#saw somewhere online that someone saw him in public and thought he looked thinner

[hellotinywonder]

ten years later...

[Česká Verze] This has been kicking around my head as of late, I have a dear new friend who doesn’t speak much English, and I’ve wanted to tell him about this weird, terrible moment in my life that fundamentally changed who I am and how I will forever interact with the world (both in good ways and bad). But I don’t know how to.  So I am writing it all down, which is something I have never done. And then I will leave it here, and of course, once a year I will remember and shake my fist at the world for myself and all the other victims of violent men, and then I will put my fist down, and get back to living my life.  It’s that time of year, though...

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.  It comes unbidden in the middle of the night.  When someone is walking too quickly toward me.  When someone says something inappropriate online or in person. When too many of the boxes, of that pattern of violence I have permanently etched in my head, get ticked… I think:

“Ten years ago someone tried to kill you... maybe you should run.” (Obvious content warnings apply, readers: Violence.)

Ten years is so long.  I have adapted.  I have moved past it.  But the parts of that night, those horrific hours in the morning… 4am. 5am. In the ER by 6am… the parts that are left, I feel are going to stay with me forever.

They don’t haunt, so much.  They are just there.  In the corners.  They keep me aware.  So in some ways, they keep me safe.

Daniel Rhinehardt was my housemate.  (How do I refer to him?  There is nothing colloquial about him at all, but since this is going up online, as a statement of public record, as a possible search result for Google, that might warn some poor woman who doesn’t know… Daniel Rhinehardt is his name, and I will refer to him as such.)  We did lots of things together, because I am the type, I have discovered, who likes housemates as community.  I have had many successful versions of communal housemates, who cooked together, or went on mundane errands, that sort of thing.  With no hidden agenda, no sense of obligation… healthy relationships between people.  This was not one of them.  But I was too young and naive to figure that out in time.

I won’t go into too many details, but this man became obsessed with me.  I remember being on tour for a month, bills paid in advance, and I received harassing phone calls from him because I hadn’t called him, or some nonsense like that.  We did our first Dragon Con (major convention in Atlanta, that I performed at or now do puppetry at) that year, and he came with us to sell merch.  I woke up one morning in my band’s hotel room to find him in bed next to me, which unnerved me (I had specifically requested my female friend sleep with me, to keep this weird toxicity I was starting to pick up on away).  I was looking for apartments in September of 2008.  I was looking. I hadn’t said anything, but I knew I had to leave, but I just didn’t pull it all together fast enough.

On September 20th, 2008, at my friend David’s birthday, Rhinehardt got drunk.  At the time I did not drink and was babysitting friend of mine on the roof.  They were a bit touchy feely as they were on some other substances, but I didn’t mind. I trusted them and I knew I was in control of my situation.  When we decided it was time for me to go to bed, we all cuddled a bit and they each kissed me goodnight.  They were a married couple, and there was nothing untoward with silly friendly kisses, but it set Rhinehardt off. He started yelling nonsense and threw a chair off the roof (it was caught by a lower tier, and did not fall to the street).  He stormed off screaming garbled obscenities and was gone.  The night was thrown into disarray.  We tried to call him because we were all concerned.  But I was also starting to panic.  I took a hit of my inhaler and we went back downstairs into David’s apartment.  I sat on her bed while some friends talked me down and told me I really needed to move out. I agreed and told them how I had been looking, but couldn’t find anything at the time.  I don’t know how long we were there in the apartment when Rhinehardt came back in, yelling nonsense, walked straight in at me and stabbed me in the side.

I would like to take a brief moment to mention a memory that I can never shake.  One day, apropos of nothing, Daniel Rhinehardt told me that if he was ever going to stab someone he would make sure to swing in from the side.  That is where all the organs are, defenseless.  It was so much more work to stab from the front or the back because of the ribcage.  He *told* me that once.  Well before, I think, he had any designs of stabbing me… but he told me that.  He thought it was impressive.  This vast knowledge of violence.

“...stabbed me in the side.”  It looks so small to read it back.  Such a small action.  How does it reverberate even now?

Thankfully I had enough reactionary sense to move as much as I could, being seated on a bed, and turned myself away so that his fist, no, knife… both... hit my hip and lodged there 3 inches, (8cm or so), instead of my side.  My organs were spared, and while the scar tissue presses against it, my sciatic nerve and artery were both missed.

