Who Made Sticki Rolls? The Story Behind the Toy That Hit 1 Billion Views in Under Two Years
If you've been searching who made Sticki Rolls, I have the answer and honestly, the story behind it is one of my favorites of the year. Sticki Rolls was created by Sky Castle Toys, a company co-founded by Lev Nelson and Josh Loerzel, two longtime friends and former toy industry colleagues who built a brand-new company and then turned one product into a billion-view cultural moment. In under two years.
I sat down with Lev for a full episode of Making It in the Toy Industry, and I walked away genuinely inspired. Sticki Rolls looks simple on the surface. It's stickers on a bracelet. But what Lev and Josh built around that concept is anything but simple. It's a masterclass in branding, community, collectibility, and resilience. Keep reading to get the full story.
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Who Made Sticki Rolls? Meet Sky Castle Toys
Sticki Rolls is made by Sky Castle Toys, a company co-founded by Lev Nelson and Josh Loerzel. Before Sky Castle, both Lev and Josh worked together at Zing Toys, where their friendship and shared dream of building their own company started to take shape. They founded Sky Castle Toys in 2020, naming it after the house in the Pacific Northwest mountains where they lived and dreamed together during their Zing days.
Their debut product, LetsGlow Studio, launched in 2021. But it was Sticki Rolls that changed everything. The idea was originally pitched to Sky Castle by an inventor, and while other toy companies had passed on it, Lev and Josh saw exactly what it could become. They recognized that there hadn't been a major bracelet craze in toys for about a decade, and they believed the market was ready for something new. They were right.
From Inventor Pitch to Billion-View Phenomenon
What separates Sticki Rolls from a thousand other products that came and went is what Sky Castle did with the concept after they said yes to it. They didn't just manufacture the idea. They built a whole world around it. Lev and his team scoured Instagram to find the top kawaii artists from around the globe, commissioning 12 creators from countries including Japan, Chile, Australia, and the UK to design the original collections. That decision gave Sticki Rolls something most toy brands can't manufacture: genuine creative credibility with the audience they were trying to reach.
The product itself sits beautifully at the intersection of three things kids already love: sticker play, fashion accessories, and kawaii art. It's not quite a toy, not quite a craft, not quite jewelry. That in-between space is exactly where breakout brands live, and Sky Castle had the vision to plant their flag there.
The COVID Launch That Nearly Broke Them
Here's the part of the story that does not get talked about enough. Sticki Rolls launched during one of the hardest moments in recent toy industry history. Lev shared on the podcast that the team faced extreme headwinds from day one: skyrocketing freight costs, trade tariffs, and the toy industry's notoriously narrow six-week holiday sales window bearing down on them all at once.
And then there was manufacturing. Pushing any new material or format through production is hard under normal circumstances. Doing it while the global supply chain was in chaos? That is a different level of challenge. Lev talked about the manufacturing obstacle that nearly derailed the entire product, and the lessons they learned working with factories to push the limits of what was possible. That kind of resilience is not accidental. It's what separates toy companies that last from ones that don't.
How Sticki Rolls Built a YouTube Empire Without Spending on Traditional Media
Over one billion views. More than one million YouTube subscribers. Zero traditional media spend. That combination is almost unheard of in the toy industry, and it is entirely intentional.
Lev explained how Sky Castle built their entire marketing engine around short-form, unscripted YouTube content. Not polished, highly produced brand videos. Real content that kids actually wanted to watch and share. They let the play pattern speak for itself and got out of the way. The result was a kid-powered fanbase that grew organically because the product was genuinely fun to film, trade, collect, and share.
This is one of the most important things toy creators need to understand right now. The brands winning with the next generation of kids are not the ones spending the most on TV spots. They're the ones making content so good that kids do the marketing for them.
The Details That Make Sticki Rolls Brilliant
Toy people, let me tell you a few things about Sticki Rolls that I think are genuinely clever, and that you can learn from even if you're making something completely different.
First: the rarity system. Built right into every bracelet is a top-secret system of rare finds that collectors hunt for. This is not an afterthought. It's a core feature of the product experience that drives repeat purchase, trading, and community. Every great collectible has a reason to keep collecting, and Sky Castle engineered that reason in from the start.
Second: the packaging. Lev shared a packaging insight that you can steal today. The Sticki Rolls packaging is designed to teach the play pattern without a single word from a sales rep. A shopper can pick it up, look at it for five seconds, and immediately understand what to do with it. In specialty retail where your packaging is your only salesperson, that is worth everything.
Third: the parents. Sticki Rolls was designed with parents in mind alongside kids. When you build a product that both generations can get behind, you remove the friction at the point of purchase. Parents don't just tolerate Sticki Rolls. They get it. And that changes the whole sales dynamic.
Why Sticki Rolls Deserves the Collectible Toy of the Year TOTY
Sticki Rolls is nominated for Collectible Toy of the Year at the TOTY Awards, going head-to-head with legacy giants like LEGO, Pokemon, and Magic: The Gathering. And honestly? I think they should win.
Here is my case. Those other brands have decades of market presence, massive marketing budgets, and built-in fanbases that span generations. Sticki Rolls built their fanbase from scratch, in under two years, during a pandemic, with no traditional media. They created a new category niche that didn't exist before them. They proved that a small company with a great product, the right creative partners, and a genuine understanding of how kids consume content can compete with the biggest names in toys.
That is exactly what the TOTY should recognize.
What Every Toy Creator Should Take From This Story
If you are building a toy or game right now, the Sticki Rolls story has lessons for you at every stage.
Say yes to ideas that other people passed on. Lev and Josh saw what everyone else missed. Design for collectibility from day one, not as an afterthought. Build your marketing around content your audience actually wants to watch. Create packaging that teaches the play pattern without a single explanation. And when the supply chain tries to derail you, stay in it.
Sky Castle Toys didn't stumble into a billion views. They made a series of smart, intentional decisions that compounded over time. That is a playbook worth studying.
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Sources
Episode details and Lev Nelson's insights are drawn from Episode 295 of Making It in the Toy Industry. Additional facts cited below: