38 Facts About Richard Thalheimer

Richard Thalheimer is the founder and former CEO of the US-based consumer brand, The Sharper Image.

Richard Thalheimer established The Sharper Image in 1977, after taking an interest in watches.

Richard Thalheimer's family owned The Blass Department Store, which for many years was Arkansas' largest department store.

Richard Thalheimer was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Richard Thalheimer entered San Francisco's University of California, Hastings College of the Law the following year, graduated with a JD degree, and was admitted to the California Bar in July 1974.

Richard Thalheimer then began to study tech products that could be supplied by the business.

Richard Thalheimer spotted that some wealthy runners were using the Seiko, but many everyday runners would never have been able to afford the price tag.

Richard Thalheimer took a flight to Las Vegas to visit a trade show, where he came across his first product, a wholesale digital watch.

Richard Thalheimer purchased a watch and gave it to the head of his run club.

The watch held up to the challenge and Richard Thalheimer decided to start distributing the watch.

Richard Thalheimer believed it could be marketed as a similar product to the more expensive Seiko.

Richard Thalheimer generated $5k in profits from the watch and marketing campaign and began to repeat the process with other products and became a millionaire at the age of 27.

The process became successful enough for Richard Thalheimer to decide to launch his own catalog in 1979.

Richard Thalheimer stated to The Hustle magazine, it was a high tech catalog of devices no one knew they needed.

Richard Thalheimer spoke about how he witnessed Jobs' presentation earlier that year at WebMania, where he presented NeXt's dynamic web page builder.

In some cases, Richard Thalheimer presented a short segment on how the website had allowed the company to transition from a traditional catalog model to online.

At Internet World expo in 1996, Richard Thalheimer presented a segment during Steve Jobs' speech about dynamic web pages.

Richard Thalheimer explained that the web catalog would completely transform how they did business.

Richard Thalheimer announced that The Sharper Image was introducing a device called the Ionic Breeze in 1998.

Richard Thalheimer moved from managing the day-to-day operations that year to spending 4 days a week with the design-time coming up with new concepts and products.

Richard Thalheimer focused on their store offerings during this period, and were one of the first United States retailers to offer the Razor scooter.

In 2006, Richard Thalheimer left the business after 29 years at the helm.

Richard Thalheimer remained on the board until 2007 when he sold his remaining shares in the business.

Richard Thalheimer appeared on numerous prime time television shows including Late Night with David Letterman and The Joan Rivers Show.

Richard Thalheimer was featured in the Citibank Diner's Club network commercial.

Richard Thalheimer recognized that the success wasn't only the charging of a phone on the go, but the notoriously poor battery life of the iPhone.

In 2010, Richard Thalheimer devoted his full-time energies to managing his stock portfolio and began to study with the Najarian Brothers.

In 2015, Richard Thalheimer launched his family office fund, which is known today as The Sharper Fund.

Richard Thalheimer compared his investing strategy to how he created and marketed Sharper Image products; looking at long term benefits and market factors at the time of investment.

Richard Thalheimer suffered a sharp fall in share price after numerous food poisoning issues.

Richard Thalheimer stated that after the fall in share price, Chipotle hired the ex-Taco Bell CEO, Brian Niccol.

Richard Thalheimer believed that Niccol's expertise would change the culture at Chipotle and subsequently they would see the share price return to its highs of $750 a share.

At the time of the podcast interview, Richard Thalheimer stated he had made large returns due to the increase he had seen in the restaurant chain's share price.

In December 2018, Richard Thalheimer was interviewed on a couple of occasions about his position on Tesla's stock price.

Richard Thalheimer stated in the interview he had always held a bullish view on the stock after owning four Teslas since 2010.

Richard Thalheimer stated that many of the critical views by both analysts and industry experts, such as Bob Lutz, were looking at market conditions incorrectly.

Richard Thalheimer believed that many were overlooking the technology in Teslas in the same way analysts and experts ignored how revolutionary the iPod would become.

Richard Thalheimer stated that his belief that Tesla was in a stronger position than Ford and other traditional motor manufacturers.