Getting a newly invented tool into the Canadian marketplace was nothing short of criminal for Jayne Seagrave.

Seagrave, co-founder of the Vancouver Tool Corp. (VTC), had no background in sales or marketing before launching her small business nine years ago.

Armed only with a PhD in criminology, she had spent more time writing academic papers and lecturing students than approaching buyers.

Though it turned out that crime really wasn't a factor in her business, "the PhD taught me to write, which was useful for press releases, letters to buyers and so on," Seagrave recalls. "Also in writing a PhD, you get used to working by yourself and disciplining yourself to work six hours a day with no one standing over you."

Karen Dyer, Business Edge
Jayne Seagrave's book offers both advice and a humourous autobiographical account of starting a home-based business.

Seagrave, who has penned several books about camping and policing, has recently published a book that she describes as an autobiography of sorts about her experiences in running a small business.

"I'd seen lots of books about how to start a business, but nobody was really writing about the ins and outs of small business," she says. "This book tells all about our experiences inventing a product and starting a small business in Canada."

From the Mind to the Marketplace: The Story of an Inventor, the Home Improvement Industry, His Wife and Her Lovers outlines how, after years of odd inventions, Seagrave's husband Andrew Dewberry came up with the idea of the Caulk-Rite tool while renovating the bathroom of the family's home.

Unlike an earlier soaker tub he had invented, this tool was "small, cheap, plastic and mass-marketable," says Seagrave. While she had been busy writing a textbook and teaching criminology at Simon Fraser University, he found a manufacturer for the product. They began to assemble the tools in their homes one night after dinner and Seagrave's life was never the same.

In the book, Seagrave walks the reader through her own learning experiences as a novice sales and marketing person for the new product, while giving advice to other inventors along the way.

And whereas the autobiographical element dominates, the book is really aimed at readers interested in developing new products, with an "advice for the inventor" section to be found at the end of every chapter.

Readers can follow the birth of the prototype Caulk-Rite tool in 1996 through tradeshows (where, for example, the Caulk-Rite tool won the Best New Product Award at the 1998 Canadian Hardware Show), into buyers' offices and on to the intricacies of selling to American and foreign markets.

VTC soon expanded its line to include a caulk-removing tool and a number of related grouting tools, and From the Mind to the Marketplace outlines how Seagrave and Dewberry experimented with other product lines with varying degrees of success.

Seagrave pays particular attention to her learning experiences as a novice marketer, with emphasis on the wooing of buyers in the home improvement industry. "They were like my lovers," she laughs. "I spent hours courting them, flying to visit their offices, all to get my product in their stores."

The importance of a good patent lawyer is another focus of the VTC story, according to Seagrave. "We've successfully defended our patents against companies trying to knock us off in both Germany and the U.S.," she says. "A good patent lawyer is definitely money well spent."

While VTC considered off-shore production, in the end the company has chosen to keep its production running domestically. "Our local suppliers are fantastic," Seagrave says, "And we sell to a number of companies that are proudly Canadian. We often have agreements that involve a fine from the company if we don't deliver on time, and events like the recent truckers' strike (in B.C.) can be devastating to a small business like ours. The three or four cents we would save can really add up on large orders, but we would lose the advantage of local suppliers."

Sales of the company's products in Canada have increased more than 50 per cent over last year, she adds, "and the market in the U.S. has a tremendous potential for us."

The caulking tools were recently featured on QVC, the American Shopping Network, and ended up selling more than 300,000 units. Potential contracts with shopping networks in England and Germany are being negotiated, and VTC is now looking to Australia for further expansion.

From the Mind to the Marketplace also outlines the perils of working from home. While life has definitely been crazy at times, Seagrave feels the experience has been positive for her husband and two young sons.

"The boys know that the basement is the business area and they don't go down unless they are invited," she says.

But Seagrave believes running their company from home has also given her sons a unique view of the world. She tells about the day her six-year'-old son Jack learned a new expression. "He asked me what 'women's work' meant," she laughs. "I asked him what he thought it might mean and he said, 'Going to the basement to sell tools?' " According to Homebuilder Canada, renovation spending in Canada is anticipated to hit $38 billion in 2005, and the do-it-yourself market has never been hotter.

While Seagrave concludes her book with the hope that a huge company will come along, buy up Vancouver Tool Corp. for a handsome sum and free her to pursue her next adventure, she concedes that the scenario is unlikely.

"We're very happy with our company right now," she says. "We make a very comfortable living working out of our own home. And we plan to continue concentrating on what we do best - selling the caulking tools to an expanded market."

Web Watch: www.vancouvertool.com

(Karen Dyer can be reached at karen@businessedge.ca)