A failed suspension idea for the navy, slinky becomes a toy so popular they sell over 300 million of them.

Dave Young:

Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.

[Seaside Plumbing Ad]

Dave Young:

Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. I mean, that assumes that you’ve listened to an episode already I guess.

Stephen Semple:

Very presumptuous, very presumptuous.

Dave Young:

That was very presumptuous of me. I’m Dave Young, Steven Semple’s here, and he’s got a new story for us and told me just before we got started here that it’s going to be slinky. It’s Slinky. It’s Slinky. Yeah. Childhood favorite. I used to love playing with a Slinky, and I could keep one without getting tangled for about an hour. Then it’d just be a tangled mess of scrap iron. So I’m going to take a wild guess as to the origins.

Stephen Semple:

Okay, go for it.

Dave Young:

Because I could be completely wrong. I don’t have any basis for this other than a hunch, because it feels almost like the Silly Putty story. He made a thing that was, oh, this is stable and it’s industrial and it won’t hold its shape, and it’s of virtually no use. Let’s let children play with it. I feel like a spring made out of flat steel that’s springy, but not springy enough to really help you as a spring, somebody just said, well, this is kind of fun just to play around with in your hands. Is this an accidental toy or did somebody set out to say, oh no, we’re going to build a toy out of a spring?

Stephen Semple:

You’re pretty close. It was started in 1943 by a mechanical engineer, Richard James, and to date, they’ve sold over 300 million of these things. It was inducted in the Toy hall of Fame. It’s on the Toy Industry Association Century Toy List. In 1999, Slinky was a US stamp.

Dave Young:

Really?

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. But the origin goes back to, if you think about 1943, World War II was going on, and the control of the sea is critical to supply lines. Richard James is working on a way to keep sensitive instruments safe at sea and what his ideas are-

Dave Young:

To suspend them from springs.

Stephen Semple:

Suspend them from torsion springs and what does he do? He accidentally knocks over one of the springs and it looks like it starts to walk. So what he does is he goes home and he says to his wife, “I think we got a toy here now.” Now he seemingly had brought home all sorts of strange things. Keeping in mind, during World War II toys were also made a cardboard because there was a shortage of steel and things along that lines.

Dave Young:

He can’t go making toys out of spring steel in 1943.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, a little tough. Also, the Navy rejects the idea for the equipment, but he continues to tinker with it and for two years he experiments with different wire. He finally lands on, it’s 98 coils of Swedish steel, and it’s about two and a half inches tall. It’s Betty who comes up with the name Slinky because they’re running around trying to come up with the name. Betty goes, “I think we should call it Slinky.”

Dave Young:

Springy. No, it’s stretchy. No.

Stephen Semple:

Right. Yeah.

Dave Young:

Slinky is great.

Stephen Semple:

Slinky is a great name. So they decide to borrow $500 and they make 400 of them. Look, it’s like no other toy in the market, and no other toy has really come along like Slinky really, if you think about it.

Dave Young:

No.

Stephen Semple:

But now he has to convince… So he’s got this thing that’s completely different. Now he has to convince local toy stores to sell it, and he’s turned down over and over again. Over and over again. So finally, it’s November of 1945 and it’s holiday season, and this is really his last chance, and he manages to talk a Gimbels department store into displaying the toy. It’s funny, we forget about Gimbels, but Gimbels used to be a big deal. I should have checked if there’s still any Gimbels around, but I don’t think so.

Dave Young:

I don’t think I ever went to a Gimbels. We had a Gambles, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. I think it’s a knockoff.

Stephen Semple:

It’s a different one. It is. Yeah. So he gets it into this department store. Christmas is coming and he has not sold one, and he’s like, this is not good. So he goes to Gimbels and they let him do a demo of it.

Dave Young:

On the stairs I hope. On the escalator, I hope.

Stephen Semple:

Well, I think it was an incline that he set up, a board with an incline. In less than two hours, he sells all 400. Boom.

Dave Young:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Now the thing is, he didn’t really make much money at it because these things take 80 feet of wire to make. But based on the success, he went to the next year’s toy fair and sales ramped up. Also, after the success at Gimbels, he designed a machine that would take 80 feet of wire and coil it 98 times so that basically they can make them fairly quickly. After the toy fair, sales ramped up so much, he had to build six machines to fill the demand. It was just-

Dave Young:

That’s pretty cool.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, and life is good. They’re doing well. They buy this 31 acre estate in a really, really great area, but then Richard kind of takes his eye off the ball. Sales of Slinky start to decline. He has an affair. He joins in a religious association.

Dave Young:

Oh, Richard.

Stephen Semple:

He gives away almost all the money. They’re close to bankruptcy, and one day he walks away from Betty and everything and goes to live on a missionary in South America. So it’s 1963 and Betty’s now against the wall. They’re close to bankruptcy and he’s walked out the door.

Dave Young:

Oh, wow.

Stephen Semple:

But remember, Betty’s the one who came up with the name Slinky. She’s no slouch.

Dave Young:

Yeah. Yeah. I think Betty’s the brains of the operation here.

Stephen Semple:

She’s going to prove it right now.

Dave Young:

Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.

[Empire Builders Ad]

Dave Young:

Let’s pick up our story where we left off and trust me, you haven’t missed a thing.

Stephen Semple:

She decides to take out a mortgage and gamble everything on a national TV campaign. Again, early sixties, TV’s still pretty new. Hoping to bring it back from the brink, and she decides one of the things that’s needed is a jingle because-

Dave Young:

Absolutely.

Stephen Semple:

Top of mind with a jingle embeds the product in the mind.

Dave Young:

You remember how I opened this episode?

Stephen Semple:

That’s why I was smiling as you opened the episode.

