Froehlich, who started working for her father's company when she was 14, recalls the night her father brought home a Slinky. Her response to that novelty was not to play with it but to ask, "Why didn't we invent this?" It would seem that she has since vowed that the SuperClip will atone for that oversight.
Richard, who grew up in the neighborhood and for 12 years attended a parochial school just a quarter mile from Ace's plant, serves as Froehlich's subdued alter ego. He freely admits that he doesn't much care for people; he's happiest when he's out back, overseeing smooth-running machines cranking out one identical--and profit-producing--spring after another. The Froehlichs' hard work has earned them a demanding customer base that reaches from coast to coast, and they make springs to tolerances as tight as three one-thousandths of an inch. Ace houses 10 computer numerically controlled machines representing a total outlay of more than $1.5 million.
Of his wife, Richard notes wryly: "She likes to sell. She likes to listen to that BS."
Linda returns his smile playfully and says, "That's what sales is: kissing butt."
Richard's subtext is clear: the core business dutifully grinds out money; the SuperClip, to date, has eaten it. The Froehlichs estimate they've spent upwards of $300,000 on the SuperClip, $150,000 in patent lawyers' fees alone.
Still, what started out as Linda's lark has become a dream shared by both of them.
In the summer of 1995, when Ace landed its first big order from Office Depot, everyone at the plant pitched in to package the paper clips, ensuring that they were lined up facing the same direction. Then Kmart did a test of the product and gave Ace a solid order worth $85,000, and Target's West Coast stores began carrying the clip. In 1996 sales of the SuperClip shot to a respectable $400,000. But in the spring of that year, knockoffs began cropping up, eating into the SuperClip's sales. Linda even suffered the ignominy of walking into a Wal-Mart and coming face-to-face with a pseudo-SuperClip after the retailer had evaluated the clip and advised her that it "had commercial potential"--while the company was in the process of ordering a similar product from offshore. "You might as well have just torn my heart out," she says.
This year the Froehlichs figure they'll be lucky if they do $200,000 in SuperClip sales, and pallets of the product now languish in the shop out back, gathering dust.
Sitting in their conference room, the Froehlichs lay out the SuperClip's life history, like embattled generals fighting a rearguard action. The physical evidence adds up to a dozen years of toil: grimy bags filled with odd pieces of wire; musty files; and a scrapbook as thick as the Gutenberg Bible, featuring every bit of press the SuperClip has fetched. There are packages of the product in previous incarnations, namely the Execu Clip, the Giant Clip, and the Clipster.
One of the Froehlichs' early allies was Steven Meyer, who met Linda in 1987 and helped her with a promotion in which the SuperClip was folded into every copy of a local business journal. A distributor of office products and the founder of a network of 100 office-supply dealers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Meyer calls the SuperClip "a really functional product. People really wanted it." He adds that Froehlich "was not naïve, but what she didn't realize was that she was playing in the big leagues. I apprised her of the strength of the manufacturers and what it would mean to be dealing with the likes of Wal-Mart and Office Depot. I talked to her extensively about the possibility of someone knocking off the product."
Froehlich understood the risks but believed that with the patent to protect her, "the road ahead would be smooth." Because she was aiming for "a big hit" in the mass market, she chose not to pursue a joint-marketing venture with Meyer that would explore possible niches for the SuperClip. Rather, she approached Acco USA, a $1-billion office-products manufacturer and distributor, inquiring if it wanted to acquire patent rights to the SuperClip. Acco is a Chicago-area-based subsidiary of Fortune Brands, formerly American Brands, the $4.6-billion producer of such diverse products as Titleist golf balls, Jim Beam bourbon, and Moen faucets.
"Acco told me it was a novelty," says Froehlich. "They weren't interested." Challis Yeager, an Acco spokesperson, says that the company "has no record that we were contacted" by Froehlich.
But after banging on Office Depot's door, Froehlich made her first sale to the chain. Office Depot's buyer, Carol Martin, recalls the SuperClip as "a good product that definitely had a use." Looking for a leg up on the competition, she decided to order the product.
When Froehlich broke through with Office Depot, Meyer says, "she cracked a major player. That was incredible." Now Acco had to take notice. But it was not in the manner Froehlich expected. Using its contacts in Taiwan, Acco produced a SuperClip knockoff called the MegaClip, which, given Acco's marketing clout, it has had no problem selling to Staples, Office Depot, and OfficeMax. It showed up on shelves in the summer of 1996. Notes Meyer: "Acco blew her off, and then they knocked her off. A product is always a 'novelty' until someone else starts manufacturing and selling it."
