Mississippi is home to some of the most creative minds in America. Cultivating entrepreneurs is always good for business. That what’s Multicraft is working to do at its Ventures facility in Pelahatchie.
How do you take a good idea and turn it into a product that’s ready to hit the market? That’s a problem with a lot of moving parts, but the good news is, local folks are standing by.
In the heart of Pelahatchie’s Industrial Park, sits a gleaming, new 40,000 square foot facility that could change the way the world looks at Mississippi.
Paul Jones is the President of Multicraft Ventures. He knows, “There are all these product ideas. People have great ideas. Mississippi is full of entrepreneurs, but there really just isn’t a place to go and help people commercialize that, so that’s really the gap that we are hoping to do here, in a private equity standpoint with Ventures.”
What kind of products get developed here? That varies, from Kitty Quest, think a board game without the board, to a handheld self-defense device that combines mace, a horn, and a strobe light, to a cargo carrier for all seasons.
Hopes are also high for the Badger Head. Product Specialist Chuck Flumm came up with it.
He says, “I did a long time ago. (I was) Just fed up with working with my weed eater, and I said, ‘I’m going to come up with an easier way.’ ”
The Badger Head is made of heavy-duty aluminum and fits most gas powered weed eaters. Unwanted foliage doesn’t stand a chance, but that’s just the beginning.
Chuck explains, “You can transform your weed eater from cutting brush to any type of cutting medium that you would like. It’s a tooling plate. You don’t have to remove the head from the weed eater. You just simply load the tooling plates (and) lock the pins in.”
Then you’re off and cutting or scrubbing or whatever.
A perfect idea in the age of multi-tasking. And Chuck says there’s nothing out there like it.
The Badgerhead is already available on Amazon, but expect to see the marketing behind it really ramp up over the next few months.
Helping Mississippians commercialize their product ideas, Multicraft Ventures it’s “What’s Working” in Mississippi this week.
Multicraft Ventures has another two or three projects that are in the early stages of development. We’ll have to check back later this year to find out what they’ve come up with.