I screamed.  He pulled the knife back and tried to stab me again, but was pulled off by someone else.  Matt McCorkle, David Forbes, and Luke Withrow all had a hand in saving my life that night.  Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they weren’t there, if I had gone home.  Best not to think about it, not now or ever.  It would not have been good.  As fucked as I was, I was still somehow, always, lucky.

Then came the insanity that was bleeding all over my friend’s bed and floor.  Rhinehardt was pushed out of the apartment, the door was locked.  Every time someone knocked on that door I lost my shit, completely terrified.  But at the same time I was in shock and trying to sort out how I could avoid going to the hospital, one seemingly completely logical thought was: Matt’s dad was a vet… so we had access to medical supplies?  My health insurance did not start for another TEN DAYS.  (Thank you for absolutely nothing, America.)  911 was called, because of course it was. I had been stabbed right in front of a group of friends and party-goers.  I was left, lying on the floor, while Luke and Danielle held towels against my hip and thigh to try to stop the bleeding.

That’s how it went for 20 minutes? 2 hours? I could not tell (of course it couldn’t have been 2 hours, but I lost all track fo time).  Eventually paramedics arrived, cut my pants off, staunch the bleeding as best they could (my inhaler I took during the panic attack was working as a blood thinner, so that was miserable) and whisked me away.

Shock is a wonderful feeling.  I mean, it’s horrible, but it does keep you calm.  I “made friends” with them, they were very excited about their new sealing product for puncture wounds.  They whisked me into an ER.  Where I was photographed, documented, scrubbed, sutured, stapled, and asked a million questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Meanwhile everyone was sort of detained at the apartment -now crime scene- to give statements.  More photographs were taken.  I’m told they are available somewhere, public record, but I’ve never seen them.  I’ve asked once, but was unable to track them down.

I was told by the detective on my case, no, *the* case (it would become very apparent that this was not MY case, rather I was the VICTIM in the STATE’s case) that I could not go home.  It was not safe.  Did I have anywhere to go?  Anyone I could stay with?  I didn’t know.  I had friends… but I knew Matt, Amanda, David, Luke, Danielle… but I didn’t know anyone’s last names, didn’t know how to contact anyone… I am not sure if I even had my phone, no… now that I think of it,I think my phone and my bag were left behind on the floor of the apartment.  I was given crutches, scrubs (again, my pants had been cut off), and my shoes, and a voucher for a taxi, and discharged around 9am.

I was given back my shoes.  Little beat up black ballet flats.  I just stared at them.  They were splattered with blood.  I stood there in what must be one of the most cinematic scenes of my life, a mess, leaning on crutches, completely alone in a hospital lobby, as the sun crested the mountain and poured over me.  A man offered me a wheelchair, but due to the location of my wound, I was unable to sit down.  I hobbled to the sidewalk… I had no bag, no belongings, just my shoes in my hands, and as the cab driver came over to me I saw Luke and Danielle turn the corner.  They had come to find me, and subsequently adopt me.  We went back to Matt and Amanda’s apartment, which was in the same building as mine. Rhinehardt was still in jail at the time, so we went through my apartment and grabbed some essentials.  Some clothes, my laptop, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (a book I had been meaning to read), Agatha (the cat I had been cat sitting) and some other items I forget.  We sat around Matt and Amanda’s apartment for a bit, then, exhausted, back to Luke and Danielle’s where I would live for the next few weeks.  Daniel Rhinehardt would be released on bail that night, and he would never go back to jail for this crime.  Because that is how the system works in North Carolina.

When I made it back to Luke and Danielle’s house I remember calling my parents. Calling my friend Tom in the wee hours of the morning, because of the time zone, and leaving a message saying something like “you should call me back as soon as you get this.” I called work and asked to not come in for a bit.  I tried to explain.  

These mundane exercises.

I needed to inform my people.

I started using Facebook for only that reason.  To tell my people from Charlotte, my hometown (no, I don’t claim that often) that I would be back for a short stay, couldn’t drive, needed help.  Needed people around me… I don’t know.  I do know that Erich Moffitt, an ex -but I thought friend- never returned my call.  Just left me out there, drifting in the darkest void I’ve ever drifted in.  So... yeah, a polite fuck you, dude.

