Inventors are problem-solvers. But what happens when product development becomes too daunting for inventors to bring their ideas to life?
Louis Foreman, CEO of Enventys Partners, is answering this question through his Charlotte-based integrated product design and engineering firm. Disillusioned by the processes required for bringing a product to market, Foreman created a process of his own, setting a new standard in the product development journey.
The Problem with Product Development Processes
Before creating 10 successful startups, registering 10 U.S. patents, and producing the Emmy Award winning show, Everyday Edisons, Foreman was an entrepreneur looking to start his first business out of his fraternity at the University of Illinois.
“Back then, they didn’t have a class on entrepreneurship to offer students, so I was kind of flying blind and going at it alone,” Foreman says. “Today, a lot has happened since then to make it easier for students to understand the processes involved in creating your own business.”
Despite a shift in the availability of entrepreneurial education and resources, one area within startup culture that’s remained the same is the product development process. After completing this process nearly a dozen times, Foreman quickly found that despite the developments made to better educate entrepreneurs, little has been done to address challenges specific to product development.
“I personally was frustrated by the process of going from a great idea to a physical product,” he explains. “Typically, if you’re an entrepreneur designing a product, you need an engineering firm, a web designer, a PR agency, a digital marketer, a videographer, a manufacturer, and so on. I thought, ‘Why not bring all those resources under one roof?’”
After purchasing an old textile mill on Eliot Street in the Queen City, that’s exactly what Foreman did. In 2001, Enventys was founded and the first (and only) full-service, turnkey product launch agency was born.
One Solution to Rule Them All
Housing all the essential aspects of launching a product under one roof started by identifying three main components: product development, crowdfunding, and ecommerce marketing. But within these three categories lies a wealth of additional resources that make Enventys Partners uniquely capable of bringing products to market.
“We’ll do everything from initial market research to the design engineering and prototyping,” says Foreman. “We do manufacturing in Taiwan where we can not only coordinate the manufacturing and quality assurance, but also the logistics to secure distribution and warehousing. We also create an ongoing digital marketing strategy to continue to drive traffic after the initial launch campaign.”
Whether you already have a product or just have a simple napkin sketch, Enventys Partners has the resources and services necessary to help product developers at any stage in the game, Foreman said.
“You can come to us at any point in your journey,” says Foreman. “There’s a lot of value in our business model because it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Getting Paid in Success
It’s precisely this business model that has driven the success of Enventys Partners’ various clients. Not only experts in product development, marketing, and crowdfunding, Enventys Partners is willing to bet money on their ability to successfully bring your product to market.
“I thought it would be great to get compensated based on how successful the outcome is rather than just the work we do,” explains Foreman. “Entrepreneurial startups love the fact that we’re willing to put skin in the game, whether that’s through equity or product royalties. It creates discipline and makes it so our goals are aligned with our clients’.”
To date, this model has been responsible for generating more than $175 million in revenue from more than 2,000 products developed, including the DonJoy Trizone knee brace, FingerFire lacrosse stick, and SmartTerra smart terrarium.
“We love to see people succeed, and so it doesn’t cost anything for people to meet with us,” says Foreman. “We’re always happy to meet with entrepreneurs and even if we aren’t the best fit, we’ll tell them where they ought to go to get the additional resources they need.”
