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- [00:01]
Keith Newman
Oh, hey. Welcome to the Look Back. With me, your host, Keith Newman, former journalist and media guy and go to market consultant in the Valley for the past few decades. Here we have candid conversations with newsmakers and rule breakers, the innovators, entrepreneurs and influencers who share their past contributions along with current insights in a casual yet candid content conversation. This lightly edited passion project of mine is a pay it forward contribution to the next wave of innovators and entrepreneurs. I sure hope you enjoy the program and feel free to share it with anyone who might enjoy it. Now onto the show. And now I'm here to introduce you a new series, kind of a spin out of the Look Back called the Look Forward. And we're really excited to share with you something that's recommended from my audience. They said they want to hear about things people are experiencing today, what the new reality of the market is today. So with that, I bring you the Look Forward. Fantastic. I'm so happy to have another Look Back episode with Jim Hamilton. Jim is one of those folks who came out of the Santa's Workshop. I mean, I mean Tandy Workshop. Tandy, as most of you know, from its main offspring, which was Radio Shack, which Charles Tandy and team bought in 1962 for $300,000 and was then known as the trendy Radio Shack and leather company. And it blossomed into eight company thousand stores. I know 8,000 stores. And many of you know, Tandy started off in Radio Shack, man. We, Jim, we're going to talk about that for a little bit. But the idea of 8,000 stores focusing on those early tinkerers and do it yourself people and gadgets and hey, I need something. And it was the, it was like crossing the chasm as we go from retail into tech items, moving into retail. And you got into the next wave of that with the popularizing of the computer superstore. You worked, of course, at Computer City. You worked at Montgomery Ford, right?
- [02:31]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah.
- [02:32]
Keith Newman
And then Tandy also had a response. I mean, Computer City was a response in a way to what Fry's was doing and Micro center and CompUSA. And then you decided to supersize on top of that with Incredible Universe. All of those stories just became the favorites of mine during the Computer Retail Week era and that whole generation of tech and retailing. Jim, welcome to the Look Back.
- [03:00]
Jim Hamilton
Sorry for the introduction there. No, you know, Computer Retail Week back in those days was, was how we kept up with everything, right? You know, new products that we had missed or, you know, new articles or competition as a Matter of fact, I tell my, I tell my students all the time at the University of Dallas that, you know, you got to be. You got to read the trade journals if you want information. You're going to start a new company, got to figure the trade journals out and, and read the stories that are taking place because many times competitors will talk to you journalists, but they, they won't share any other information. So we loved Computer Retail Week.
- [03:37]
Keith Newman
You love to hate it sometimes.
- [03:40]
Jim Hamilton
We love it on the days you wrote nice things about us.
- [03:43]
Keith Newman
Well, you guys were generating so many great stories. It was so fantastic. When you look back, as my podcast likes to focus, what are some of those memories that you, that you hearken back to? I know you're teaching now and doing a whole bunch of other things, which we will get into, but when you think of, of some of those favorite stories and learnings.
- [04:05]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah. You know, there's so many things at Computer City. I mean, we were, we were in many cases just flying by the seat of our pants many times because none of this stuff had ever been done before. So to go international was phenomenal. To put stores in Canada and so at the store, you know, was absolutely phenomenal. The problem is, you know, we are. Our systems weren't always keeping up with as fast as we were mo. So trying to get everything ready to open stores in Canada, you know, Alan Bush, you know, my boss, the president, was actually up there phoning back to me what inventory was actually sitting in the store so I could build an ad for that, you know, a couple of days later, you know, we did newspaper advertising. And yeah, you could do them pretty quickly. You just, you just didn't want to run something that you didn't have inventory of or, you know, you could, you could look at competition and see where you need to price the goods to be, you know, very competitive. So those days were, were phenomenal. And then, of course, the people that, you know, gets behind you to do those type of things, it was, it was great. We, we also, you know, I don't know if you remember, but we ended up being the second fastest retailer to hit a billion dollars in sales.
- [05:24]
Keith Newman
Wow.
