[00:00:28] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. You may notice I'm somewhere different today, not in the regular studio. That's because we have a very special guest today. He's here to talk about his book, No Experience Necessary. I wanna get right to it. I think normally I'd probably go through an introduction, and it'd be a lot of stuff to talk about, his very long history, but you can Google him at the end if that's what you wanna do.

So, with no further ado, the man that's probably been in your closet in some form ...since you were a kid, Ronnen Harary. 

[00:00:55] Ronnen: Jay. 

[00:00:55] Jay: Thanks, buddy. How are you? 

[00:00:56] Ronnen: Pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

[00:00:57] Jay: Thanks for being here. All right, so my favorite question I ask everybody to kick off 

[00:01:00] Ronnen: The man with six kids. 

[00:01:01] Jay: Six 

[00:01:01] Ronnen: Okay

[00:01:01] Jay: Well 

[00:01:02] Ronnen: God bless this man over here. 

[00:01:03] Jay: I've supported most of your career, I think, with all my children, so you are welcome. All right, so where did you grow up, and did that have an impact on you being an entrepreneur? And where... I know grow up may be different things for you. 

[00:01:13] Ronnen: You know, I was actually born in South Africa, and I moved to Toronto when I was five, and when I was 10 years old, I got identified with a learning disability called dysgraphia, which is the inability for my hands to keep up with my thoughts, and my handwriting was very illegible.

and soon after getting identified with a learning disability, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. There was just this intuitive knowing it that I had that academics were really not gonna be my path. Even though I finished high school, I went to university and thank God I actually went to university 'cause I found my business partners there, but I just knew intuitively that I was gonna be in business.

That coupled with the fact my parents were, like, classic entrepreneur businesspeople, so business was always discussed around the house and around the table. My parents always had, like, interesting characters, you know, floating in and out of the house and stuff like that. 

[00:01:59] Jay: I love that. What do you think that you don't do today that your parents did as entrepreneurs when they were running businesses?

What's something different that... What's a different way that you do things? 

[00:02:12] Ronnen: Well, first of all, it's funny, we were talking about it at the beginning about retail. My parents had a Persian carpet gallery, and I knew instinctively from that I did not wanna be in retail. I did not want to wait for people to walk by my store 

[00:02:24] Jay: Mm-hmm

[00:02:24] Ronnen: for them to come in, like we were talking 

[00:02:26] Jay: Yep 

[00:02:26] Ronnen: about before.And, you know, my father is one of the most charismatic, like, friendly human beings, but his risk tolerance wasn't so high. And he was always the junior partner in his business, and he didn't have the majority share. 

[00:02:40] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:02:40] Ronnen: And so he was always at the whim of the majority shareholder in the business 

[00:02:45] Jay: Right

[00:02:45] Ronnen: whether or not he wanted to close or open or what he wanted to do. And for me, I always knew that I wanted to have equity in my own business. And, I wanted to create things and bring things into the world that are new and different and things that I can control. 

[00:02:58] Jay: Did his issues with partners give you any pause when you went to form a business with other people?

[00:03:04] Ronnen: No, not a... Well, the funny thing is that my business partner, I have two, I'm blessed with two, but my first business partner, Anton, we were best friends in high school 

[00:03:12] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:03:12] Ronnen: and we said we'd never work together. 

[00:03:14] Jay: Sure. 

[00:03:14] Ronnen: 'Cause it's not good for friendship. 

[00:03:15] Jay: Right. 

[00:03:16] Ronnen: Till we had to, till we had to pay for college.

So we started a business together to pay the bills. It was better than selling fertilizer. 

[00:03:23] Jay: Well, all right. So that's a great segue. It was Campus Faces, right? 

[00:03:27] Ronnen: Correct. 

[00:03:27] Jay: Is that what it was? All right. So who was the first college kid to buy your ad, and how high were they? 

[00:03:36] Ronnen: Well, it wasn't... The way the poster worked was we would actually take pictures of students during frosh week.

[00:03:40] Jay: Okay. 

[00:03:41] Ronnen: And then we'd create... This is pre-internet, okay? 

[00:03:43] Jay: Sure. 

[00:03:44] Ronnen: Pre-internet, and then so we'd create a collage of all the different students, and we'd sell advertising around the perimeter, and we'd print up the posters and give them to the students for free to hang in their college dorms. So the first customer that actually bought advertising from us, I think it was, like, Paramount Tavern.

They were like a Greek restaurant, if I remember correctly. And I think we had Subway sandwiches on there also 

[00:04:04] Jay: Okay 

[00:04:05] Ronnen: back in the day. It was all 

[00:04:06] Jay: How did you, how did you convince people, though, like, to give you 20, 10 bucks or whatever it was to put an ad on, or however much it was? How did you guys convince people, college kids?

[00:04:12] Ronnen: Well, first of all, a poster generated $12,000, okay? And we took deposits of 4,000, and then second deposits of another four, and then when we completed the poster, it was another four. but we were actually able to get $4,000 of deposit without even producing the product yet, which was amazing. But we lucked out because what happened was there was seniors that had been producing a poster like this before we came to school.

[00:04:36] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:36] Ronnen: And they graduated, and they just didn't sell the business. They just left it. 

[00:04:40] Jay: So you guys just scooped it up and 

[00:04:41] Ronnen: So we picked it up, and we continued where they left off. 

[00:04:46] Jay: All right. Let's talk about maybe the first real thing, Earth Buddy, I guess. Was that the first real kind of product? 

[00:04:53] Ronnen: It was.

[00:04:53] Jay: After that you guys went along and stuck together or how'd you guys come back together or was it just you? 

[00:04:58] Ronnen: No, no, so 

[00:04:58] Jay: Like, what was Earth Buddy and how, where... Give me the time between 

[00:05:01] Ronnen: So basically 

[00:05:01] Jay: the poster and that 

[00:05:02] Ronnen: So the poster we did in first year, second year, third year 

[00:05:04] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:05:04] Ronnen: and fourth year.

And then when we graduated, my mother was reading this Israeli newspaper. 

[00:05:09] Jay: So the story is true. I was gonna ask you. 

[00:05:12] Ronnen: Right. 

