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Canwest News Service
So you've come up with what you're convinced is a dynamite little product, but success rests on getting those hordes of potential customers on board.
And how do you get it to market?
In the case of Tsawwassen resident Keith Howlett, testing it on friends and family was a great route to liftoff.
"We started with our own hockey gear and then put together a couple of hundred sample packs and gave it away to as many people as we could," the 46-year-old Howlett said of his product, called Hockey Sudz, which aims to take the stink out of every hockey mom's (or dad's) hockey equipment.
"We tried it on my wife's hockey team as well. And the feedback was excellent. It not only got the gear clean, but didn't have a fragrance. I know a lot of people [in sports stores] who sharpen skates, so I approached the people who operate the stores. And they tried it out. And we built credibility through word of mouth."
Howlett — a former athlete and ex-basketball coach at Richmond's Hugh McRoberts secondary school, where he now works as a counsellor — got the idea for Hockey Sudz because his four young children all play hockey and his wife simply couldn't deal with the overwhelming smell of their gear anymore.
It came to a head a couple of years ago when he and his business partner, Bill McDougall, got stuck in a lengthy lineup for the Albion ferry with a vehicle full of young hockey players — and six bags of hockey gear.
"We were shocked by the smell . . .," recalled Howlett. "It was just overwhelming. So that's when we started thinking about doing something about it."
The two men started experimenting by washing hockey gear in different household detergents, but found the detergents were too harsh and quickly broke down the glue holding the gear together.
So they searched for the perfect combination to gently clean, disinfect and deodorize the equipment in cold water.
Howlett and McDougall soon settled on a soap-based formula with anti-bacterial properties that was fragrance-free, didn't leave a film on the gear and was gentle enough for repeated washings.
They formed a company called Sports Solutions Hockey Soap, with its sole product Hockey Sudz, an antibacterial, biodegradable, hypo-allergenic and environmentally sound cleaner geared specifically to cleaning hockey equipment. Each container sells for $9.95 and is good for eight to 10 washes.
"I approached a [Lower Mainland] company and we developed the product together," Howlett said of Hockey Sudz, which was just launched in September. "Now, it's being mass-produced."
Howlett said he's sold about 1,000 Hockey Sudz containers so far and they're available in a growing number of Lower Mainland stores, including Cyclone Taylor Sports, Ice Level Source for Sports and Dunbar Lumber, as well as United Cycle in Edmonton.
The Vancouver Giants have also started using Hockey Sudz to clean equipment.
Howlett added that the advent of residential front-load washing machines make it easier for people to wash their hockey gear at home.
His goal is to find a major retailer in the new year that will market Hockey Sudz across the country.
"I'm pretty pleased," added Howlett of how Hockey Sudz has fared so far. "I've never done anything like this. It's like a challenge, doing something positive for the hockey world.
"And we're almost breaking even now."
bmorton@vancouversun.com
See video at vancouversun.com
SPORTS SOLUTIONS HOCKEY SOAP
Product: Hockey Sudz
Website: www.hockeysudz.com
Startup costs: $5,000
Date product launched:
September 2009
Number of containers sold: about 1,000
