LimbSaver started out as Sims Vibration Dynamics, a company founded by Steve Sims that concentrated on dampening and isolating vibration for audio turntables. It wasn’t hard to see the push that CDs were making on the market, and Sims tried moving in that direction. The company wasn’t really strong enough to embrace the mass production that would have been required to address the early problems with CD tracking and skipping. “We just sat on the sidelines for a while. We did meet with some of the big electronics manufacturers, but they seemed more interested in getting the information and then going about it their own way,” said Alan Lotton, vice president of marketing at LimbSaver.
“From there we started OEMing a product for tennis rackets, and right after that we produced a similar vibration-reduction product for baseball bats,” Lotton recalled. “That really created the revenue stream to start innovating new products. We were all bowhunters anyway, and one night while sitting around the campfire we were complaining about the noise and vibration from our bows. We put a Sims Sting Stop (made for baseball bats) on a bow and were amazed at the difference even though it wasn’t designed for that application.”
The first year, they attended the ATA (then AMO) Trade Show with a 10x10-foot booth featuring a card table and a few baseball bats with and without its anti-vibration technology—to gauge the market’s interest. “We hoped to make enough to break even on our expenses; we returned and within a very short time had orders for 300,000 units,” Lotton related.
For 2011, LimbSaver has streamlined its offerings, discontinuing some models that were not hitting the volume mark necessary and adding or modifying others. “We’ve noticed the bigger bow manufacturers all adding the color red in some association as a secondary color or in the camo mix. In response, we’ve taken our Windjammer stabilizers and added accents of red as an additional new SKU. The early preorders are showing the move to red as a very positive choice,” Alan affirmed. After attending some of the buying group shows and seeing the demand for something other than camo, five distinct colors have been added to the line as well.
Following up colored stabilizers and along the same vein is the addition of colored String Leeches and LimbSavers, which are sold individually and in combo packs. The Kodiak sling has been tearing up the firearms world for a short time now and is proving itself in the crossbow market as well. “At no time in our company history have we seen a product do so well with preorders,” Lotton said.
“We made a major investment in 2008 in both technology and expansion and took the hit pretty hard when the economy tanked,” Lotton explained. “Now, with an investment upward of $2 million we are poised to reap the benefits. Already we are seeing an upward spike in preorders.”
(360) 427-6031; www.limbsaver.com
