POST FALLS, ID / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2022 / Love improving the look and curb appeal of your home? Tired of looking at that builder-grade metal garage door every time you pull into the driveway? Having a tough time standing out in a crowded and slowing real estate market?
A Post Falls, Idaho company has a brand new and affordable solution: real wood overlay panels that snap magnetically onto your existing garage door and instantly give you the look and feel of a solid real wood door.
Known as GarageSkins, these kits ship directly to the consumer (DTC) and are installed by the homeowner themselves. Detailed instructions and a modular design ensure a new and fresh look for almost any home with a current metal overhead door, and all for about 1/8th the cost of a new wooden garage door.
Developed in Oregon by product developer and company CEO Rick Medlen, years of engineering, testing, and prototyping have gone into ensuring a high-quality product that has been university lab proven to withstand the harshest climates in the US. While the company currently only ships to the US, plans are in place to add Canada, with a long-term vision to take the product line international.
"We have always been driven to manufacture a high-quality, truly American-made product line. We are a ground-up manufacturer, employing 20 full-time people but ramping quickly to the 80-100 it will take to fully staff our 60,000 sq ft facility. We could have chosen to outsource this product but creating a true manufacturing family around our GarageSkins products has always been the dream," says Medlen.
He further states that the company could have been sited anywhere, but he was drawn to the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area for many reasons. Its natural beauty, great access to transportation, and Idaho's pro-business climate all led to targeting Post Falls, one of the fastest growing communities in the US due to its great standard of living.
Medlen's wife Julie, the company's VP of Marketing, grew up in nearby Spokane, WA and had a large influence on the company's location. "With our DTC business model and internet-based sales structure, we could have gone anywhere. Coming home has always been a dream of mine, and we couldn't have picked a better spot."
As marketing head, Julie sees firsthand the overwhelming demand that the GarageSkins systems are generating. Home improvement influencers, garage door installers, and even Lowe's Home Improvement have all reached out to offer marketing partnerships to help get the word out that these amazing new systems are now available to order. GarageSkins' manufacturing is still churning through their pre-orders but has plans to rapidly scale their output capacity to meet the ever-growing demand, and as such have launched a capital raise, selling equity shares in the company to accredited investors.
"The sky's the limit with what we can do with our proprietary technology. This idea has been tried before, but we have been able to solve the largest problems faced previously: wood stabilization, long-lasting finishes, and keeping the product incredibly lightweight to not affect the spring balances."
Ron Doornink, GarageSkins' lead investor states "As one of GarageSkins, Inc.'s earliest investors, I have closely followed the product's evolution from prototype to market readiness as well as the development of the Company's one-of-a-kind manufacturing operation. I could not be more enthusiastic about the Company's potential. Simply put, I believe that GarageSkins is ready for prime time!"
Medlen sees astronomic growth ahead and wants to ensure that the manufacturing side of the company is adequately scaled to meet projected sales. He has recently purchased several larger pieces of manufacturing equipment and with his VP of Operations, Robert Brock (retired USMC and Kaizen lean manufacturing Black Belt) they are building out 2 additional production lines with plans to bring the plant's total output potential to 2,250 GarageSkins systems per month.
"We are looking ahead, not just a few months but a few years. We know how huge this marketplace is and with our utility patents and trademarks issued and in effect, keeping up with the demand will be the key to controlling this brand-new space for the foreseeable future."
A recent market study commissioned by Medlen sizes the current market at 32,000,000 existing compatible garage doors, and that's just in the US. With 1.5M new homes being built every year, GarageSkins' marketplace will continue to grow. Builders, Realtors®, architects and of course millions of homeowners are searching for quick and affordable ways to transform the exterior of their single-family homes. The new-to-market GarageSkins systems provide just that and as such are creating a brand-new vertical in the $457B home improvement industry.
To contact Rick please email at [email protected].
GarageSkins, Inc.'s website is https://www.garageskins.com
Ron Doornink serves on the Board of Directors for GarageSkins, Inc. and is their lead investor. Ron has extensive company leadership experience, including having served as Chairman of Turtle Beach, President and Director of Activision (now Activision Blizzard,) President of ConAgra Snack Foods, and member of Columbia Business School's Board of Overseers. He currently has an extensive portfolio of over 75 active start-up investments.
CONTACT:
Company Name: GarageSkins
Contact Name: Rick Medlen
Website: https://www.garageskins.com
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE: GarageSkins