History

The inspiration for a new product came in 1990 when Ron Hunt was delivering a new car to his mother in Kentucky. The car had a CD player in it. But he found it hard to drive when switching CDs. He fumbled with the slippery jewel cases. Some landed on the floor. Others were not easy to open. Sometimes, he had to hold the steering wheel steady with his knee while handling a jewel case to better grab a CD. The inspiration hit him. He was determined to create a better way to store CDs while traveling.

To be successful, their creation needed to meet three standards. It had to be safe and compact, retrievable, and portable. Soon, they came up with the idea of a CD storage unit that would eliminate those fragile jewel cases. Ron and daughter Shari came up with the idea of the Selector 40H and CD3, Inc. was born. They patented their new invention, and in September 1991, CD3, Inc., Inc. was formed.

Ron had worked for IBM for more than 27 years. He and his engineering associate, Gene Whitehead, held more than 100 U.S. and International patents. But IBM was looking for people to voluntarily take early retirement. Ron took the severance package and used it to build his new company CD3, Inc., Inc. He convinced his long-time IBM associate and friend, Gene Whitehead, to retire and partner with him to do product design and development.

In September 1991, Ron took his new corporation and new ideas and quickly went to work on his inventions. Ron and Gene invented the Selector and felt they could sell these during Christmas. They had 7 carts at 5 malls. Five locations would sell Selectors. For weeks, there were no CD3, Inc. products-just a display of empty boxes previewing the Selectors and a smiling face telling future customers that the products would arrive soon.

Finally, the new CD3, Inc. products arrived on December 10th. They sold enough products to breakeven for the Christmas season. The following year, they entered the competition for new products at the 1992 CES (Computer Electronics Show). They won first place for the top new product. When Christmas came, they sold the products again and did $50,000 of business selling the black Selector 40H. They knew they had a hit product. They decided to hit the big time-retail chains.

For the next five years the product was sold in retail chain stores for nationwide channel distribution. While it sounds like a successful time, the company learned some incredible lessons. The most valuable lesson they learned was that CD3, Inc.'s full-featured products sold best while being demonstrated.