Sound idea shoots to success in US

By PAULA OLIVER

Growing emotionally attached to a piece of clay-shooting equipment carries obvious hazards, but for two Christchurch entrepreneurs it would be deadly.

Graham Callander and Bruce Rickard are the developers and marketers of a trap-shooting device that launches targets at the sound of a voice.

They say their success is mainly due to a lack of emotional attachment to their product.

"I've seen ideas fail because the developers won't let go of it and allow someone else to make sure it succeeds," Mr Callander says. "If I could give advice to someone with an idea, I would tell them to be prepared to trust and consult someone else."

The pair founded Canterbury Voice Release International 18 months ago.

US shooters have spent more than $3 million buying their Kiwi technology, the result of a strong combination of science and marketing skills.

Mr Callander, a former DSIR scientist, began working on a voice-activated target release in the early 1990s, but the in-house project fell over due to a lack of support.

After leaving the DSIR, he was approached by a shooting enthusiast keen to see the project finished.

Mr Callander found his old notes and spent hours honing the technology until it worked.

"When I took it to the gun club I realised it wasn't quite what I thought. But I'm fortunate the club gave tremendous support because they could see potential," he says.

"One of the hardest things was making sure it didn't fire at any other noise, like a dog barking."

More finetuning and a sale to a North Island farmer later, the device was taken to the South Island shooting championships, and Mr Callander realised he had something special.

"It was the first time I seriously knew this wasn't just a novelty in my garage," he says.

"I sold six, and had orders for more."

But Mr Callander says going out to sell a product sits uncomfortably with him, and he knew he needed someone to do it for him.

A giant market opportunity existed in the United States, where trap-shooting is a popular sport. Seeking advice on how to tap into that market, he came across Mr Rickard, then working for Trade NZ as an adviser to new exporters.

An annual shooting competition in Phoenix, Arizona, was a great chance to show off the product, and Mr Rickard recommended that Mr Callander take it himself. After fast-talking his bank into a loan, Mr Callander found considerable interest at the competition.

A casual comment several months later led Mr Rickard to decide he wanted to leave Trade NZ to start a business with Mr Callander - on a proviso.

"He had to have no emotional attachment to the product, and he had to agree we had no staff," Mr Rickard says. "We soon discovered we had the same frame of mind."

Mr Rickard says emotional attachment can lead to a developer continuing to pour mountains of cash into a product when it is going downhill.

After attending their second Phoenix competition, the men received so many orders they could not meet them without setting up a factory. Mr Rickard's no-staff ultimatum meant this was not possible, and the manufacturing needed to be contracted to several firms.

"I asked for no staff, and Graham agreed, because it frees us up to concentrate solely on what we're good at instead of trying to manage a factory," Mr Rickard says. "But it does make it difficult to get money from banks."

The men were lucky to find suppliers who believed in the product and offered to make it on credit. The US orders were met and more continued to flow in. Mr Callander says the device is now demanded in many US competitions.

Offering distributors high margins helps engender loyalty, says Mr Rickard.

Their brand-name has now become so common that American shooters refer to "shooting over Canterburys."

Though the technology is not patented, it has the protection of an inbuilt microchip that ensures it would be difficult to reverse-engineer.

Exports to the US make up 75 per cent of sales, which are close to meeting a prediction of $4.5 million this year. Each unit sells for $1095.

Not bad for a couple of Kiwis who do not even shoot themselves.