Jesse Fry, a senior business administration major, placed second in the St. Louis Area Entrepreneurial Educator Pitch Contest
Jesse Fry introduces his invention, the Headlock Hat Retention Clip. (Photo provided by Derrick Holtmann)
Jesse Frey hasn’t forgotten his favorite hat. It’s a hat I bought at a small store near the beach at Hanalei Bay on the north shore of Kauai while on vacation from work with the U.S. Coast Guard. he always wore it. Well, at least for about a year and a half.
On that fateful day, Frey was riding his motorcycle up the iconic Pacific Coast Highway near his beloved Southern California military post. He stopped and noticed that his hat was missing. The snap part of the backstrap broke and was torn apart by the wind pressure surrounding the bike. Hmm.
Frey thought there had to be a better way to store hats without stuffing them into a backpack. No one wants a crushed hat. And his favorite fitted hat, one without a strap? A cramming education was basically his only option. There had to be a better way to preserve memories.
“There was only that one store, and they designed their own products,” Frey recalls. “I can’t find that hat online. That’s what competitiveness is all about. If it’s a big brand, you can just buy another one. But is it like that? I have memories of that place.”
Mr. Frey is a senior at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Louis, I still miss that Hawaiian hat. And, using that memory as motivation, he similarly found a way to never lose his hat again. Over the years, he tinkered with different versions of hat retention systems for motorcycles. “The first one was terrible, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” he said with a laugh. And that morphed into what is now his patent – a pending product, the headlock.
The design is beautiful and simple. With just a spring and tilt, simply use the button at the top of the hat as an anchor and twist your wrist to lock or open. Frey uses this design on two of his similar products. One features a strong magnet for attaching to the upper tank of a motorcycle, and the other features a clip for attaching to a backpack, belt loop, or just about anything with a sealed opening. I am.
The first few prototypes of the fifth (current) iteration were 3D printed at the St. Louis Public Library using Shapr3D software. Satisfied with the results, he bought his own 3D printer and is now able to print four of them at once using ABS durable resin. He sells them on his website.
Frey is an intern in UMSL’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s Anchor Accelerator Program. He showcased his invention at the St. Louis Area Entrepreneurship Educator Poster Competition held at his Cortex Innovation Community on April 8th.
Frey took second place out of 11 student entrepreneurs.
EIC Director of Operations Michael Butler said: “All we could do was get him to the pitch event. From there Jesse had to sell himself and without a doubt he did a great job.” Ta.
For the contest, Frey created a poster that presents a schematic diagram of his invention, along with information about his business concept and target audience. He gave a series of two-minute elevator pitches to a rotating group of people who stopped by, including several “secret” judges. Her girlfriend, Stephanie Lynch, a senior partner at St. Louis-based marketing firm Braver Element, was among those taking notes on the presentation.
“I can relate because I’ve ridden thousands of miles on the back of a bike myself,” Lynch wrote on her LinkedIn page, which she shared with UMSL Daily. “Needless to say, Jesse designed the prototype himself. To me, Headlock is his brand of cult-favorite lifestyle.”
The presentations were a learning experience, each an opportunity to gain a little bit of knowledge about how what he said affected those listening. Frey admitted with a smile that his last pitch was better than his first.
“Oh, sure. I thought about how to make it flow, what information I needed to add, what to leave out, how to shorten it,” Frey said. “I controlled it pretty well. I was a very shy kid in high school. I was nervous. But after the military? It knocks you out. You don’t really get nervous. In the Fire You will never get better at something unless you put yourself into it.”
Aside from the great second place finish, just participating in the tournament was helpful.
“I connected with a lot of cool business owners here in St. Louis and got a lot of information,” Frey said. “They were very kind and said, ‘If you need any help with anything, please contact me.'” Just having that help and connection was worth it. . ”
Frey served six years in the Coast Guard. His first assignment after basic training was on an icebreaker that kept the Great Lakes shipping lanes open during the winter. She then worked at Orange Coast University in Costa Mesa, California for two years and then transferred to Costa Mesa, California. She will be attending UMSL for the fall 2023 semester. He is from the St. Louis area and wanted to return to his hometown, and he felt UMSL was the perfect place. The credits transferred, the GI Bill paid for his tuition, and he found a place that embraced his entrepreneurial spirit.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without UMSL,” Frey said. “They were really helpful. When I got here, I read about the accelerator program and how they worked with entrepreneurs and helped them get mentors. I was so excited.”
Frey plans to graduate in December with a major in business administration and a minor in marketing. Headlok was a great way to apply what I learned at UMSL to real life. He designed his Headlok website himself and is already working with motorcycle influencers. With his 3D printer, customization is definitely an option.
Even though he hasn’t ramped up his marketing efforts in earnest yet, he doesn’t want sales to outstrip product production capacity. Still, he’s gotten orders from Google searches and even his first Reddit post from people asking if they’d be interested. He is in talks with manufacturers for larger-scale production. Once that happens, we plan to expand our business both through online sales and retail stores, such as Amazon.
“The whole idea is basically, let’s just give it a go,” he said. “I was very hesitant to try it and thought, ‘Nobody’s going to want this, no one’s going to buy it if all they have to do is stuff the hat in their backpack.'” But , put it there. Fail quickly. That’s what I’m learning in my internship. He tries something for a week and if it doesn’t work, he moves on to the next thing. Fail quickly. I don’t want to fail, but I might walk down a path that doesn’t lead to anything in the end, so that’s okay. ”
But if you go out there and get some good traction, like winning runner-up in a student entrepreneurship competition, the path will almost certainly lead to something very good.
