So The Deckhand, now that his home is safe decided it was time to make his big invention a reality - he feels like it's his way to give back to people who have helped him - and I agree.
It's an amazing little piece of work. It's not a crab pot, it's not a snare, it's something unique designed for sports fishermen and families on a trip to the beach. Old people and children can safely and easily operate it with success. And the crab? They can't get into it fast enough. Doubles were common, triples were not rare. In the testing of the prototype he caught more than 50 crabs in an hour, most of which were "keepers" and half a dozen made someone a nice dinner. (Not me! Ew.)
So what's the problem? We have no start up funds and just got turned down by the Credit Union.
Here's the issue:
We can't go into production and sales until we have out patent pending application in. Once we have that we can start turning them out - we already have guide fishermen wanting to buy them sight unseen for their customers to try out. But we can't let them out until we have that process started.
So we need start up money. Our goal is $2650. Basically the breakdown is as follows:
$175 patent application fee
$100 prepaid cel phone for The Deckhand, who lost his in the water. It would be our primary business phone for now as well.
$100 decent drill press
$150~ fees for business license, tax ID, mailing address, website
$300 ($150 each) for our liveaboard fees and electric. We (The Deckhand and myself) are the employees and production happens on the boats at this point.
$325 materials and tool discretionary fund
$500 space rental for production work (JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!)
$1000 operating fund for a month
A space at the Portland Boat Show is $750 for a 10x10 - we are going to try and share a booth with a local charter company that will be using our product.
We are willing to sign loan papers, give a percentage to an investor - whatever it takes to started as a viable business that isn't immoral or illegal. :P The Credit Union can't help us basically until we are off the ground - all we need is a bit of a tow to the good air.
I can be reached via message here, by email at the gmail and the gmail address is the paypal as well.