- [05:24]
Jim Hamilton
And then we ended up being the second fastest retailer to hit $2 billion in sales. And of course, Sam's Club was the fastest. Wow. Yeah, was. It was amazing. And, you know, we get this year.
- [05:37]
Keith Newman
It was an amazing time. And I think we kind of look past those things because it sort of, in hindsight, it looks like it was over in a blink of an eye, but that was a Good generation of activity.
- [05:48]
Jim Hamilton
Absolutely. You know, we will think about the technology. I remember going on a buying trip to the Far east and when we left, you know, the hard drives, remember were at like 4 speed. Then they went to 8 speed. They were at 16 speed before I, you know, we were seeing 16 speed hard drives by the time, you know, we ended up our three week trip. So I mean it was just crazy times.
- [06:14]
Keith Newman
There was an interesting thing trying to balance technology innovation with what's ready for consumers to adopt versus you got to deliver the product and it's got to work. And there were some rough, rough periods. But, but in terms of lessons and, and experiences, what were some of your fun memories from that time?
- [06:34]
Jim Hamilton
It was clearly people. I mean from a lesson standpoint, you know, it's kind of a, a cliche to say get the right people in the right seats. But boy oh boy, we could have never done that if we didn't have, you know, the group that we had, you know, we had, we had Kurt Nelson and Richard Lapp on the supply chain side for us. They came, they followed me down from Montgomery Ward. They're both deceased now, may they rest in peace. But you know, to keep the inventory in the right places at the right time. It was phenomenal the job that they did. And then of course, you know, we had the marketing team that every week we were building advertising based on. I'll tell you a funny story. Can I tell you a funny story about compus?
- [07:20]
Keith Newman
That's what it's all about.
- [07:21]
Jim Hamilton
So I'll tell. You know back we were, remember when we had pagers? You know that was our lifeline was pagers. Right. So we, CompUSA is running, beating us.
- [07:34]
Keith Newman
Up by the way. I go back to the model TRS 80 if we want to just start to date myself but thank you. And I don't get, I don't get to use the word acoustic couplers enough in my current language. So please proceed.
- [07:49]
Jim Hamilton
Well, I appreciate that. I know you're, you and I are on the same. You can listen to a modem connecting and tell the speed right by the sound. So anyway, I've got this pager and you know my office is on the top floor of Tandy Tower 2 and it's got these 20 foot glass windows and we would do these, our planning for advertising on my whiteboard in my office. And then the marketing team would take it down and they would, you know, they would work on it and put it into print and so forth. And we were getting killed every, every week. Compusa seemed to have our advertising and was beating us in the ad. We could not figure. We still don't know today how they were doing it. So all of a sudden, I'm sitting at my desk and I hear a beep. And I'm thinking, wow, where's that coming from? Is that a battery? You know, some sort of battery powered item that's going dead here? And so I look at my, you know, I'm looking around at my desk, I'm looking all over the place and I can't find anything. So I call, you know, Tandy security. They come over, they put people in the ceilings. Oh, boy, they're looking for this beep. So finally, you know, he comes the, the guy that's running this whole escapade comes to me and says, you know, we think we found it. We're going to cut a section of the wall out right here behind your desk. And we think there's something in the wall. So, you know, I said, okay. So I start moving my chair out of the way and clearing stuff out. And he says, by the way, you don't have a pager, do you, in your desk? And I said, oh, no, I've already looked through there. I said, my pagers in my briefcase and it's laying up against the wall. About the time I said that, it beeps. The pager was in with a low battery sitting in my briefcase. All these people are going crazy looking for the beep.
- [09:42]
Keith Newman
You're thinking, you're thinking that Nathan Morton had somebody stick it in there.
- [09:47]
Jim Hamilton
It was espionage.
- [09:49]
Keith Newman
I like that. Well, you, you made a comment and I want to respond to it, about the people. And I'll give a shout out to one of our mutual friends and a Tandy veteran, Dave Martella.
- [10:02]
Jim Hamilton
Dave Martella. What a super guy.
