Michael Slattery was very happy with the cheerful glow of the new solid fuel stove in his living room. He was less happy when it ejected hot coals onto the floor in front of it.
He started looking for a protective mat that really worked, but drew a complete blank. It got him thinking about making his own. He set about ascertaining how extensive the problem of hot debris was and quickly discovered that stove-related burns to floors and carpets were common. Eighteen months and a great deal of effort later, the Ember fire mat went on sale.
"Stove owners often try to solve the problem by placing a cheap 'sacrificial' mat in front of the fire. These mats are not fit for purpose and wear out quickly," he says. "There are approximately 700,000 stoves fitted in Ireland so I knew that if I could come up with a simple solution I had a potential market of thousands of units."
The Ember fire mat is now available in around 40 shops and full national coverage is the next goal. The company has also recently appointed a distributor in the UK.
Experience
Slattery has 35 years' experience as an entrepreneur in the homewares/hardware trade so he had well-established manufacturing contacts in India and the Far East and access to good distribution channels in Ireland. However, he still needed to develop the product and turned to his nephew and product designer, Ross Burke, for help. When they finally had the mat to the quality and specification they wanted, they went to India to find a manufacturer.
“We have seen people improvise by placing sheets of glass, acrylic, and even biscuit tins in front of their stove to protect their floor,” Slattery says. “Ember is an affordable fireproof rubber mat [€24.95] that saves your floor from burns and helps make your stove area safer and cleaner. The product is designed to fold up and store out of sight when not in use.
“In our first full year we hope to gain good traction in the Irish market,” he adds. “But stoves are equally popular in many other countries. We intend bringing the product international once we have proved its viability at home. It has already attracted interest from the US, Sweden and Canada and we had excellent feedback from consumers when we attended the Hearth and Home exhibition in Harrogate, Yorkshire, recently.”
Slattery estimates the costs to date of developing the mat at around €70,000 and the business has received some financial support from the Waterford Local Enterprise Office. He hopes to create eight jobs within the next year.
“Ember currently stands alone as the only solution to this specific problem. We envisage others might follow and have developed IP [intellectual property] regarding the product design and around the bespoke rubber compound,” Slattery says.
Convinced he had a really good product on his hands, Slattery began thinking about how he could reach as many potential customers as possible in one go. He opted to try his luck on RTÉ programme Dragon’s Den earlier this year and received an investment of €50,000 for a 40 per cent stake from Gavin Duffy.
“The Den is an intimidating place, but it can be a rewarding experience if you’ve done your homework,” he says. “It seems easy from the outside, but turning an idea into a marketable product is one of the most complex and arduous undertakings you could imagine. It’s all about taking a calculated risk. Know your market and do your research, but at the end of the day the risk is always high as 95 per cent of products never get to market and 99 per cent of new products fail.”
– OLIVE KEOGH
