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Youngblood: More than just a few dribs and drabs
Dick
Youngblood, Star Tribune June 6,
2004 BLOOD0606 Mark Bergman took a one-pound coffee can and a roll of duct tape two years ago and transformed them into a business that grossed nearly $2.3 million last year. And what with Home Depot signing on as a nationwide customer early this year, he figures 2004 sales should nearly triple. That sound you hear is me slapping myself upside the head in undisguised fits of envy. Bergman, 47, is founder of Bercom International, a Chaska company that peddles the invention, a quart-sized paint container large enough to accept a 3-inch brush and equipped with a hand strap and a disposable plastic liner. He calls it the Hand-y Paint Pail, a play-on-words reference to the strap feature he developed to eliminate the cramping we've all encountered from holding a paint-filled coffee can for long periods. In fact, a cramp that struck while he was painting a bedroom in his Minnetonka home late in 2000 inspired the idea. "After holding a Folgers can for a while, my hand started to hurt," Bergman said. "So I got a roll of duct tape and fashioned a strap I could put my hand through." At the same time he taped a lip to the inside edge of the can to act as a scraper for excess paint, a feature incorporated into the final design. "I showed it to a few friends, and they all could relate to the cramping problem," he said. Thus encouraged, he applied for patents in the United States and Europe and went to work developing a prototype. The result is a two-piece design that includes a hard plastic container and a strap-and-collar arrangement made out of flexible PVC that contains a magnet to hold the brush out of the paint. The simple construction helps hold the retail price to $8 to $10. Bergman later introduced the disposable liners to simplify the cleanup process. Made from recycled plastic and sold in four-packs for 75 cents apiece, they contributed about a quarter of his 2003 sales. Earlier this year he also added thin polyethylene-and-elastic covers that sell for 50 cents each. The Hand-y pail isn't the first of his remunerative inspirations. Indeed, the two patents he holds on the paint pail represent just 20 percent of the total acquired during an entrepreneurial career that includes two other business startups. In 1986, he and partner Dan Harris started Harber Inc. to make and market the kiddies' spoons Bergman had dreamed up with handles shaped like airplanes, race cars and trains. Later, the company added "Shoe Boppers" -- cord clamps designed in various shapes to secure shoelaces without tying. Altogether, these products account for eight other patents. Sales peaked at about $2.5 million in 1994, but then retailers began buying slightly different designs directly from manufacturers, forcing the business to close by 2000. By then, the partners had started Harber Industries Inc., a bindery and die-cutting service for the area's printing industry. Bergman sold his share of the company to Harris in 1999, when sales were about $1.5 million. All of which left him free to pursue his fancy paint pail idea. In September 2001, with the design completed, he raised $250,000 from family, friends and a private investor to finance tooling, packaging and startup costs. He began shipping product in February 2002 with the help of a $50,000 credit line from Great Northern Bank in St. Michael that was approved before he'd made a single sale. Appeal underestimated "It's a revolutionary idea that made perfect sense," Great Northern Chairman Peter Alworth said. "And Mark Bergman is an excellent salesman; we knew he could sell it." He was right: Sales in just 10 months of 2002 topped $800,000, thanks in part to the support of Dave Gerber, a product manager for the Hirshfield's chain of decorating centers. Gerber thought enough of Bergman's idea to promise to stock the product in the company's 27 paint stores even before the design process was completed. Why? "I was slapping my forehead just like you," Gerber said. "It looked like a great idea." Even so, he confessed that he underestimated the appeal: "I figured we'd sell a few hundred the first year; we wound up selling several thousand." Bergman also signed up a dozen manufacturer's reps who have sold the Hand-y pail into about 8,000 locations, including many of the True Value and Ace Hardware stores and all of the Menards and Sherwin-Williams outlets. But he made the biggest score himself. "I made four trips to Home Depot headquarters in Atlanta before they finally agreed to test the product in 300 of their Midwest stores," Bergman said. The test ended in March, when the company agreed to carry the Hand-y pail in all 1,700 Home Depots nationwide. With Home Depot on board, Bergman figures sales this year will easily top $6 million. But just to make sure, he's designing a larger, professional model that will hold a half-gallon of paint and accept up to a 4-inch brush. The larger model includes a ladder hook and a built-in grid to accommodate a 4-inch roller. The gadget comes with a logical, albeit unpublished piece of advice: "It's a good idea not to hold it in your watch hand, just in case somebody asks you for the time," Bergman said. Dick Youngblood can be reached at 612-673-4439 or at yblood@startribune.com. Bercom International Business: Manufactures the Hand-y Paint Pail, which includes a hand strap designed to eliminate the cramps often encountered from holding paint-filled coffee cans. Bercom also offers disposable liners for easy cleanup, a built-in magnet to hold the brush out of the paint, and other features. Founded: 2001 Headquarters: Chaska Executive: Founder Mark Bergman 2003 revenue: $2.3 million Web site: www.handypaintpail.com RAIL ITEM: Mark Bergman took a one-pound coffee can and a roll of duct tape and
transformed them in two years into a business that grossed $2.3 million in
2003 -- headed for a projected $6 million or more in 2004. |
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