Young Inventor, Surefire Ag Sign Agreement To Distribute Chem-blade

By Laurie Bedord

As a young inventor, Ethan Eck knew from the beginning he would be fighting tough odds when trying to get an innovation to market. In fact, commonly quoted statistics will tell you that only one in 10 ideas will actually make it to market.

One thing Ralph Lagergren tries to impress upon any inventor is that simply creating a product takes you nowhere. “You have to truly be solving a problem that has a clear benefit to the user and the cost makes sense to them,” says Lagergren, who is Eck’s business partner.

That’s exactly what Eck kept in mind when he created the Chem-Blade product line. His initial innovation, the Chem-Blade Original, is a manual way to open, empty, and rinse jugs faster.