How the NYC Marathon revealed a great startup story

This past Sunday, my wife Kim ran her 6th and final full marathon in NYC. As normal, we got in to the city earlier that weekend to pre-run feast with our family friends. As we picked up her race packet and toured the expo that Saturday, I had the great fortune to meet an amazing group of individuals from Safe Reflections, Inc. demoing their Brilliant Reflective product line.

In my daily life, I get the awesome opportunity to work with both innovative startups and enterprise organizations … and love in particular when those stories intersect, as with Safe Reflections!

I actually approached this particular booth, because I saw 3M on their backdrop and my team at humble ventures have been working with a health-tech startup that’s been in discussion with them … one of those subconscious top of mind things I guess.

A Minnesota-based American multinational conglomerate corporation, 3M has invented, innovated, and commercialized some of the coolest technologies over the past 100 years.

Like many corporations out there globally, 3M had a visionary inventor, empathetic and passionate innovator, and self-driven entrepreneur amidst its employees in the late Bob Koppes. After a decade and a half working at 3M, Bob discovered a real problem worth solving. After taking it to 3M management, leadership encouraged Bob to take what he learned, build a business, and 3M would buy to incorporate in their product lines. And that’s just what he did.

I learned all of this not by Googling, but after their expo rep, Chuck, locked my attention by clearly demonstrating Brilliant Reflective strips’ value proposition, shining a flashlight on strips stuck to the far wall — more than 30 feet away. After that, he jumped into the patented technology and a great founder’s story. I was sold!

In a 2016 Minnesota Business Magazine interview with current Safe Reflections CEO, Chuck Gruber, Steve LeBeau noted:

“The story of Safe Reflections begins in 1993, when inventor Bob Koppes founded the company to produce safety-enhancing reflective materials for the armed forces, the service industries and athletic wear. Beyond that a series of three patented innovations catapulted the company to become an industry leader in the quality of its product: 1) adhesives to secure the reflective material to clothing; 2) methods of cutting the reflective material; and 3) learning how to transform the silver appearance to more than 100 colors.”

Having dozens of our own companies out their hustling daily online, at conferences, tradeshows, and expos I can appreciate when a great story is told. And the irony of this serendipitous interaction went even further than my current startup mentor life, as I and my current active duty U.S. Air Force wife actually enjoyed the quality of Safe Reflection’s products while serving in the military.

For more about the amazing life of Bob Koppes, read here.

If you’re not familiar with Safe Reflections and the Brilliant Reflective product line, please check out their respective links embedded above.