Season 2 of the I Make Sex Toys Podcast is is back, and it was about time. After a bit of a gap (running a business has a habit of getting in the way of talking about running a business), I'm back behind the microphone with more stories from 22 years of making electric sex toys in Watford.
This season we start by turning the business inside out, build a 3D print farm from scratch, then pack the whole lot off to Las Vegas for our first visit to the biggest adult trade show in the US. There's the fun of getting a stand through US customs, the friends who came along for the ride, a broken cake machine, twinkies (don't ask!!) and a fairly honest chat about what running a small business does to your head. It's still the only podcast where a sex toy manufacturer talks about the making, not the using. Pull up a chair. It's good to be back.
Most people who deal with E-Stim Systems never actually speak to me. They speak to Kay. She runs the sales, answers the phones, handles the emails and the live chat, and quietly built our wholesale side from nothing. So for once I handed her the microphone. We recorded it in a Barcelona hotel room the night before a trade show, with a brew and no real plan, and got into all the bits nobody tells you about selling adult products for a living.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Read more: Your Box Has Knobs!! Meet Kay, the Sales Director Who Built Our Wholesale Side
Vegas is 5,000 miles away. Barcelona is 900. So why did the trip to Spain cost us nearly 800 quid in paperwork before we had sold a single thing? This is the bonus one about a stamp, a carnet, and the way Brexit made the short trip the hard one.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Content note: this episode talks openly about mental health and anxiety, and includes a brief mention of losing a friend to suicide. If you are struggling, please talk to someone. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are there day or night, free, on 116 123. You are not alone.
Nobody talks about the 3am wake-up. The one where your brain builds a perfectly logical argument for why the whole business is about to fail. After 22 years I still get them. So this one is me talking honestly about the mental side of running a small business, and why there are still 34 new product ideas in my notebook.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Read more: The 3am Spiral | Business, Mental Health, Competitors and Trolls
Three very long days on a trade show floor, then four of us crammed into a Las Vegas hotel room with a microphone. This is the Altitude Intimates debrief, with Caz, and with Ian and Rachel from Joanne’s E-Stim Emporium, on what the show was actually like once the doors opened.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Read more: What Happens in Vegas | The Altitude Intimates Debrief with Caz, Ian and Rachel
Everyone keeps calling it a holiday. It is not a holiday. We are taking E-Stim Systems across the world to Las Vegas, and before we go, here is what actually goes into getting a stand, four staff and a pile of demo kit onto a trade show floor 5,000 miles away.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Read more: Not A Holiday | Jet Lag, Carnets and Luminous Willies
The podcast went quiet for over a year. Running the business got in the way of talking about running the business, which is probably the most on-brand thing I have ever done. So this is the relaunch. What we have been up to, why we built a 3D print farm from scratch, and the reason I am about to get on a plane to Las Vegas.
Listen: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play above.
Read more: The Mic Is Back On | 3D Printing, Ring Racks and Las Vegas
Hello. I'm Wayne, and I make sex toys for a living. Not the fluffy, battery-powered novelties you'll find rattling around a motorway service station, but proper electric ones, designed and built by us at E-Stim Systems, in sunny Watford. I've been...