[00:05:12] Jay: All right. I heard this yeah, the newspaper your mom is the genesis of this. Okay. All right. I was gonna ask you that. 

[00:05:16] Ronnen: Yeah, yeah. So she's reading this newspaper, and there was a two-page spread talking about these six different people that were manufacturing and selling this thing called the Grasshead.

And in classic Israeli form, they were all giving away their numbers, right? And so I added it up, and it was 300,000 pieces in a country of 10 million. So I said to myself, "That's a lot." 

[00:05:34] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:35] Ronnen: And no one's doing a year in North America. And my late grandmother came a couple weeks later. She brought me and my sisters these Grassheads for presents.

And then I drove up to Western, where Anton was still finishing college, and I said to him, "What do you think about making these?" And he thought I was crazy. And then I went back up again, and I'm like, "We should do this. No one's doing it." And he's like, "Okay, let's do it." And then next thing I know, we found ourselves in a Kmart, and we're buying, like, pantyhose and sawdust and, you know, different supplies.

[00:06:01] Jay: Such a great story 

[00:06:03] Ronnen: And then we said to ourselves, "Let's make 5,000 pieces for Mother's Day." Right? And that's what we did. I got my sister. She designed the packaging. We gave her 5% profit sharing. I got my brother-in-law, who's actually a brilliant engineer, and he actually set up the contraptions to actually produce the 5,000 pieces.

[00:06:20] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:20] Ronnen: Gave him 5% profit sharing on Earth Buddies alone. Started hiring people from a homeless shelter, and we made the first 5,000 pieces and started selling it in eight locations in the city of Toronto. 

[00:06:32] Jay: There's so much to dig into there. But how did you pitch, like, a pantyhose full of pencil shavings to, like, a store and be like, "People are gonna buy this"?

Like, what, like was there proof? Did you use the Grassheads thing and be like, "Hey, this is actually gonna be a thing that people will like here"? Like, how'd you introduce it here into the American market? 

[00:06:50] Ronnen: Well, first of all, you have to appreciate that it's like you put it in water and it grows grass for hair.

And it's the most magical thing. It's a cross between, like, a Chia Pet and a Pet Rock. 

[00:06:59] Jay: Yep. 

[00:06:59] Ronnen: It was the Pet Rock of the early '90s. And when people saw it, it's just, like, so adorable and lovable. So it's kinda... And it's so magical that it actually could sprout hair or grass for hair.

But you know, our first big customer was Kmart 

[00:07:14] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:07:14] Ronnen: in the United States, and it's a crazy, crazy, crazy happenstance of events that got us in here. But people really wanted this product because they just intuitively knew that there was something special about it. 

[00:07:29] Jay: Why couldn't somebody you were pitching that to go make the same thing?

[00:07:32] Ronnen: Well, they could. They could. When I walk 

[00:07:34] Jay: Were you guys afraid of that? Were you, like, afraid, like, we're gonna 

[00:07:36] Ronnen: No 

[00:07:36] Jay: show people this idea and they're gonna go do it? 

[00:07:39] Ronnen: Well, no, we knew it was an open market product, so we were copying someone else's product, okay? So we knew it was open market, and we said to ourselves, "We better...

Speed to market's gonna be the most important thing." 

[00:07:49] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:50] Ronnen: And we made a pivotal decision. I remember having this conversation with my mother and my grandmother. They're like, "Why don't you just order the product from someone in Israel," right? And I said, "There's no way that we can get to market quick enough unless we open up our own factory."

And that's what we did. And then we were able to supply the market. And we basically beat everybody to the market. 

[00:08:07] Jay: And how many did you sell? 

[00:08:09] Ronnen: We sold, in our first year we sold a million odd pieces. 

[00:08:12] Jay: At how much? How much were the, how much were these pantyhose?

[00:08:15] Ronnen: I think they were you know, like our average wholesale was maybe like two bucks type of thing. 

[00:08:20] Jay: Okay. 

[00:08:21] Ronnen: Right? So I think we grossed like 3 million bucks in our first year. 

[00:08:25] Jay: Now, I mean, I kinda know what the story is, and everybody else can go look it up, but like, what do you do, like, how do you take that as a signal?

Like, as a real, like, "All right, we've done something, and like, we're not gonna maybe do this forever, but we have found that we as a collective can create something cool and can hit the market and do the thing." Like, where did you guys... Did you realize that at the moment? Or were you just, like, kinda looking for the next thing after this hit its peak?

[00:08:51] Ronnen: Well, when we were in it for the first, like, six months, this was all we were consumed with. 

[00:08:55] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:56] Ronnen: Right? Just getting the orders out, filling the orders, getting our factory up to 17,500 pieces a day, 'cause we got a big order from Kmart 

[00:09:04] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:09:04] Ronnen: for half a million pieces.And I'd say around, like, October, November of that year, we started to click into the fact that this thing's not gonna last forever, and what else are we gonna do?

[00:09:12] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:13] Ronnen: And I started to notice that kids were playing with Devil Sticks in the local schools, and I used to play with them as an 18-year-old, you know, going to Grateful Dead shows. 

[00:09:22] Jay: Did you... I feel like your staff leaked my notes, 'cause these are all the thing... Well, these are all the things everybody knows about.

So is that true too? Like, that it came from the Deadhead concerts, and that's where Devil Sticks kinda got their origin? You being at Deadhead concerts? 

[00:09:34] Ronnen: Well, that's where I, that's where I got familiar with them. 

[00:09:36] Jay: Okay. Okay. All right. 

[00:09:37] Ronnen: Is through the Dead shows. 

[00:09:38] Jay: Okay. 

[00:09:38] Ronnen: And then I was like, how does it go from a Dead show, where 18 and 20-year-olds are playing with them, to 10-year-olds?

And then we were like, "Oh, maybe there's something here. We have a factory. Let's make some prototypes. Let's make some packaging." And next thing we knew, we were in Toy Fair in February of 1995, 10 months, 10 months or nine months after we started, and we were pitching these Devil Sticks. And the rep got us actually into Kmart and Toys R Us.

Sorry, not Kmart. KB Toys and Toys R Us. And we were like, "Great." And we shipped in the first bunch of products, and they started to do really well. We did a TV commercial. We started promoting them. We had two vans traveling across North America. 

