How Spin Master Went From Sawdust to PAW Patrol

Spin Master was a $2.3 billion business in 2024 and is now the fourth-largest toy company in the world, behind Mattel, Hasbro, and Lego. On a recent EconTalk episode recorded May 28, 2026, co-founder Ronnen Harary explained how that path began with an unlikely first hit: a nylon ball filled with sawdust and grass seed that grew “hair” in a week.

Harary joined host Russ Roberts to discuss his book, No Experience Necessary: Why Betting on Yourself in Your Twenties Is the Best Decision You’ll Ever Make. The core argument is straightforward: people tend to obsess over the downside of starting something, especially the money they could lose, while ignoring the cost of doing nothing with their time.

“If you don’t start, then you miss out on the screenplay of your life.”

Harary framed that as a long-term tradeoff. Work for someone else, he said, and the upside of your effort largely accrues to them; build something of your own, and the payoff can compound over decades. He also argued that passion “de-levers” risk—especially for young founders with energy and little to lose.

The episode’s most vivid section covers Earth Buddy, Spin Master’s first product. Harary said the idea reached him through Israel, after his mother read about several people selling versions of the product in Yedioth Ahronoth, which he called the country’s largest newspaper. He added up reported sales of roughly 300,000 pieces in a country of 10 million and concluded there was room to sell far more in North America.

At 23, Harary and his partner Anton reverse-engineered the product by buying pantyhose at Kmart and sourcing the right sawdust and grass seed. Their first run was 5,000 units, and early street-corner sales were weak. The breakthrough came after Harary drove four-and-a-half hours from Toronto to Kmart’s headquarters in Troy, Michigan for what he thought was a make-or-break pitch.

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He arrived for a 9:00 AM meeting with no overnight stay, no presentation deck, and, by his own account, no preparation. After pitching the wrong executive for 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes, he finally got the name of the real buyer: Adrienne Zacks in horticulture. Harary waited in the lobby for five hours until a 3:30 meeting, saw competing Grasshead-style products on her shelf, and cut his planned price from $2.60 to $1.65 per unit, with production costing about 70 cents.

Zacks handed him Kmart’s vendor agreement and placed an initial order for 48,000 pieces, Harary said, with the possibility of half a million pieces for Christmas if the product worked. That was the moment the business stopped looking absurd and started looking real.

Harary is also the co-creator of PAW Patrol, the preschool series that airs in 160 countries.