Meeting US millionaire inventor Tim Leatherman VIET TOAN   Tim Leatherman is seen demonstrating how his Leatherman multi-tool works as a file. About 20 functions, including pliers, screwdrivers, scissors, wire cutters, and openers, are integrated into a Leatherman hand tool. Photo: Minh Duc Pursuing his goal for eight years and then building a multi-purpose tool company with an annual revenue of up to US$100 million, Oregon-based Tim Leatherman is a real representation of perseverance and a willingness to strive for his life vision. A tall, slender, and casually-dressed Leatherman can easily surprise his converser since few would expect such a simple style from a famed inventor whose success story was written in an inspiring way. One may not believe him to be the chairman of a major firm with distributors in more than 70 countries when listening to his soft voice and looking at his modestly gentle manner. But the man did invent the famous multi-tool that is named after him and integrates around 20 functions such as pliers, screwdrivers, scissors, wire cutters, openers, and others into ten centimeters of stainless steel. This versatile hand tool has been associated with his nine-month trip with his Vietnamese wife, Chau Leatherman, to Europe 38 years ago. However, the 64-year-old inventor said that Vietnam plays a key part in his journey to the creation of the tool.  “The history of the trip to Europe where I came up with the idea for the original Leatherman has been documented many times,” said Leatherman. “What is not often talked about are the two and a half years I spent in Vietnam, prior to that trip. It was there that I began to develop a keen interest in and appreciation for mechanical things and how they worked. I credit this time as the seed that eventually grew into the idea behind the development of the Leatherman tool.”  He told Tuoitrenews during an interview on Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of his company and he wants to celebrate it in Vietnam “because the seed that germinated into the Leatherman tool started here forty years ago.”  Embarrassment is the mother of his invention The man first met his wife in 1969 when she was an exchange student in Oregon, Leatherman said, adding they moved to Saigon and got married here three years later.  During his stay in Saigon, Leatherman saw locals fix their motorbikes smoothly in sidewalk tents and felt ashamed to be unable to do so even when he had a degree in mechanical engineering. “Since then I became very interested in mechanical things and repair, and the way things work,” the entrepreneur recalled. “And I would get things and take them apart, figuring out how they’re working. When there’s a problem, I tried to figure out how I could fix it.”  The chairman and his wife left Saigon in 1975 and decided to take a budget trip to Europe. They bought a used car in Amsterdam for $300 and stayed in cheap hotels. “Sometimes I needed pliers to fix the car or the plumbing in the hotels,” he said. “That’s the original reason for creating this multi-tool: I wanted to be able to fix things with a tool right with me. I didn’t want to carry a big tool, I wanted something small and compact.” Unafraid of failure The young couple then returned to the U.S. in 1976 and Leatherman began creating the tool he was envisioning right in his garage. It took him three years to finish the first prototype instead of one month as he had expected. “My original idea to make money was to get a patent and then sell it,” the American said. Firms kept denying his offer, however. “I tried to go to knife companies and showed them what I thought was my new kind of knife. But they said, ‘No this is not a knife, we’re not interested.’ In fact, they said it’s a tool. Then I went to the tool companies and they said, ‘Sorry, it’s not a tool, it’s a gadget. Gadgets don’t sell,’” Leatherman elaborated. He started running out of ideas, feeling discouraged for a while and then thinking “maybe I’ll have to start a business to get this tool on the market.” A college friend, Steve Berliner who had been tracking Leatherman and the whole process, turned up to offer a partnership. They kept knocking on company doors, including those of telephone firms and the army, but none gave them a nod. The two refused to give up, getting to mail-order catalogs and made it eventually. “We thought maybe a mail order catalog would buy, order some and sell them,” Leatherman said. “And eventually after several attempts we found a mail-order catalog placing an order.”  “My advice for young Vietnamese who want to start their own business is that you should do something you feel passionate about and believe in the thing you decide to do. In our life, we’re going to face some challenges so try to do everything you can to overcome those challenges. To do so, be willing to continue to educate yourself. When having some difficulties then be prepared to have a partner, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak and you’re strong in areas where your partner’s weak. Learn to start small and grow. Don’t think that you need to borrow a lot of money and have to start big and try to get bigger.” - Tim Leatherman. That was in 1983 when Leatherman and Berliner founded a company to start production to fill the order. And customers kept coming to them. “We’re hoping to make and sell 4,000 tools in our first year but the number jumped to 30,000 then,” Leatherman proudly talked of his past achievement. Their sales revenue now fall between $80 and $100 million with about 2 million multi-tools sold each year, according to the chairman. In 2010, Time Magazine regarded the Leatherman tool as one of the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to that year. It said “Tim Leatherman's ‘Mr. Crunch’ prototype multi-tool took nearly eight years to perfect … Leatherman set about creating a ‘Boy Scout knife with pliers’ … [that] was released in 1983 and quickly rivaled the Swiss Army knife as the go-to emergency tool of choice.”  For Leatherman, the lesson learned is don’t be afraid of failure but be brave to keep moving forward. “Whenever I thought about [failure], I would try to put it out of my mind and the next morning get up and move forward,” he said. “I did not fear failure at all because every time I failed I was maybe disappointed but I was learning that ‘OK, that needs to be stronger, that needs to be more flexible.’ So every failure was a teaching moment that taught me something.”   Tim Leatherman will host a reception for Leatherman multi-tool users in Vietnam today from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at StarCity Saigon Hotel at 144 Nguyen Van Troi Street, Ward 8, Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City. He will be signing tools for all those who bring one and there will be tools available for purchase. TuoitreNews