[00:10:20] Jay: So this is your thing then. The you're used to this thing.

[00:10:22] Ronnen: I'm back to my roots ... I got it. 

[00:10:23] Jay: Okay. All right. 

[00:10:24] Ronnen: And then we sold a million half pieces at the end of that year, and then from there we were like, "How do we build a stable business?" And my third partner, Ben, who came into the business, when we were manufacturing the Earth Buddies, he was living with this woman whose father ran the largest toy company in Canada.

And they said to us, "If you guys really wanna get into the toy business, go meet with all these toy inventors, because what they do is they come up with ideas, but they don't actually charge you for them unless you actually sign a deal with them." 

[00:10:50] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:50] Ronnen: "And you pay them a 5% royalty in perpetuity 

[00:10:53] Jay: Sure

[00:10:53] Ronnen: on the wholesale." 

[00:10:54] Jay: Yep. 

[00:10:55] Ronnen: So that's what Ben did. He started driving around the country and meeting with all these inventors and showing them our Earth Buddies and our Devil Sticks and we were super proud of what we had made at the time. And then we started to license more toys, and we made a decision at that moment in time, we were like, "We're gonna go into the toy business.

We're open to ideas wherever they come from. We're going to not copy anybody's items. We're gonna make our own. We're gonna get patents on products and we're just gonna try to bring innovative things to the market." 

[00:11:20] Jay: Did Devil Sticks exist... So they existed in some form before... So, like, did you guys acquire that company?

Did... Was it just like a thing 

[00:11:27] Ronnen: No. No, a Devil Stick 

[00:11:27] Jay: It was just like a thing people were doing and there was no 

[00:11:29] Ronnen: Devil Stick's been around since, like, the '60s. 

[00:11:30] Jay: Okay. 

[00:11:30] Ronnen: It was like an open market product. 

[00:11:31] Jay: So it's like a stick and a, a hoop kind of thing. It's like whatever. It's kids who played with when they didn't have anything else to play with.

[00:11:36] Ronnen: No. No, it's like a big stick. It's got tassels on the end. You got two other ones, you hit it back and forth. 

[00:11:40] Jay: Yeah, but was it a like, an actual product, like, called Devil Sticks? 

[00:11:43] Ronnen: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:11:43] Jay: Okay. I didn't know, 

[00:11:44] Ronnen: Devil Sticks is a generic term for it. 

[00:11:44] Jay: Okay. Okay. And you guys took that and kind of 

[00:11:47] Ronnen: And we called it Spin Master Devil Sticks

[00:11:48] Jay: And you commercialized 

[00:11:49] Ronnen: Correct 

[00:11:49] Jay: the thing. Okay. Makes more sense now. All right. Air Hogs. So that's those, those... I knew Devil Sticks growing up, obviously. You know, I'll say a certain subset of those ... of our high school played with those, you know. And I tried them. I was never great at it.

Didn't really get it. But then Air Hogs came around, and I was like, "Oh, this is..." And I'm a student pilot, and I, like I love all... I mean, I just always loved flying around, so that was my big... So, You mentioned going around and finding stuff. Like, how much of this is you guys sitting around coming up with ideas or licensing a new product?

Like, how much of your portfolio would you say is kind of from either side? 

[00:12:23] Ronnen: I'd say 60 to 70% is licensed. 

[00:12:27] Jay: Okay. 

[00:12:27] Ronnen: Yeah, from inventors. 

[00:12:28] Jay: Yep. 

[00:12:29] Ronnen: Right. So 

[00:12:29] Jay: And is that from the, that circuit that you were talking about in Canada? There's, like, people you'll... They'll let you lens it, license their inventions, or are you trying to get them to license your stuff?

[00:12:36] Ronnen: No, no, no, no, no. It's... We're licensing ideas from them. 

[00:12:38] Jay: Okay. 

[00:12:38] Ronnen: And most of the inventors are actually American or European. 

[00:12:41] Jay: Okay. 

[00:12:41] Ronnen: And America's got actually the deepest history of toy inventors. 

[00:12:44] Jay: Okay. 

[00:12:44] Ronnen: But the Air Hogs actually came from two British inventors that came to show us the product in 1996.

And for your listeners, it's basically this airplane. You pump it up, and it's a PET bottle that holds compressed air, and it's got a one-cylinder pneumatic engine that powers it up. You flick the propeller. It flies around for 45 seconds. 

[00:12:59] Jay: If you're lucky 

[00:13:01] Ronnen: Well, maybe not pump it up enough.

[00:13:04] Jay: You're talking to an Air Hogs user, okay? I'm not saying this as a reviewer. I loved it. It was a big part of me growing up. 

[00:13:10] Ronnen: Thank you 

[00:13:11] Jay: What did the prototype look like? I've seen, I've heard what it looks like, but really, like, when these guys come up to you with this thing, like, how did they 

[00:13:16] Ronnen: It was 

[00:13:16] Jay: How did they convince you that this could be something?

[00:13:19] Ronnen: Well, they actually didn't have to convince us, 'cause we went to the park and we flew it, and it was just so much fun. 

[00:13:22] Jay: But how did they get you to go to the park? They're like, "Here's this thing that could fly" 

[00:13:26] Ronnen: Well 

[00:13:26] Jay: And you're like, "That looks cool. Let's go"? 

[00:13:28] Ronnen: Yeah. Well, we, they specifically flew to Toronto from London to show us this product.

[00:13:32] Jay: So you're like, "We'll go outside for that." 

[00:13:33] Ronnen: Of course. Yeah, they flew in. They flew all the way. 

[00:13:35] Jay: Okay 

[00:13:35] Ronnen: The least we can do is go fly it. Right. 

[00:13:37] Jay: Sure. Okay. 

[00:13:37] Ronnen: How are we gonna really know 

[00:13:38] Jay: All right 

[00:13:38] Ronnen: how it performs? And when we flew it, it was just, like, so much fun. 

[00:13:41] Jay: Yep. 

[00:13:42] Ronnen: It was great, and I was like, "I'm 25, and, like, how much more fun is a 10-year-old gonna have with this thing?"

