(Photos above: (L-R) Tyrone Hazen hopes to tap into a $19 billion market with his Fireside Audiobox, Healthy Hoo-Hoo founder Stacy Lyon emphasizes the chemical-free nature of her company’s products & Kristian Pettyjohn’s company Vectto offers a graphic design library for companies and individuals | by Steve Kadel)
Owners of three young Bend companies gave an update on their progress during Economic Development of Central Oregon February 23 PubTalk in Bend.
Representatives from Fireside Audiobox, Healthy Hoo-Hoo and Vectto made presentations to another full-house at McMenamins Old St. Francis School.
Fireside Audiobox
Tyrone Hazen of Fireside Audiobox invited audience members to light their fire with his product. The Audiobox is a beautifully crafted Bluetooth-enabled audio player with flames that dance in time to your music.
“It’s an overlap between home audio and home furnishings and decor,” Hazen said. “I listen to music from sunrise until sunset and like a lot of people I’m interested in fire. The positive response has been much wider than I anticipated.”
He estimates the audio/home decor market to be a $19 billion industry today with a chance to reach $664 billion by 2020. Hazen’s market is the young to middle age high-income bracket, primarily men. His marketing outlets include brick and mortar, catalogues and online, and direct marketing to consumers.
Fireside Audiobox has found particularly good exposure through trade shows, Hazen said. Although the flames have received most attention, the product has not shortchanged the quality of sound.
“We used German engineered, Hi-Fi-Home Audio components and feel that we’ve struck a great balance between high-quality sound and low power consumption,” according to the company’s website.
“I feel we could sell 2,000 of these this year,” Hazen said at PubTalk. “I’m working on private partnerships that will lead to more.”
The product should be in stores this summer, he said, with a pre-sale price of $349 and regular price of $500 after that. A future goal is to develop an insert for standard fireplaces.
Healthy Hoo-Hoo
Founder Stacy Lyon presented her company, which produces an array of feminine cleansing products. She prefaced her comments by saying women for too long have considered it a taboo topic.
The mild cleanser is pH balanced to complement a woman’s personal ecosystem for a fresh and healthy feeling.
Lyon moved to Bend two years ago and began Healthy Hoo-Hoo in her garage before moving into a 1,500-square-foot space. She said sales have grown significantly and she has “gained trust of women in a fiercely loyal product category.”
According to the company’s website, the products are “free of harsh chemicals, fragrances and parabens, Healthy Hoo-Hoo gentle feminine wash, foaming cleanser and wipes are designed to naturally cleanse … ”
Lyon launched her company when a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, and parabens were found in the tissue biopsy — prompting her interest in non-toxic feminine products. Healthy Hoo-Hoo uses aloe for moisturizing and skin conditioning, green tea for cleansing and detoxification, cucumber extract for skin conditioning and pomegranate extract for anti-bacterial action and skin conditioning.
The products do not use synthetic preservatives, scent or fragrance, alcohol, sulfates, dyes or detergents.
During her PubTalk presentation, Lyon said she is currently looking to add someone to her company who has e-commerce experience.
Vectto
Kristian Pettyjohn moved to Bend six months ago to be closer to family and he brought along his digital design asset company Vectto. He describes it as a royalty-free graphic design library.
“We create all our own content,” Pettyjohn said. “This year we’re pushing to get to 50,000 assets. We might be a smaller library, but there is variety and we can do custom content.”
The company can turn around an individual graphic in 24 hours for $9, he said. The market isn’t only design clients, but also the general audience for such things as power point presentations, Pettyjohn said.
The list of icons ranges from weather, holidays and plants to clothing, animals and human anatomy. “We had to be a little careful when doing it,” Pettyjohn said of anatomy icons.
The firm’s Iconfinder Pro allows quick access to a large collection of icons. Custom icon design is available.
“Our team is the first to take large-scale asset creation in-house, illustrating tens of thousands of graphics each year that can be used in graphic design and software products as well as more general applications such as websites and marketing,” Pettyjohn said. “Vectto seeks to vastly improve how the design industry finds, creates, shares and stores its digital design assets.”
The company has a marketing partner in addition to founder Pettyjohn, five full-time illustrators and three full-time developers. They are looking for someone interested in beta testing their products.
PubTalk is presented by EDCO, a non-profit corporation dedicated to creating a diverse local economy and strong base of middle class jobs in Central Oregon. Title sponsors of the monthly event are Columbia Bank, Karnopp Petersen LLP and UBS Riviera Wealth Management.
