Getting the Picture Perfect

Among the things the survey pointed out was that the tool needed some curves to make it “sexier” and the name Spot On “sounded like a stain remover,” remarks Tousignant. As well, the beige colour of the tool at that point was seen as blah. So Tousignant went out to her backyard and spray-painted some offs black, red, lime green, blue and yellow, then asked people which colour was appealing for a tool. Yellow won hands down. The name was also rethought over glasses of wine and beer by the couple and the staff of three now working with them. One name, Well Hung, got votes and laughs, but was deemed too risqué. (It survives on promotional T-shirts the couple sometimes give away.)

Now, with the bugs worked out, it was time to find a manufacturer. Under the Roof hoped to produce Hang & Level in North America, but Krake’s research revealed that would be three to four times as expensive as manufacturing in China, putting the price point of the finished product in the unreasonable $40 to $60 range. But finding a trustworthy Chinese manufacturer proved tricky. A “so-called expert,” as Krake diplomatically puts it, recommended one Chinese firm. The couple went with his suggestion only to discover that the first offs shipped to them were so poorly made they had to jettison the manufacturer. The setback postponed Under the Roof’s intended spring 2005 product launch by a year. Meanwhile, they continued to incur development costs and pay their small staff. “The amount of stress involved was unbelievable,” the couple says in near unison.

By May 2005 Tousignant and Krake recognized they didn’t have the financial resources themselves to get Hang & Level to the market. After talking to about 80 people, mainly friends and business acquaintances, they got a dozen people to invest in a private equity offering totalling $750,000, with the option for another $250,000. They had to tell a convincing story, says the couple, who each carry around a hand-sized video iPod to show people an infomercial they had made about Hang & Level. “There may be a lot of well-off people in Calgary,” says Tousignant, “but it’s an oil and gas town. Investing in plastics, and a consumer product, and in a couple? Well, that’s another story.”

Eventually Krake, relying on his own acumen as a former business consultant, began researching North American and Chinese manufacturers and soon found a Chinese firm with an established reputation for manufacturing products for brand-name companies. Krake visited the company in southern China – the couple declines to name it, saying they fear knock-offs and losing a competitive advantage if they do – and though the company is located in a grimy, ramshackle area, Krake found the plant itself a clean, high-tech marvel.

Under the Roof paid half the up-front $15,000 cost to have a two-cavity mould produced that could stamp out two Hang & Levels at a time. In January 2006 they received their first offs and the quality was just what they were hoping for. “We were all high-fiving and saying, ‘Oh my God, this is actually going to work,’” says Krake, still jittery after his first Chinese experience. Their first order, a 20-foot shipping container with just over 13,000 units, arrived last May.

Since then the couple and their sales team have been busy trying to convince retailers to stock Hang & Level. They began with a few small independent hardware and art stores around Calgary, but recently scored their first major chain when Home Outfitters, a Hudson’s Bay company, agreed after a successful test-run in Calgary to stock the product in the company’s 56 stores across Canada.

Since last spring Under the Roof has been focusing on marketing strategy. The first short infomercial they used was made by Kevin Seel, the company’s marketing and supply chain director, who has dabbled in amateur production making extreme skiing videos. Later, spending less than $10,000, the company had City TV shoot a more professional infomercial showing how Hang & Level is used. Seel says the iPods “are a great front-line sales/educational tool for us,” and have proven a catch way to convince retail chain buyers why they should stock Hang & Level. (The infomercial is also downloadable as a podcast from the company’s website, www.utrdecorating.com, where a trickle of consumers have begun purchasing Hang & Level online.)

“We plan on creating a series of little, what we’re calling ‘demomercials.’ So we’ll take, for example, a picture-hanging problem, we’ll shoot maybe a 30-second or one-minute video on how to deal with that problem using our tool, and we’ll deploy them to our website as a podcast.” Eventually, says Seel, Under the Roof hopes to have an online decorating show comprised of short, downloadable podcasts, with 10 or 20 episodes that people can store on their cellphones or iPods to use as quick reference for the company’s decorating tips. “The thinking here is that when they are hanging pictures or whatever, they can look at their iPod for how-to information and go ahead and do that themselves.”

Being small, Under the Roof will likely have to piggyback on the television advertising of any chains stocking their tool. “TV is a bit more of a surgical approach,” says Seel. It gets you to a specific audience. But the Internet gives Under the Roof a global reach with a low to moderate investment. “I think to get the most out of your marketing effort and investment, you need to have multiple channels and they all need to be tied together with a consistent message. But the Web is hugely powerful.”

With or without new-fangled techno­logy such as video iPods, getting to a chain store buyer can be harder than getting to a Hollywood agent (see sidebar, p.50). Even the manufacturing agents commissioned by Under the Roof have had a tough time getting a face-to-face meeting to push new products, so the Home Outfitters deal represents an early coup. But Krake and Tousignant have a long way to go before they recoup the sweat, tears and time they’ve invested, not to mention make money for their investors. “If another inventor or wannabe inventor reads this story,” advises Tousignant, they should know “it is not a walk in the park. It is stressful. You have to be 150% committed to your invention and to your team in order to keep going forward.

“You’ll cry over things. How many times did I say, ‘This is it. I’m done with it. I’m going to find a nice job where I don’t have to deal with this.’” But perhaps invention, once embarked upon, is addictive. Krake and Tousignant have another 30-odd new product ideas in development. After nearly 10 years bringing their first invention to market, they are just getting started.

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