Jan 31, 2022 · 1h 4m · how-i-built-this
Leatherman Tool Group: Tim Leatherman
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz explores the journey of inventor Tim Leatherman, who overcame eight years of solitary prototyping and hundreds of rejections to create the iconic Leatherman multi-tool brand.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 40% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.5 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 0.4 Guy pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:03:05 Tim deflects Guy's guessing game on his pickleball invention
Tim firm-yet-playfully stonewalls Guy's persistent questioning about his upcoming pickleball product, stating he is not at liberty to disclose details.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 30:58 Guy challenges Tim's stubbornness amid 200 rejectionsGuy presses Tim on why he refused to surrender after receiving more than 200 rejections when no market feedback was validating his investment.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 55:40 Tim corrects Guy's timeline and details the 9/11 downturn mechanismTim corrects Guy's mistaken timeline regarding revenue drops and educates him on how TSA airport bans eliminated daily carry and subsequent word-of-mouth sales.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:19 Guy demonstrates firsthand knowledge of the Leatherman WaveGuy establishes technical and functional credibility by recounting in detail how he stripped wires and tightened field equipment using a Leatherman Wave while covering international conflicts.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Indispensable Multitool and Tim's Early Life | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz delivers an introductory monologue weaving his personal experience as a war correspondent relying on a Leatherman tool with Tim's early biographical details. Because this is entirely a solo host framing segment, interactive friction is non-existent. | |
| College Table Tennis Ambitions and Meeting Cho | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Tim recounts meeting his wife Cho at Portland State and his subsequent trip to Saigon. When Guy dramatically claims Tim showed 'incredible courage' approaching her, Tim modestly deflects the exaggeration with 'let's not go that far.' | |
| Saigon Work and Discovering Mechanical Curiosity | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Tim describes how observing young Vietnamese sidewalk mechanics ignited his mechanical curiosity and recounts his failed Vespa luggage rack business. Guy listens attentively, allowing Tim to unpack the cultural marketing lesson he learned. | |
| Evacuating Vietnam Before the Fall of Saigon | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Tim details the tense evacuation of family and adoption agency orphans before the fall of Saigon, followed by his 10-month budget tour across Europe in a Fiat 600. When Guy prompts whether it was hard getting parts in Bulgaria, Tim provides a frank, grounded reality check. | |
| Conception of the Multitool and Brainstorming Ideas | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Guy asks if the story of jotting down tool ideas was apocryphal or prescient, and Tim confirms his process while sharing other unused ideas like postal zip barcodes and mall service hubs. When Guy laments modern throwaway culture, Tim dryly rebuts that Leatherman users still fix things. | |
| Prototyping the Folding Pliers in the Garage | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Tim explains the crude manual fabrication process in his brother-in-law's garage and why the first four-inch prototype failed due to poor handle leverage. Guy compares Tim's process to a nineteenth-century blacksmith, which Tim corrects slightly by emphasizing he was working cold metal without fire. | |
| The Lonely Grind and the Thirtieth Birthday Crisis | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy compares Tim's multi-year obsession to James Dyson and probes the emotional weight of working for years with no immediate market validation. Tim reflects candidly on hitting a low point on the eve of his 30th birthday before renewing his commitment. | |
| Mid-Roll Break: The Seven-Year Journey | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy summarizes Tim's plan to sell the patent for a million dollars, leading into Tim recounting the relentless rejection letters from both knife manufacturers and tool companies. Guy facilitates the storytelling with supportive reactions. | |
| Working as a Welding Salesman While Continuing the Quest | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Guy presses on why Tim continued persevering after more than two hundred rejections when rationality suggested quitting. Tim shares a sharp philosophical insight on the razor-thin line between persistence and failure to accept reality. | |
| Forming a Partnership with Steve Berliner | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Tim explains bringing in college friend Steve Berliner as a partner and attending his first trade show where salesman Skeets Houchens coached him to pitch passersby aggressively. Guy enthusiastically reacts to the colorful character names. | |
| Pitching Mail-Order Catalogs and Cabela's Breakthrough Order | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Tim describes the arduous process of contacting 280 mail-order catalogs, redesigning the tool to drop the price for Early Winters, and receiving their first breakthrough 500-unit order from Cabela's in 1983. Guy tracks the timeline and shares in the excitement. | |
| Manufacturing the Pocket Survival Tool | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Tim describes setting up production in Steve's father's metal shop, putting in several hours of labor per unit, and naming the product the Pocket Survival Tool to target Cold War cultural anxieties. Guy follows along with engaged curiosity. | |
| Early Winters Frenzy and Catalog Domino Effect | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Early Winters experiences a sudden rush of customer orders right after Christmas 1983, triggering a catalog-industry snowball effect where formerly uninterested competitors scramble for samples. Guy notes the stark difference between 1980s fulfillment timelines and modern e-commerce expectations. | |
| Mid-Roll Break: Surging Growth and Future Headwinds | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy questions the rapid ramp from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of tools and asks whether thin margins strained bootstrapping. Tim clarifies their explosive revenue growth and how self-funding sustained the company until securing a bank credit line. | |
| Domestic Manufacturing Integrity and the 'Made in USA' Dispute | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks why Tim insisted on keeping manufacturing in Portland rather than outsourcing to cheaper Asian markets, and raises the subsequent class-action lawsuit over 'Made in USA' labeling. Tim passionately defends local job creation and explains how the lawsuit pushed them toward even higher domestic content. | |
| Combating Knockoffs and Life-Saving Testimonials | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks how Leatherman competes against ten-dollar Chinese knockoffs. Tim details past legal actions against domestic importers and lists extraordinary customer testimonials ranging from emergency battlefield surgeries to stopping bullets. | |
| The Post-9/11 Airport Slump, Layoffs, and Eventual Rebound | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy initially asks about a late-1990s sales dip, which Tim corrects by pinpointing the catastrophic effect of 9/11 airport security bans. Tim explains the surprising secondary effect: travelers stopped carrying tools entirely to avoid confiscation, eroding vital word-of-mouth visibility and forcing layoffs. | |
| Transitioning Leadership and Evaluating Global Impact | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks whether Tim stepped down as CEO in 2005 due to burnout, prompting Tim to explain his leadership philosophy of working 67 'work years' and realizing he was mostly processing paperwork. Tim gently corrects Guy's production estimates by highlighting that 30% of their output is international exports. | |
| Attributing Success: Ninety Percent Pluck and Ten Percent Luck | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | In the standard closing question on luck versus skill, Tim attributes his success to 90% pluck and 10% luck. Tim also downplays his national pickleball silver medal as an 'ancient age category at a middling skill level' before refusing to reveal his secret new pickleball invention despite Guy's comedic guesses. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Tim Leatherman calls living in 1972 Saigon his most formative experience
“It was the best experience of my life, the most formative experience of my life.”
