| |
Shoes That Can Do Wheelies...
Have Made Millions For Their Inventor!
The wheel and the shoe have got to be about the oldest “inventions” on the planet. Now, consider an invention that puts a retractable wheel in and under the heel of a shoe? Well, that combination has created a multimillion-dollar business and handsome rewards for its inventor, Roger Adams.
Aptly named “Heelys,” for the wheel in the rear that enables the shoe to walk or roll depending on how the foot is tilted, these shoes are the rage among today’s preteens prompting a recent Wall Street Journal article about their creation and the mania that has ensued.
Mr. Adams, a born inventor, worked in his parents’ roller rink as a boy and spent his leisure time inventing. He attended college and became a mental health supervisor, but found that his professional interests were outstripped by his passion for inventing. Ideas about skateboards, wheels, jogging shoes, and bikes inspired Adam’s to create this modern-day roller skate by cutting up Nike sneakers and trying out various configurations of wheels in the bottom of the shoes. After some tinkering, he found a way to combine the shoe and the wheel that, with a little practice, could combine walking and rolling but without falling (though that falling risk is always there).
With the concept complete, Adams took all the money he had, about $150,000, and filed a kind of patent application known as a provisional application to establish his inventorship and then spent most of the money on refining his product. (A provisional patent application is something that any inventor can file, though the use of a patent attorney is always a good idea; the United State Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO, has instructions on how to do this).
Initially, Adams tried to offer his invention, including his patents and prototypes, for license to shoe manufacturers and sporting goods companies but to no avail.
So, he raised money and created his own company by borrowing money from a private investor who took a stake (shares) in Heelys. This type of private investment is known as venture capital (VC), because it’s not like a loan you get for a car or boat or house where a bank lends money on things it can repossess if you can’t or won’t pay back the money. Instead, VC investors put their money in companies that, if they fail, usually have very little that can be sold off to repay debts. VC investors take a much larger risk because starting a business from scratch is risky, expensive, and takes time to turn a profit.
But Heelys did become a commercial success. The company was incorporated in May 2000. By incorporating, Heelys became something bigger than just its inventor, although no doubt Adams was a principal owner, along with the VC investors. In addition to being an owner, Mr. Adams was also a manager who was paid a salary. Then in December 2006, Heelys offered shares of the company to the public in what is known as an IPO, for Initial Public Offering. Now stock in Heelys can be bought and sold just like any other publicly traded company. It trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the designation HLYS.
That initial provisional patent has now grown to nearly 80 patents in 25 countries.
Heelys annual sales are about $130 million, and the company as a whole is worth nearly one billion dollars, a pretty impressive outcome from what looks like a simple idea just waiting to be created.
The Heely slogan, Freedom is a Wheel in Your Sole, also applies in a way to Mr. Adams himself. As a result of his financial success, he no longer needs, or wants, to have the responsibilities of day-to-day management of the company. Instead he has taken on the title Chief Tinkerer and operates his own lab inside the company, which he calls The Lunatic Lab, where he continues to look for his next great invention.
Article by Dr. Richard Razgaitis
Useful Links:
The Heelys Company Web site
Wall Street Journal story (subscription required)
Description of one Roger Adams patent
The US Patent and Trademark Office Web site (describes how inventors can apply for a patent)
|
|
