Morrise Products

Management Monday

Cassanda and I have decided to start writing a couple of weekly series.  The Monday series is where we talk about our family business a little bit and what we are doing with this business.  As a Mechanical Engineer, I’m much more of a nerd than a business man, so if you are more business savvy, you may see that I am doing a lot of things wrong.  Please feel free to offer suggestions, as I definitely need them.

For this week: a little about the business.  At the end of last year, Cassanda and I decided to start a product development business, Morrise Products.  I have degrees in Mechanical Engineering and about 10 years of experience in product design, so we decided to give it a try.  My business education starts and finishes with me dropping out of business school at BYU before I actually began, which, as you can guess, is not a great education in business.  I have however been the mechanical designer on dozens of products, including the very first Ring Door Bell, called the Doorbot at the time, so I figured I had some of the required skills to run a business, maybe just not the important ones.

Over this first year, the business has transformed a lot, unfortunately, that transformation hasn’t included much in the way of actually making money.  At present, here is the focus of Morrise Products:

• Design and have manufactured products to better the lives of people and families
  • Most designs are in the baby and child safety category, as that is what I know, kids
• Sell products on Amazon, other online retailers, and brick and mortar stores
  • So far we have several items on Amazon, a couple of items in 2 local Aces, not a single one has sold yet though, and we are trying to get into anywhere else that will have us, Walmart is a very difficult place to get into I’ve found
• Consulting Design
  • Design products for other individuals and companies.  I’ve found it particularly difficult to find people to do work for however

When I started the business, I knew it was going to be slow going at first, but not as slow going as it has been.  I have learned a lot and met a lot of connected people, but haven’t yet found that big, or even medium size break yet.

All in all, it seems a pretty crazy thing to do, when you have 10 small kids, to take out a home equity line of credit and start to build a business like this.  Though in the past this would have scared Cassanda to tears, she hasn’t worried much, though I have, and in a lot of ways it has actually been a good thing for our family.

So, we welcome any comments, suggestions, contacts or anything else you’d like to share.  Hopefully we can build this up and bless the live of families everywhere. Over the coming weeks I will talk about the products that we have designed, which can be found on Amazon here or in our menu tab.

If you have any things you’d like to know about the business, please leave a comment.