.yawA: Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you came to create Garage Skins?
Rick: With a background in both sales and engineering, it was a natural fit to develop a product that I believed the world wants and needs. In fact, that’s where the idea for GarageSkins began: I wanted a very nice wood garage door, but the practical side of me kicked in when I researched the cost of real wood doors. Since no product existed that allowed transformation of a standard metal door into that of a real-wood, high end luxury garage door without complete replacement, I got busy and developed our amazing GarageSkins product line.
10 years later we have a fully functional 60,000 sq ft factory in Post Falls, ID, and ship our self-install kits all over North America. The market demand has been overwhelmingly positive, and a visit to our website www.garageskins.com will let anyone see the dozens of user-generated video reviews on our products. We can upgrade most standard overhead metal garage doors, and our kits are easily installable by virtually anyone. I’m excited to see the acceptance of our idea into the national home improvement marketplace, and we are constantly scaling manufacturing to keep up with demand.
I am truly living the American Dream, whereby someone can develop, patent and launch a product, and with hard work gather both market and financial support to grow a company to its fullest potential. I’d love to discuss any partnerships, and I’m always available at rickm@garageskins.com.
.yawA: What is the proudest moment of your career so far?
Rick: The very first time I saw one of our systems installed on a home was the proudest moment of my career up to that point. I don’t think I was ready for the overwhelming emotions that I felt stepping back after that first install and taking a moment to really reflect on all of the hard work, late hours, financial commitment and blood, sweat and tears that it took to get to that point.
Since then, there have been many highs, including contact from The Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement, and Menards, all of which want to be able to sell our products on their websites. Being featured in such prestigious publications as This Old House magazine and reviewed on many social media influencers’ posts has generated tens of thousands of followers and thousands of comments, almost all of which are overwhelmingly positive.
Being able to create and launch a product into the world that will outlive me is my greatest career goal. We are well on our way to making this happen, and I thank the hundreds of people that have surrounded me and my beautiful wife Julie as we have created and launched this company. I’m sure there are many more great things to come!
yawA: Who or what inspires you and why?
Rick: While the amount of work and financial risk that it has taken to launch this company has been pretty overwhelming, the constant positive responses from people exposed to this concept has kept the fires burning inside. It’s like a light comes on every time I show our website’s intro video to someone new; their eyes light up and almost to a person start envisioning what one of our GarageSkins systems would look like on their garage door. Seeing that immediate excitement on their face fuels a constant drive to see a GarageSkins system on each and every metal garage door in America.
It’s not just individuals that see the vision: hundreds of garage door professionals have reached out to request to become a dealer for our products, and we have several television home improvement series that are in talks to feature our products on their renovations. We have a deep pool of professional investors that are knee-deep in the home improvement and product worlds, and it’s their adoption and support of our vision to create a national brand around our products that has given us the ability to grow as
fast as we have.
There’s a long way to go. We still need to scale our manufacturing abilities to be able to supply the national marketplace. While we do have plans to expand internationally, we are focusing on building our brand in North America first, and all of our marketing efforts are driven towards this goal.
.yawA:What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to build their
own paths?
Rick: Do something that you are passionate about. If you don’t want to eat, sleep, and use every waking hour to push your dream into creation, you most likely won’t have the stamina to survive the extreme highs and lows that you will experience along your journey. But if you truly believe that the world wants and needs what you have to offer, and you are not just jumping on an already-existing bandwagon (such as the hundreds of social media sites that tried to capitalize on Facebook’s success and failed) then you have what it takes to reach your goals.
The current state of fundraising is nothing like it was even 5 years ago. The pandemic has changed the landscape substantially, and investors that previously would have funded very early stage or even concept-only companies are sitting on the sidelines, needing some significant traction before coming in as a funder. This places a stronger emphasis on making sure you’ve developed a strong following that supports your product or service before approaching the investment community.
Keeping quiet was a mistake I made early on. Even though I had patents issued, I was so nervous that someone with deep pockets would “steal” my idea that I kept the concept under my hat for way too long. It’s likely that had I banged the drum louder early on, that we’d be much farther along. So my advice would be to create as much IP around your product as you can, then develop a strong social media presence and following to show proof of concept.
.yawA: What makes your product stand out?
Rick: Our GarageSkins systems are unique to the home improvement marketplace. While there are several products that can dress up an existing garage door, none so far have been able to simulate the luxury look and real-wood feel of a true, high-end custom wood garage door that our GarageSkins systems provide.
When developing this product, I had three overarching design goals: Create a product that anyone can self-install, looks exactly like a real-wood garage door, and is lightweight enough that someone doesn’t have to change their existing opening system.
We’ve accomplished all of these goals. Our GarageSkins systems come in a self-install kit, and a full installation video can be found on our website, plus several deep-dive installations and reviews on our YouTube channel. In about ½ hour, you can completely change the curb appeal of your home just by snapping our magnetic panels onto your existing metal overhead door.
Our real-wood veneers exactly simulate the feel and texture of a wood garage door, because they are real wood. You can run your hand over the surface of our panels, and you wouldn’t know that it’s not solid wood. And with our lightweight cores, the added weight of our GarageSkins systems can be handled by almost all existing opening systems. We always suggest that after installation you have a garage door pro come out and check the balance, but in almost all cases, simply a tightening of your springs will suffice in re-balancing for the added weight.
.yawA: Where do you see your business in 5 years?
Rick: While there are still miles to go (mostly around scaling manufacturing) in 5 years I see us in all big-box retailers, supported and promoted by most HOA’s and Realtors in America, having multiple product lines, and beginning international expansion as the world is on a home-building frenzy and has adopted the American ranch-house style that includes a 2-car garage to house their increasing middle class that’s expanding in most developed countries.
If you think about it, the garage door is one of the largest blank slates out there right now. After reading this article, hopefully you will start paying attention to just how many plain garage doors there are. In fact we did a study, and found that there are over 35 million overhead steel doors that are compatible with our GarageSkins systems and that’s just in the US. That’s a huge marketplace to approach.
The sky is really the limit with our ability to instantly provide such as dramatic improvement to people’s homes and lifestyles through the addition of the GarageSkins products to their homes. I am truly excited to see where we can take this company!
-Rick Medlen, CEO, GarageSkins, Inc.