When the five finalists in New Brunswick’s Breakthru competition gather in their finest suits on Wednesday, you’ll know the Black Magic team by the cans of pink spray paint they’re carrying.
But there won’t be any paint smeared on their hands.
The trio of University of New Brunswick engineering students made the finals of the province’s business plan competition by producing a special formula that can remove industrial dirt and grime — even paint — in seconds.
Greg Bailey, Steven Likely and Garrett Nelson developed the product as part of their studies. They entered the Breakthru competition, hoping to grab a slice of the $406,000 in prize money to help finance their development.
They’ll find out if they won at the Breakthru dinner in Fredericton on Wednesday.
Black Magic is a two-step, non-toxic solution with no abrasives. It helps people wash away any oil-based substance, leaving hands clean and moist. You apply one solution to dissolve the grime or grease and the other to wash away the entire mixture.
When they attended the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s one-day Breakthru boot camp in January, they showed up with a can of spray paint. While other entrepreneurs talked about their product, Black Magic gave a graphic demonstration of what theirs can do.
They spent the day spray painting people’s hands, letting it dry and then using their two solutions to clean off the paint within seconds.
“Since boot camp, we’ve got a lot media coverage and got a lot of positive responses,” Nelson said in an interview this week.
“People have been coming out of the woodwork to help us. One person has done a design of a possible bottle and had it 3-D printed.”
The founders have done no more work on the product itself, but they’ve been fine tuning things like packaging, branding, marketing and talking to store owners to see if retailers would carry the product. In total, about a dozen people have asked for demonstrations.
Retailers have been interested, but want to see a prototype with the bottles and packaging before they commit to testing the product.
Nelson, Bailey and Likely figure they need about $120,000 to launch a viable product, so any of the top three prizes in Breakthru, worth between $77,000 and $192,000, would help to launch Black Magic.
They’re not counting on winning and have arranged to pitch their product to possible funders next month.
The three have another year of university, but believe they can launch Black Magic while they’re still in school. They are interested in pushing the company further forward after they graduate.