- [10:04]
Keith Newman
Well, I know him as a family friend and a business contact. And he recently passed. In fact, it was just a year. I saw it on Facebook. But one of my favorite people, my heart goes out to he and his family. I know you feel the same, but he was just a wonderful merchant and just a great person. So we'll dedicate this episode to him and some of the. And some of the other great soldiers you worked with. It was a great group of people I got to know through your whole organization.
- [10:32]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah, it was a great, like I said, great team of people. You know, they just came to work every day, every day to get the job done.
- [10:39]
Keith Newman
So now where is, where is Alan Bush these days?
- [10:42]
Jim Hamilton
He's, he's in Florida. He's in Palm beach. And you know, I'm sure he still golfs every single day.
- [10:49]
Keith Newman
Okay, that's, that's scary to think about, but I wish him well. I hope I can bump into him on one of these podcasts soon too. And what about let's talk about Packard Bell as just an interesting case study. I don't know if you've ever done the case study with your classes, but here's a company that took a brand name that had some awareness and interest and they completely repackaged it and it was a whole new product. And a team of Israeli businessmen in the U.S. in Los Angeles I believe, built a factory around a distribution company. Then they started manufacturing computers. That was right in that period of time where it was a build your own mentality and that thing. Talk about growth and owning retail shelves and relationships. What a phenomenal story. You got to know them quite well.
- [11:43]
Jim Hamilton
I did get to know them quite well. As a matter of fact, one of the three founders and I became partners later in life and we created a holding company, a fund that focused on Israeli companies. So yes, I got to know them very well. As a matter of fact I have of the top secret and I didn't know you were going down the Packer Bell path, but I have one of the top secret Packer Bell prospectuses, the red herring that came out, you know, very short lived. They pulled it pretty quickly but you know they were going to go public in those days and you know they were, they were the lion share of the retail computer space. If you didn't have Packer Bell on your shelf, you were losing.
- [12:24]
Keith Newman
Was that more so because they built the strategic relationships on the retail side or because they did such a good job on the consumer demand and hitting price point side. What was there? What do you, what do you look at that when you try to think of the formula that worked for so long for them?
- [12:41]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah. So let's. So if we look at the market was pretty fragmented when they came into play, right. I mean we were still dealing with King Kong Bundy, remember those days and Harry Fox and you know, over at Phillips and so you know, Smith Corona computers and Epson computers. So they really picked a good time to come into the marketplace because Apple wasn't there yet, IBM wasn't there yet, Compact wasn't there yet. So they just seized upon being aggressive in those days. Now you know, when their start share started going down obviously is when compact and and others came into being. But they really seized on that, that whole marketplace and you know they started out with Teton in Taiwan, you know, being very aggressive with them on pricing and so forth. And, you know, they would cut the margins razor thin.
- [13:40]
Keith Newman
Yeah.
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Jim Hamilton
And, you know, I talked about these ads that we would carry around and we would actually, I would get a copy a few days in advance. I don't remember how, how many days it was, but it was the same week. And I remember getting on an airplane, going to Plains, New York to visit IBM and I had my ads that I had to, to proof, to put into publication or to give the approval to go. And I had them in my briefcase and we get to the IBM meeting and the pricing, you know, they're presenting their items for the next, you know, six months or whatever. And, you know, Packer Bell was blowing them away on that weekend's ad. I mean, that's how aggressive they were. You know, you really had to, you really had to be on top of things to compete with them at the time. And of course it put, you know, it put Epson and Smith Corona and all those people out of business, Canon out of business. So, yeah, they were, they were great. And then they always had the latest and greatest technology. But I'll tell you what kept everybody buying is, you know, we always had this period where the old product would kind of become stagnant. So you're trying to run down your inventory so you could get the latest and greatest Packer Bell. Well, what they did, what, what all of the other people did is they would kind of give you a little markdown money to try to, to get rid of it ahead of time. Packer Bell would take it back. So you always had fresh Packer Bell on the shelves. You never had to worry about. Now how they supported that I still don't know to this day.
