New Product, Permanent Wood Sealer, seeking business advice

Somewhat of a weird post but please bear with me. Imagine if you will that there was a water based product (Zero harmful chemicals) out there that when sprayed on wood, permanently seals it. No more rot, termites etc. The wood also becomes harder as the salts/sugars etc. are removed (I believe it begins the petrification process but will need to confirm later).

My partner and I are currently speaking with the inventor of said product about marketing it for them. The problem is we can’t sell it to Home Depot because they only sell products that are “in demand”. So we are looking at creating a demand for it. This is where I am seeking some advice/help.

We are contemplating starting a power washing/deck repair business. The idea would be that we need to create our own reference sites since the amount of time/effort it would take to ask a deck builder, power washer, home builder etc to get them to offer this as an additional “product” would be very cost prohibitive and time consuming. If we had a business where we could make some of the $ while we grew out the demand and references for the product this would be ideal because it would also allow us a revenue stream to fund our marketing activities.

So, what I am seeking is some advice from those of you with experience washing/repairing decks/docks/piers. We already know 100% the product works, we know it does stain wood different colors (even PT wood), the product inventor is working on the ability to add stains now so we can offer a variety of colors. Does this seem like a good path forward? We can terminate the PW business once we have enough demand for the product as the goal here is to sell the product (without a multimillion $ advertising budget), not get into the PW game.

Anyone with lots of wood cleaning/preservation experience that is willing to share some of your knowledge, business acumen?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Freeburd

Is this the 25 year warranty stuff?

If so I have removed that stuff and stained the deck properly multiple times.

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If it is, I have pictures of a deck that was sealed with it last year and was already covered with green algae.

What’s the name of this product? SmartSeal?

As opposed to starting your own company, marketing it, gaining clients, etc? I don’t feel like this is a rational thought process at all. It’s like building a residential construction company to sell a paint that you make.

Why not just offer samples, or set up booths at trade shows? If the product is good enough, you’ll build a ground swell much faster that way.

No. It’s never been used commercially, it would be a completely new product with a lifetime warranty (I dont know what that looks like yet). We also dont have a product name as of yet. The only places it’s been used has been on the homes in the neighborhood of the inventor.

I appreciate the comment, we talked about that option as well. We are contemplating the PW route ( I’m currently a handyman, spent 20+ years in sales before) because the revenue per sale will be small (maybe $100 on 5 gallons), so it would be tough to pay a commission and fund the cost of tradeshows without some other revenue coming in. Nothing is set in stone yet, just letting you know our thought process. I’m looking for ideas on how to roll this out, one thing we thought of was to have some type of “application partner”, meaning we’d have a vendor or 2 per zip that was authorized to sell and apply the product. At this point we don’t have a set path forward, just spitballing here.

Jake, appreciate you taking the time to respond.

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Yeah that’s pretty much the exact description of that 25 year warranty stuff. It doesn’t last 2 years. Infact I would argue it rots wood even quicker than wood left bare.

Have any photos of decks a year or 2 after application?

Your market is new home builders. They seem to be the largest user of unproven products. I would look into setting up a booth at some contractor shows.

I think your biggest challenge is that products like this already exist. This isn’t anything novel. It’s just not very popular or well-known to the average customer.

Some of the products like this are amazing, some are trash.

Is your product water-based or oil-based?

At present, we do not have a signed agreement with the inventor to distribute the product, and I cant get an agreement signed without a distribution strategy and a commitment for x pallets/month. There are pictures, 3rd party testing etc available. I’m just not comfortable releasing the info until the agreement is in place.
I will share that if you apply any current product out there, then cut the board, you’ll see the penetration level is probably barely visible to the naked eye.
This product is not like anything out there, and as far as I’ve been able to find so far, only 1 product even mentions depth of penetration as a product strength.
I know its not a direct answer to your question, and I’m happy to debate the merits of the product once we have an agreement. I’m also hoping that a few of you out there will have an interest in testing this as well, as I think it would be a nice value added service you could offer (that’s also a reason why we are looking to promote it via the PW industry, because the surface must be either new or clean prior to application).

Thanks, for the advice, that’s not an area we’ve looked into yet because we havent figured out where in the home building process is the best time to apply it. It does make the wood harder, which makes cutting and drilling/hammering into it slightly more difficult.

Water based. And yes, I’ve discovered there are many more of these types of wood preservation products out there than I was aware of…personally I’ve always used Thompsons or Cabot for any outdoor structure I ever built.

I don’t know what you are getting into, but the current rave in the industry is all about nanocellulose. There are several methods that aren’t commonly used and some other new tech out there as well. I recently read about thermal and hot oil, but none of those are for end users.

Everything that is worth mentioning is available at the forestry labs website.

What they sell is different than what you initially described.

So don’t confuse yourself or others. :smiley:

Their products protect the wood on the outside (and usually change the color of the wood–ie stain the wood). Your product would change the wood on the inside–strengthen and densify it.