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Inspiration to Reality: The GardenGlide
Got an idea? Chase it and nail it down!
Liz and Jim Feeney of Holmdel, New Jersey, did and lucky for gardeners and other people who tote things around the yard, their idea came to fruition.
When their kids were little they had a 27-foot pool notched into their sloped backyard.
In 2005, they took down the pool and were left with a “bomb crater,” says Jim, a telecommunications engineer. “We were always interested in gardening so we decided to turn the crater into an English garden. We started doing it until all the rock got delivered, but the wheelbarrow wheel got bogged down in the sand and mud.”
Then, like a mirage, they saw a snow saucer in the garage.
They tied a rope on it, loaded the stone and it “worked like a dream” until the stone slid off because the saucer had no raised edges and its bowl-shaped platform began to crack.
“The kids said ‘you guys ought to do something with this.’ It stayed in my mind.” Two years later the first GardenGlideTM rolled off the assembly line.
“We are gardeners and came up with this idea. We just knew it worked,” says Liz, executive secretary turned stay-at-home grandmother. “We tried to be smart and not put too much capital in.”
They designed and re-designed and found a manufacturer in Massachusetts. They learned about plastics that wouldn’t crack and plastics that labels would stick to. They learned about vacuum molding, other inventors, suppliers and hazards. They did due diligence and sent the product for safety testing.
Naivete` was their modus operandi. “We had Zero experience and we just kind of barreled ahead,” says Liz. “The manufacturer challenged us in a productive sense. They were helpful in the final design phase.”
For instance, they started out with green ones for residential use but the manufacturer told them people like a choice so they developed a heavy duty one with thicker plastic and tie downs.
Then one day a big truck pulled up in front of our house and delivered the first batch of 500 GardenGlides.
Shortly after, they packed and went to Vegas and set up a booth at the Inventors Showcase at the National Tool and Garden Show.
“It was exciting, a wonderful experience. We met other inventors. That’s when we came to the realization that anybody can do this. You don’t have to be a big company,” says Jim.
But what about a patent? They went to a patent attorney and learned that the process takes a long time and a pile of money and that “a patent is only as good as the people who respect it.” (hmm…rules are inspired by the lawless and corrupt.) Right now, their patent is pending.
Since the first GardenGlide went out in 2007, the Feeneys are still down in the basement packing them in boxes. The GardenGlide is sold through the website. The supply dwindles in the basement now.
The next step? An increase of production would require substantial amounts of infrastructure and dollars and may necessitate having them manufactured in China.
“We like the idea it’s made in the USA so we decided to keep it ‘Mom & Pop’ for now. The main thing we wanted to do was not make any big mistakes like mortgage the house and we haven’t,” says Liz, president, both legally and psychologically according to Jim who heads up the engineering and shipping departments.
Says Jim: We’ve had a lot of fun. I remember standing on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center among acres of vendors, lights, dancing girls, and here we are standing at our own little booth. There’s no difference between us and our product and them and their products. And we have an equal shot to get the word out.”
Liz: “We have no regrets. We’re still naïve and babes in the woods. It’s brought us closer together. We’re big gardeners and we use our GardenGlide all the time. It’s a simple idea that really streamlines gardening a lot.”
This writer loves it too. For the extra $5, get the professional model.
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published July 04, 2012
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