And Ben was having so much fun, and then we were like, "What should we call it?" And we were like, "We should call it an Air Pig," and we were like- ... this was so loud. And then we were like, "No, that's not gonna work." And then we ended up with Air Hogs. Yeah, and it was unbelievable. And it was, you know, it's... I talk about it in my book, the chapter The Power of Not Knowing.

What we didn't know is how complex it was to produce a flying toy. And we kind of had, like, an intuitive feeling. You know, it's a flying toy. It's gonna crash. It could break. You know, it's a spinning prop. It's dangerous. But we were like, "We'll get around it." 

[00:14:14] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:14] Ronnen: And so we took all the money we made from Earth- Earth Buddies and Devil Sticks, and we plowed it into this project.

[00:14:19] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:19] Ronnen: It took us two years. And about a year and a half in, we found out that we weren't the first people to see the product. We were the last. Okay? And Hasbro passed on it. Mattel passed. And all the big companies passed on it. Oh. But there was such a beautiful thing about being in your 20s and about not knowing all the complexities and just going for it, and we solved all the issues.

Like, with the wings, you remember, you know, they popped open on i- they popped off on impact so they wouldn't break. 

[00:14:44] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:44] Ronnen: And we tackled the safety issues with the prop, so if you put your finger in there, it stops spinning. 

[00:14:49] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:49] Ronnen: And it was a magical, grueling two years. I lived in China for six weeks doing the manufacturing and the debug.

[00:14:56] Jay: Wow. One thing you mentioned there was really interesting. How do you guys measure fun? Like, you said it was fun. Like, how do you... Like, if something's more fun than something else, like, how do you decide, like, that one's gonna be more fun for kids? Is it on a scale of zero to fun? Or like, what, how do you determine that?

Especially collectively, 'cause you all three kind of had to decide that like, yes, this is the most fun, right? 

[00:15:17] Ronnen: Well, there was more to. Anton, when Anton likes a product, that's when you don't do it. 

[00:15:24] Jay: Okay. 

[00:15:24] Ronnen: So it's 

[00:15:25] Jay: So you've got that guy. You've got the... We all have that guy. Yeah 

[00:15:27] Ronnen: Anton actually doesn't get involved in product.

He contribute in other ways. So it was really a conversation between me and Ben, and you're always just looking for, you want to just get this feeling inside you, and you're looking for something magical, and you're looking for good feedback. You want feedback with a toy. Right? You don't want to just like over-intellectualize it, and you want something magical that happens.

So like with different things that we've brought up, like Bakugan, you know, these balls that pop open and transform. 

[00:15:50] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:51] Ronnen: There's a magical about the transformation. There's a magical about going back in. 

[00:15:53] Jay: Yeah. 

[00:15:54] Ronnen: Right? There was a magical hearing the plane. There was a magic of seeing it fly. The fact you can repeat it over and over again.

[00:16:01] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:01] Ronnen: And then you got other things like competition and price point that you gotta take into account, but you're looking for that pixie dust, we call it. Right? That's the term. You're looking for pixie dust, and did you connect with it? And then you gotta go answer all the other questions to make it, see if it's viable.

But if you don't, if you don't have that, that specialness, and that's very subjective 

[00:16:26] Jay: Yep 

[00:16:26] Ronnen: Then your chances of success are lower. That being said, you still have to execute. You have to design it properly and make sure it works and all the other stuff. 

[00:16:35] Jay: Do you think AI is ever gonna be able to tell us if something's fun?

[00:16:41] Ronnen: Well, right now, I mean, AI is not a physical form. It's always in a... It's on a screen, right? 

[00:16:46] Jay: Well, if you described the activity or you showed a toy or somebody using a toy or you showed... Could we ever get to the point where AI could say, that's more fun than that," or, "That is fun," or, "It's not fun"?

[00:16:54] Ronnen: I think the greatest thing about the toy industry is it's actually one of the most AI-proof industries. 

[00:16:59] Jay: I happen to agree 

[00:17:00] Ronnen: Because I don't 

[00:17:00] Jay: because I don't think it's ever-- I don't know they're ever gonna be able to tell us if it's actually fun or not. 

[00:17:03] Ronnen: Yeah, like two years ago people were like, "Oh, let's do a, like, stuffed animal with AI," and I'm like, "That's, that sounds terrible."

[00:17:08] Jay: Yeah. 

[00:17:08] Ronnen: That's just horrible, right? You want kids using their imagination, and you want that connection and that feel with the physical. So I 

[00:17:17] Jay: I'm thinking even in design, you know, and like, ideation. You see AI tell you that something's funny, and you're like, "That's not funny."

Like, so I'm wondering like if we ever get to a point where they go like, "Yeah, that's actually fun," and we agree with its assessment of something. And, you know, in a design phase, but then you go, "Yeah, we could go make that, and it will be fun." I'm not convinced that like it'll ever have the human context maybe to understand why we think things are fun.

'Cause like when you really look at why things are fun ... it is weird. It's like it's really just like not being bored. 

[00:17:43] Ronnen: Listen, it could give you a good seed of an idea. 

[00:17:45] Jay: Sure. 

[00:17:45] Ronnen: Right? So like for example, with Bakugan, it was invented by a 23-year-old inventor here in the United States. First product ever.

First product he's ever invented in his whole life, okay? And his whole idea was, "Let's put an action figure in a marble." Okay? And he drew up probably like 15 different iterations of it. 

[00:18:01] Jay: Sure. 

[00:18:01] Ronnen: We licensed it, and then we spent, you know, two years developing it. We could only get it to a certain point. Then we went to Japan and partnered with a company called Sega Toys over there.

[00:18:09] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:09] Ronnen: And they took the product over the top. But now thinking about it, his drawings and that seed of an idea could come from an AI. 

[00:18:17] Jay: Right. Could. Yeah. Yeah, that's,I'm constantly on the journey for whether or not AI can be like remotely human. And I'm just not convinced that we're gonna get there.

And I love that, that AI, proof toy industry, I agree. Right ... I mean, as a dad, You will never find me arguing that they shouldn't be doing something outside or with their hands or playing or like, you know, interacting with other people or some sort of thing. And can AI help enhance that experience?

For sure. But yeah, I'm, Right ... I'm with you. I think toys are safe. All right. Let's get to the big boy. 

