As an entrepreneur and an athlete, Jennifer Nemec sees the world as a cup half-full with very few risks.
"On the other hand, most lawyers see the cup as half-empty, full of risks that need to be constantly mitigated. Finding a lawyer who understands how an entrepreneur sees the world is a real business challenge," says Nemec, the founder and chief creative officer at Ideation Studio, a design company based in Chicago. "I've worked with lawyers who take a simple one-page letter to end a lease and turn it into a three-page document full of legalese that no one is going to sign and that wastes thousands of dollars."
So when avid tennis player Nemec wanted to create a special band for her tennis racquet, she also needed to find lawyers who understood not only her entrepreneurial mindset but that this product was ancillary to her main business.
Nemec's Get a Grip! coaching bands are stretchy 3/4-inch silicone bands that cover the grip tape on a tennis or pickleball racquet. The products come with positive sayings on two sides of the band like “Believe”, “Brush it, Don’t Crush it”, “Stay Strong” and “Big Targets + Dig Deep”. There’s also a write-your-own option.
“As an athlete, small things can provide a performance edge. I wanted a tool to promote positive self-talk and turn a player’s focus to actionable items which can serve as a path to produce better results,” she said.
For Nemec, the performance edge was also about hiring the right lawyer to help with business strategy and protect her new brand. "The name Get A Grip is popular and to get our trademark, we had to argue that there was no similarity to another version of the name," she said. Mark Miller, her primary lawyer at Saul Ewing brought in intellectual property colleague Joseph Kuo for the trademark application.
Miller also consulted with her about the best strategy for the business. Since Nemec had an existing business with Ideation Studio, they determined that Get A Grip should become a sub-brand within the company. Her Ideation Studio Business also helped fund the product development and launch. "We went from concept to market in under 90 days, which was a very fast process," Nemec said.
The Get A Grip product launched in December 2019. To date, Nemec has sold about 1,500 bands at $8 each. She worked with a fellow tennis player in Philadelphia to print the product’s packaging. She handles order fulfillment from her office in Chicago.
She continues to work with Saul Ewing on legal issues including non-disclosure agreements and leases, and works with a sole practitioner James Wotal on various legal and accounting issues.
Since the launch, she has used word-of-mouth, tennis events and a website as her primary marketing tools. She plans to promote her products at upcoming tennis tournaments, United States Tennis Association events, and through an enhanced social media presence.
Company: Get a Grip!
Founder: Jennifer Nemec, a passionate tennis player and owner of Ideation Studio, a design firm providing interior design, architecture, graphic design and product design services.
Product: Silicone bands with positive messages for racquet sports
Product Launch: December 2019
Website: https://www.getagrip-cb.com/
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