A Timmins inventor and his marketing partner are off to Toronto this weekend to audition for Dragons’ Den.
Mark West invented “Truck Buddy”. It’s a device that fits on the end of a broom handle and lets you retrieve items from the back of your pick-up truck, van or SUV without having to climb in.
His partner is Rick Dubeau. If they pass the audition, they’ll ask the Dragons to invest in marketing Truck Buddy, to move it to the proverbial “next level”.
Dubeau says sales in Timmins are already good.
“We now have the Truck Buddy in five Canadian Tire stores across Ontario,” he notes. “We’re negotiating for more. Mr. Gas is going to start carrying it in six of their stores and we have three other locations in Timmins. So we have a product, we have sales and yeah, we’re pretty confident going forth.”
Dubeau says if he and West make it into the Den, they’ll ask the Dragons for money for marketing so that Truck Buddy is available in a lot more places.
“The key to any product is marketing, especially a product like the Truck Buddy,” says the marketer in the partnership. “We need money and quite simply, we’re confident we can get it there eventually, but with the Dragons’ help, we can get there bigger and faster.”