Dave Young:

Yeah. In 1963, I mean, that’s the year I was born, so I’ve been around as long as the jingle. Couldn’t erase it from my head if you wanted to.

Stephen Semple:

Right. So she hires the musicians to create this jingle, and 1963 comes and it totally explodes and reinvigorates sales now.

Dave Young:

Awesome.

Stephen Semple:

Here’s a little interesting sidebar. When you talked about it being an industrial mistake. In Vietnam, they used Slinkies because you could use it as a portable radio antenna. String it up in a tree.

Dave Young:

Really?

Stephen Semple:

String it down. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Young:

That’s kind of fun.

Stephen Semple:

Isn’t that kind of crazy? In 1998, she sells the company to Proof Products. I was never able to find price she sold it for, and then later, Toy Story reinvigorated the sales because it was the character in Toy Store Toy Story. So it’s kind of one of those ones where it would do really well. It declined. Does the jingle and everything, does really well. Declines again, a little bit. Toy Story comes along, reinvigorates it, but certainly, look, everyone knows what a Slinky is, whether you’ve played with one or not.

Dave Young:

Whatever happened to old Richard? He just fade away on that island?

Stephen Semple:

Basically, I think he just faded away.

Dave Young:

The mothership come and get him?

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, I think the mothership came and got him. Yeah, I really don’t know, and I didn’t really chase that down. All I thought about is, man, you’re in the early sixties. You’re a female on your own with this business that’s struggling. I mean, she’s a powerhouse. She is a powerhouse.

Dave Young:

SOB walked away and left you a garage full of springs.

Stephen Semple:

Taking the chance of a national TV campaign, right? I mean, she’s amazing, amazing woman, and in fact, she deserves to have more recognition. Betty James. That’s just incredible what she was able to achieve there.

Dave Young:

On our website, we should have a women’s inventors and entrepreneurs, our own little hall of fame.

Stephen Semple:

That’s a great idea.

Dave Young:

Just a list of the best businesses started by women or boosted by women or these overcoming adversity stories like Betty’s. We’ve mentioned this before. I think it’s a vastly underrepresented slice of American and worldwide commerce. I say American as I look on my screen at a Canadian. But we’ve talked about so many of them, and so often, even if it’s a business that a husband or spouse started, they step in and save the day.

Stephen Semple:

If you were to look up Slinky and to read about it, all you would read about is Richard James. He started this thing, he invented it, he brought it home. He did the demonstration, blah, blah, blah. There’s hardly anything about Betty, where Betty is the one who created the name, and Betty is the one who revived the company.

Dave Young:

Yeah. Betty’s the hero of this story.

Stephen Semple:

Betty really is the hero of the story. Yes.

Dave Young:

Richard, I mean, didn’t even succeed as he made a spring that wasn’t good enough to keep instruments safe. I also love the idea that you could get kids to play with a torsion spring.

I feel like the lesson here is if you are in heavy industry of any kind, you should explore the idea of taking whatever it is you make and making a toy out of it. Right? If it’s a trailer hitch ball, there you go.

Stephen Semple:

They’ve all become fidget toys at this point.

Dave Young:

That’s true. That’s true.

Stephen Semple:

But I like your idea. I think we’re going to do that because right out of the gate, I can think of… Without going back and giving it a ton of thought, I can think of a half a dozen that we can highlight where either the women were the leaders of the business, or they played a really, really important role. Mrs. Fields Cookies, Pepperidge Farm, Uncle Nearest Whiskey, Martha Harper. Now Betty, there’s a bunch without even going through the list of 160 episodes that we’ve done so far. But yeah, I think that would be a really great idea just to draw attention to these amazing female entrepreneurs.

Dave Young:

I don’t know if you happen to explore the role of Slinky, but just in pop culture, I remember you’d probably be able to find this on YouTube. Ren and Stimpy, remember them?

Stephen Semple:

Oh, yes. There was a whole Ren and Stimpy thing with Slinky. Yes. Yes.

Dave Young:

They did an ad for a toy called Log.

Stephen Semple:

Right. Yes.

Dave Young:

It was just a log, and it had a jingle that was very similar to the Slinky jingle. It was what you could do with this log.

Stephen Semple:

With a log.

Dave Young:

Slinky became one of those toys that’s just like, okay, well, it’s like having a really nice stick. Anybody that’s raised boys knows if you go out on a walk and if you find a really nice stick out on your walk, you probably bring it home with you. It’s a nice stick. I’ve been on walks where I bring sticks, and sometimes you’ll trade your stick. You’ll come across a better one, and so you’ll leave the first one. I’ve brought rocks home because, well, that’s just a nice darn rock. Slinky, it’s just a spring.

Stephen Semple:

My two daughters were such rock collectors that when we came home from a walk, I would have to empty their pockets, and there was piles of rocks beside the front door and back door. Every once in a while, you’d miss one and you’d hear the washing machine [inaudible 00:14:26].

Dave Young:

Oh, yeah.

Stephen Semple:

As you’re cleaning some damn rocks.

Dave Young:

I’ve got about a cubic foot-sized piece of lava sitting on my front porch that my daughter, who was in college as a geology student, brought home after we drove across some place that had a lava field.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, but that’s just science.

Dave Young:

That’s just science. I mean, it’s there to warn the other rocks.

Stephen Semple:

So yeah. So there we go about the story of Slinky and we’ve got something new to do on the website.

Dave Young:

I love the story of Slinky. I’m going to go get one now.

Stephen Semple:

There you go. We just boosted sales some more. Thanks, David.

Dave Young:

Thank you. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a big fat juicy five star rating and review. If you have any questions about this or any other podcast episode, email to questions@TheEmpireBuilderspodcast.com.