M
MoLandOwner
Guest
Long story. Here goes..... It's an American dream really.
I started a small reloading products enterprise out of my basement.....back about 1989. I was a varmint hunter and guns and reloading was my passion, and a primary hobby to me. While I traveled allot working for an aluminum company......I spent my evenings reading everything I could about my passion. I was really into shooting prairie dogs. I learned that seating the bullets out near the rifling made superior accuracy....yet nobody made a good product to do so. I spent a winter developing a product to do this. Cut and try...cut and try. Viola....I had one that worked....very good. It was a really good product for it's purpose. Limited market....but the best at what it does. I lived on Stoney Point Road and used to fish on Stoney Point.....and killed my first elk on Stoney Point. Therefore I called the new business Stoney Point Products, Inc. It seemed lucky.....and I liked the name - all instinct.
I didn't have much money, and didn't want to lose what I had....so I decided I would not go out on a limb with borrowed money. Started on a shoe string with less than $10,000 seed money.....and paid myself back within a year....while I held my job selling aluminum....and developing good aluminum product for my customers (my best teachers). Sold stuff the best way I knew how. Made money.....grow, grow, spend a nickel...pay myself back....grow some more. Add some products. Bore Guides, and Bullet Comparators.....and a few lesser things.
Went to Camp Perry and got a feel that my product was "good". Developed a bit more and made bigger plans. Got a good reloading distributor to sell my stuff....incremental growth....but rolling on. Got to the Shot Show in 1990.....and had a couple of reloading products to offer. Sold the spit out of 'em at the show (walked out with many thousands of sales)....and quit my job on the way home from that show. I thought my wife would choke me. During that show I sold products to the likes of Jim Carmichal and others from the press. I didnt know them from Adam.....or, I would have given them product. It just FELT "right" for me to take the plunge. And I did.
I sent out press kits and wrote news releases.....and all of a sudden I was a household name - with AVID reloaders. Still no huge sales.....but I could pay the bills and had enough resources to develop new products. Now what?
I had read every book written on shooting and long range hunting, etc.....and I killed my first elk off a pair of rudimentary "shooting sticks" I had thrown together. Shooting sticks were not offered in any catalog....and when I offered them to the market.....most folks sneered at me. They had some pre-conceived ideas about these being less than a rifleman's product. "Americans should be able to stand on their own and hit a target.....it's the American way"......or some such nonsense The thing is.....they worked! And they work today.
So I spent a few years developing ever better and better products and gaining space in the catalogs.....not really knowing where I was going.....or smart enough to "brand" my products. I didn't sell my TM products as Steady STix, or PoleCat, and such.......I WAS BUSY SELLING THE CONCEPT. DUH! Later I discovered that to succeed.....I needed to brand myself. And when I did.....my product sales grew dramatically.
Somehow I survived my stupidity and got on the right track soon enough to retain a large portion of the market......just as the masses decided it was time to enter. Competition everywhere.....and more copies of my stuff than you could shake a stick at. I had too few of the "right people" in place to grow the company as it needed to grow.....so when I was given a great offer to sell.......I took it......and rode off into retirement.
Never real sure if I could have kept the wheels on as I grew the company??......but I am well-satified in knowing I did the best I could while I owned the company and I enjoyed every minute. My employees enjoyed working for the enterprise too....and to this day many are my good friends.
Some of my brands have been severely diminished in time....but a few live on. Hornady has done a nice job with preserving the integrity of the reloading products. A few other really good products (including my "shooting sticks") have been sent overseas....and in the process were cast into oblivion.
So it goes. :eek: I got paid.....and I had a wonderful experience with a few good people. I was able to retire nicely at an early age.....and I am forever grateful that I took the "plunge" and started this business.
Although.....gotta say.....this business got me into several law suits costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars.....got me so burned out....that at a few times I could hardly face another human being or walk out the door each morning......and I risked my entire financial future on this endeavor.....more than a few times. It would have buried many folks, I know. So.....just saying....it was not always a bed of roses.....and it's not for everyone.
To answer your question: I founded Stoney Point Products. Brand names included Steady Stix, Pole-Cat and a few more. Had 25, or so, shooting and hunting related patents / trademarks.......and still have a creative mind....or, what's left of it. :D
Sorry for the long dissertation. :D
Holy crap foggy, you have as much money as Bill gates and you still talk to us peons! LOL
Great story Tom! It is the American dream if you want to work for it....and you did! Congrats!