Everything went from bad to worse as I tried to recover, but there were still wonderful highlights to cling to.  My friend Tom created a paypal donation site for me, as I was uninsured and would need help covering the medical bills (though in the end Victim’s Compensation would cover them, but not before they went into default and cruel creditors would harass me and call the incident of someone stabbing me an “accident”), I was caught by an incredible network of friends in Asheville, who I am forever overjoyed to see, who I can rely on to this day, and I love dearly.  My birthday, 2 days later on Sept 23rd, I spent in Charlotte, my parents collected me and took me to their home a few hours away for a few days following which made sense.  It was during a gas crisis, but I didn’t know.  My friend Mike Walker and his wife Mary came to my parent’s house, collected me in the back of their car, and drove me out for Ethiopian food on my birthday.  It was truly special.

I bonded so much with Agatha, the cat, who I was cat sitting, in Luke and Danielle’s little guest room.  She was my constant companion as I recovered.  I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  It is one of my favourite books to this day.  It is easy, beautiful, densely illustrated, and I would get lost in it.  I would read it over and over, or just open it and look at it.  It’s still a comfort that I can’t quite describe.  Calm, dark, stable.  An adventure, but a safe one. (Fun fact, I buy copies of that book whenever I see them in second hand shops, to give to friends.  I have one now that was just unknowingly claimed by someone.)

I was wearing my punk rock jacket, covered in patches and badges, when I was stabbed, but thought nothing of it.  When I was in the courthouse, filing for a temporary restraining order, I put some coins in my pocket and they fell out onto the floor.  The knife had gone straight through.  I later stitched it back shut in red, and then silver thread over where the staples had gone.  The punkest punk rock jacket.  I still have it, but I don’t wear it anymore.

I came back to Asheville too soon, to do a Hellblinki show.  I was incredibly out of it.  I remember Ian (who I would date for 5 years, much later) visiting that show and hugging me and having no earthly idea what I had been through.  (It should have been a warning, really, I think now, but from a place of happiness, love, and sarcasm.)  I passed out on the couch at the venue.  The bar staff and owner knew what was up and looked out for me, and told me if I ever needed anything, ANYTHING, just come to them.  Just go to The Rocket Club and they would sort it.  The Rocket Club is gone now, but I think to think that the offer still stands with Ken.

I recovered physically.  I used a cane for a while, but eventually, now, I am 99%.  That 1% shows up now and again, excruciating pain if getting a massage, or just weird weather patterns and scar tissue.

Emotionally and mentally I am okay.  I have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but that’s not surprising.  If and when I run into Daniel Rhinehardt, and I have the unbelievable misfortune of doing so now and again, I sort of “blackout”.  I go into this incredible fight or flight response moment, and I always choose flight.  It’s not an option.  It is done for me.  I “come to” as I am running down a street, hiding in a bathroom, or driving away (it’s terrifying to sort of “wake up” in your own body and find you’ve been driving a car.)  These blackouts aren’t black, but I become much more a passenger and my lizard-brain takes over.  I’m mostly aware of what is happening, but I am not the one in control.

Daniel Rhinehardt received no jail time.  He was given probation, required counseling, and is a convicted felon.  It’s not much.  It’s not much, but at least it is not nothing.  He does have a record.  And he’s added to it since me.  That’s the main reason I am writing this.  Because he attacked women after me.

I would later have several women come tell me how he had abused them or been violent, but they were always too afraid to go to the police.  This breaks my heart and makes me incredibly angry.  I would have never been put in this danger if there was some record, if people warned each other about violent men.  Thankfully we as a culture are better about that now, ten years later.  The sentencing hearing at court would be laughable if it wasn’t so goddamn tragic.  Rhinehardt's lawyer claimed he only drank that night because he didn’t want to be rude to his host, then asserting that his drunkenness somehow means his violence wasn’t actually him.  David grabbed my hand.  I could tell she was furious.  I was in a weird state of disbelief and also just acceptance that the NC Court System did not and does not give a fuck about me.

After the court hearing I was dazed.  But I remember we walked out into the gray February day, and got coffees.  What else can you do?  I had gotten knocked about so much over those 5 months that nothing shocked me.  I just accepted it as best I could.  And had coffee.

I got a restraining order, but every year when I went back to renew it some judge behind a desk made me feel like I didn’t deserve it, because if it had not been violated, why did I need it?  One of them, the last one (before I stopped going, not needing to expose myself to that trauma over and over) called me “Miss Rhinehardt”, just truly horrible people who absolutely did not care about me.  Again, North Carolina, I am looking at you with so much contempt for how you treat women.

