Where cold winters abound, touchscreen phones do not bode well for poor, glove-less hands. Sending emails, answering phone calls, dialing phones, sending a tweet - none of it can be done fast or without freezing your fingers off while outside. The North Face, Echo Gloves and Isotoner have all come out with gloves designed to keep your hands warm while using your technology. However, none of these companies have created a product with such love (or gLOVE - as Annie Hemmesch, Chief Glove Officer of Telefingers, likes to put it), affordability or warmth as the Chicago-based Telefingers mother/daughter team.
Other players have a piece of fabric sewn in where you literally have to manipulate the glove for your preferred typing response, Hemmesch said to midVentures, regarding the competition. Our gloves are designed to have a tight fit. Plus, the entire finger tip works with all capacitive touchscreens. So, regardless of whether you type with the side, bottom or top of your finger tip, it will work. Telefingers URBAN glove is nearly half the price of other competing brands, selling at $20 per pair.After just returning from a course in sourcing and manufacturing in Asia, Annie Hemmesch witnessed her mother answer a phone call from her father in the cold. She was determined from that point on. I didn't want to have to watch my mom answer her phone with her nose again! Hemmesch exclaims. The demand for such a product was the driving force...as they say, necessity is the mother of all invention.
Perhaps unlikely entrepreneurs, founders Annie, Kathy and Heidi Hemmesch are all teachers. Our story is unique. We don't have the business, savvy sales, and manufacturing backgrounds, but we can sing the ABC's/123's and fingerpaint with the best of them, Annie continues. I am proud of our story. We've launched a company, have worldwide sales and have even taped a prime time TV show on entrepreneurs.
They are now in several touchscreen and international markets. Annie admits that figuring out how to make it happen after her course in Asia was easy, however the chemistry lab in her kitchen painted a slightly different story. It was a lot of trial and error, she says.
And not just in the kitchen. She feels blessed to have the chance to work with her mother and sister. Sure we've had times where we cry, laugh, yell, etc. But, we can't go home at the end of the day and complain about our boss, team, etc. because we're family, and we're not going anywhere...so in a way, we are forced to talk it out, manage with TLC and carry each other when need be.
They aren't finished designing just yet. The URBAN style will be one of a line of gloves yet to come.
The Hemmesch women are a home-grown example of how using a bit of ingenuity, determination and common sense can drive a product to do well. Plus, we hear their board meetings in Key West over a glass of wine aren't so bad either.
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