We have so much to share. Details of each of the following bullets follow:
• Garbage Can Fly Trap Progress
• National Hardware Show, May 4th, 5th and 6th in Las Vegas
• Distribution Partnership with JT Eaton
• 3rd Patent Application
• Private Equity Investment Proposition
• City of San Diego
o Regulation Modification
o Proposals
• Flies in February???
Garbage Can Fly Trap Progress
The process and logistics of manufacturing, fly stick-um application, packaging, shipping, import taxes, distribution, etc. has been such an amazing, exciting and challenging experience for us that we continue to grow and learn at every turn in this adventure. In short, the molds have been ordered from the Chinese Manufacturer (Manufacturing Partner) that we told you about in our last update and the mold fabrication process begun. Whew!
Our biggest hurdle before us now is the sourcing and application of the appropriate fly stick-um. Our Manufacturing Partner is working with the Chinese manufacturer of JT Eaton fly stick-um products to acquire the adhesive such that they can apply it in an efficient and large-scale manner.
This process will likely take too long to have the Garbage Can Fly Traps at your location in time to satisfy our Kickstarter fulfillment date so we will instead be air-freighting enough Garbage Can Fly Traps and cartridges to the States (our house) when we visit China to satisfy all our pre-orders and apply the stick-um here that we sourced locally. (Yes, Dennis will do this by hand in our garage for you – all 3,000+ Kickstarter Cartridges!)
The ordering of the molds and payment for our first production run now puts us at about $60,000 of personal investment, well, about $47,000 of personal investment and $13,000 more from Kickstarter for which we are very thankful!
National Hardware Show
We have booked our first booth to take our first sales of the Garbage Can Fly Trap at the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas in May. This is very exciting and a little scary as this is something we have never done before. We are now working with a packaging company and a graphic designer to facilitate the design and manufacture of packaging mock-ups for the show. We will be in the Inventor’s Spotlight Pavilion and welcome any and all backers to stop by for a visit if you are in the vicinity of Las Vegas during the May 4th, 5th and 6th timeframe – Vegas is apparently a very popular place. Since we haven’t had any experience in taking orders, we have invited our prospective distribution partner, JT Eaton, to join us in the booth and they have accepted our invitation.
Distribution Partnership with JT Eaton
We are currently working with JT Eaton to facilitate the shipping and distribution of the Garbage Can Fly Trap. They are a family owned business in Ohio that got their start from the invention of fly stick-um in the 1930’s. We have had several discussions with them regarding the manufacturing and distribution of the Garbage Can Fly Trap. We met with the grandson of the inventor last week and we look forward to working with him at the National Hardware Show. They already have a distribution network set up with several chains including Ace Hardware, True Value and many others.
3rd Patent Application
As a result of modifications to the Garbage Can Fly Trap and the addition of the Dumpster Fly Trap to our repertoire we have now filed our 3rd patent application. Did we mention we are serious about bringing these products to market?
Private Equity Investment Proposition
We recently received renewed validation in our product by means of an unsolicited six figure offer for a stake in our company. We really appreciated the offer but are not currently in a place where we are prepared to take an offer. We have recently discovered it costs between $60k and $80k to bring a new product to market (seed funds) and another $250k to $500k to bring it to a fully self-sustaining machine. We are bootstrapping this for now.
City of San Diego
Regulation Modification
City regulations restrict any modification to City property as it relates to refuse containers (“curbside cans”). However, we’ve been told that City regulations are being changed to allow the addition of a Garbage Can Fly Trap to the cans as an “acceptable modification”. This is huge and we are very excited by it!
Proposal
We are working with the non-profit, Beautiful MB (Mission Beach), to address the fly problem in Mission Beach (San Diego). We have submitted a proposal to the City of San Diego through the non-profit. The proposal includes a smaller study to “work the bugs out” literally, and the second is a full scale installation to make the largest impact.
February Flies???
Yes, already. Not only have we caught some in our own traps here in San Diego but they have already become a nuisance in the southern United States where one of our backers has requested the traps early! This bodes well for our forecast, “2016, THE YEAR OF THE FLY…we hope!”
We sincerely appreciate your support as we build this product into one that will be successful!
Sincerely,
Dennis and Joylyn