All of my legal work was handled pro bono by Pisgah Legal, and I am thankful to them forever.  I was terrified I would not qualify or I would have to prove this happened, or I don’t know what, but no, I was firmly supported and told that the 911 call and the photos were terrible, but also incredibly damning in my favor.  An odd benefit, I guess. Also, since my attack is technically domestic violence, I had access to counseling through Helpmate and OurVoice, who are both fantastic resources.

I applied for a passport.  Just seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to leave the country.  I wanted to leave it all behind for just a bit.  The passport came in the mail, but on the same day, a check from Victim’s Compensation reimbursing me, finally, for all the medical bills I had been forced to cover, arrived.  I put the two together and a few months later left the country to go do a festival with band family in London and Whitby, and visit my dear friend Xavi Quero in Barcelona, Catalonia.

There’s more mess afterward as well...  I can never quite write it all, and maybe what is left out will just fade away into obscurity.  But this is enough.  Except it is worth saying: a couple years later a woman reached out to me on Facebook because she was dating Daniel Rhinehardt and he was scaring her.  She heard about me and wanted to know if “it was all true”.  He had told her that he had a record, but said that I had cheated on him or some other nonsense, which is ridiculous for several reasons (we were not dating, gross, and if ever we were- HOW DOES THAT JUSTIFY ATTACKING A WOMAN!?)  lots of red flags on that one, but this woman didn’t see them until too late.  I did warn her, and she got away, or so I was told.  But a few months later he was arrested for assault on a female, and she had a broken jaw.  I don’t know if they are the same, but I’ve got decent powers of deduction.

He was arrested another time as well, as I was informed via mugshot (I don’t ever need to see that face again, thank you, but there it was) for another assault on a female.  I don’t know the story, I don’t want to know… and I probably already know.  It’s a pattern.  I recognize patterns.

I mentioned that I’ve run into him.  That’s god-awful.  I have another friend who looks vaguely like him, which leads to a cute comedy of errors, that still involves a PTSD meltdown for me.  I am getting better about it, and this friend knows what I am really asking if I say “Are you at Restaurant X? Or Hey, are you downtown?” because I am giving myself a precious few seconds hoping for a “yes, that’s me!” and then relief… though usually it ends up with me hyperventilating somewhere else, after having run off, literally without thinking.

But, Valerie!  You’re usually so positive about things!  What is the silver lining of all this?

No. I’m not there yet, but I am getting there.  There is something horrible about having someone try to kill you.  Someone you trusted.  Something that breaks inside you and will never be the same.  It’s strange to have a moment when someone else decided they wanted to control your fate, your life, and by control I mean try to fuck it up horrifically, or just… end it.  Someone tried to end me.  Me.  That damaged my psyche for a long time… maybe permanently, though I have put my own spin on it.

There is something about this incident that left me feeling like less of a person, I was to another human being (no matter how terrible a person): dispensable.  I will always struggle with that, copying it over to other relationships with decent enough people, this disposability.  I don’t have inherently low self esteem or anything, but as I mentioned before, something, some trust in human decency… broke.  And I’ve never been able to put it back together right.

I worry that I give this incident too much weight, but I swear to you, fereverently, it weighs only as much as it does.  But that fluctuates.  Am I digging up the past to make drama? No.  I am trying to explain how I got here, how I became the person I am.  I am always trying to accept this.  Accept the reactions of the people around me. (The local paper referred to me, anonymously, as having been “stabbed in the buttocks”.  This led to a weird sort of dark comedy, because how silly it all sounded.  Some people would latch onto that, I would sometimes try to laugh about it too, a forced laugh.  It was really horrific to have some friends very close to me miss the seriousness of my situation because of one shitty line of reporting.  I laughed along, but I was really, really broken about that for a while.)

Trying to explain to a beautiful new friend that I am fine now, but I was not always fine, and that I fought like hell to be the shining happy blueberry girl that I get to be today. But I, like any woman who has ever stepped forward and said: “Hold on, this man did X to me”, I feel like I am fighting a world that will not believe me, despite as my lawyer mentioned, the overwhelming amount of proof, evidence, the fact that this did happen, is documented, and yet people still turn a blind eye, or make excuses.  It is maddening.  It is soul destroying.

