Plan 9 works with a small number of impact technology companies where we believe we can make a material difference.
Easy
Tool
Changing the Route to Market to Reach Three Continents
Easytool was a company Ollie Walsh built with his father, Paul Walsh, an engineer and inventor. This is founder and operator experience, not a Plan 9 client engagement. It is the venture that taught Ollie most of what he knows about resilience, market timing and adapting a go-to-market strategy when the first plan doesn’t survive contact with the market.
The Situation
Paul Walsh developed several original products for the hand tool market: the RamRod, a multipurpose demolition tool; the 360 Paint Roller, designed for painting railings; and a companion 360 Wire Brush for preparing railings before painting. Paul designed and built the prototypes himself.
The commercial model was licensing: protect the inventions, then license the patents to a manufacturer with the scale and customer base to take them to market. Easytool patented the RamRod and the 360 range in the EU, the US, Australia and China and, after exhibiting at international tool trade shows in Cologne and Las Vegas, signed Great Star Tools, the largest tool company in Asia and owner of the US brand Goldblatt.
The Challenge
Success with a manufacturer did not automatically mean success with retailers. Major tool brands and retailers’ own-brand lines showed plenty of interest, but no one wanted to be first. They all wanted to see the product succeed somewhere else.
Inside Great Star’s catalogue, Easytool’s inventions were one line among thousands, competing for attention with hundreds of other products inside the very organisation that was supposed to be selling them.
What We Found
Buyers needed proof from a live market before they would commit, and nobody else was going to make that case. Salespeople at every trade show loved the products, but buyers wanted statistics to build projections on, including data such as return rates that don’t yet exist for a genuinely new product category.
Once the team owned the retail relationship, a second barrier emerged: scale. Retailers were reluctant to set up a supplier account for a brand with only a couple of products, much of their shelf space was controlled by big brands, and interested retailers wanted to start with 20 or 30 units while Easytool’s supply model was built for orders in the hundreds.
The Strategy
Over roughly ten years, Easytool moved through three distinct strategies, each a deliberate response to a specific barrier: license to a manufacturer, build and sell a retail brand, then hold stock and sell direct.
The Easytool brand was designed as a deliberate, temporary bridge: a way to generate the market proof buyers were asking for, then hand that proof back to a major brand.
Implementation
Great Star brought the Easytool team back in to run sales and promotion themselves, working trade show stands across Europe, the US, Canada and Australia, backed by digital ad campaigns and PR. That put the team directly in front of buyers from every major tool brand and retailer in those markets.
The Easytool brand launched publicly at the Cologne Hardware Show, selling to retailers who bought directly from Great Star, with Easytool driving the sales, marketing and PR relationship end to end.
To solve the sizing problem, Ollie and Paul began ordering and holding stock themselves, wholesaling to retailers in the smaller quantities they wanted and selling direct to consumers online, supported by their own digital advertising and PR.
The Result
Easytool generated more than €250,000 in sales, roughly 75% through retailers across Ireland, the UK, the Nordic countries, Canada and Australia, with the balance sold direct to consumers online in Ireland and the UK. Manufacturing and distribution through Great Star’s Goldblatt brand also reached the US market.
With market proof established, but the cost of maintaining international patents, holding stock and marketing the tools directly outweighing what the business could sustain at that scale, Ollie and Paul made a disciplined call: stop renewing the patents and close the company.
Two lessons stayed with Ollie, and he has helped founders navigate them ever since. Once a product is signed over to a manufacturing and licensing partner, the founder loses control of it. And a market’s stated demand for innovation is not the same as its appetite for the risk that comes with it.
Founder Perspective
“The patent process is the most expensive nightmare you will ever have.”
Ollie Walsh, Co-founder, Easytool
Facing a Similar Growth Challenge?
Plan 9 works with a small number of impact technology companies where we believe we can make a material difference.