By Allan Maurer
GREENSBORO, NC–Back when Bryan Hill sold the tagging guns and needles used to attach price tags to clothing that nearly every apparel retail distribution center and store uses, people would complain, “We’re getting stuck! People are getting infections! OHSA is handing out fines! What can we do?”
In 1995, Hill founded SaniCaps, which recently won the 2007 $30,000 Piedmont Triad Growth Accelerator business plan competition, to solve the problem.
Hill tells TechJournal South his initial method for protecting workers from infections from the tagging gun needles that attach those tags we all have to remove from clothes with scissors, was to soak them in a tray. That proved cumbersome. Back to the drawing board, Hill came up with a more elegant solution to disinfect the needles, which are as sharp as hypodermics.
SaniCaps slip over the needle, disinfecting it with a solution that kills everything from HIV to the more hardy hepatitis virus, which alcohol alone does not kill.
This is no minor matter, Hill says. Especially in retail store environments, the guns and needles get passed around from user to user and many users get stuck. “The needle on the guns is identical to a hypodermic needle,” Hill says. “If we changed the name and said we’re sharing hypodermic needles in our company, it would be an outrage.”
Hill’s two-employee company, which contracts most of its work out, is seeking from $150,000 to $200,000 to ramp us sales and marketing, but money is not the chief need, he says. “Money isn’t that hard to get,” he says.
“SaniCap is patented and addresses a need in the industry. The guns carry warnings that the needles can cause life-threatening infections. Invisible traces of blood can remain on the needles for days. No one denies the need is there.”
What SaniCaps needs, says Hill, is smart money. “We need someone who brings more to the party than money. We need mentoring, PR, marketing expertise.” He says he’s talking with some savvy textile folks and they’re excited about SaniCap’s prospects.
SaniCaps are currently available in packages ranging from a ten-pack, 100-pack, or 1,000 pack, selling from $6.95 to $260.00. They’re being used by Belk, Ann Taylor, and J. Crew stores.
Hill says recently he’s seen new interest from “insurance companies and workman’s compensation carriers who are getting smart on this.” Even a minor infection can incur costs to the insurance carriers that far exceed the cost of using the SaniCaps.
SaniCap has been generating $100,000 in gross sales a year and Hill says its seen about 40 percent growth both this year and last year. “We’re profitable already, not a concept company,” he says.
For more information see: www.sanicap.com
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
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