I have people I meet who inadvertently overstep. (I have a creepy neighbour who was following that pattern of violence I mentioned, and I am completely terrified of him.)  I still have trouble dealing with them.  Almost always men.  Men who want to get too close, who miss social cues, who are creepy, who seem to want something from me. I am working on accepting that a man who is interested in me, when I am not interested in him, is not necessarily a threat. They are not all threats.  They are not going to try to murder you just because you turn them down.  But I am not there yet.  I am still working on that.  It’s a work in progress...

My positive spin?  Pragmatism.  I have a deeply ingrained understanding that tomorrow is promised to no one.  So now, while I do so responsibly, I am pretty good about going after what I want, in good ways.  It took me awhile to work back to this, but I have found a healthy balance of being responsible, and chasing after whimsy because who knows, the world could end tomorrow.  My friend, who I mentioned at the top, told me once that I was brave, having caught up to him on a random adventure by myself on the other side of the world.  Bravery never occurred to me.  It was a factor, sure, I’m brave, but it was really: “No, I want to see this friend.  And I could die next week.”  I don’t think like that… not really, that I might die next week, month, year… but at the same time I do, but with different wording.  I just think “I want this experience in my life, and now might be the only chance I get, so I am going to make it happen to the best of my ability.”

Also, I adventure.  I do incredible things, and my life has been pretty spectacular so far.  I am proud of the work I have done, the art I have made, and I treasure the friendships I’ve found and the experiences I’ve had.  That is my revenge.  Daniel Rhinehardt tried to end me.  Tried to irreversibly ruin my life, and he failed.  And, while it took some time to pull my parts back together, I have done more than just survive him, I have thrived.

A friend mentioned that to me after I had a particularly good day recently (I played puppets with my art hero and fairygodfather, who I will not mention here for the same google search result reasons), she said something along the lines of “You’re doing a lot more than just surviving.” It caught me off guard, I forgot she even knew about my whole getting-stabbed incident… I don’t mind people knowing, it is a part of who I am now.  I thought about it, and said “yes.”  It’s true.  That’s my goal.  That’s what I am doing.  And I’m okay with that.

I have mentioned a few times that one of the impetus of this tirade of tragedy is this new friend of mine, who is learning English, so I wanted to have this written down, messy as it may be, so that I am not dumping a bunch of English words on him with a context that is not easily understood with new words, (and made up words as I try to describe messy feelings not found in a textbook)… but also for my English speaking friends, because I’ve never really unloaded the whole story, or even this much of the story to anyone… I am open to sharing it, but really, sharing it is exhausting.  I get a weird surge of adrenaline when I explain it, but that adrenaline is coming from fear, mistrust, vulnerability… and it just vibrates through my system with no outlet until I realize I don’t want it.  I don’t need it.  I’m just wiped out.

But this friend.  I am going to visit him and others in a different location, still on the other side of the world, in a few months.  We met in Japan, so why not continue meeting in far off countries where I have a clumsy or nearly nonexistent grasp of the language?  What could possibly go wrong? I was explaining this to my mother a week or so ago, my trip plans, dates I’m looking at, etc, and she asked me (supportively) a very motherly question:  “Do you trust this person?”

And I answered without even thinking, or maybe I did think, but it was reactionary: “Yes. Implicitly.”  I told her.  And he’s not the first stranger-turned-friend that I have trusted implicitly, there have been several over the past few years.  Like-minded individuals who I am introduced to, or who I stumble upon and I get them, they get me, and I trust them inherently, implicitly, and with all my heart.  This has been years in the works, to get back to this point, where I can just accept a person who is good, who will look out for me, who cares for me without wanting anything in return.  A mutual trust and vulnerability.  I am lucky to have this back.

I am in a good place now.  I have been in a good place for a while.  This series of terrible moments from ten years ago left a mark, and changed who I am, but also changed me into who I am today.  And I am happy with the person I ended up as.  I’m not thanking any horrific person for trying to kill me, goodness no. He’s a terrible human being, and every woman should stay well away from him. 

I guess there is one thing undeniably positive thing I have taken away from this horrific series of events.  I’ve been through some rough times in my life since then, but nothing ever like that.  And to all of it I have been able to say: “I’ve survived worse than this.”  

And it’s gotten me through a lot.

It has sort of changed my perspective, it can sometimes be a comfort or a place of strength.

Also, I quietly know that I would win every argument of “worst housemate ever”.

That’s it, really.  No overarching summary or call to action… maybe “be kind.” Try being a good person to each other, and if you see someone leaning towards violence, stop it.  Call the cops, I don’t like cops either, but you shut that down when you see it.  Put it on their record.  Give them a record.  They’ve earned it. Make them show up in that cursory google search.

