Internet sales can jump start sales with the right approach

{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.}

By Don Debelak

How the inventor is doing today

Note:  Tekno Bubbles are still going strong http://www.teknobubbles.com/ and large non-Internet sales are now handled by JVR Enterprises.

 

August 31, 2001

This story first appeared in the September 2001 issue of Entrepreneur. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Dotcom companies may be shutting down left and right, but that doesn’t mean the Internet can’t be a great starting point for inventors. All you need is an innovative product in a hot product category that can generate a buzz among your target customers.

Melody and Byron Swetland of Gaithersburg, Maryland, found success by taking their invention to the Net and starting a Web site to launch their product, UV bubbles called Tekno Bubbles. Along with their 22-year-old son, Enoch, who now runs their company, BM&E LLC, they sold more than 60,000 bottles last year (at an average retail price of $3.95 per bottle) and may top half a million units by the end of the year. “We’ve really had to struggle to keep up with production,” says Byron, 46. The Swetlands attribute their overwhelming success in part to the worldwide exposure they’ve gained by selling Tekno Bubbles over the Internet.

Grow the Glow

Tekno Bubbles traces its origins to 1996, when Melody, now 43, opened a kitchen cabinet, spotted some bottles of bubbles and thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have glow-in-the-dark bubbles?” She mentioned this to Byron, who agreed it sounded like a fabulous idea. Problem was, someone else had already patented that concept.

Byron couldn’t find the product on the market, but he was able to track down the inventor and order a sample. When he took a close look at it, he discovered the competing product’s flaw: The bubbles had to be mixed before they could be used.

“Mixing the chemicals together would never work,” Byron remembers thinking. “People want to buy a product that’s ready to use.” But Byron didn’t know how to develop the right formula, and he almost gave up on the idea altogether. Then invention inspiration struck him out of the blue: Taking note of the growing popularity of black lights among high school and college students, he thought that rather than make bubbles that glowed in the dark, maybe he could formulate premixed bubbles that glowed under black-light bulbs.

Everything seemed to fall into place after that. Byron knew that most black lights use UV light, and that UV-responsive chemicals are available and relatively easy to work with. In quick order, the Swetlands finalized their bubble formula and received a patent for it in 1999.

Internet Sales Can Jump Start Sales

Next, the Swetlands launched a Web site and waited for the orders to come pouring in. Usually, this is where the story turns ugly-few hits, no sales and, worst of all, no money. But not in the case of Tekno Bubbles. The Swetlands started getting sales right away, and not just from U.S. customers. “We were getting inquiries from Europe, Korea, Japan and other countries around the world,” says Byron. In early 2000, things got even better. “I received a call from the buyer at Spencer Gifts. She asked how many bottles I had in stock. I told her 6,000, and she said, ‘I’ll take ’em.’ Then she asked how many bottles I had on order. When I said 10,000, she replied, ‘I’ll take those, too.'” Spencer Gifts, an Egg Harbor, New Jersey-based chain of about 950 stores nationwide, is still the Swetlands’ biggest customer.

And that was just the beginning. The Swetlands soon received orders from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and Glow, a chain of retail black-light stores, in addition to inquiries from distributors around the world.

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