March 10, 2013 – Minneapolis, Minnesota – Have you ever had an idea that made you say, “Hey, I should invent this!”? Well, I did. And I did! Or, more precisely, I am in the process of bringing my invention to life.

If you’re like me, you’ve walked or stood around in cold weather with your horse covered in a traditional cooler for up to an hour, waiting for him or her to dry, only to find that once the cooler has “dried” your horse, you have to spend another 15-20 minutes toweling off his or her belly and chest before you feel comfortable putting him out. And even then, you wonder, “Is he dry enough? Is she going to get sick?”

I have been training horses and teaching lessons in Minnesota for almost 10 years now. One of my least favorite things became waiting around in the freezing cold for the last horse I rode to dry. At one point, I even brought a hair dryer out to the barn to try to speed things up. Of course I’ve tried just about every cooler out there but the problem was always the same. The horse would never be completely dry. Regardless of what brand of cooler I used, or the material it was made from, two parts of the horse’s body that get the most sweaty, the belly and the chest, would always still be wet. I would then have to spend another 10-15 minutes toweling off these areas after I’d already waited up to an hour for the rest of the horse to dry. All of this while it’s freezing cold outside!

In February 2012, I got out one of my stuffed horses and cut up some old towels and set out to make a prototype of a cooler that would cover the areas that traditional coolers miss. After the stuffed pony, my real horse kindly stood tied for hours on different occasions with me cutting up thrift store sheets and pinning them on him in different ways. With help from a friend with sewing skills, these sheets became a home-sewn, polar fleece prototype of the WikSmart Cooler (patent pending).

Since then, I have been on a year-long, wild ride that has included many middle-of-the-night-wake-up-and-jump-on-the-computer-brainstorming-sessions that leave me zombie-like during the day. I have taken a business class and done massive amounts of research into patents, patterns, textiles, manufacturing, and licensing. I have come a long way since that original homemade prototype. WikSmart coolers are now made of a very heavy, 360 g polar fleece and manufactured in the US with all of the parts being of the highest quality. They are extremely soft and beautifully made.

I am now at the point where I am venturing into acquiring the start-up capital I need to get to making these coolers in large quantities. In my business class, we learned that crowd fund raising is a popular trend and a financially safe way of gaining capital. Throngs of people are launching and contributing to campaigns for everything from paying for Aunt Paula’s knee surgery to paying for Jamar’s college to small business start-ups and promoting new inventions. The basic premise of many of the campaigns for start-ups is to get pre-orders for your product, thereby providing you with the capital you need to get your product on the market.  I recently launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com to promote my invention and to help me turn it into a small business.

The most amazing thing I have learned from doing this so far is about the kindness and generosity of people. Trust me; I am more fond of animals than people so I am not one to say this lightly. People can be very harsh, especially in the way they treat animals, but I am re-discovering that they can also be very kind.  For example, I have relied heavily on friends with the skills to help me get my project going. I have a friend who is a video editor edit my campaign video, another friend who is a graphic designer made me a logo, and another friend who is a photographer took pictures for me. All for free. Strangers have even contributed financially and by spreading the word about my campaign on social networking sites.

People I didn’t know at all and those I hardly knew spent a lot of time and effort trying to guide me the right way in all kinds of directions by giving advice, being honest but polite, sharing all kinds of experience and knowledge that might help me, and just generally trying to help. Even people who may perceive me as a potential competitor or threat and who have extremely busy lives and jobs said I could call or email anytime if there was anything else they could help me with. The owner/operator of a very well-known horse product catalog that sells its own brand of blankets did this for me. It is amazing the support people are willing to give. In some ways, this recessed economy has reverted us back to a time when everyone pitched in to help. These experiences have renewed my hope for and faith in humanity.

To preorder your own WikSmart Cooler or to contribute to the campaign which ends March 27th, 2013, visit the Indiegogo campaign at http://igg.me/p/325207/x/2259717.

After that, visit us at www.wiksmart.com or www.facebook.com/wiksmart.

Contact: Misty Caston
CEO
WikSmart Coolers
612-423-9774
wiksmartcoolers@gmail.com