Give the next woman a fighting chance.

afterward, another reason why I wrote this, as I explained in my letter to my aforementioned friend:

...and I remember thinking to myself: "oh, scars..." and looking at you and wishing this information was already in your head, but no, I would have to put it there.   So I said something like: "there is not enough time" and I left it there.     But I hope you also know, from having met me, that I'm alright now.  I wasn't for a while.  But I am now.

I hope you all understand.

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Summer Pierce of the POP IT PAL, a pimple popping simulator toy.Some stats:Product: Pimple Popping SimulatorRevenue/mo: $53,675Started: January 2018Location: MonroeFounders: 4Employees: 4Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Summer Pierce. I’m the Co-Owner, Co-Inventor along with my husband Bill Pierce who is the CEO & Co-Inventor of the product known as the POP IT PAL! Billy and I are from Monroe, Michigan and have been together since we were teenagers and have been married for 15 years. Together we have 3 beautiful, amazing children. We are just your normal hard working family who had an idea for a new product that had never been created before. We decided not to sit on our idea, but to act on it. We wanted to teach/show our children that if you have an idea, you should go for it and make it happen no matter what obstacles come your way.We started our company Unique Obsessions, LLC along Billy’s cousin Kayla Roof VP of Marketing & Sales and her husband Collin Roof VP of Engineering & Logistics.We sell the POP IT PAL which comes in 3 versions peach, brown & glitter edition. We also sell our Pimple Pus and Glitter edition Pimple Pus. The Pop it Pal is the world's first ever pimple popping simulator!We have a broad range of customers that range from 5 years old and up. Some of our customers purchase the POP IT PAL for a gag gift, a fidget toy, just a toy to play with and then we also have customers who have a skin picking condition called Dermatillomania.The POP IT PAL for these customers serves a different purpose. I have received multiple emails from numerous customers who suffer from this disorder.They have told me how this product has changed their life. As the person who came up with this idea, to hear them say that really touches my heart. For me to think I had an idea for a product that my husband was able to bring to life has made a difference in other people's lives makes me feel as though, just maybe I’ve helped make a difference in this crazy world we live in.After launching our website on January 19th, 2018 we ended up going viral within the first two weeks of selling our product online. We did over $100,000.00 in sales within 8 days and almost 200k in February 2018 the second month since we launched. We never imagined that we would go viral or that we would end up on season 10 of Shark Tank, The Today Show, The Doctor’s and Pickler & Ben! We’ve done many Radio Show interviews and have had over 50 articles written about us through different magazines and online articles! We definitely never would’ve imagined that BuzzFeed, Forbes, Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, Aol. and Yahoo News would’ve wrote stories about us! We’ve had over 50 million views worldwide.Fast Company actually dubbed us “the next fidget spinner”. I’ll never forget opening up my browser to Aol.com and seeing my product on the front page. It was AMAZING to say the least.What it looks likeWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?The idea came to me while my husband Billy and I were driving. As we were driving down the I75 on our way back from seeing a sick relative, we were bouncing different business ideas off of one another like we’d done many many times in the past. When all of a sudden I said to Billy what if we could make a pimple that actually popped like a real pimple? Just like the video’s we watch on YouTube?Billy instantly looked at me and said I think I can make that! I immediately searched all over the internet to see if there was anything like this that existed. I couldn’t find anything at all. That’s when I grabbed a pen and paper and we started thinking what it would look like, what could we make the pimple pus out of, what to name the product & our business.Billy and I have been together since I was 14 and him 17. As far back as I can remember we have always talked about owning our own business or inventing a product one day. Every time we would have an idea I would look it up and it would be taken. I wanted to be original. I didn’t want to bite off someone else’s idea. So it took years to finally think of something that wasn’t yet created, but we were determined.I’m a Licensed Practical Nurse and I have always loved gross things like picking pimples. My husband Billy has his Associates in Business Management and a background in Managing Production Manufacturing, but he loves gross things just as much as I do.Anytime either one of us gets a pimple the other person will spot it and it’s all over. Whoever has the pimple is now laying down with a spotlight over them and the other person has the pimple popping tool in hand, ready to get at it!At the time we created this product we had just moved to South Carolina, Billy had taken a position with Samsung and since we had moved somewhere we knew nobody, we didn’t have help with the kids.Since we didn’t have family to help with the kids I was not