Viatek CEO Lou Lentine talks about the Pocket Jump, which will be funded through a Kickstarter campaign.POCKET JUMP KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN• What: The Pocket Jump, a pocket- or purse-sized device and car battery charger.• Who: Viatek Consumer Products Group, a developer and marketer of products based in Chattanooga. Viatek was based in Orlando, Fla., until 2011. CEO Lou Lentine moved to Chattanooga because it's "a great place to raise my family," he said.• Online: View other Viatek products at www.viatek.com.• Support: www.kickstarter.com, search Pocket Jump.• Use: Portable charger that can recharge phones and tablets. Viatek also has designed the pocket charger to plug into your vehicle's cigarette lighter socket/power port and recharge your battery, so you don't have to get out. The pocket charger is equipped with Smart Charge technology and is itself rechargeable.• Size: The Pocket Jump is designed to fit into a pants pocket, purse or car console. Available in red, blue, purple, silver and black.• Price: Retails at $59.99. Special offers and discounts are available through the Kickstarter campaign.
Viatek CEO Lou Lentine talks about the Pocket Jump, which will be funded through a Kickstarter campaign.This wasn't Lou Lentine's first rodeo, that's for sure.
The CEO of Chattanooga-based Viatek buzzed around the Third Deck Burger Bar last week in the anxious hour before the Kickstarter for his Pocket Jump (a pocket-sized device and car battery charger) officially opened.
He's faced the hot lights of TV, pitching other folks' products on home shopping channels. Viatek's business is developing and marketing products.
The company normally takes contracts from outside firms. They're behind products such as the HairPro Laser Loss Hair Brush, the Hurrican Spray and Spin Mop and the Amazing Portable Chainsaw, among others.
But the Pocket Jump is Lentine's baby. The idea is his own. The research and development have all been done in-house at Viatek. For the first time, Viatek and Lentine are on their own, developing and marketing something of their own invention.
The company has the Pocket Jump developed, but now needs $100,000 to produce them. Enter Kickstarter.
On fundraising kickoff day, up came the slow-moving elevator at the Burger Bar again and again, folks emerging by twos and threes at the top.
The room heated up with the smell of steamy hot plates piled with hot wings and potato skins. And Lou Lentine kept his suit jacket on.
Sweat beaded up on Lentine's forehead as he worked the room, greeting every person who had arrived.
Lentine said that several national retailers and shopping networks have seen the product -- which was on display at the Kickstarter event -- and signed off on it.
He knows the risk of going the crowd-funding way.
Personally, Lentine has pledged support to a handful of things on Kickstarter and been disappointed several times.
"Only one of eight products I've ever supported came to fruition," he said.
But there's optimism about the Pocket Jump.
Ryan Wright is a graphic designer at Viatek, and a little over a year ago he was working on a portable device charger. Then Lentine came to him with the idea to also make it a car battery charger.
"I was like, 'Get out of here,'" Wright remembers.
His car became a guineau pig. Several times, it was left with the key turned over, doors open and radio blaring in the Viatek parking lot.
"He was like, 'My car again?'" said Lentine.
Patrick Jaworsky, also a graphic designer at Viatek, appears in the Kickstarter video. At the kickoff, he had high praise for the little device he's held and looked at and worried over for the last 18 months.
"It's very exciting," he said, now that it's finally out there for pledgers.
"I already have one," he said.
Lentine joked at the Kickstarter kickoff when on the front-and-center TV screen where Viatek officially opened its Kickstarter campaign, a series of terms and conditions popped up, approval needed before the campaign could officially kick off.
"This is our first campaign, obviously," he said.
But then it was down to business, and Lentine again buzzed around the room.
"We have 29 days left," he said. "Let's get those donations."
The Kickstarter campaign is 30 days long and began Friday, Sept. 19.
As of Tuesday, the Pocket Jump had received nearly $3,000 in pledges.
Lentine said at the kickoff event that he "can't see us not going ahead with it," whatever the outcome.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.