Imagine your iPhone actually taking great low light images like a good point and shoot/video camera. Imagine transferring those video, pictures, movies, or any other Apple supported files from your iPhone to an internal microSD card so you’re not limited by your iPhone memory anymore. Imagine doing all of this as well as running a bunch of apps and not worrying about your iPhone battery dying at 4:00 PM when you aren’t going to be back home to charge it until 10:00 PM.

STOP IMAGINING, IT’S HERE!

The iExpander does all this and more!

iExpander is one of the featured exhibitors at the DaVinci Inventor Showcase, which takes place on Oct 13, 2012 at the Denver Merchandise Mart. This is your chance to find out how this iPhone Expander Device works plus see a tantalizing variety of other amazing products and innovations!

1. What was the defining moment that led you to create this product? What problem does it solve?

After convincing my wife that she needed an iPhone so she didn’t have to carry a point and shoot camera around anymore, she started complaining that it took terrible low light pictures and video. Since I convinced her to give up our point & shoot camera, I felt responsible to finding her a solution. After an exhaustive internet search, I only found an external flash device that I ordered and tested. It was terrible and didn’t solve this problem at all. It was at that point that I knew I had to solve the problem myself. Not only does my iExpander solve the iPhone’s low light image problem, it also adds microSD memory expansion to the iPhone as well as doubling the iPhone’s battery.

2. After you came up with the idea, how did you size up the market and decide who your customers would be?

Our current iExpander is for every iPhone 4, 4S and 5 user. Our patent also allows us to make an iExpander for any other smart phone as well as iPad, iPod or any other non Apple tablet PC. The size of this market is very well defined through apple and the other smartphone & tablet manufacturers.

3. How did you go about naming your product?

The name iExpander was chosen because it describes what the product does. It’s an Expansion Device TM for your iPhone. It expands your memory, battery and flash capacity but it also solves solves the iPhone 5 lighting to 30 pin adaptor issue. We trademarked the term Expansion Device because we believe that the iExpander creates a new unique category of products.

4. How long did it take you to create you initial prototype, and what problems did you run into along the way?

It took approximately 6 months of research and design to create our first prototype. The problems we encountered along the way are too many to list here but we had a lot of them. Most recently, when we launched our iPhone 5 iExpander, we spent close to 10 hours dismantling the new iPhone 5 lightning connector and soldering the proper pins to the original 30 pin iPhone connector so that we could charge the iPhone 5 from the original iPhone 4 and prior 30 pin cable. We are currently fund raising on kickstarter.com. After we are funded, we will finish our app designs, production tooling and agency testing.

5.  Funding a new idea is always tricky. How did you go about lining up the money you needed?

We self funded until we launched our kickstarter.com campaign to pay for tooling, app finalization and agency testing. At the time of this interview, we are 50% funded with 50% of our time remaining so we feel confident that we will fund 100%. We have already proven through nearly 50 media reviews and 750 backers, that the iExpander is a product the World wants. We are hopeful to find the 2nd stage funding we need at the DaVinci Inventor Showcase.

6. Is this a product you’d like to produce and sell yourself, or are you wanting to license it to someone else? And if so, who?

We are a manufacturing company with factories in China & Taiwan so it is our intention to manufacture the product ourselves but we are open to licensing. The best scenario would be to find an investor who has strong consumer electronics marketing and distribution ties with companies like Best Buy, Staples, AT&T, Verizon, etc.

7. What all channels are you using to market your product?

The only marketing we have done is through kickstarter.com and media outreach through Moody PR.

8. How many people do you currently have involved in your business?

I am the sole owner of the product and it’s IP but we have 15 people on staff in our Chicago office.

9. How do you define success? What would hitting a “home run” look like in your mind?

Success for the iExpander would be to secure an investor with strong consumer electronics marketing and distribution ties who is able to fund all of our marketing efforts as well as initial production requirements of 100,000 pieces.

10. Where do people go to find out more about your product?

The best place to find out about the iExpander is to go to iexpander.com, which will take you to the video & information page on kickstarter.com.