The Ledger
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Clifford: Financial investors view employees as fungible to cut fixed costs
“The difference between financial investors and other types of investors is that people are fungible and they were less interested in the value that different people brought to the parts of the business than they were in getting down to what was a reasonable he…”
Clifford bootstrapped Roam Luggage to avoid the VC-backed growth treadmill
“No, we did not raise tens of millions of dollars. We bootstrapped the business. We made a decision early on that as much as we admired and appreciated what a way had done with their business is that we were going to grow At a reasonable pace. We did not want t…”
Tumi captured market share as Hartmann Luggage became 'like an Oldsmobile'
“And by the late eighties Hartman, though still very respected, was becoming a little bit like an Oldsmobile. High quality, good brand but it did not represent contemporary design, and Toomey was able to fill that, that role due to the black on black look.”
Clifford: Middle of the retail market is an overcrowded 'no man's land'
“The middle of the market's a tough playing field. There are a lot of people fighting for a share of the middle of the market, and you know, we looked upon it as no man's land.”
Clifford: Tumi is a premium brand, not true luxury
“I think to me is not really luxury. It's still premium. It's luxury perhaps for the luggage category. But as brands go, it's a high-end brand and well-made and so on and so forth, but beautiful stores but the, they've maintained the integrity of the product fo…”
Clifford: COVID travel impact exceeded 9/11 and 2008 combined
“The impact of the pandemic was more
And I don't say this lightly.
It was more than the impact of nine 11 and the financial crisis of 2007 and eight put together.
It was more than that put together.
The travel industry came to a screeching halt.
And sales dropp…”
Clifford: Roam can reach $50M to $100M in revenue
“So where can Rome go? Like a fifty million dollar, hundred million dollar brand, absolutely, no question about it.”
Clifford: Leather goods enable consistent reproducibility unlike artisan handicrafts
“I thought that leather bags would offer the opportunity to focus on a product that had a lot of handwork in it, but essentially be able to be reproduced consistently the same way every time.”
Clifford: Tumi was launched with $10,000 in initial pooled capital
“I think we had 10,000 dollars between us.”
Bank forced Tumi into asset recovery and lockbox receivables in 1982
“Once they put us into the asset recovery department, that's, that was one of their requirements.”
Clifford: Tumi's 1983 ballistic nylon garment bag became its top seller
“In 1983, we did introduce our ballistic nylon line. Our garment bag, which was designed by Jeff Brutelson before he left, became our best selling piece.”
Clifford: 1985 Tumi co-founder buyout was structured as cash plus sales percentage
“We reached the number on the value, and it was for a fixed amount of money and a percentage of sales up to a cap for a number of years.”
Clifford: Early Tumi leather goods from Colombia were often mediocre quality
“And we were manufacturing our leather goods in Columbia at the time, and when the leather was good, it was quite good. Often it was mediocre, and in this case, it was one of the poorer quality pieces that had just slipped through.”
Clifford: Tumi Sales Dropped Close to 40% Right After 9/11
“Yeah, it was close to 40% right after. There's immediate halt in the travel industry. Stores stopped buying, people weren't traveling, they weren't looking for luggage. It was a very, very grim period.”
Clifford: PE firms backed out of Tumi over post-9/11 terrorism fears
“Well, we had other PE companies that were interested, but most of them backed off because they were concerned about the potential for another terrorist attack.”
Clifford: Tumi peaked at $140M+ under him, now surpasses $500M
“I think our peak year was a 140 plus million, and now it's over five hundred million.”