Assaf Barzilay and Yoni Blau are two rather young and very hip students. "I've been riding a scooter since age 16 and it always bugged me that you couldn't get really cool helmets anywhere," says Barzilay, 26, a student of economics at Tel Aviv University. "Once, in a moment of pure frivolity, my friend and I glued a big piece of fur onto a regular helmet and went out riding. Peoples' reactions were amazing."
Evidently, ideas for startups can come from anywhere, including frustration at the hopeless hiplessness of helmet designers.
Truck drivers honked and gave him the thumbs-up. People flagged him down to inquire if that was his helmet or real hair. Barzilay realized that he was onto something.
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Yoni Blau, 25, a business administration student at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, thought so too. The two invested NIS 20,000 and a year ago, opened Smooks, a studio for personalized helmet design. There's no other animal like it in Israel, they claim.
"We take regular helmets that meet all the safety and general standards, and turn it from a sort of functional item meant only to protect the head, into a sort of personal statement," Blau says. "People today want fashion and uniqueness. We want to do to helmets what other designers did to sunglasses. Once upon a time all sunglasses did was protect the eyes. Today they're a fashion accessory."
Working at their Tel Aviv studio, the two entrepreneurs have a range of several dozen basic designs. But the cherry on the sundae is personalization: you can order a helmet that is your own statement. "The technology has developed to a degree that allows us to print anything on the helmet," explains Barzilay.
"We won't print designs that have anything to do with nudity or pornography, or vicious comments, but other than that, anything goes."
The business is young: so far they've sold 60 helmets, ranging from NIS 400 to NIS 800 in price, plus NIS 100 to NIS 200 for the design. The wait is between three to five days. Helmets are available in full-face or three-quarter shell, as shown on their website www.smooks.biz.
Winning the EasyStart competition brings the pair a $100,000 loan from the Dan David Foundation on good terms, which they mean to use to reach every helmet, and retro shop in town, as well as designer and gift stores. "We're in contact with a company that does fashion shows abroad," says Barzilay, with visions of models sashaying down the runway with Smooks' products on their heads.
At this stage, the entrepreneurs are focusing on motorcycle helmets, but they have ambitious dreams. "We want our product to reach nationwide distribution. We want Smooks to turn into a synonym for trendy design of various products," says Barzilay. "We began with helmets, but have a lot of plans up our sleeves."
Each month, the Dan David foundation is lending a startup chosen by the Dan David-TheMarker EasyStart competition $100,000, free of interest and linkage. The entrepreneurs do not need to provide any collateral. At the end of the year, one startup will be chosen to receive a $120,000 loan on top of the original one, as well as advice from experts on growing the business.
The monthly winners will also receive business advice worth thousands of shekels for free from Discount Bank, advice on patent registration from Reinhold Cohen & Co - a perk worth about $10,000, 50 hours of legal counsel from Zedek, and much more.
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