The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Tim Leatherman: Under 5% of patented products reach the market
“Of products that are patented, I've read that only about five percent of, or less, of products that are patented get on the market.”
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.”
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”
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.”
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.”
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.”