going to you know, help you with that.
You know, you don't have to pay me the full price on those scooters.
And so, but that came out of all, you know, all of our profit essentially.
Um, but he took a hit, we took a hit.
And so I just sat on him.
I sat on him but, you know, 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.
You know, at that time, you know, there were four million new scooters, customers turning from four-year-olds old, where they couldn't write a razor scooter, to five years old.
So there was still all the new kids.
So wonderful, they were not a flash in the pan.
That's basically the answer.
That's what i mean.
Yeah, because so.
So it was this craze.
Right, all of a sudden, everybody had one, but really it was the beginning and of a Kind of a classic toy.
Absolutely.
Which is so rare.
Yes, exactly right.
It became a foundational part of childhood and is.
You still sell them today.
Yes.
I mean, I think that, you know, to be just totally fair.
Our patent has expired.
Yeah.
And at lower price points.
I'm more of a quality-based, higher-end scooter, even at the basic 30 scooter.
So I don't have the market share that I had of that product that I did originally.
Right.
But everybody gets some form of the scooter that I sell.
Like you think about sort of foundational toys like a bike and a skateboard.
It's even more than a skateboard because it doesn't take as much talent as a skateboard to ride.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But now you are in a category which is wheeled mobility toys.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
This is different than the pogs and the slammers.
And so now I'm assuming you're trying to find things that work within that category.
Correct.
And also…
For the first time I had a brand.
So when you have a brand, I began to think of brand extensions.
So just commonsensical things.
When we came up, you know it was just like a theme, but that we would try to do what we did with the scooter, essentially.
You know, which is look at the classic toys that young kids have, like, you know, power wheels or pogo sticks, or we had a lot of them.
And we would just razorize them.
So we'd bring them out in shiny aluminum and higher quality and some innovation.
I always wanted to do something innovative with the product, too.
So, you know, updated versions of classic products.
Like big wheels, which were made out of plastic.
Originally, and we made it out of aluminum.
Aluminum, okay.
And actually, when we did it, the market was primed and accepting.
It really was like anything with razor on it had appeal.
And so that item sold well.
It wasn't a crazy hit, but it sold well.
And it was basically an updated version of a big wheel, which is an updated version of a tricycle.
That's right.
Yeah, we called it the Scream Machine.
So the business began to thrive almost immediately, because both scooters began to sell again like immediately.
Maybe after eight months or something.
And people were buying these new products from Razer.
They were very supportive.
Toys R Us were supportive.
People believed in Razer as a brand.
And they were good products without being crazy hits.
But of course, me as my personality, I'm looking for something magical.
Always.
Always.
And what was the next magical thing?
The next magical thing was an electric scooter.
So this is already in like, this is back in like 2005, I think.
Yeah, very early on.
I mean, this is before it was even on people's radar screens.
Way before, right.
It was basically a battery-powered scooter with a throttle and a brake, right?
That's right.
And actually the first...
The first iteration was really outside inventor.
They made a battery powered motor that could mount on a razor scooter.
And that sold well.
But it didn't take me long to realize that was not the way to sell an electric scooter.
You don't want to just like bolt one on.
You want to make it from the ground up as an electric scooter.
And this really begins your I wouldn't say a total shift, but a kind of a shift into a powered, electrified scooter.
Right on things like not just scooters but then dirt bikes and like like sort of ATV style vehicles.
But that were not ATVs or dirt bikes that were thousands of dollars, but that were more like toys.
Exactly right.
This was transformative.
This was explosive.
Again, this so the the electric scooters, as soon as I put them out there, they flew off the shelf.
It was great sales.
And then but you didn't you didn't abandon analog things.
There's a product that you guys bring out in 2006 called the ripstick, which is I still see them.
It's like basically imagine two sort of platforms connected by a by a rod.
And it's like a kind of a skateboard meets.
I don't know what.
And it's it like I've tried to stand on these things.
I don't have the balance, but.
This thing, how did this thing come about?
So this is again.
I was in my own neighborhood and all of a sudden I saw like five kids on something called the wave board.
And I said, okay, this is a craze.
So I called a couple of my peoples who sold into smaller venues and they go, yeah, this is crazy.
And so I contacted the inventor and And I said, you got to do it with us.
