Spark nationwide success for your product with some sales fuel from your local neighborhood stores.
By Don Debelak

{Don Debelak’s new book, Turning Your Invention into Cash is now available on Amazon for $3.49. Go to Amazon.com and enter inventions Don Debelak to purchase. From the author of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bringing Your Product to Market.}

This article appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine in 2001
Home Fires Burning

While SpongePrint has been ion QVC and distributed through painting stores I have only been able to find it on Amazon currently.  http://www.amazon.com/DDI-Sponge-Prince-Wallpaper-Alternative/dp/B00E834I5S.  My wife has used the SpongePrince on our small vanity bathroom, and it has an effect that generates many compliments.

Start Small to Conserve Resources

Plenty of inventors start their companies without the experience or financial resources they need to market their products. That can make it hard to land major accounts. The best approach for many new inventors is to start selling their products locally, where hometown ties can be a big selling point, and then expand into national distribution.

That’s how Dale Carsel and Bob Schneider did it. In 1995, the two partners got a job painting a large home in Beachwood, Ohio. When they discovered the owner planned to decorate much of the house with wallpaper, they suggested achieving the same effect with faux finishing, the art of painting with a sponge, rag or other applicator to make the painted space look as though it had been decorated in another medium. To handle the job, Carsel, 49, and Schneider, 47, made 6-by-6-inch pattern sponges that could finish a room at one-third the cost of wallpapering.

Charles Zuchowski, 49, a building contractor and the owner of the house, loved the look-and the tool. Together, the three considered marketing the sponges under the name SpongePrince. After getting rave reviews from a patent attorney and some local interior decorators, they formed Wall Concepts Plus Inc. Their first strategy? Focus on the local market.

Start Small then Go Big

Since then, they’ve introduced the SpongePrince nationwide, despite having no experience marketing a consumer product. Sales have also been exceptional, rising more than 300 percent yearly since the SpongePrince’s introduction in 1996. This year, the partners expect to sell more than 1 million units at $19.99 apiece.

Getting Noticed

But growth came gradually. In the fall of 1996, Wall Concepts had applied for patents, finalized product design and arranged for production. The company was ready to go, but it didn’t have a marketing plan. Carsel and Schneider started by going to stores where painters buy supplies-in particular, Sherwin Williams, which sells to both retailers and painting contractors. They got their product into eight Sherwin Williams stores, which landed the company its first big break.

“The buyer for Jo-Ann Etc. [the store chain affiliated with Jo-Ann Fabrics] just happened to be decorating her home during our sales test at a Sherwin Williams in March 1999,” says Schneider. “She noticed how our inventory kept going down and decided to try our product in her stores.” The test went well; today, the SpongePrince is in more than 60 Jo-Ann Etc. stores nationwide. The partners have also managed to sell to 22 Home Depots in Ohio.

With success at brick-and-mortar stores under their belts, Zuchowski decided to approach QVC. “[SpongePrince] was the type of item I thought would do great on TV,” he says.

He was right. January 18, 2000, was the date of their first QVC airing, and the SpongePrince has run every six weeks since. According to Zuchowski, they sell $60,000 to $70,000 worth in every eight-minute spot.

In fact, the product sold so well that in August 2000, Q Direct, the QVC division that sells to retailers, signed an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement with Wall Concepts.

The Crown Jewel

With success on TV, Wall Concepts was growing. Still, its only national distribution came from Jo-Ann Etc. stores and QVC. In his search for more outlets, Zuchowski discovered that Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouses, a 660-store chain found mostly in the East and Midwest, carried a line of Valspar Corp. glazing paints, which are often used in faux finishing to achieve a translucent effect. Zuchowski believed the SpongePrince would be a perfect fit with the line.

Valspar agreed to test four of Wall Concepts’ SpongePrince patterns in several stores. The company also agreed to provide in-store representation and training in the use of SpongePrince products. At press time, Valspar had already agreed to carry them in Lowe’s stores nationwide.

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