As a boy, Jamie Bowerman looked forward to something most children dread: his parents or grandparents dragging him to friends’ homes for visits.
He’d ask permission to explore and make for the basement or attic to check out the “old stuff.”
“What people thought was junk, I always thought was material to make something out of,” Bowerman said. “I liked to tinker.”
Bowerman no longer loots from the middle-aged and elderly, but he’s still tinkering. Inventing, actually. And his latest creation makes him a full-blown entrepreneur.
Bowerman will officially launch his convertible backpack business this week in conjunction with Thursday’s Fashion’s Night Out festival. His Bowerbag is a combination backpack/messenger pouch/bicycle saddlebag and has attracted interest from would-be buyers worldwide since he launched a fundraising campaign on the popular Kickstarter website in 2011.
Bowerman recently received the first run of 100 bags from his manufacturer. Eighty of them are presold, and he’ll retail the other 20 bags at Civvies clothing store on Broughton Street.
There is a waiting list for future bags, and he plans a larger production run soon. He envisions this first run creating the buzz to generate investor interest to finance an expansion.
“I’m looking at transitioning this from a college project to a small business,” said Bowerman, a Savannah College of Art and Design grad student. “I’ve had some investor interest but wanted to hold off until I patented the bags and got the first run done. We’ll see where it goes from here.”
Gotta-have item
The Bowerbag’s brilliance is in its simplicity and practicality.
With a few snapped clips, strap adjustments and zipper and Velcro pulls, the bag transforms from a traditional backpack to an over-the-shoulder messenger pouch to a saddlebag that fits onto a bicycle frame.
The bag attracted college students like a nickel-beer-night special the day Bowerman publicly debuted it at the FastPitch 2011 entrepreneurial competition. Bowerman has also received heavy interest in the bag from those who live in big cities, where walking, biking and public transit are prevalent transportation modes.
Bowerman’s life experiences as a student and an urban dweller helped plant the idea for the bag. He enrolled at SCAD as an undergraduate a decade ago, using foot-power to get around town. Shortly after earning his bachelor’s degree, he lived in Manhattan for several years before returning to Savannah for grad school.
Once back at SCAD, one of his professors challenged his class to come up with a concept for carrying things without a car. At the same time, he was working at Lady & Sons and toting books, supplies, shoes and clothes around to class and the workplace.
One day, he told himself he needed two different kinds of bags but couldn't imagine carrying both, and the “light came on.”
His professor, Joel Wittkamp, said Bowerman’s energy and drive made success inevitable.
“I thought the idea was good but didn’t want him to just do another backpack,” Wittkamp said. “You challenge students and often they’ll come up with some really big solutions.”
Cautious outlook
For all of the Bowerbag’s promise, Bowerman tempers his expectations for the future.
He’s created many viable products in the past, from a self-dispensing toothpaste holder and a configurable shelving system to a self-sufficient tomato stand and a configurable swimming pool enclosure.
The tomato stand and the pool enclosure, known as Thunderdome Stadium, attracted manufacturer interest. The pool enclosure, which was a netting system designed to keep wayward volleyballs and other pool balls from escaping the watery confines, made it to the conference room of a large pool novelty equipment manufacturer before “dying in committee,” Bowerman said.
Those disappointments contributed to his cautious approach to the Bowerbag. He easily raised $9,000 through Kickstarter to finance his initial run of bags and admits he should have set a higher target to raise more in order to make a larger run of bags. The small size of the order led to a six-month delay in production and the costs were “astronomical.”
Yet now he has a product, protected by an international patent, in demand from consumers across the globe. He compares his strategy to getting pre-approved for a mortgage.
“Raising money through Kickstarter and producing the bags signifies pre-approval for venture capital funding,” Bowerman said. “I’m so excited about the next step because I’ve learned so much. This is going from a thing I did in college for a class to a way to make a living.”
ON THE WEB
Watch Jamie Bowerman demo his Bowerbag, changing it from backpack to messenger pouch to bike saddle bag, at savannahnow.com/video. Learn more about the Bowerbag and get on the waiting list for future bags at www.bowsworld.com.