A dream in the hands of the right person is a winner every time

 

In this era of multinational corporations run by Master of Business Administration, lone entrepreneurs don’t have a chance. Or do they?

This is a story how.

On October 30, 1980, 35-year-old pipe fitter Ross Hansen of Fredericton was driving home from work when his car blew a tire and plunged into a ditch. The next thing Hansen knew, he was in the neurological unit of Saint John General, paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors told him he’d never walk again, but Hansen was determined to prove them wrong.

During three years of rehabilitation, Hansen had to relearn everything, from sitting up to writing with his unparalyzed left hand. Though he was able to get around with a cane in good weather, winter’s snow and ice proved insurmountable. Frustrated at being “marooned,” he scoured the market for anti-slip footwear, but the local stores carried what he considered cheap junk. “I can do better than that in my garage," he scoffed.

A qualified journeyman-tradesman who once worked his way around the world, Hansen had loved working with his hands. With the help of longtime friend Peter Baldwin, a former schoolteacher and musician, he put together a prototype sole that used the principle of studded snow tires to create traction. Although Hansen knew little about running a business, Baldwin thought he was onto something. They pooled their savings of $5,000 and incorporated their company in 1987. Super Soles was born.

Two years of intensive research and development followed, including 26 working prototypes and hundreds of design changes. Friends and neighbours were enlisted for tests on icy walkways as the partners experimented with a variety of tire studs and other materials. Finally a consensus was reached on the winning product: strap-on rubber soles studded with modified sheet-metal screws. With business plan firmly in hand, Hansen took out a $100,000 loan, but only after mortgaging the equity on his house.

By the spring of 1989, production was under way. A staff of five worked out of a rented church basement, cutting and assembling the materials by hand. Hansen, who was easily fatigued and prone to muscle spasms, sometimes felt overwhelmed by the demands of his business. But he drew strength of his business that he had something useful to contribute.

At first Hansen thought Super Soles’s market would be limited to the elderly and disabled. But as he searched for a way to establish credibility in the marketplace, he came up with the true acid test. Who better for field-testing than letter carriers? His ingenuity paid off. A major contract with Canada Post to gradually outfit thousands of postmen nationwide reeled in safety-supply companies – and healthy sales, which more than doubled in the second year to $150,000.

By now, company headquarters was bursting at the seams. Raw materials, finished product and shipping containers vied for space as orders poured in. Hansen leased a warehouse complete with a loading dock. With a second loan of $50,000 he bought new machinery and set himself the goal of expanding into foreign markets.

After licensing Super Soles to a U.S. manufacturer in 1991, Hansen found a distributor in Norway. He got more than he bargained for. Instead of perhaps 50 units, Norway was ordering 500 at a time. For three months Hansen and his team struggled to keep up with the demand.

Once he’d caught his breath, Hansen determined never to be caught short again. He leased a larger warehouse and crammed it with supplies. Sales broke $300,000. He made further inroads into cold climates – Sweden, Switzerland, Greenland – which meant annual sales that continued to increase. By 1995 Super Soles (now renamed Icer’s Inc.) reached close to $1 million in sales. More than 500,000 pairs are in use in nine countries, where they’re worn by, among others, utility and sanitations workers and, of course, letter carriers.

Hansen’s struggles were enlightening. ”I’ve been everything from CEO to janitor,” he says. “I realized I could do a lot more than what I originally thought I could.”