- [15:15]
Keith Newman
Prob. Manufacturing or remanufacturing. Right. Or it's very. Right. Fantastic. Well, you know, we have so many fun stories looking back, but you've also done a lot of innovative things, you know, moving forward and keeping yourself busy today. Now we're in a whole another era, right, with AI technology and virtual reality and all kinds of other things. How are you seeing the market? How are you looking at businesses and opportunities and what are the kind of lessons that still apply today?
- [15:49]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah, so it's always been, you know, people that are very sharp. I was in the Dan Quies, spoke to my class yesterday and I don't know if, you know, Dan. Dan is a guy that created a lot of the virtual reality glasses and so forth. Google ended up buying, you Know the patents from his company and so forth. So he's very sharp guy. And that's what, you know, as we did in those days, you take a bunch of technologies, you duct tape them all together and you come up with a new product. Right. So it was always, can we get a smaller keyboard, you know, that we could carry around? Can we get more battery life? Can we get a smaller screen? And, you know, and that's kind of what they've done today is they've taken phones, for example, that are computers, and they've done all that and shoved it together. AI is going to change the way we do business. I mean, it is. There's so many different things right now. I'm looking at a company in Greece right now getting involved with a company in Greece that has some things where they can analyze your marketing plan, brands, they can analyze commercials and all that, and it will spit out in just a few minutes and it's amazing.
- [16:54]
Keith Newman
So kind of like a demand predictor of sorts.
- [16:58]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah, I mean, it, it, it does all the things we would do in marketing, which are hotspots, visual hotspots and all that. And then, you know, it, it will actually dig into, you know, who's the Persona of the customers it believes you're targeting. Yeah. And, you know, if you're missing the mark to that group and, you know, if anything is sensitive that you're doing, it is, it is truly amazing. I mean, I don't get blown away very often, but it's truly, it's truly amazing.
- [17:28]
Keith Newman
On top of that, you look at what's happening out in the retail landscape with folks like, let's just say, Best Buys, a survivor. But I also think about concepts like their geek squad. Is that one of the keys to their survivability, if you will? The idea that there's a whole generation of people out there that still are looking for the manual or they're still trying to figure out how to connect this to that and have a problem understanding, you know, WI fi and routers and, you know, setting up multiple displays or any of these common tech issues. What, what is it about what they were doing, what Radio Shack was doing, what you're seeing out in the market today, that maybe creates a new opportunity.
- [18:17]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah. Now, of course, you know, Montgomery Ward, Sears and Radio Shack had home servicing forever. Right. And so they understood the customer's need to bring somebody in the home and help them solve their problems. Today, Best Buy is probably the last guy in the marketplace doing anything like that. Even if, you know, even if People buy from Amazon, they get it home and, you know, and they really don't know how to connect it. You know, the same thing, you know, smart, smart TVs today. I mean, you get those things and then you want to add, you know, the different apps to it so you can watch, you know, your, your favorite shows on NBC or CBS or free shows, freebie, or all of those different, you know, things. And most people can't figure it out. Most people struggle with that. So you're right. I think Best Buy has done a good job of being able to educate the world. The other thing that's happening, of course, are the influencers that are out there. You know, I, I wanted to do something in my car, my Tahoe, and, you know, I ended up going on YouTube and figuring out it's got a video on, you know, how did I think it was replacing a mirror got broken off or something, and I was going to replace the mirror myself. I'm kind of a handy guy and going to YouTube and boom, you know, not a problem. And it tells you what you should watch for. Don't, don't go down this, you know, rabbit hole.
- [19:41]
Keith Newman
And I'm sure AI is going to have a role in all of that too. So there's absolutely.
- [19:46]
Jim Hamilton
How about the virtual glasses, though, that the Tech Sky Tech guys wear? You know, that the augmented reality where, you know, they're actually, they sit behind your TV set or your washing machine or your refrigerator, and it points to the parts and tells them what the parts are and how to check a certain part. I mean, that sort of stuff just blows me away. Yeah, so blows me away. All the technology you and I have been involved with, and that stuff still blows me away.
