Floating Valet: It all Began in the perfect waters off St. John, USVI...

 

One of many perfect calm bays in the beautiful USVI

The Floating Valet was born one day from co-founder Les Kelly’s desire to find a way to hold his tropical drink above the water while he and his lovely wife and co-founder Nita were out in the perfect waters off St. John, USVI.  Les had always found it annoying that every time you want to go fully underwater at any beach or pool, you need to find somewhere to set your drink, hat, and sunglasses, or hold them above the surface as you go under.  That day he looked around and noticed that the entire beach was full of other people holding other drinks and wearing other hats and sunglasses, all with the same dilemma. So, he got to thinking how great it would be if he had a nice looking personal-sized custom “raft” of sorts to hold his stuff afloat - and not spill his drink!  He mentioned his idea to Nita, and next they thought about how they had always hated leaving all of their valuables on the beach unprotected when entering the water at any beach or pool, fearful of easy theft out of sight... so Les thought – why couldn’t he embed a waterproof box into that “raft” and bring their stuff out in the water with them, where NOBODY could steal anything?!  

Problem - No tunes, games, or cup holders in the bay, unprotected valuables on the sand

Soon things rose to a whole other level of awesomeness when he thought of using a clear (to see in), waterproof (to keep water out), gas permeable (to let sound in/out), thin (so touch screen tactile functions work through it) bag instead of the box, and found the perfect one already for sale and receiving rave reviews all over the internet.  That was the first real game changer.  In Les and Nita’s minds, that offered so many reasons for people to want and love the product... because how terrific would it be to have all the music from your phone available out there as you relax in the water?!!!  And if you wanted to make or receive an important text, email, or call, or even watch your team’s big game LIVE, you could!  The ideas kept flowing from there, including the ball game that draws fun people over in the water every time (and then they can’t stop playing it!), the self-contained anchor, the folding case design, and the GoPro mast mount.  Basically the Floating Valet lets folks enjoy their time in the water more in many ways, for a great price, and in a personal-sized, simple-to-use way, so as to not disturb anyone around them, all in a COOL way! 

 

Solution - The Floating Valet!  (original prototype shown here)

And of course there are the obvious advertising opportunities too, because any logo can be put on the outside of the cases - meaning that company's customers will be staring at their logo all day out in the water!  But to close our story, the fun of imagining it turned to a wonder/worry of how it could be that nobody had ever come up with this obviously beneficial idea already!?  Somehow after much researching and conducting a patent search it turned out that nobody had, so we filed to obtain a patent with a patent attorney.  Then we created and trademarked the cute otter logo and the name, and with your help, the Floating Valet is finally coming to life now... Hopefully you will enjoy using it as much as Les and Nita did coming up with it!

 

Meet the Floating Valet Team!