[00:18:47] Ronnen: Okay. I don't know what the big boy is, but 

[00:18:49] Jay: Yes, you do. 

[00:18:49] Ronnen: No, I don't know. 

[00:18:50] Jay: Yes, you do. 

[00:18:51] Ronnen: I don't know which one. 

[00:18:52] Jay: All right. Who is the first customer, for a, you know, multi-billion dollar, kids franchise?

PAW Patrol. Where... Like, I don't wanna get into all the origins and all the stuff, but like who... How did you... Where did it come from? How did you make... Did you license it? Did you buy it? Like, how did you make it so big? What is it? How did you do it? 

[00:19:13] Ronnen: Well, it came from a lot of trial. So we started our first show, Bakugan, which was successful, and then we had three other shows after that were failures.

[00:19:21] Jay: And were you like, "We're, we're gonna go into that space?" 

[00:19:24] Ronnen: Yeah. 

[00:19:24] Jay: Into the show space? 

[00:19:25] Ronnen: Yeah. We consciously made the decision we would start making TV shows. 26% of the toy industry, okay, 26% of the products that are on the shelf in the toy store come from a movie or a TV show. Okay? 

[00:19:35] Jay: Ah. 

[00:19:36] Ronnen: And 

[00:19:36] Jay: Such a good stat that I've never, I've never known that stat, but that's a great one.

I like that. All right. 

[00:19:41] Ronnen: And when we were a smaller company, every time we went to get a license from one of the larger companies like a Disney or Warner Brothers, we'd never get the license. So we were like, "We're missing out on 26% of the marketplace here, so how are we gonna do this?" And we said, "Okay, well let's start making our own shows."

So that we can make our own toys from the shows. So that was the logic for it. But we started to go up the learning curve and actually take our shots at producing the shows, and some worked and some didn't work. PAW Patrol was the fifth show that we made. It was made in our 19th year of business, so we'd been in business for a long time.

[00:20:14] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:14] Ronnen: It wasn't just like a, an instant hit. And our first customer was, and the customer was Nickelodeon, actually. So we went to Nickelodeon. And at the time, they were the preeminent place for children's TV shows. 

[00:20:27] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:27] Ronnen: And we had a good relationship with, Cyma, who was the president at the time.

And we went in there and we made some toy prototypes, and it was myself, it was Keith Chapman, who was the original creator for the conceit of PAW Patrol. 

[00:20:41] Jay: Okay. 

[00:20:42] Ronnen: It was originally called Robbie and the Rescue Pups. 

[00:20:43] Jay: I did not know that. 

[00:20:44] Ronnen: Yeah. 

[00:20:45] Jay: All right. 

[00:20:45] Ronnen: And we went in with the drawings, we went in with some prototypes of the toys, and we pitched Cyma, and she's like, "Okay.

We'll partner with you guys on it. We'll take the show." And we did deal, did a deal with them, and then they actually helped us with some creative elements. 

[00:20:57] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:57] Ronnen: I remember we couldn't break the, the score. And the score is, like, super popular for PAW 

[00:21:03] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:21:03] Ronnen: I mean, it's half the show is the intro.

[00:21:05] Jay: Oh, I know. 

And unfortunately, I know 

[00:21:07] Ronnen: So they helped us with that, 'cause we had never really done a preschool show at the time. 

[00:21:10] Jay: Sure. 

[00:21:11] Ronnen: Our company's really passionate about partnerships, and so we partnered together with Nickelodeon to bring PAW Patrol into the world. And the thing that I'm really proud about with PAW Patrol is that it is, I think, one of the greatest Canadian exports.

Because it was produced in Canada, it was written in Canada, it's directed in Canada, it's animated in Canada. The voice actors are all Canadian. 

[00:21:30] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:31] Ronnen: The movies that we make now are all Canadian. And most, most, most 

[00:21:34] Jay: This is all great news I'm gonna take home to my children, by the way. They're gonna be, this will be the one day they're excited to talk to me when I get home.

And I have to ask you, where 

[00:21:39] Ronnen: You have a great question. You have a question for me 

[00:21:40] Jay: I, so I got my, my, so, so, Mia asked me to ask you, where did the idea for Chase come from? Where did Chase come from? 

[00:21:46] Ronnen: You know, I have to call Keith and ask him, but he had, you know, it came from Keith, 'cause he wanted to have five different archetypes of dogs.

[00:21:53] Jay: Okay. 

[00:21:54] Ronnen: And Chase is the police pup. 

[00:21:55] Jay: Sure. All right 

[00:21:56] Ronnen: and the most popular. So tell your daughter that she's picking out the most popular one. 

[00:22:00] Jay: She's picking the winning horse. She usually does that. All right. So you have this- You're getting into entertainment and TVs and shows and stuff.

Is that kind of like the, the golden, because you said it, 25% of all the... Is it, is that the plan, right? To eventually kind of have a show/series that feeds apparel and toys and all? Is that the kind of the entertainment industry's motion, right? You start with a show and then you kind of have the merchandise and material after.

Is that what you guys kind of do now or got into after you started doing shows? Yes. Does that make sense? 

[00:22:32] Ronnen: You know, I think that's... We're driven by creativity, and the, the nicest thing is that the animation part of the business, it's a different type of creative muscle that we've been able to learn 

[00:22:43] Jay: Mm-hmm

[00:22:43] Ronnen: in our company. And it's all about characters and character development and storytelling, and that's what the kids really look for at the end of the day. You know, it's like your daughter loves Chase, but she's, she loves the character behind Chase. 

[00:22:53] Jay: Right. 

[00:22:53] Ronnen: Like, who is Chase? 

[00:22:54] Jay: Yep. 

[00:22:54] Ronnen: Right? And so it's not the fact that he is a puppy and he's a police dog.

It's just the fact that he just emotes a certain way. And all those characters emotes, emote differently. And that's really the magic. And I think for me, as I was coming up in the toy industry, I was always fascinated by the storytelling part and these character developments, and how does it happen?

How does a kid bring a character into their life? And I felt... I looked at that and saw, like, that's the highest form of creativity. Like, how do you crack that? 

[00:23:18] Jay: Yeah. 

