visit a trade show, where he came across his first product, a wholesale digital watch. The watch manufacturer was based in Taiwan and was looking to distribute their product in the United States. Thalheimer purchased a watch and gave it to the head of his run club. He tested it running, cycling and swimming. The watch held up to the challenge and Thalheimer decided to start distributing the watch. He believed it could be marketed as a similar product to the more expensive Seiko. The product was marketed directly to runners in Runner's World, with a full-page ad offering the watch at $69. The ad contained a large photo of the famous San Francisco runner Walt Stack. He 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 Thalheimer to decide to launch his own catalog in 1979. He stated to The Hustle magazine, it was a high tech catalog of devices no one knew they needed. Over the coming years, Thalheimer promoted products through magazine ads and catalog mailings. The Sharper Image regularly introduced new products to its line, and they were often seen as innovative. In the 1980s, Thalheimer introduced many products to the mass market, including the first cordless telephone. Other products included the first telephone answering machine, the first hand-held microcomputer, the first children's two-wheel Razor Scooter, and the Ionic Breeze Air Purifier. By the mid-1990s, the company became known for selling "quirky gadgets" and with the rise in electronic devices in homes, the company grew exponentially. During the opening of a Sharper Image store on Sutter Street in San Francisco in 1996, Thalheimer gave a presentation with NeXT Computer founder, Steve Jobs. Thalheimer spoke about how he witnessed Jobs' presentation earlier that year at WebMania, where he presented NeXt's dynamic web page builder. Thalheimer during his speech stated that at the time he thought "I gotta have this." Two months later, The Sharper Image launched its online catalog, which was built in partnership with NeXT Computers. Jobs presented The Sharper Image website to a select group of people in the store, explaining that thousands of webpages could be built depending on information about that user stored in a database. While NeXT Computer was using dynamic webpages with other clients, it is