Leonard, Texas -- By his own admission, Matthew Harvey is man with a lot of ideas, and although it took a while, some of those ideas are bearing fruit. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1982 and was on the move early. “My father was a commercial airline pilot flying auto parts out of Detroit; then we moved to Louisiana where he flew charters and finally to Texas for a job with American Airlines,” said Harvey. “We moved to Prosper in 1987, and I went to kindergarten through fourth grade there.”
Like a lot of people who came to Texas, the Harveys decided that they wanted more space and a country life so they moved to Leonard in 1992, and settled on about 70 acres of the blackland prairie in time for Matthew to enter the fifth grade in Leonard. He graduated from Leonard High School in 2001.
On graduation, Harvey did a stint at community college and then entered the University of North Texas in Denton, graduating in 2006 with a degree that seemed like a good idea at the time, but almost guarantees a hard road when it comes to finding a job. “I graduated in Radio, TV, and Film and like to say I minored in hating life, because it was very difficult to find a good job.”
Next came a carousel of low end positions in the media business—radio stations doing promotions work, intern work at TV stations, and a few stints as a production assistant on film projects. Eventually, Harvey ended up where many an aspiring media artist ends up, tending bar in Dallas.
While in college, Harvey had driven a Jeep Wrangler, and over time he came up with an idea for a Jeep accessory that he was convinced would be a winner. “It was always in the back of my mind that I could make a product, and I believed there was a market for it.
With his father’s help, Harvey had done some initial metal work on the idea in their home workshop, and once they developed a working model, he decided to apply for a patent. The patent process takes two years, and while this was in the works Harvey’s jeep was stolen. “I needed to get another Jeep, and right then, but that just wasn’t practical. That put the development process on hold.”
The hold lasted two years, and by that time, the patent had been approved which was a bit unusual. “I got it approved on the first time, and that was kind of shocking. That set a high bar for me. After we got the patent, we started work on a design we could actually manufacture. My prototype was impracticable, so my girlfriend at the time—she’s now my wife—convinced me to get another Jeep. That was in 2013.”
Harvey got a Jeep on Craig’s List, took the doors off and started studying the problems he could see. “I got malleable wire so I wouldn’t have to be folding big pieces of metal and started experimenting, molding a model of the product. It turned out to be the design that I’m selling today.”
With a design that worked, what was next? Harvey found a machine shop in Mesquite run by two octogenarian brothers who tried to talk him out of the whole idea. “They were trying to scare me I think. But I had a pretty good idea that I could sell it.”
Where do you look when you want to know what’s going on in the wide world? Why, to the computer, of course. “I got on Instagram and saw thousands of pictures of Jeeps with no doors and no mirrors. Those were all customers that I could click on and touch and talk to.
The next step was to the machine shop for a $3,000 initial production run. (This proved a questionable choice as six months later the brothers liquidated their business and retired.) Friends and neighbors saved boxes for shipping and newspapers for packing, while Harvey got a cheap website and started selling.
He taught himself the ins and outs of this business on the fly, started adverting on the Web. He hooked into an Instagram connection with a quarter of million followers. It caught fire, a small fire perhaps, but there was a definite spark. By then he had a new and improved model and a new manufacturer so he started taking orders for Christmas in September 2014.
The next step was a booth at the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) Auto Show in Las Vegas, the largest exhibition of its kind anywhere. “It was two weeks before the show started when I called them and asked if I could get a booth. They had just had someone cancel, so I got a prime spot in the main hall surrounded by all the big car companies that I had known for years.” It was example of being in the right place at the right time.
Harvey sold around a thousand units of the new design for Christmas. Even though winter is not the best time to take the doors off your Jeep, the new model started selling like crazy. “Instagram was basically my growth tool,” Harvey said. “I can use hash tags to target exactly who I want to go after.”
“It’s a warehouse with all of my inventory where I do all of my assembly, packaging, and shipping. The front of the building serves as the office and is where we do The 12 O’clock Siren podcasts.”
Harvey, not resting on his Kixbax footpad, has two other products either in his inventory or in development. “Each of doors on a Jeep weight 60 pounds and removing them is awkward. We developed a product that goes under the door jam and straps over the window sill. On the outside is a handle so you can use your body and leverage to lift the door up off the hinges and then carry it or wheel it. It has little wheels on the bottom. It also keeps the door off the floor or the ground.
It’s called a Kik Stand.” With the products, Harvey includes a set of stickers that decorate and accent the door jam. These are called Jambskins
So what’s next? Matthew Harvey either doesn’t know yet or isn’t talking. But remember, by his own admission, he is a man with a lot of ideas.