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- anyone who’s had their earbuds fall out while running, at the gym, or just sitting at work knows that ears are not one-size-fits-all.
- Kirkpatrick won $250,000 in funding by giving the winning business pitch at Colorado’s Blue Ocean Competition, a competition he says he won “because we were making good decisions, not because we needed it.”
Apparently, everyone’s ears are as unique as fingerprints. At least, that’s why Kyle Kirkpatrick, founder and CEO of customer-earbud maker Decibullz, LLC, thinks. Though the verdict is still out on whether that’s true, there is some science in the early stages of exploration that suggests he's on to something. Even if it turns out that ears aren’t quite as scientifically unique as fingerprints, anyone who’s had their earbuds fall out while running, at the gym, or just sitting at work knows that ears are not one-size-fits-all. For many, earbuds require frequent adjustments, especially during sports or workouts. And especially if you’re upside down.
“If I wasn’t inverted, I wasn’t happy,” says Kirkpatrick, a former coach who taught gymnasts on the men’s US National Gymnastics Team in Colorado. He’d been trying for years to find earbuds that would stay in his ears, and full headphones were impractical for heavy movement. In early 2012, before Decibullz was born, the only custom earbuds on the market were for professionals singers and Broadway actors, the cost of which could range from $500 to $5,000 a pair. These custom molds required a visit to an audiologist to create, as they had to be custom-built based on ear measurements to fit properly.
So, Kirkpatrick started to make his own, in his kitchen. “I spent about a year playing around, melting plastic, running pans, and gluing stuff to my ears,” he says.” His initial attempts were made with materials from home supply stores, like silicon and polymers. When he found a material to be too viscous, he’d try strategies like adding baby powder, or blending the plastic with a denser material. “At some point,” he says, “I figured I should actually look into the chemistry a little bit.”
Eventually, after months of trial-and-error, he landed on a method that worked: a blend of thermoplastic that’s both remoldable and inexpensive. The plastic is heated in water and placed in one’s ear to shape, then the audio part of the earbud is inserted into the plastic while it’s still warm. Kirkpatrick gifted them to friends on Christmas of that same year, and they were well received - though that still didn’t convince him to start making them professionally.
“It wasn’t until months later when I realized no one had patented it that I decided to try it,” says Kirkpatrick. “The idea was just so simple, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been done.” However, as a gymnastics coach, Kirkpatrick’s expertise wasn’t in business. He learned everything he needed to know about business development by consulting what he calls the “University of Google,” spending time literally searching terms like “how to start a business.” He sold his car - his only valuable asset at the time - and put all he had into development and production. He found partners and advice through friends he already knew - the business-savvy father of one of his gymnastics students, a neighbor who owned an injection molding company.
Fortunately for Kirkpatrick, his searching paid off. At 2014’s popular Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES,) Kirkpatrick was told by the production team of a major worldwide electronics manufacturer that they had been trying unsuccessfully to produce a similar product for the last decade. Kirkpatrick went on to win an “innovation award” at the same show. Months after that, Kirkpatrick won $250,000 in funding by giving the winning business pitch at Colorado’s Blue Ocean Competition, a competition he says he won “because we were making good decisions, not because we needed it.” His 2014 Kickstarter raised more than $150,000 on a goal of $36,000 by selling nearly 2,000 pairs, and Decibullz custom earbuds were picked as the “Best Earbuds of 2015” by a major news outlet.
Years later, Decibullz sill keeps production local to Colorado, though it’s no longer in Kirkpatrick’s kitchen. Not just because Kirkpatrick values staying local when possible, but because the audio components for their headphones are made internationally, which caused challenges for shipping and production speed. Since the audio components are still made internationally, Kirkpatrick thinks it’s easier to keep other product parts local. Despite the fact that their revenue has jumped exponentially - Decibullz sold $35,000 worth of product in 2013 and is trending for approximately $5 million in 2018 - Kirkpatrick says he’s intentionally slowing his company’s growth to ensure it’s sustainable. Though they entered the industry as a headphone company, they’ve since pivoted and now find approximately 80 percent of their sales are for hearing protection devices; essentially, the custom earbuds without the audio attachment. Kirkpatrick thinks the room for growth in that niche is endless, but won’t rush to be everything to everyone quite yet. “There are so many opportunities in the hearing protection market,” he says “so choosing which to focus on is hard.”
Once Kirkpatrick is able to staff up and devote the resources to new products, he’d like to enter the medical field, ideally for children. Currently, when children need hearing aids, the process is long and costly, not unlike the process of making custom earpieces before Decibullz entered the market. However, unlike the earpieces for professional singers, hearing aids for children need to be remolded and replaced every six months to a year as children grow. Kirkpatrick says development should happen only when he’s sure it’s the right decision. “Because we operated so leanly,” says Kirkpatrick, “we’ve been profitable from year one. But we’re going to staff up a bit and see what may happen. We need to convince people they need customs!”