- [20:13]
Keith Newman
It's funny, when you look back at the, the generation of the superstore, we were always going to the store to see what was the latest and greatest. It seems so trivial today, the idea of some of those products, but they were formidable at that time in terms of, of taking leaps forward in terms of the technology and the productivity you would get out of those, out of those products.
- [20:39]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah, yeah, it's. I'm sure you're like me. You know, we grew up with Radio Shack, right? We would go to Radio Shack to get all those gadgets. Couldn't wait to get the Radio Shack catalog. You know, you wait, you look for the Christmas books from Montgomery, Warden, Sears when you're younger, but as you got older, it became the Radio Shack catalog.
- [20:59]
Keith Newman
I knew where a couple of them were in my area and I, I Would visit them frequently. That fuse and that transistor and that chip and that. All kinds of other fun stuff.
- [21:13]
Jim Hamilton
And the people could tell you what to do with it. I mean, you could walk in, give them your problem. You know, you've got questions, we've got answers. Was a great tagline for radio chat for many years. And you know how true that was. You could go in there, and they could tell you what you would need, how to do it, how to solder it. You know, what soldering to buy it was. I'm not sure we'll ever have anything like that again. It's too expensive.
- [21:37]
Keith Newman
It is hard to imagine, but what a time, right? I mean, we're talking really about the entering technology, entering mainstream consumerism.
- [21:46]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah. I mean, so think back. We talked about Packer Bell, but then suddenly, Apple came into the marketplace, and, you know, they didn't know how to do retail. Compaq came in. They didn't know how to do retail. So, you know, we ended up helping them. You know, some of the major retailers at the time. I was at Montgomery Warden in Circuit City at the time, launching both of those programs. The computer department, soho, we call it, Small office, home office. And launching Apple at both of those places and launching Compaq and so forth. They didn't know packaging. They didn't know owner's manuals. What they knew how to do is sell their product into bars. Right. Resellers, mom and pop type operations. So it was a big transition for them to move. Same thing with Western Digital and Seagate and all the peripheral companies that wanted to do business but. But didn't know how. Didn't know how to price it. Didn't. Didn't know about returns. You know, they really. I remember Walt Bruckhart, who, you know, is a. Was a saint of a guy. I don't know if you've got to spend any time. He ran merchandising at Circuit City. And, you know, we used to say he. He talked to vendors with a velvet hammer. He could beat you up in a meeting, and you'd never feed. You'd never know. I know when you walked out of there, you'd say, where did I get all these bruises?
- [23:04]
Keith Newman
You know, Jim, Circuit City was another one of those several companies that were forbidden from ever talking to us. Of course, I did talk to him once in a while, but those were great times. Okay, so, Jim, you're. You're still living in Texas, right? You're near.
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Jim Hamilton
Yep. Still in Fort Worth.
- [23:23]
Keith Newman
You're in Fort Worth, and you're teaching.
- [23:26]
Jim Hamilton
I do. I. For the last eight years I've taught entrepreneurship at the University of Dallas.
- [23:30]
Keith Newman
Right. How's that?
- [23:32]
Jim Hamilton
It is great. I mean so we do a. So we start out with all the principles of entrepreneurship and then we end up with a shark tank type contest. You should ask your buddy Mark Cuban to come over and judge one of these.
- [23:46]
Keith Newman
Yeah, he would probably love to.
- [23:48]
Jim Hamilton
I know you guys are tight, you.
- [23:50]
Keith Newman
Got to get on his calendar, but he would probably love to. His whole thing and he goes through this multiple times about. It's not about being on tv. It was about promoting entrepreneurship to the world and that's why he did it. And it just turned into one of the hottest shows on TV because of the pent up demand.
- [24:07]
Jim Hamilton
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what my students go through. We have a contest at the end of the semester. We have some great people make donations to pay for the contest and they get to, you know, they get the real life experience of standing up there doing a presentation to investors. So you know, the hands on today is the way to teach. You know, they're, they don't necessarily want to learn from a book or PowerPoint slides they want to do. So that's what my class is all about. They create pitch decks, they create pitch videos and of course they actually have to do a boardroom presentation. So I love it. They come up with some great ideas, you know, and then of course the students keep young because they ask you the questions that you don't want to ask.
