Sunday Social: Bringing Your Invention/Product to the Market on a Shoestring Budget

Everything from lessons learned, best practices and key insights will be covered so that you are able to avoid some costly mistakes and benefit from the wisdom of these two amazing women. Join us! There will be time for questions from the audience.

Julie Lewis has been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years. Her current company is Jade Planet, a company that makes footwear and handbags using recycled and sustainable materials. She recently re-acquired the trade name of her previous company, Deja Shoe, which she is using in conjunction with Jade Planet. Deja Shoe was ahead of it's time in the early 1990's when Julie developed unusual recycled materials for use in footwear and apparel applications which gave her the status of the darling of the recycling movement and she appeared on such TV shows as Good Morning America, Oprah Winfrey, a talk show with the Premier of Canada in British Columbia and was the subject of many jokes on the Jay Leno show and Arsenio Hall. Julie will share the history of her experience as biochemist turned entrepreneur, how she raised over $11 million for Deja Shoe, what she learned along the way about venture capital vs. angel investors, picking the right business partners and how to protect your idea while your figuring it all out.

Shelley is a marketing consultant, writer, inventor and entrepreneur.  For over a decade, she participated in start-up companies marketing products from television email applications to anti-counterfeiting solutions.  She was responsible for North American marketing of SNiFF+, a complex software development tool that was acquired by Wind River Systems.  In 2007, she developed the vision for HarvestMark a traceability and marketing system now used by over 100 brands to allow consumers to trace produce they buy back to the farm it was grown by entering a code on the internet. 

After relocating to Oregon from the Silicon Valley in 2008, Shelley decided to tackle the world of inventing and bring a product to market on her own.  Her experience in marketing companies of different sizes has provided her with a unique perspective on funding a new product idea.  Without the financial resources of a company behind her now, she decided to learn as much as she could about all aspects of product development, patent filing, manufacturing and starting a business.  By doing it all herself, she was able to establish an LLC in Oregon, complete a market survey, acquire various prototypes, file a patent application, get manufacturing quotes from the US and Asia, develop brand identity, build an online store, and get my first product samples in hand for less than $1000.