On the desk today · WD-40 Company
Forty tries to get the formula right. Then they never told anyone what's in it.
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Forty Attempts and
One Unpatented Secret
In 1953, three chemists in a small lab in San Diego set out to make a rust-prevention solvent for the aerospace industry. They worked for a company called Rocket Chemical. Their client was Convair — the defense contractor building the Atlas missile for the U.S. military. The missile's stainless-steel skin kept corroding in the coastal humidity. Convair needed something to keep the rust off.
The chemists tried 39 formulas. All failed. The 40th worked.
They called it WD-40. Water Displacement, 40th formula. The name came straight from the lab notebook. Nobody bothered to change it. Nobody needed to.
I was in my garage last weekend, trying to loosen a stuck bolt on a lawnmower. I reached for the blue and yellow can without thinking — the way you reach for a light switch. I sprayed. I waited. The bolt turned. I didn't read the label. I didn't think about what was inside. Neither did you, the last time you used it.
Most people think of WD-40 as a lubricant. The company would tell you it's a water displacer, a rust preventive, a penetrant, and a moisture remover — among roughly 2,000 documented uses. But here is what most people don't know. WD-40 Company doesn't manufacture WD-40. It does not own a single factory. It outsources all production to third-party manufacturers. What it owns is the formula and the brand. The company describes itself — in its own SEC filings — as "a global marketing organization." That is not modesty. That is the business model.
After Convair started using the formula on the Atlas missile, something unexpected happened. Convair employees began sneaking cans out of the plant in their lunchboxes. They used it at home — on squeaky hinges, stuck tools, rusted parts. The company's founder, Norm Larsen, noticed. In 1958, he put the formula into aerosol cans and sold them in San Diego hardware stores. The product took off. In 1969, the company renamed itself from Rocket Chemical to WD-40 Company. The missile was gone. The can stayed.
In fiscal 2025 — the year ended August 31 — WD-40 reported $620 million in net sales, up 5% from the year before. Gross margin hit 55.1% — up from 53.4%. Operating income reached $103.8 million. The company employs roughly 500 people worldwide. That works out to over $1.2 million in revenue per employee. It sells its products in more than 176 countries and territories. And the formula — 72 years after it was written in that lab notebook — has never been patented.
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That zero in the stat trio is the most important number in the entire story. WD-40 has never been patented. Not by accident. By design. A patent requires public disclosure of the formula. Anyone could read it. Anyone could try to replicate it the day the patent expires. So the company chose the Coca-Cola route — keep it a trade secret, guard it internally, and let the brand do the defending. As long as the recipe stays locked away and the blue-and-yellow can stays in every garage and workshop on earth, no patent is needed. The brand is the moat.
Here is how the pricing power works. WD-40 sits in a category with almost no price sensitivity. A can costs $5 to $8 at a hardware store. You buy it once a year, maybe twice. You don't comparison-shop for it. You don't check reviews. You reach for the can you've always reached for. In fiscal 2025, WD-40 grew maintenance product sales 6% — driven by both volume and pricing. Gross margin expanded 170 basis points to 55.1%. The company has been raising prices steadily for years. Consumers absorb it without noticing.
Steve Brass, who became CEO in July 2024, put the strategy plainly in the fiscal 2025 earnings release: "Our capital-light, efficient business model continues to generate strong cash flow, enabling us to invest in brand growth, develop future leaders, and return capital to stockholders." Capital-light is the key phrase. WD-40 doesn't own factories. It doesn't own raw materials. It doesn't even own the cans. It contracts with third-party manufacturers around the world, ships the product through distributors, and collects the margin on every unit sold. The company's entire workforce is roughly 500 people. The rest is outsourced.
The flywheel is geographic expansion. WD-40 started in San Diego hardware stores in 1958. By 1973, it had gone global. Today it sells in 176 countries — but usage per household varies enormously. In the United States, roughly 80% of households have a can. In parts of Asia and Latin America, penetration is far lower. The opportunity is not to invent new products. It is to put the same blue-and-yellow can in more hands, in more countries, year after year. More cans. Same formula. Same margin.
WHY THIS WORKS
The brand is the patent. WD-40 has never been patented — and never needs to be. The trade secret is protected internally. The blue-and-yellow can is recognized in 176 countries. Nobody buys the knockoff.
No factory, no inventory risk. WD-40 outsources all manufacturing. The company owns the formula and the brand. Everything else is contracted. Capital expenditures are minimal.
Zero price sensitivity. A $6 can bought once a year is invisible in a household budget. WD-40 raises prices steadily. Nobody notices. Nobody switches.
One product, infinite shelf life. WD-40 Multi-Use Product accounts for roughly 95% of the company's maintenance sales. The formula hasn't changed in 72 years. The can hasn't changed. The demand hasn't changed.
WD-40 has never been patented. The company made a deliberate decision — decades ago — that disclosing the formula in a patent filing would be more dangerous than protecting it as a trade secret. Patents expire. Trade secrets don't. Coca-Cola made the same choice in 1886. WD-40 made it in 1953. A formula written in a lab notebook during the Eisenhower administration — attempt number 40, the one that finally worked — still sits in a vault in San Diego. Seventy-two years later, roughly 500 people guard it. And a billion cans a year carry it around the world.