We're going to make this a giant craze.
And we did.
And again, it was like the formula was, let's come up with something.
We'll put it in Toys R Us.
Yes.
And Walmart.
And so it was like, if you build it, they will come.
Absolutely.
It sold itself.
It was just out of control.
When did that model start to shift?
What do you mean?
Like, I mean, obviously Toys R Us isn't there anymore.
And, you know, Walmart and Target still sell toys, but it's somewhat different.
I mean, was there a point where you couldn't just make a toy, put it there?
I think there, so there's a distinction.
Like if it's a craze, that still works.
Very few crazes.
So we also discovered television.
And so we could take innovative items that were not organically growing, like the, you know Ripstick was.
That had an organic momentum word of mouth that exploded into the culture and everyone had to have one.
But we were coming across very good items that didn't have any organic momentum on their own, so they needed television advertising to get them going.
And through a very long phase of making wheel goods which nobody had been doing and putting them on TV.
But it sounds like by the time you start to release these electric versions, these are battery powered versions of you know of little motorcycles and go karts and dirt bikes, and then you the ripstick that you start to, you really find a way to, to create some kind of stability in the company, the brand.
Oh, yes.
The Razor scooter was notoriously, you know, something that was created and lasted forever.
And actually these electric motorcycles and scooters.
They just keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger.
And they're not as easy to to knock off as the scooter.
It's not so much the patent but the actual technology in making them is quite challenging to do it well.
And so that is, we have a very, very steady business on our evergreen items.
Let me ask you about – because I want to get into really the other product that would also blow up, called the hoverboards, which is not a hoverboard.
It's not hovering like Back to the Future.
It looks like it.
But it's basically like a Segway without the handlebars, right?
And this is kind of – begins around 2015.
Yes.
Before we get to that story –
What were you doing about copycats?
Were you still suing people who were knocking off your electric scooters and things like that?
Or were you just saying, it is what it is, and let's just focus on it?
Yeah, I mean, basically my patents on the scooters were expiring.
And people can't successfully—haven't yet.
So there's the— measured pessimists in me haven't yet successfully knocked off the electric product.
Right.
Okay.
And your main sales channel was still the retail stores?
Yes.
The physical stores?
Yes.
When did that start to shift to Amazon and to online?
You know, when the day Amazon started buying, we started to shift with them.
We were very early on Amazon.
But we had two dramatic shifts.
The most saddest dramatic shift for Razer 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 got way behind it.
And we could always rely on three big customers Walmart, Target and Toys R Us if we're going to put something on television, that they would get behind it and support it.
And now, without Toys R Us, you lose a third of the triad.
And we really lost a very significant part of our sales when Toys R Us went bankrupt.
And it was not completely replaced by the other people.
All right.
Let's talk about the hoverboard.
So this is a product that I guess is brought to you by an inventor.
Yes.
Or you discover it.
And it's a guy named Shane Chen.
Yes.
And tell me about how you came across this product and also why you thought it was going to just go crazy.
So I had a really good relationship with Shane.
And every year he would show me these wild and crazy inventions that he made.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, I'm happy to keep showing me, you know, we could try it a little bit, but I don't know.
It just seems too odd.
And amongst the things that I kept rejecting was the hoverboard.
And I kept saying, um, you know, it's too hard to use.
You know, I can't, I can't ride it.
And if I can't ride it, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to sell it.
Right.
And then I had my incredible, you know, marketing guy who has been with me from the start Ollie he, he even was like he could ride anything.
And he's like, this isn't so easy to ride.
But then at some point, like everything, that is really going to be a phenomenon, it began to catch on on its own, without my help, without anybody's help.
And I said, Chain, it's time to be in business again.
And that was that.
And he invented it.
He had the patent on it.
And we signed a deal.
Now there was, you know I had to like fend off, as I often do, you know, fend off other people who want to sell it.
But I was successful and I have a long relationship with Shane, so it wasn't impossible.
And we got it.
And it was like another incredible, it was like our peak year.
It was the second major cultural event that we were involved in.
Jamie Foxx, like, came out onto The Tonight Show on one at one point.
Justin Bieber had one.
Everybody.
All those... It was, again, a huge cultural phenomenon.
So, really, I mean...
You were, you know, just expanding, constantly expanding your line.
