Michael Kane is the co-founder and CEO of cellhelmet. This is a company that offers mobile phone protective cases, screen protectors, cables, power banks, and magnetic mounts. The company assists people in taking care of their gadgets since the last thing one wants is to drop and possibly damage them.
Other co-founders are McHenry (COO), and David Artuso (Chief Marketing Officer). While still the CEO of Cellhelmet, Michael Kane also founded another company in the U.S. that manufactured bottles.
I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. I founded the CellPig company, which later became the CellHelmet. My friend Bryan McHenry was thinking of business ideas, so we decided to do a little research. We found out that the top-selling items on eBay were cell phone accessories and cases. So we each raised $350, ordered many cellphone cases from China, and started selling them on CellPig.com and eBay. Since the iPhone was becoming popular, we decided to narrow our focus to just iPhone products.
The company’s idea came up with the need to invent an almost indestructible cellphone case for the iPhone. Unfortunately, we invented something that was similar to our competitors. Later, we decided to design something simpler. To be unique, we came up with the idea of a guarantee. We needed to get people on board and justify the $45 asking price. We partnered with an insurance company to include a one-year warranty. To add to that, we offered a guarantee that if any phone is damaged with this protective case would get a free repair and replacement.
We decided to begin a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, raised $19,000, and sold 1300 units over four months. With sales trickling in, and money in the bank, we needed to attract more important investors to reach a large market.
Dave and I went to the shark tank show with Viking helmets on. We went there seeking $16,000 for 20% equity of the Cellhelmet business. We demonstrated how our competitors’ claims are not true. After the show, we did not secure any deal. However, it did not stop us from selling nearly 1400 units on the show’s night. We also received over 200 inquiries from retailers.
After the show was aired, the business signed a distribution deal with 20 Pittsburgh area Verizon store owners to sell our Cellhelmet protective cell phone cases. Our products were in over 3000 retail locations and had offices in Pittsburgh and China. In a span of one year, April 2019, we had made $3.5 million revenue.
To young Michael Kane, you should know that nobody will do your work, take action. It is up to you to look out for new potential customers. Also, you should have something to work towards achieving. It would be good if you also kept in mind that your entrepreneurial journey will be on a big learning curve. You are bound to make errors, but you should not let them define you.
The Cellhelmet company has grown from no employees to over 40. Currently, the product is in about 2,000 stores across the U.S. We are planning to do 250-time revenue on what we did in 2013. Also, we are expanding our product line. Our lifetime warranty offer on every product makes our company different from others. We also offer a program where we act as a consultant for our partners.
The company has recently launched an app for cellhelmet registration. The app provides a platform where a customer must perform a device functionality test to prove that the phone is functional.
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