Advice Line with Carlton Calvin of Razor

This episode of How I Built This is presented by Engine, the modern travel and spend platform built for businesses that are growing. Book faster, save more, and watch your rewards stack up. Stay tuned later in the episode to hear how Engine is helping thousands of businesses travel smarter. Hello, and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call, and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-100-100-100 433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. This week I'm joined by Carlton Calvin. He's the founder and CEO of Razor USA. You've probably seen a Razor scooter, maybe you've owned one, or bought one for your kids. Carlton built Razor into a hugely successful company, turning an

Overnight craze into a classic toy. Carlton, it is great to have you back on the show. I love being here. I would love having you. Well, so you were first on the show uh back in September of twenty twenty five. And as always to anyone listening, if you haven't heard that episode, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. Really great story. Um and I have to say you as as you will hear in the story, Carlton has this

uncanny way of knowing what kids want even before it happens, um, including how about two decades ago you caught wind of a of this sleek, collapsible aluminum scooter was trending in Japan. You saw the potential immediately, you reached out to a factory that was making them, you locked down the exclusive US rights, and then You brought them to the US and before long it was a massive crazy cu you were selling a million units at at one point every single month. It makes me wonder, Carlton, I mean obviously. trends have changed and it's not a million units a month, and and the technology has changed. You also have electric scooters and electric bikes and so many of the products you sell, but Um, do people still buy the

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