Heavenly Stroller: Taking a stroll down the path to success

By Sandra Bretting, Houston Chronicle

Most inventors will say bringing a product to market is no walk in the park, but 27-year-old Deven Kight of Tomball just may be the exception.

It was a walk on a summer’s day in 2003 that led to Kight inventing a type of umbrella stroller.

Kight had agreed to baby-sit her niece, Heaven Lee, but found that walking the toddler using an umbrella-type stroller hurt Kight’s back.

“I’m 5-foot-6, and if it was hard for me to bend over the stroller to wheel around my niece, I knew it must be really hard for my brother, who’s 6-foot-1,” she said.

Kight toyed with the idea of a stroller that had handles that would raise and lower. She hired a patent attorney in October 2003 to begin the process. By January 2004, a filing was in place for the Heavenly Stroller, named for the niece who inspired it.
No stranger to challenge

Ultimately, it took Kight two years to gain approval for her patent, during which time she incorporated her business and explored manufacturing options.

“Even more so than the time element, the cost element can scare away a lot of individual inventors,” said Greg Vetter, co-director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Houston Law Center. “An initial patent filing could cost $5,000. Some large manufacturers take out 10 to 12 patents on a product to make sure each aspect is fully covered, but small-time inventors usually can’t do that.”

Fortunately, Kight is no stranger to challenge.

She applied to Tomball College at age 14 and was accepted after passing both the math and English entrance exams. Kight was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa for maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average before her 15th birthday.

“I had an associate of arts degree when I was 17,” Kight said. “I truly believe the mind is capable of so much if you just have the drive to push yourself.”

Kight went on to graduate from the University of Houston-Downtown and credits a business class there with teaching her to seek out a foreign manufacturer that had an American, as well as an overseas, office for her product.

“That way, if they’re an overseas manufacturer but they have an office in America, they still have to abide by our patent laws,” Kight said. “So I knew they couldn’t take the idea for my product and try to make it themselves.”

Kight also knew she wanted a manufacturer that could handle both the metal and cloth fabrications for her invention.

After hiring a local graphics firm to create a blueprint and finding a Chinese manufacturer with an office in Dallas, Kight was thrilled to see her prototype become a reality in December 2005.

By then, more than two years had passed.

“When you’re young, you think everything happens so fast, when it’s actually a slow process,” Kight said. “I’ve learned I have to be patient because everything takes more time than you think it should.”
Most sales online

Kight’s parents provided seed money for the project to the tune of almost $30,000.

By October 2006, a full three-and-a-half years after that fateful stroll in the park, Kight had her first batch of 1,700 strollers. According to Kight, she didn’t have to go through any government agencies to get approval for her product, though there are labeling requirements.

“She’ll have to label her product based on product liability cases that have come before,” Vetter said.

Today, Kight sells t he Heavenly Stroller through her own Web site and on Amazon.com, which she said accounts for the bulk of her sales. From an initial sale there in March of last year, sales have steadily grown on the site and now account for a dozen or more sales each month.

All told, Kight sold 149 of her strollers last year, which retail for $34.99.

“It feels so good to be able to start paying my parents back,” Kight said. “In the meantime I’m working as a receptionist to pay the bills, but I’ve always wanted to work for myself and to own something like this that I made.”
Building a track record

Kight considers her biggest competitor to be Graco, which sells both regular and umbrella strollers. She has approached retailers like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart Stores about carrying her product, but has been told she’ll need a stronger sales record.

“Ideally, I’d love to get a large chain store to sell my product,” she said. “Either that, or sell the patent to a major stroller manufacturer. But the sales track record has to come first.”

For now, Kight and her parents continue to fill orders, adjust the company’s Web site and market the Heavenly Stroller at every opportunity.

“The funnest part about all of this is to see the company start to take off,” Kight said. “Every time I ship out a stroller, it’s a thrill to know someone will soon have my product in their hands.”

The Heavenly Stroller can be viewed at www.dkinnovationsinc.com.

Contact Information:
Deven Kight
DK Innovations Inc.
info@dkinnovationsinc.com