I mean, today you've got so many.
How many different products do you sell?
Right.
Yeah.
And what is your best-selling product today?
The electric motorcycle and the electric scooter.
I mean, in terms of dollars, in terms of dollars.
And then the scooter obviously sells quite a bit, too.
So we're back to sort of steady Eddie, you know, looking for our next craze.
So the year after last year was quite good for us.
This year looks well.
This year is another horror show.
Because of Terrace.
Yeah, because of Terrace.
Because everything you make is coming from China, basically.
Yes.
And we have a little bit of operations in Vietnam, but China.
And so what does that mean for your business right now?
I mean, it was an unmitigated disaster.
I have made money every single year.
I was actually thinking we were going to lose money this year.
You know, you're getting hot news, I suppose.
I mean, I don't know who else you're talking to, but our prices are significantly higher at retail.
We're not benefiting from it because it's really, you know, retailers who forced to raise prices because of the tariffs, but they're using it to pay the tariff and they don't pay us anymore and our sales are going down.
Their sales are good.
If you look at their total dollar volume of sales, they've raised the prices.
They're selling fewer units, but their overall dollar transaction is good.
But our sales are going down.
But we're not crashing.
But it's a terrible situation.
Yeah.
And so how do you what do you do?
I mean, at first, you know I've got a really great team and we just madly began to figure out how to ship from Vietnam or, you know, Vietnam essentially or Thailand.
You know, we began to move everything.
Until it was a pause.
And then we sort of moved everything back.
But we're just basically running around like our chicken with his head cut off, trying to respond to what's ever happening next.
What about looking for the next thing?
Like it's still part of your like ethos.
It is part of our ethos.
But this is like a very interesting conversation.
Because I am looking to make some art at this point.
So maybe looking to sell the company.
Well, not so much sell the company, but I want to pass on to the next generation.
I'm 63 years old.
You've got kids.
Are they interested?
Not at all.
Nope.
They want to be filmmakers.
Because it's still privately owned.
Still privately owned.
Yep.
And so I'm really looking to empower the next generation.
I just would.
In some weird idealistic way, I would like to see it live forever.
Essentially, the company.
What do you think could be the next Razor scooter or hoverboard?
Oh, you know, if I knew that.
But actually, what's interesting, what I'm working on is that intrigues me, and this is going to be just sound... boring at this point but i think um discovering trends using artificial intelligence or some other method of combing the culture for what's happening and finding it early that's what was in my weird brain and being able to figure out how to do that you know algorithmically is very intriguing to me i mean i don't know that it's going to happen i can't promise it's going to happen that's one thing that's very exciting to me.
And in fact, exciting to me in general is artificial intelligence for the business.
For sure.
I'm very interested in how that could, could roll through the business.
Carlton, when you think about you know the, just the journey you took.
I mean, you know, went to law school, almost became a lawyer and kind of fell into the toy business because you wanted to make you know, fairytale picture books and start with these pogs and then kind of cut the bug and built a really you know significant brand here with Razor.
How much of it do you attribute to the work you put in?
How much do you attribute to luck and timing?
I love the luck story.
What if I didn't read the article in the LA Times that the Razor Scooter was going crazy in Tokyo?
And what if Robert hadn't been such an amazing person, such a visionary, to put you know me and Gino together with him and start the company.
And what if we had shut down?
You know, because I was discouraged the year after.
You know there's all these like luck is so humbling as part of success.
And you know, things happen in a cultural moment, which means you can never bring back the hula hoop.
Like, how do we explain things like this?
I often think that you know the Beatles.
If you brought them into the market today, might not, you know, become famous?
I mean, I feel I do have this like weird ability to like hone into the culture early and act quickly.
But luck is such a wonderful thing.
There's just no way around it.
That's Carlton Calvin, co-founder of Razor.
By the way, pogs and slammers, they've not totally gone away.
You can still buy them on Amazon and you can find the slammers with the scorpions inside on eBay.
And because the phrase scorpion slammer is so unforgettable, it's also the name of a very hot hot sauce made, of course, with scorpion chilies.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
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This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui.
It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Sam Paulson.
Our engineers are Patrick Murray and Maggie Luther.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, Ramel Wood, Andrea Bruce and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.
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