the Herald/Lance/Metro/Times/Headliner
April 28th, 2004
Lay cement slabs without scraping your fingers
Winnipeg invention helps prevent injury, strain - and messy work
By Elisha Cumbers
It's pretty amazing what a simple idea can accomplish.
Last year, Perry Freiling woke up one night and decided to take an invention of his father's into the marketplace. "I don't know what it was, I woke up and I decided that I wanted to take this thing to market, that's what I wanted to do." "This thing" is a simple and rather ingenious product called Slabsetters.
"It's my father's invention. One time, many years ago at the cottage, my father had to lay several slabs, more than 100 slabs of concrete blocks, and he thought 'There's no way I can do this myself, there's got to be a better way.' That's the way he is, he finds ways around problems with better solutions."
Perry's father retreated to the workshop and came out with a few steel rods bent at the end and handles on top. Within a few hours, all the slabs were laid down neatly, with no hand scrapes, no bruises, no sore backs, and most importantly, neatly and without disturbing the leveling sand underneath. "When I told my father I wanted to take it to market, he told me to go ahead and remember him when we got rich," Perry laughed. Perry and his brother Don agreed to go 50/50 on the invention.
"You have to remember we had no idea what to do or how to go about marketing our product or anything. But we both had computer expertise and were good at utilizing the Internet, so we started looking first to see if there was anything similar on the market out there."
After two weeks of searching websites, instruction manuals, the US patent online listings and any other place they could think of, Perry and Don were pretty sure there wasn't anything out there like it. Next stop: a meeting with a patent agent.
"We were excited, we kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, and the patent agent was the shoe. He was doubtful, he said that it was, really, just a pair of hooks and wasn't sure if we could hold a patent to it." However, the patent agent helped the pair do a more advanced search and eventually wrote up the patent. "That was great, now we could go to the world and tell them about our idea and sell the licence for it."
For months, the two were rejected at every business and tool maker they approached. "Every single time, the door was slammed in our face. And I can't blame them, looking back." The two figured it was time to make prototypes of their idea and figure out the costs of making the product themselves. After finding local manufacturers who said they would help make Slabsetters, they approached local chain store McDiarmid Lumber Home Centre late last year, who said they would carry the product come springtime.
"That kicked off the flurry of activity. All of a sudden we had to really prepare for this upcoming order, and I remember the exact day and time the first purchase order from McDiarmid Lumber came in - 5:18 on January 30." The pair set up a professional looking website (www.slabsetters.com), worked out all the logistics of producing Slabsetters and were happy to report that their first shipment arrived two weeks before the deadline date. They are now available at McDiarmid and retail for about $25.
"Now, the waiting begins," said Perry. But excitement over the product has already started to happen - a US trade magazine will be doing an article on Slabsetters next month. "Everyone who we've talked to, everyone who has seen and used Slabsetters has said the same thing: 'Where were you last year or two years ago when I was laying or re-laying out those blocks?' The response has been 100 per cent positive."
Last year, Perry Freiling woke up one night and decided to take an invention of his father's into the marketplace. "I don't know what it was, I woke up and I decided that I wanted to take this thing to market, that's what I wanted to do." "This thing" is a simple and rather ingenious product called Slabsetters.
"It's my father's invention. One time, many years ago at the cottage, my father had to lay several slabs, more than 100 slabs of concrete blocks, and he thought 'There's no way I can do this myself, there's got to be a better way.' That's the way he is, he finds ways around problems with better solutions."
Perry's father retreated to the workshop and came out with a few steel rods bent at the end and handles on top. Within a few hours, all the slabs were laid down neatly, with no hand scrapes, no bruises, no sore backs, and most importantly, neatly and without disturbing the leveling sand underneath. "When I told my father I wanted to take it to market, he told me to go ahead and remember him when we got rich," Perry laughed. Perry and his brother Don agreed to go 50/50 on the invention.
"You have to remember we had no idea what to do or how to go about marketing our product or anything. But we both had computer expertise and were good at utilizing the Internet, so we started looking first to see if there was anything similar on the market out there."
After two weeks of searching websites, instruction manuals, the US patent online listings and any other place they could think of, Perry and Don were pretty sure there wasn't anything out there like it. Next stop: a meeting with a patent agent.
"We were excited, we kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, and the patent agent was the shoe. He was doubtful, he said that it was, really, just a pair of hooks and wasn't sure if we could hold a patent to it." However, the patent agent helped the pair do a more advanced search and eventually wrote up the patent. "That was great, now we could go to the world and tell them about our idea and sell the licence for it."
For months, the two were rejected at every business and tool maker they approached. "Every single time, the door was slammed in our face. And I can't blame them, looking back." The two figured it was time to make prototypes of their idea and figure out the costs of making the product themselves. After finding local manufacturers who said they would help make Slabsetters, they approached local chain store McDiarmid Lumber Home Centre late last year, who said they would carry the product come springtime.
"That kicked off the flurry of activity. All of a sudden we had to really prepare for this upcoming order, and I remember the exact day and time the first purchase order from McDiarmid Lumber came in - 5:18 on January 30." The pair set up a professional looking website (www.slabsetters.com), worked out all the logistics of producing Slabsetters and were happy to report that their first shipment arrived two weeks before the deadline date. They are now available at McDiarmid and retail for about $25.
"Now, the waiting begins," said Perry. But excitement over the product has already started to happen - a US trade magazine will be doing an article on Slabsetters next month. "Everyone who we've talked to, everyone who has seen and used Slabsetters has said the same thing: 'Where were you last year or two years ago when I was laying or re-laying out those blocks?' The response has been 100 per cent positive."