This week on How Success Happens, I sit down with Ronnen Harary, cofounder and chairman of Spin Master (think Air Hogs, Bakugan, PAW Patrol) and author of No Experience Necessary, a guide for twenty‑somethings trying to figure out their next (or first) move in business. Ronnen turned a learning disability, financial instability, and a $10,000 startup into a global kids’ entertainment powerhouse with a lot of grit and, as he explains, a little bit of naivety. “When you’re young,” he told me, “you don’t really know everything that you need to know.” But, he says, sometimes that’s actually a good thing and can help power your path to a whole new way of doing things.
We’ve broken down his success insights to help you play out your own plan for success in three, two, one!
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Three Key Insights
1. Start the Business First, Let the Passion Catch Up
Ronnen didn’t grow up dreaming of toys and TV shows—he grew up knowing he wanted to be in business. “If you would have asked me in university if I’d end up in the children’s entertainment business and in the toy business and producing TV shows — it never came into my consciousness,” he told me. His core passion was building something of his own and having equity, especially after seeing the instability of profit‑sharing in his dad’s carpet business. He argues that waiting for a perfect idea keeps you stuck in the middle: “If you’re sitting in the middle, the universe won’t give you the idea… but if you make that commitment, then suddenly all the opportunities get unlocked for you.”
Takeaway: If you feel stuck, commit to starting a business you can actually launch now—and trust that clearer passion and better ideas will reveal themselves once you’re in motion.
2. Don’t Let AI Drain Your Drive
Ronnen is talking to a generation being told daily that AI might erase their future—and he’s not buying it. “Don’t let this moment define you,” he says. “Use AI to your advantage…the barriers to entry are way lower than they’ve ever been before.” He believes that when you start doing, you create “learning luck”: each failure teaches you a new category, a new buyer, a new factory, a new skill—and that compounds. After licensing a BMX bike that did around $150 million and then watching three follow‑up products completely bomb, he still calls it luck because “we were learning as we were failing.”
Takeaway: Treat AI as a cost‑cutting teammate and every flop as “learning luck”—keep shipping, keep showing up, and let that momentum compound into real opportunities.
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3. Show Up In Person (Even If You’re “Banana Boy”)
One of Ronnen’s favorite themes is physically showing up. He did 12 trips to Japan before doing any business, passed on Beyblade (yes, that Beyblade), then later helped create Bakugan—a billion‑dollar franchise with its own TV show—because he kept showing up in rooms where ideas lived. My favorite story: in a high‑stakes meeting at Pilot Corporation, jet‑lagged and starving, he peeled and ate a banana mid‑meeting—an enormous cultural faux pas. “In Japan, you can’t eat in a meeting… and I just ate the banana,” he remembers. Despite the misstep (or mis-bite), he then made a deal on Aquadoodle, which went on to do close to $200 million, and in the toy industry he’s still known as “Banana Boy.”
Takeaway: Don’t hide behind emails—go where the opportunity is, be human, and let your personality (and occasional awkward moment) build trust and long‑term relationships.
Two Free Resources to Learn More
- Toy around in Ronnen Harary’s world by checking out Spin Master, the company behind Air Hogs, Bakugan, and PAW Patrol, and pick up his book, No Experience Necessary.
- Dig deeper on grit and finding the right fit for your business passion by listening to this incredible convo between volleyball Legend Kerri Walsh Jennings and Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz.
Ronnen talks a lot about “not missing out on the screenplay of your life” and having the courage to trust your internal knowing, even when everyone (and every algorithm) is shouting at you. Here’s your question:
What is one risky idea that keeps quietly tugging at you—and what tiny, non‑“bet the farm” step could you take this week to move it from fantasy to your real‑life screenplay?
Email your answer to howsuccesshappens@entrepreneur.com, and I’ll read some of the most interesting responses on a future episode.
About How Success Happens
Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way.
Before I put the episode description together, do you want this newsletter to skew more toward Gen Z just out of college, or a broader range of aspiring entrepreneurs?
This week on How Success Happens, I sit down with Ronnen Harary, cofounder and chairman of Spin Master (think Air Hogs, Bakugan, PAW Patrol) and author of No Experience Necessary, a guide for twenty‑somethings trying to figure out their next (or first) move in business. Ronnen turned a learning disability, financial instability, and a $10,000 startup into a global kids’ entertainment powerhouse with a lot of grit and, as he explains, a little bit of naivety. “When you’re young,” he told me, “you don’t really know everything that you need to know.” But, he says, sometimes that’s actually a good thing and can help power your path to a whole new way of doing things.
We’ve broken down his success insights to help you play out your own plan for success in three, two, one!