Larkspur, Colo., June 9, 2019 - The Shape Flexer Sunhat has had retail sales of over $250,000 in the past year.
Not a professional inventor, nor a savvy businessman, the Shape Flexer's designer, C. Damien Henning, is an average Colorado outdoorsman and world traveler who wanted to share something useful with fellow adventurers. After spending 11 years and thousands of dollars developing the hat purely on his own, the Shape Flexer has become a success thank to grassroots support.
How?
With the power of crowdfunding.
The majority of highly successful Kickstarter campaigns are launched by established companies with pre-existing press contacts, substantial advertising/PR budgets, experienced teams that fashion campaign pages into professional-looking websites, thousands of dollars in pre-orders to boost "launch" donations, and a substantial established customer base.
It's hard for the Average Joe to compete with that. However, in the case of the Shape Flexer Sunhat, a Nobody coming from Nowhere (unemployed, living in Mom and Dad's basement, driving the same car since 1995) began with nothing but an idea and determination, and has utilized crowdfunding to its keenest potential.
The 2017 Kickstarter Campaign (in addition to the subsequent Indiegogo Campaign) ended up raising over $300,000!
The Shape Flexer Sunhat had no pre-orders and zero PR exposure at the time of launch in June, 2017. All it had was Damien's personal Facebook network composed of local friends, travel buddies, and work mates — from the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, to the tropics of the Marshall Islands — who put their trust in Damien and his abilities; his personal network helped spread the word from his parents' basement up.
"There has never been a sunhat like the Shape Flexer before. Necessity was certainly the mother of this invention. Trekking at high elevations while needing to protect my skin from the sun with a hat that I could beat up, sweat in, get rained on, stuff in my backpack, throw into a washer to clean and not bend in the wind.
It didn't exist. So, I had to make one." (C. Damien Henning, Owner and Founder of "Roamin Republic LLC")
Noticing a Need
Through his love of the outdoors and adventure travel, Damien noticed that (with outdoor recreation growing in popularity all over the world), the threat of significant sun damage to our skin is as real as ever. However, the magnitude of this threat is often overlooked by many outdoor-loving consumers. No significant advancements have been made in recreational sun protection technology for years.
The Shape Flexer is a bendable, shape-able, crush-able, durable, super portable, machine washable, waterproof, extra wind resistant, stiff-brimmed, wide-brimmed sunhat.
Although many sun hats already exist in the market, they are not fully adequate. Wide-brimmed hats that have softer brims lose their shape very quickly and blow into or out of the face in the wind. Also, using them for facial rain protection results in the soft brim buckling, and more often than not, warping the hat's shape for good.
Stiff, rigid sunhats (such as those utilized by many outdoor workers) are better in the wind, but are heavy and impossible to collapse for easy storage and transport.
If the brim has a thin cable support, it's similarly not compactable, and is still pretty useless in the wind.
A Better Solution
Damien searched for and finally discovered the best way to get a strong, bendable, shapeable, resilient and waterproof cable into the brim of a high-quality sunhat.
With the unique cable in place, the Shape Flexer can do what no other sunhat can:
The brim will not fold or flop in a head wind up to 65 mph. The brim will not buckle under heavy rain, keeping drops from smacking the face. The back can be bent up and fine tuned to give clearance while hiking with a backpack or while playing sports. It can be folded to increase its compactness and portability, and can be put into small bags or larger pockets. It can be bent and shaped into an unlimited amount of styles, and hold that shape indefinitely.
In addition, the Shape Flexer includes other features that many consumers will find useful:
- A neck cape that folds up into a pocket and deploys at the user's convenience (this pocket can also be useful for hiding cash and credit cards)
- A zip-off crown that can allow hair to be un-constricted (this is a useful feature for those with thick hair or those who prefer the free feeling of a visor to a hat)
- An adjustable cord to fine-tune the size to the wearer's exact needs
- A locking chinstrap that secures the hat firmly to the wearer's head (what's the point in having a super wind-resistant sunhat if the hat won't stay on in heavy wind?)
- Side mesh for ventilation
- A moisture-wicking sweatband stitched into the crown that won't flop out
This was a unique Kickstarter project in the "Product Design" category, considering the forum is dominated by high-tech items from larger companies with greater backing and an established customer network. Relatively few outdoor items have had the success or exposure that the basement-begotten Shape Flexer Sunhat had.
The Story Continues
As of June 2019, (between the website and Amazon) not only have the reviews been outstanding, but online sales have totaled over $175,000 in the first 11 months.
Also, as of June 9th 2019, a 2nd Kickstarter Campaign (for a "Light Weight" version of the Shape Flexer) has raised over $83,000 with over 40 days remaining, and shows now signs of slowing down.
It's clear that there is a significant market demand for a sun hat like this.
C. Damien Henning has been only too happy to heed the call.
Media Contact:
C. Damien Henning
Phone: 720.688.5695
Email: damien@shapeflexer.com
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