Tim Leatherman helped evacuate 20 orphans just before the fall of Saigon
“The adoption agency that still hadn't been, we still hadn't been able to get out yet, and so about five days before, I left and brought out and helped to bring out about our remaining 20 children or so.”
Tim Leatherman frequently needed pliers during his 1975 budget road trip
“On that trip, I was carrying a pocket knife, a multi-blade pocket knife, like a Boy Scout type knife, and I was using that for everything from adjustment making well, from Using the knife blade for slicing food for dinner to the can opener for opening cans and…”
Gerber rejected Tim Leatherman's original multi-tool prototype for not being a knife
“After a couple of weeks, I hadn't heard from them, and I was getting really anxious, so I called them, and they said sorry, we decided to not take this on. It's not a knife, it's a tool.”
Tool makers rejected Leatherman prototype as an unsellable gadget
“And when I wrote to them, the answers back was, sorry, this is not a tool, it's a gadget, and gadgets don't sell.”
Asking prospects for advice opens doors better than pitching them directly
“If you try to sell stuff to people, they get their antenna up. If you ask them for advice, they're plenty willing to talk to you.”
Leatherman: It is better to persist too long than give up too soon
“There's a fine line between persistence and failure to accept reality, and I was determined to try to go on too long before giving up too soon.”
Leatherman spent roughly $6,400 on patents and equipment to develop his prototype
“I believe the patent cost about 1400 dollars, and I probably put in maybe 5000 dollars into the Purchasing various types of equipment”
Tim Leatherman: First tool sale was $175 to San Francisco mechanic
“He was a German immigrant. He had moved to San Francisco, and he had started a auto repair business. Repairing high-end German automobiles. His name was Wolf Schultz Tottenpach, and he agreed to pay 175 dollars. To buy a knife I would, that I would go back and…”
Leatherman received zero responses from 279 of 280 early catalog pitches
“So we found a list of 280 different mail order catalogs. We got zero responses from 279.”
Cabela's Placed Leatherman's First Purchase Order: 500 Tools for $12,000
“And one day, in late May of 1983, eight years after I had first thought of the concept, I got a letter at my business address, which was really my home address. I opened it up, and inside was a purchase order. For 12,000 dollars. For 500 tools.”
Leatherman: Original multi-tool required two to three hours of labor per unit
“Well, if you think of the labor hours, those days, labor, like, pretty good wages and manufacturing jobs were like five dollars an hour, so, you know, we had two, two or three hours of labor in every tool.”
Tim Leatherman: Competing catalogs monitored each other and rushed to buy hot products
“It turned out that the catalogs were all monitoring each other, and if they got a sense there was a hot product, then they all wanted on board. Then we started getting calls from all these catalogs that had turned us down before or hadn't even responded.”
Leatherman grew production from 200 to one million tools in ten years
“We were able to go from 200 tools to, in 1983 to one million tools in 1993. Wow. Those were really exciting years with growth rates of 50% per year compounded.”
Tim Leatherman: First full year yielded $680,000 in revenue and a profit
“In that first year of 30,000 tools of sales, we had about 680,000 dollars of revenue, and actually made a few dollars.”
Tim Leatherman: All assembly and most manufacturing stay in Portland factory
“We do all the assembly ourselves, and the vast majority of the manufacturing ourselves in our own factory in Portland, Oregon.”
A labeling lawsuit pushed Leatherman to source enough domestic parts for 'Made in USA'
“It spurred us into being more resolute and seeking more domestic suppliers and adding even more U.S. Content into our tools so that we can, in most of our tools now, we can label them as Made in USA.”
Leatherman: Company Sued and Won Against Retailers Selling Counterfeit Tools
“We used to file lawsuits against the importers and the retailers that were selling the knockoffs. It really wasn't possible to go after the manufacturers in China, and we were quite successful in those lawsuits for quite a few years.”
Leatherman produces nearly three million multi-tools annually
“Yeah, so that two million tools a year is now closer to three million tools a year.”
Leatherman Tool Group generates low nine figures in annual revenue
“Yeah, I've admitted, I've, I'm quite ready, willingly to admit, because it is pretty well publicized that we're in the very low nine figures of revenue.”