June 2012 Inventor progress and TIE planning

The June 16 meeting of the TIA featured a presentation by Carl Papa about marketing his inventions. Carl has two inventions that aid golfers in improving their swing. The second half of the meeting was a discussion of the upcoming Tennessee Inventor Expo scheduled for early 2013.

Carl's first invention is a product that is a mat with a foot switch that activates a light and buzzer when the golfer properly shifts his weight to the left during a swing. This product has been in production for over a year. His second invention is a product that is a hockey puck sized disc that produces a loud click sound when weight is shifted correctly. This product has been prototyped and Carl is preparing to enter the market with it.

Carl discussed his marketing focus. He is providing a merchandising display in local golf pro shops. His new product will easily display on a sales counter due to its small, convenient and attractive size. He showed how a small merchandising rack could hold and display several of his new ‘clickers’ with this point of sale design.

Carl wants to get the product made so test marketing can begin. Currently, he is getting technical and pricing information about plastic molding processes for the top and bottom pieces and was open to suggestions from the members. There was a good exchange from several attendees. He plans to get his new clicker into the hands of a few professional golf trainers and request feedback from their students. Carl said he is always looking for better ways to make his products and will glean the students feedback for any suggestions for improvement.

Carl is still marketing his mat product, but said his new product will reach a different market. Since his new clicker will be considerably less costly to produce and market he expects it to be purchased as an impulse buy at the counter. From Carl’s presentation, it looks like he may have a hole-in-one with his new product. Stay tuned. Best of luck Carl!

Visit Carl's Pin High Pro website.

Tennessee Inventor Expo Update:

Joe Martin, Dale Burress, and Carl Papa gave an update on the recent progress of the planned TIE.

The date has been set for Jan 18-19 2013. The location is tentatively the downtown Knoxville Holiday Inn.

The TIE committee members have been meeting and several met at the downtown Knoxville Holiday Inn for a first hand tour of the facilities. The committee liked what they saw. There are two large meeting rooms for the planned two simultaneous speaker presentations and additional space for about 40 exhibitors.

The plan is to pre-sell exhibitor space and minimize any upfront financial obligations.

Joe Martin is TIE chairman, Carl Papa is co-chairman and Dale Burress is treasurer. Tom Kulaga has a TIE web site in the works and several other TIA members are on the planning committee. Marty Sanders is working on a TIE logo and showed two versions at our meeting.

Dale Burress showed some pictures he took of the rooms. Joe mentioned that the three next steps are:

1. Place an agreement with the Holiday Inn
2. Ask KTSC to prepare a brochure
3. Get the TIE web site up and running.

The meeting wrapped up with many adjourning to the Chinese restaurant in Oak Ridge.