Digi-Key: The Failed Morse Code Kit That Outlasted RadioShack's 7,000 Stores

Subscribe to the channel if you love watching the little guy WIN:    / @gritandmortar   In 1968, Ron Stordahl designed a ham radio kit so good that the big radio companies built the idea right into their own radios, and suddenly nobody needed his kit. It left him with tens of thousands of leftover parts in a small town in northwest Minnesota. So he started selling those parts through the mail, one at a time. RadioShack was opening as many as three new stores a day. Ron had one other person. Today, RadioShack's stores are nearly gone. And the company Ron built out of those leftovers, Digi-Key, sells almost $4 billion worth of parts a year from the same small town of Thief River Falls. This is the story of a ten-cent resistor, two friends from the same high school, and the companies that bet on the wrong thing: Lafayette, Heathkit and RadioShack. Did you ever build something with your own two hands? Tell me what it was in the comments, and where your parts came from: RadioShack, Lafayette, a Heathkit kit, or a Digi-Key catalog? SOURCES IEEE Spectrum, "A Day in the Life of Digi-Key" (2014): https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/slidesh... EDN, "Voices: Digi-Key: Growing Up, Privately" (2006): https://www.edn.com/voices-digi-key-g... Star Tribune, "Why DigiKey made huge investment in northwestern Minnesota" (2025): https://www.startribune.com/ramstad-w... Fortune, "How to get talented people to work in the middle of nowhere" (2014): https://fortune.com/2014/03/13/how-to... MPR News, "Digi-Key boom brings good problems to Thief River Falls" (2017): https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/08... Electronic Specifier, "How a multi-billion-dollar distributor operates out of a small city in Minnesota": https://www.electronicspecifier.com/i... Elektronikpraxis, "From electronic Morse keyer to global company": https://www.elektronikpraxis.de/from-... Grand Forks Herald, "The Digi-Key story: from a failed product to global leader" (sponsored content): https://www.grandforksherald.com/news... PR Newswire, "Digi-Key Celebrates 50 Years of Fueling Innovation" (2023): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea... Supply Chain Connect, Top 50 Electronics Distributors 2026: DigiKey: https://www.supplychainconnect.com/ra... Supply Chain Connect, Top 50 Electronics Distributors 2024: DigiKey: https://www.supplychainconnect.com/ra... Supply Chain Connect, Top 50 Electronics Distributors 2023: Digi-Key: https://www.supplychainconnect.com/ra... SlashGear, "Who Is RadioShack Owned By And How Many Stores Are Left?" (2026): https://www.slashgear.com/2247896/who... Fortune, "RadioShack Is Almost Out of Stores After Closing Another 1,000" (2017): https://fortune.com/2017/06/01/radios... Hi-Fi Hall of Fame, Lafayette Radio Electronics: https://hifihalloffame.com/business/l... Wikipedia, DigiKey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiKey Wikipedia, RadioShack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack Wikipedia, Lafayette Radio Electronics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayet... Wikipedia, Heathkit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit