A Twin Cities inventor hit upon a minimalist way to carry a laptop — with pretty much just a strap and some glue — while working to declutter his lifestyle.
In 2018, Todd Boss was parsing through possessions to live a more nomadic lifestyle to start house-sitting worldwide, he decided to part with his trusty leather laptop bag.
"I had this fantastic leather laptop bag that would get compliments everywhere I went, and it was perfect for a laptop," Boss said. "It was thin and lightweight and I used it for about six or seven years. But when I decided to become a nomad, I was just looking through all my things and decided whether or not I really needed them. It came out of necessity for slimming myself down for world travel."
His solution: The Laptop Strap, which treats the computer like a slung guitar or a camera, using a a sticky panel provides anchor loops for a shoulder strap
The flap has an adhesive that is stuck to the laptop's outer shell. If a user wants to remove it later from the laptop's case, it leaves no residue.
"My original impulse was to thread something through the hinge or around the clamshell so that it would hold from inside," Boss said. "I realized it had to be something topical that was external and attached."
Boss, a St. Olaf graduate who lived in Minneapolis for 25 years, worked as a poet, filmmaker and children's book author. With no background in business or designing a product, he bootstraped the idea to get the laptop strap into the market.
"I didn't have any investors, I'm a sole entrepreneur so I had to dig into my savings and work with a designer to work on something and have samples made in China," Boss said. It took about a year-and-a-half before he had a finished, working factory sample. The strap retails on the company's own website and on Amazon.com for $39.99.
While living in Minneapolis, inventor Todd Boss wanted a simpler way to carry his laptop after transitioning to a more minimalistic lifestyle in 2018. After parsing through his possessions to live a more nomadic lifestyle to start house-sitting worldwide, he decided to part with his trusty leather laptop bag.
"I had this fantastic leather laptop bag that would get compliments everywhere I went, and it was perfect for a laptop," Boss said. "It was thin and lightweight and I used it for about six or seven years. But when I decided to become a nomad, I was just looking through all my things and decided whether or not I really needed them. It came out of necessity for slimming myself down for world travel."
His laptop strap idea went through a few iterations before its final design, which consists of a strap and flap that attaches to the laptop. The flap has an adhesive that is stuck to the laptop's outer shell. If a user wants to remove it later from the laptop's case, it leaves no residue.
"My original impulse was to thread something through the hinge or around the clamshell so that it would hold from inside," Boss said. "I realized it had to be something topical that was external and attached."
Boss, a St. Olaf graduate who lived in Minneapolis for 25 years, worked as a poet, filmmaker and children's book author. With no background in business or designing a product, he bootstraped the idea to get the laptop strap into the market.
"I didn't have any investors, I'm a sole entrepreneur so I had to dig into my savings and work with a designer to work on something and have samples made in China," Boss said. It took about a year-and-a-half before he had a finished, working factory sample.
Boss launched the product on his own website Thelaptopstrap.com and Amazon in 2021. Over the past few years, he has house-sat 40 different people's homes in 26 countries across 5 continents.The strap retails for $39.99.