[00:23:18] Ronnen: Right? And so that's kind of... There was the commercial aspect when I said before about the 26% 

[00:23:23] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:23:23] Ronnen: of the business, but there was also the creative aspect.

And so now our company is, it's, we have three creative centers. Don't like to use the word division. One is focused on toys. And the thing about the toy business is the biggest thing you want to get in toy business is you want to have brands, okay, that you can constantly innovate around 

[00:23:42] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:23:42] Ronnen: innovate around every single year, but you don't have to bring, you don't want to start a new brand from scratch 

[00:23:47] Jay: Sure 

[00:23:47] Ronnen: because it's got a short life to it. 

[00:23:49] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:49] Ronnen: So, that's our focus in the toy business. And then with the TV shows, you want to build franchises, and you want to build enduring franchises. 

[00:23:57] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:57] Ronnen: And it's very difficult. It's difficult to, like, crack something, that the kids want to bring into life and then staying with it.

So like with PAW Patrol, we've created 15 seasons. We never missed a season. We created three movies. We've never... Not missed a movie, but we've done three. With Bakugan, we did four seasons, and then it went downhill. And then I had an opportunity to actually do a, a major motion picture, which I worked on for two and a half years, and I said no.

I'm the only person that said no to a $100 million film. Okay? And that franchise went down. But that's the, the golden thing, is you want, you wanna have franchises in the entertainment part of the business. Then we have another creative center which is, does digital games. I don't know if your kids play with Toca Boca at all.

[00:24:38] Jay: Oh, yes, they do. Okay. I wish you wouldn't have said that out loud. Okay. Well, so you mentioned something interesting there about partnerships, and the book is about kind of being young, taking the risk, doing the thing. How, and it's something that people that talk to me as a business owner about too, like how do you establish or like have any sort of opportunity around partnerships and like bigger things or things that like move the needle if you're young and you don't have a network and you're just like...

Obviously, you guys built that over the years and you got to the point where you could go to Nickelodeon. How did, how does somebody at 23 start to like exercise the fact that relationships drive a lot of all the industries that are around. It's not can you sell the hardest, it's can you meet the right people and be a likable person?

I found most, most of the life. 

[00:25:24] Ronnen: I totally, I totally agree with you. And I would say is the magic happens outside the office. I would say in today's generation, the magic happens off the screen. The magic happens in person, and if you don't go, you don't get. And we were constantly going all the time.

There was... We never turned down an opportunity to meet people. We never turned down an opportunity to go to a trade show. Okay? We never turned down an opportunity to take a meeting with a buyer. I went to Japan. I probably did 10 trips to Japan without doing a stitch of business, not one bit of business.

Nothing. Trip after trip after trip after trip after trip, which set us up for Bakugan. 

[00:25:59] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:59] Ronnen: And I already had all the relationships 

[00:26:01] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:26:01] Ronnen: and people felt comfortable with me. They'd seen me so many times. 

[00:26:03] Jay: Was that purposeful? 

[00:26:04] Ronnen: Right? 

[00:26:04] Jay: Did you do that on pur- were you, like, aiming to build that 

[00:26:06] Ronnen: Well, it was

[00:26:06] Jay: network over there? 

[00:26:07] Ronnen: Well, I knew that was, it was the most creative place in the world for toys. 

[00:26:10] Jay: Sure. 

[00:26:10] Ronnen: And we were looking to bring some of their toys to North America, right? But it took us time to actually for that to happen. 

[00:26:14] Jay: So it was intentional. You went there to 

[00:26:16] Ronnen: Yeah 

[00:26:16] Jay: establish a footprint 

[00:26:17] Ronnen: Yeah

[00:26:18] Jay: but in a relationship based kind of way. 

[00:26:19] Ronnen: Right. But I think the point is that we didn't expect the magic to happen straight away. We put in the time over and over and over again. We also went to this, this show called MIPCOM, where people go and actually sell kids TV shows to all the broadcasters around the world.

We took our first trip in 2001. And we also didn't do any business there, but we learnt the animation industry, and we became friends with all the broadcasters. So we constantly were investing, purposefully for the magic to happen or for the luck to happen. I firmly believe that you can... If you're out there working, and interacting with people in a positive way and gaining momentum, the universe will meet you halfway, and magical things will happen.

[00:27:00] Jay: I agree with that wholeheartedly. My only thing that I get pushback on 

[00:27:03] Ronnen: Sure 

[00:27:03] Jay: is that, and I get this pushback when I give similar advice, is like, what do they do now? Like, if someone's gotta keep... They gotta, they pay the bills, they gotta do the rent, and it's like, well, they can, not to use your example too heavily, but they can't fly to Japan 10 times to, to establish a relation.

But in their own world, how can they do that 

[00:27:21] Ronnen: That's a great 

[00:27:21] Jay: while they're trying to work and live a normal life if they're trying to build this other thing outside of it? 

[00:27:25] Ronnen: It's a great question. I didn't fly to Japan till year seven 

[00:27:28] Jay: Yep 

[00:27:28] Ronnen: of my business career, right? We started with a desire to make 5,000 Earth Buddies for Mother's Day.

That was it. Okay? We didn't say, "Oh, let's make this and we're gonna sell a million pieces." So I think the most important thing is to meet yourself where you're at in life, okay, and don't think too far out. 'Cause if you think too far out, you're gonna get doubt, and doubt is the anti-luck, okay? And then you're not gonna get the momentum.

So do things in bite size chunks with where you're at in this moment in time, and things will build from there, right? 

[00:27:56] Jay: Doubt is the anti-luck. That might be a bumper sticker quote for the day. All right. Well, we're gonna do our job and we're gonna talk about the book. We're not gonna talk about the book.

We're gonna ask questions that are, like, kind of semi-related 'cause that's how I do it. Yeah, so I mean, we kind of talked about this a little bit now, but, like, AI's eating everybody's lunch for entry-level stuff, or at least that's the perception, right? Like, what, what do you- What do you tell a 23-year-old?

Do you, like, do you tell them to use it to do your own thing, to, like, stay away from AI, like, to be creative outside of it? Like, what... How are you telling people to get into the industry or into the space with this kind of, like, lingering thought of like, "Hey, if I'm gonna be a junior programmer, if I'm gonna be a junior designer," like, that might not even be a career anymore.

