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Artist-Inventor Takes Another Chance on Starting a Business

Lifelong surfer Len Siprut said he knew he had a problem well before he was diagnosed with ptergyium, because he felt like he always had sand in his eye.

The solution to ptergyium , a growth or lesion on the cornea , is surgery to remove the obstruction.

“I knew I had to do something about it or stop surfing. I’m not going to stop surfing,” he said.

He cut a makeshift visor from a piece of Neoprene to shade his eyes from the sun’s glare. After wearing it religiously, that gritty feeling eventually went away, he said.

“Just getting the direct sunlight off your eyes makes a big difference,” he said.

Then there was his swimmer’s ear, an infection that he said resulted from cold wind on the water.

“My doctor took a picture of the ear. It looked like stalactites and stalagmites growing together,” Siprut said. “He said, ‘You’ve got to protect your ears.’ So I added the hood.

“All the stuff I’m doing is designed to keep me surfing,” he said.

He also added polarized sunglasses to the repertoire to protect his eyes from reflections off the water. Like the visor and hood, they can be worn separately or snapped into the complete system.

Siprut filed a patent for the headgear system back in 2000, and incorporated his business, Lensurf, in 2003.

He said he managed to stock the shelves of local stores around Sunset Cliffs where he lives and gave his product to a core group of surfers who still use it. But he ended up dissolving the company two years later.

“It’s hard to be an innovator and run a business at the same time,” said Siprut.

He wasn’t interested in day-to-day operations. And meeting with companies to license the product took too much time away from surfing. Plus without more patent protection, he was limited in what he could pitch.

“I couldn’t disclose all of my inventions because I only had one patent,” he said.


Resolving To Polish Products

But he made a New Year’s resolution two months ago to finish designing several products that have not been publicly disclosed , such as amphibious clothing, footwear and surfboards.

He presented his portfolio in January to the San Diego Inventors Forum. Afterwards, he was invited to apply to the Springboard business mentoring program offered by the Connect networking group.

“He’s reached the point where he has the product and he’s pretty sure there’s a market for it. He’s gotten through product development where he’s happy,” said Dea Simon, executive director of Action & Sport Innovators, a Connect project launched six months ago to help entrepreneurs of sports companies.

“Now he’s not sure what to do. He’s not sure how to write a business plan or how to continue with product development and manufacturing,” Simon said. “He knows he needs some assistance from someone who’s done something like this before.”

Springboard, which has been in existence since 1993, matches entrepreneurs with mentors to help them plan their next move. It has graduated more than 300 companies , half of which are still owned by their founders, said Ruprecht von Buttlar, director of commercialization for Connect.

“We assess whether Springboard has the right resources to mentor the individual,” von Buttlar said. “And we try to find out whether the person is coachable. Based on those things, we assign a mentor.”

Connect launched Action & Sport Innovators after meeting with chief executive officers in the area and deciding that, like Silicon Valley, the state’s high-tech capital, San Diego is a hub of its own with its 300 days of sunlight a year, mature golf industry and active lifestyle.

“You’d be surprised by how many people are tinkering with things in their garages,” said Simon.


Searching For A Partner

A self-described artist-inventor, Siprut said he’s looking for someone to run the business, so he can focus on what he loves , inventing and surfing.

He said various concerns are interested in the sunglasses, but he wants to package it with the headgear to people who identify with a healthy, active lifestyle, “whether they do yoga or run on the beach or rough-water sailing,” he said.

“I want to use the surfing as a kind of marketing (tool),” he said. I’m trying to show that here’s a core user product line that I’m incubating, but the value outside of surfing is all these accessories.

“Like the Jeeps, they started in the military,” he added. “Ladies were not driving them on the freeway all of a sudden. They had to be incubated.”

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