- [24:49]
Keith Newman
No, I do. I do quite a bit of advisory work with startups and some judging. In fact, I did one this this week. It is really fun and it just does blow your mind all the different ideas out there at the same time. While it's exciting and enthralling to watch all the, the, the new generation building businesses, it's just that that wall to cross over from Wall street to Main street or you know, just to make it across the proverbial chasm into something that's, that's got that real growth potential. It's harder and harder.
- [25:26]
Jim Hamilton
It.
- [25:26]
Keith Newman
There's so many companies doing similar things that you really need to have the magic. So how do you counsel come these, these entrepreneurs on that type of challenge?
- [25:36]
Jim Hamilton
You know, you've got to be different. You know, just like back in the day, I remember, you know, we would get in some phenomenal software at you know, Montgomery Ward, Circuit City and Computer City and we would put them in laundry, you know, the laundry baskets type thing, the big hotel type baskets Clot, linen baskets and they were just mound up and you know, you gotta, and we used to tell everybody, you know, how do you know or ask the buyers, how do you know that you're not missing the greatest software ever because they just can't break through it. And you know, that continues to today it's still, you know, there's so many opportunities happening now that, you know, that wall of is torn down between the US and China manufacturing. And you know, you've got companies that you can just go online now and order things out of the, out of the Far east, out of, you know, and you know, it continues to be a challenge but you gotta, you know, you gotta, you've got to figure out a way to cut through. You've got to figure out a way to get an edge. And I think the people that can figure that out are going to be very successful. The people that can't, you know, don't have the passion, don't have the heart to figure out a way to break through is, you know, they're going to miss big time.
- [26:54]
Keith Newman
I, I think they're getting a lot of great information from somebody like yourself, Jim, that's, that's had an amazing journey. I mean we've only covered about half of your phenomenal experiences. But I'm running up against my time here with you. But it's, it's a great pleasure to catch up. Is, is there a one last look back you can share with the, with the folks here about the, either the good old days or some things you're doing currently?
- [27:23]
Jim Hamilton
Well, you know, like I said, you know, the technology just keeps changing. So I've loved being part of, you know, the AI, you know, jumping from technology to technology. You know, a little, ran a little piece in there of a small company you've probably never heard of, global retail and distribution for Motorola Mobility. And you know, at that company they.
- [27:46]
Keith Newman
Sold to Google, right?
- [27:47]
Jim Hamilton
They, we sold, yeah, that's when I left to Google. And you know, being part of that and seeing the thought process of the people at Google on, you know, what products come next. I think that's been probably one of the most thrilling things is being able, you know, for people to want to talk to you, want to show you, you know, their technology and what comes next. That's why Jason and I got so involved in the Israeli companies. Now he is, he was an Israeli but you know, we were able to get these, they all wanted him to do with them what he did for Packer Bell. And we just had some amazing technologies coming out of there. So it.
- [28:29]
Keith Newman
And they still are.
- [28:31]
Jim Hamilton
They still are, right? They still are. Wow.
- [28:34]
Keith Newman
Well, what a great pleasure. I wanted to wrap up now, but I really can't thank you enough. I mean, the work you're doing in Texas. A great journey and thanks for sharing it. I. I don't know if I can make it out to one of these Shark Tank things at your class, but if I can ever help in any other way, let me know.
- [28:51]
Jim Hamilton
Absolutely. Great catching up, Keith. You know, we. We need to do this more frequently, you know, and we might even have beer involved, you know?
- [28:58]
Keith Newman
You know, wait a second. All of a sudden, I do have Texas on my agenda. Hey, all the best to you. And let's do that. Let's catch up again soon. Thanks for joining the Look Back.
- [29:10]
Jim Hamilton
Sounds good. Thanks, Keith. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
- [29:16]
Keith Newman
Thanks for listening to the Look Back. We do appreciate your support. Welcome any feedback and would love it if you would subscribe to this podcast and even consider sharing it with some of your friends. For more information and other cool info, check us out@newmanmediastudios.com.