Inventor’s Layoff Leads to Product Success
Editor’s note: This story appears in our September 2009 issue.
By Don Debalak
Laid-off inventors who are getting tired of standing in long lines at the unemployment office might consider creating their own jobs and pursue their invention dreams by taking their products to market.
Garlic Twist
Eric Teng of Gold River, Calif., followed that path starting in 2002, when he got laid off from Enron, the disgraced energy company that collapsed under massive accounting fraud. Teng had nothing to do with the scandal, but nonetheless was among thousands caught in its fallout.
Teng since has built sales of his innovative Garlic Twist up to more than $500,000 a year with a customer base of kitchen stores that varies from 300 to 500 customers including Williams Sonoma and Kitchen Collections.
He is exporting more than 40 percent of his American-made product overseas to Europe, Asia, China and Japan.
Teng is a single parent with two children who spends plenty of time in the kitchen. He frequently cooks with garlic and he felt the traditional garlic press was poorly designed and difficult to use.
He experimented with some solutions and then decided on an early version of his current design. The Garlic Twist is a two section yo-yo shaped device about three inches round and an inch and a half tall. Both top and bottom sections have a set of mincing teeth. The user whacks the garlic clove using the bottom of the bottom of the Garlic Twist to remove the garlic skin, then places the cloves between the top and bottom sections and twists the two halves in opposite directions. The result is perfectly minced garlic.
Prototypes
Before success, however, there were some bumps in the road. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office misplaced his application three times. It also issued the patent using his draft drawings, rather than the final versions.
But his initial obstacle was a working prototype. Teng proceeded with his first prototype in 2002, and had a prototype machined out of a solid piece of acrylic plastic.
The product looked good, but it spun the garlic cloves inside the housing rather than mincing them. Teng, who admits to being a perfectionist, knew right away he couldn’t afford to pay the going rate for what he envisioned to be a series of prototypes. So he networked until he found a retired machinist willing to work for a lower rate. More important, he was willing to work with Teng to finalize the product’s design. The designer used cross-cutting mincing teeth rows, and solved the slipping problem.
Manufacturing
At this point Teng decided to work with an American manufacture, PrePlastics of Auburn, Calif. That decision proved critical for his success. Inventors, take heed:
- Product quality. Teng worked closely with the manufacture during the first production steps to keep product quality high. He visited the manufacture to check on production, which allowed several minor changes to make sure the product worked properly.
- Purchase quantities. Teng’s U.S. manufacturer was willing to make very small quantities of initial orders; overseas manufactures want a first order of at lease a thousand of units.
- Delivery and service. Teng has had a number of urgent orders from mail order companies where the catalogs had sales that far exceeded their projections. During Christmas 2004, an overwhelmed catalog was ordering thousands of units twice a week. Teng was able to respond quickly to the emergency reorders with his local supplier. Teng would have been unable to meet demand with an overseas supplier. He could have lost business, lost a major customer and certainly could have lost customer goodwill.
- Warehousing. Teng doesn’t need to keep his own inventory. The manufacturer produces and stocks the product on its schedule. The manufacturer can immediately drop ship major orders. Teng only needs to keep a small inventory at his office for daily UPS shipments to independent stores. This keeps overhead low.
Early Sales
With an innovative, patented product, inventors often believe there won’t be a problem with sales. That’s not the case. Teng tells the story best.
“In 2002 I started calling on stores expecting to get orders for dozens of units from every kitchen store in the Sacramento area,” he says. “After all, the product was wonderful and its wholesale price was just $7.00.
“The stores responded by saying they might want just three or four units to test market the product,” he adds. “Instead of paying for the goods, some stores wanted to take them on consignment.”
Teng had particular trouble pitching the owner of a well known local kitchen store, William Glen. Teng only got in the door by setting up a demonstration of the Garlic Twist with the Sacramento Bee‘s food editor.
After a positive review in the paper, William Glen’s owner agreed to an in-store demonstration for customers right after the article was published. During the first three hours, Teng sold his entire stock of 300 units. After that, he had two lines of people signing up to order the product.
Expanding the Sales Base
To expand his market beyond Northern California, Teng began attending the Gourmet Products Show in San Francisco, attended by mostly U.S. buyers, and the International Housewares Show in Chicago, attended by many overseas buyers.
Based on his early sales success in Sacramento, he was able to pick up kitchen retailers around the country and his first big catalog sale to Solutions. He made his initial contacts with Williams Sonoma at the International Housewares Show. He also acquired some independent U.S. buyers and over time International buyers. As a result, Teng is exporting American-made housewares products to China and Japan.
Overcoming the Single Product Syndrome
Despite success, many potential buyers are hesitant because Teng has only one product. Larger retailers incur costs when adding a new vendor, and they don’t like doing it for just one product.
“The CEO of a large online kitchen retailer loves the Garlic Twist and uses it himself,” Teng says. “But he always apologizes to me that he can’t stock the product because I only have one product. I’ve run into effectively the same problem at major department stores and kitchen store chains.
“It has been frustrating that people won’t buy even when they really like your product,” he adds.
Teng will be introducing several new patented or patent-pending products over the coming months, including the Sous Chef, a modernized version of a traditional mortar and pestle that eliminates the need for pounding, and a fat-skimming ladle that can quickly skim off fat.
Teng’s story is not an easy route to riches for everyone who is laid off. But it does show that inventors who understand what it takes to succeed, plan carefully and spend their money wisely can and do succeed.
Teng’s Four Rules for Success
- The product needs to address an issue buyers recognize as a problem.
- The product must be simple and small. Teng knew he is a one-man show and that he didn’t have the time or resources to introduce a complicated product.
- There should be a substantial difference between production cost and retail price. Products with high labor costs often are too expensive to make in the United States. High labor costs result in an exceedingly high retail price. Products need a high perceived value relative to cost to work with an American manufacture.
- The product must be unique and functional. Otherwise, independent inventors don’t have a chance competing with established companies.