Like, how are you... What are you telling those kids and is, what are they thinking when you're talking to them? 'Cause you're on a tour right now 

[00:28:47] Ronnen: Yeah 

[00:28:48] Jay: which we will talk about. 

[00:28:49] Ronnen: Listen, I think that I encourage people to lean into what their passion and what their, what sparks their creativity, first and foremost.

And then when it comes to AI, I would say use it and learn it to help you push forward what you want to actually bring into the world, right? There's tools that you have available to you now that we never had, okay? You didn't have them. I certainly didn't have them. 

[00:29:12] Jay: Sure, sure. 

[00:29:12] Ronnen: Right? And it's not going away, so it's best to actually lean in, understand it, and see how it actually could bring out what you want to bring out into the world 

[00:29:23] Jay: Mm-hmm

[00:29:23] Ronnen: as best as you possibly can. I have a gentleman who's actually a videographer that's on tour with me, and it was so interesting. He was doing a promo for the tour, and then, you know, on our tour, people have this opportunity to pitch me ideas. So he's like, "Ronnen, can I pitch you an idea?" So I said to him, "Sure."

Okay? And he's not in his 20s, he's 35, but his whole idea, okay, he built it using AI. And it's... I won't share it here because it's his idea, but it's such a smart idea. It's so brilliant. 

[00:29:53] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:53] Ronnen: Okay? And there is no way you could actually have brought that into the world without using AI. 

[00:29:58] Jay: Sure. 

[00:29:59] Ronnen: So I actually think when there's disruption, that creates opportunity, and for younger people, the bigger companies are not gonna be able to move that, this fast.

[00:30:10] Jay: Yep. 

[00:30:10] Ronnen: Okay? So a lot of big companies are actually gonna be disrupted. That's the thing that keeps me up at night, okay, is our company being disrupted in certain areas. 

[00:30:17] Jay: Like what? 

[00:30:18] Ronnen: The, the content will be disrupted because you are gonna be able to create television shows at a fraction of the price in two, three years from now.

[00:30:26] Jay: Isn't that advantageous for you guys, though? Like, if you have the IP and the franchise and the thing, like making the shows faster, wouldn't that be better for you guys? 

[00:30:33] Ronnen: In some ways, but in other ways, you know, there's gonna be a lot more competition. 

[00:30:36] Jay: Right. 

[00:30:37] Ronnen: Right? So you gotta watch out. So there, there are...

 There will be a, an incredibly created amazing show using AI that will connect with kids 

[00:30:47] Jay: Right 

[00:30:47] Ronnen: and it's not gonna come from a big company. 

[00:30:49] Jay: Yep. 

[00:30:49] Ronnen: Right? So- I think that's, it, these opportunities for younger people with disruption, you can lean in, and be creative and run circles around the big companies, and this is the way the cycle goes, right?

So I would embrace it as best as you possibly can if it's your thing. 

[00:31:06] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:06] Ronnen: And really learn the tools, and everything's changing so quickly. Like, the models are moving so fast. No, yeah. Like, we have an AI office and a lab, and the people are like, "I can't believe what just happened in the last three months."

[00:31:17] Jay: Yep. Yeah. It's, how do you guys deal with it in your product line? I know you mentioned the AI bear, whatever, talking earlier. Oh, yeah. But like, but like, 

[00:31:27] Ronnen: Well, I can give, yeah ... I can give you a crazy story. 

[00:31:29] Jay: Sure, yeah. That's what we're here for. I don't want the, I don't want the lame stories.

Give me the crazy stories 

[00:31:32] Ronnen: So there's a product called Sticker Box. Are you familiar with Sticker Box? 

[00:31:36] Jay: Vaguely. It sounds familiar. 

[00:31:38] Ronnen: 'Cause it's beautiful red box, okay? It looks exactly like an Etch A Sketch, which is a product that we own. Sure. And you press the button, okay? And you say, "Okay, make me a picture of a banana with a golf stick riding on a camel."

[00:31:54] Jay: Sure. 

[00:31:55] Ronnen: And the prompt will come up on the screen, and five seconds later, this image will appear exact- with exactly what you prompted it to do, and you rip off the sticker, and you can color it and stick it on the wall. 

[00:32:06] Jay: That's, that's- 

[00:32:07] Ronnen: It's a brilliant idea. 

[00:32:08] Jay: Oh, that's good. 

[00:32:09] Ronnen: It's a brilliant idea invented by two, two guys in New York.

And Spin Master just acquired it, and we had to pay tens of millions of dollars to buy it. Okay? Because we were too slow. 

[00:32:19] Jay: All right. Yeah, okay. 

[00:32:21] Ronnen: We were too slow. 

[00:32:23] Jay: Wow. That, I don't wanna get on a tangent, but I do... I am excited for the use of AI in maybe some of the older hardware stuff, and, like, some of the older stuff that we had.

Like, I feel like they're gonna... Like, tying some of that stuff back to physical, like 

[00:32:35] Ronnen: Yeah 

[00:32:35] Jay: like you said, that you could, just couldn't... And maybe the people died who made some of the stuff 50 years ago. Now we can go back and use some of these, like, you know, devices and stuff that may be sitting on the shelf that nobody can even look at.

[00:32:46] Ronnen: Sure. Sure. 

[00:32:46] Jay: So it's an interesting time where we can pull some of that stuff out- 

[00:32:48] Ronnen: Yeah, create fusion 

[00:32:48] Jay: and create cool pro- Right. 

[00:32:49] Ronnen: Fusion. 

[00:32:49] Jay: Really cool products that are, like 

[00:32:51] Ronnen: Fusion 

[00:32:51] Jay: pulling the hardware back into the future. 

[00:32:53] Ronnen: I think one thing that... One thing that occurred to me in the toy business, I was always worried for the first 10 years, I'm like, "We're gonna run out of ideas."

That was my biggest fear. We're gonna run out of ideas, but it's never happened. 

[00:33:05] Jay: Right. 

[00:33:05] Ronnen: Never happened for me, and never happened for our competitors either, and I think the same thing is gonna happen now. That's my prediction, okay? There's gonna be an expansion of ideas that no one ever thought about before.

