I’m a mechanical engineer by trade, but I also spend most of my free time tinkering and designing in my garage. Ever since that day at the museum, I’ve been inspired to recreate what I saw there – imagination, innovation and ingenuity – in my own work.
Most of my best ideas come to me when I run into a problem and can’t stop thinking about it until I create a solution. One-Ties are a reusable rubber zip-tie I invented after I was doing some painting on the house and my power painter cord came unplugged so many times I must have gone up and down the ladder every five minutes to plug it back in. I thought to myself, “there’s got to be a solution for this.” It turns out there was – and it was a solution for a bazillion other things, too.
When my business partners Erik Chmelar, Jason DeYoung and I decided to get serious about selling One-Ties to the public, I was adamant from the very beginning about manufacturing our product in the U.S. Anything else was a deal breaker. I’m what you might call a patriotic person. I believe the greatness of our country lies in the potential of the great people who live here. If we were going to be creating jobs in making this idea come to life, I wanted to share that opportunity with other Americans. That’s why today, One-Ties are manufactured in Elroy, Wisconsin.
If I could give one piece of advice to other entrepreneurs, I would share the famous words of Winston Churchill: “Never, never, never give up.” I first invented One-Ties to use around my own house. I never imagined they would be sold at the world’s biggest retailer.
I feel truly blessed, and to have my invention recognized at Walmart’s Open Call this past June was an amazing reward I never expected. Prior to Open Call, we began thinking about licensing our concept to Tailor Made Products, the company we charged with manufacturing it from the beginning. After Open Call, we did just that. They’re a company that has been making products for sale at Walmart for 20 years, so giving them this opportunity was a move that made sense for all of us.
Creating something other people love to use is the best part of being an innovator, and I’ll never stop.