There's gonna be an explosion of ideas, and I think that's what I would encourage young people to tap into, is using AI for the, for creative expression. Not ex- creative ideation. 

[00:33:29] Jay: Mm-hmm Yeah. And I, the only thing 

[00:33:34] Ronnen: In,in areas that you're, that, in areas that you know well. 

[00:33:36] Jay: Right. 

[00:33:37] Ronnen: I go back to this videographer.

He knew video really well. 

[00:33:39] Jay: Yep. 

[00:33:40] Ronnen: And he was able to actually crack 

[00:33:42] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:33:42] Ronnen: something using AI. So it's not like just sit there and you'll come up with ideas. It's more like, to your point, like let's say you're a plumber or let's say you're an electrician, right? You have a body of knowledge, lean into it.

[00:33:52] Jay: Yep. That's, yeah. I mean, I've been 

[00:33:54] Ronnen: Or, or a passion. 

[00:33:55] Jay: And I think it almost, I'm not gonna say it replaces the experience of having that, like being a plumber for 20 years and making a plumbing product because you're in that space, but maybe somebody who's in plumbing school or whatever now can use AI to pull from that experience- 

[00:34:08] Ronnen: Sure.

Sure 

[00:34:09] Jay: as if they were getting that for you 

[00:34:10] Ronnen: Sure 

[00:34:10] Jay: and have ideas that maybe the same guy 

[00:34:12] Ronnen: Sure 

[00:34:12] Jay: could only get because he had done it for the last 20 to 30 years. 

[00:34:15] Ronnen: Exactly. 

[00:34:15] Jay: So that, maybe that kind of ideation. 

[00:34:16] Ronnen: Exactly. 

[00:34:17] Jay: But the, my only thought, my only counter to that is yes, but there's so much content out now that it's like I'm already starting to just feel the fatigue of like, is this AI?

Is this not AI? Like- ... there's so much stuff out now. 

[00:34:30] Ronnen: Exactly. 

[00:34:30] Jay: But you have an Airstream. 

[00:34:32] Ronnen: That is correct, a 1976 Sovereign. 31 foot. 

[00:34:34] Jay: Yeah, this is like a cool guy thing. I get it. 

[00:34:36] Ronnen: 31 foot. 

[00:34:36] Jay: The thing, you have the th- all right. Tell me what it is now. It's a mobile 

[00:34:40] Ronnen: Well, it's, I 

[00:34:41] Jay: pitch studio or pitch house or what are you calling it?

[00:34:44] Ronnen: Well, it's still the, the Airstream, but we deco'd it up with the No Experience Necessary challenge. Okay. So what we're doing is we're traveling around. I'm going to 26 universities. This is my first day here on Jay's podcast. He's kicking me off 

[00:34:56] Jay: Oh, so good 

[00:34:56] Ronnen: with good energy. 

Thank you, Jay. 

[00:34:57] Jay: Oh, it's great.

You're welcome. 

[00:34:58] Ronnen: God bless you with the six kids. And we basically, we're gonna travel across 26 schools, and people are gonna have an opportunity to pitch me their idea. And the way it works is like this. You get one minute to pitch, okay? I give you one minute of feedback, and if I like your idea, I'm gonna give you $500.

And once I give you the $500, you have seven days of which to spend the money, build a prototype, okay? You can go use tokens on Claude if you want. I know you're not happy with that, but you can use it if you want. You can build a fashion line if you want. Whatever it is, and then you send in your receipts and a video of what you've actually done seven days later, and then you have an opportunity to win one of $25,000 prizes that we're gonna give to you as a grant with no strings attached for you to basically start your business and 

[00:35:45] Jay: There's a pa- did they-

[00:35:45] Ronnen: Unlock the, unlock the screenplay of your life. 

[00:35:47] Jay: The screenplay of your life. Wow. How did you come up with this idea? 

[00:35:53] Ronnen: Well, first I wanted to do something with the Airstream. It was, it was actually, you know, a lot of a lot of people were saying to me, "Ronnen, you wrote this book to get young people to go after their dreams and their passions.

What are you gonna do to help them make that happen?" 

[00:36:06] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:06] Ronnen: "Are you gonna put your money where your mouth is?" Yeah. A lot of people said that to me. And so that was where the genesis for the challenge came from. It was like give people the abilityto start to feel the muscle of what it's like to take a risk, right?

And start and to get into motion and get into momentum. 'Cause I'm a firm believer, as we talked about, is like magical things happen once you're moving. 

[00:36:26] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:26] Ronnen: Right? That's when you meet people and that's when the brain starts going, firing. It's like when you're, when you're stuck in your head, when you're all in the intellect, that's...

Then you're just, you're not gonna go anywhere. So the $500 is to get people moving. 

[00:36:37] Jay: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:38] Ronnen: And then the $25,000 is to really get them moving afterwards. And we'll see what we create, and I'm a firm believer that the world is a better place with more entrepreneurs out there, more creativity, more ideas, less corporations, and I think that we get moreequity.

We get better what's it called? Distribution of wealth 

[00:36:56] Jay: Mm-hmm 

[00:36:56] Ronnen: in the country, okay? When there's more companies, less big corporations. So it's equity distribution, and I think, through entrepreneurs. You know, small, small businesses and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of, you know, the country.

[00:37:09] Jay: Love that so much. All right. So normally, my last question is always, you know, the same thing, but a guy like you, I wanna make sure,we don't include business. If you could do anything on earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be? 

[00:37:21] Ronnen: I'd probably do something in public service.

[00:37:22] Jay: Yeah, so like public service, you mean like run for an office or something? Or you gonna be like 

[00:37:26] Ronnen: Something, something in politics. 

[00:37:26] Jay: Oh, man. Are we, are we hearing it here first, folks? We're hearing it here, the next prime minister of Canada. 

[00:37:32] Ronnen: Thanks, Jay. 

[00:37:32] Jay: All right, man. Well, thank you for coming today. I will definitely tell my kids,that I met their hero today, the guy who created PAW Patrol.

So, best of luck on your tour, and we hope to see you again soon. 

[00:37:40] Ronnen: Sure. 

[00:37:40] Jay: We'll have you again sometime. Thank you. 

[00:37:41] Ronnen: Sure. 

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