working any longer. I really wanted to find a way to contribute financially. When I had the idea for the Pop it Pal I had done a google search and could not find anything anywhere like it at all. So I knew at that moment that this would be something that had never been invented yet. At that time though I really had no idea what the public would think of it.I wasn’t sure if people would be totally disgusted or intrigued and interested in it. We built it with the intention of starting a business, but we had no idea if it would sell or not. The day that we went viral is a day we will never forget. At that moment when my phone was sending me notifications (making a cha-ching noise when we make a sale) one every 1 -2 minutes sometimes less, I had a realization.I thought to myself... wow! We went from not knowing how it would be perceived to selling one every 1-2 minutes! I was overcome with happiness, joy, thankfulness and I was scared to death. We had no manufacturing set up. We made everything by hand, down to making the pus, filling the pimple pus bottles and having to hand-label everything. At that time we had only 70 made up ahead! That first day we went viral we made $13,050.00.We were so excited but what were we going to do? We instantly started with good customer service and were honest and upfront with our customers letting them know that we were on a six week wait.Thankfully, they were very nice and understanding. It took us from that day which was February 2, 2018 until May 15th 2018 to get off the six-week wait. Thank God for family! My parents, as well as Billy’s parents, dropped what they were doing to drive down immediately and help us. Two of my sisters were able to come as well as one of Billy’s sisters and her husband and our niece.Billy and I were so appreciative of everyone's help. While we were working hard making, filling, packaging and shipping the orders, Kayla was handling everything else and her husband Collin was hard at work looking for a manufacturer.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.DesigningWhen designing this product, my husband Billy had to think of what would feel the most realistic.We found that medical grade silicone was definitely best! Although expensive, it was worth the money, because other types of silicone doesn’t have a realistic feel and were too hard.The first prototype was made from a small wooden box, with little wooden sticks glued to the lid. Billy poured the silicone in the box, put the lid on it and waited on it to finish curing. Once it was finished curing in order to get the silicone out of the box he had to actually break the box because the silicone wouldn’t peel out.Some images of early prototypes:1234Once we had it out of the box we put candle wax inside, but when we tried to squeeze it, it wouldn’t work correctly. It didn’t have that pop and the wax was hard. Billy then started doing some research on what does the human pore look like… he found out it’s kind of similar to a teardrop. We loaded up the family and went to hobby lobby. We found these tiny footballs that you can string on a necklace or bracelet. We also bought a plastic pencil holder with a lid.He was able to drill holes into the lid, put the wooden sticks through the holes and hot glue the footballs to the end of the sticks. Billy then poured the silicone into the plastic pencil holder and placed the lid on top. When that was finished we were trying to think what can we make the Pimple Pus out of? We tried boiling flaxseed which turned into some sort of clear snot mixture that we attempted to drain off but didn’t work.Then a few days later while Billy was applying chapstick he said the idea just came to him. Chapstick melts when you apply it but stays formed when in the applicator. He looked up the ingredients of chapstick and found that a lot of them use beeswax. But we needed the beeswax to be thinner so it would come out of our pore he had made.We started looking at oils, I went to the store and picked up regular cooking oil and seen on the back that it may contain peanuts! I knew with the amount of people with peanut allergies that kind of oil wouldn’t work. Then I saw Olive Oil and it was only made by pressing olives so there was nothing that was harmful about it. When I got home Billy took the beeswax and olive oil and melted them together. Billy then used a dropper to put the oil/wax mixture inside the fake pores he had made. He let it sit for a couple minutes and then I heard Summer!!! Summer! I did it! I’m thinking there's no way because we had been working on it for so long now. He brought it over to me and had me squeeze it and it WORKED! He had done it!We did it but would people really like it? We weren’t sure so we decided to contact some close friends and family members. We collected 8 of our closest friends and family members addresses and sent them out. We asked our friends and family to give us their honest opinions. Every single one of them said they loved it!PackagingNow that we had our product we needed to package it. I went out and bought cellophane bags, cellophane clear wrap to wrap the POP IT PAL’S in, bottles to put the Pimple Pus in and droppers to put inside each package.While Kayla was working on writing the directions, I went and bought stickers to use as labels on the Pimple Pus bottles and on the outside of the cellophane bag to seal the packaging. Once we had everything we needed, Billy would build the POP IT PAL, I would then fill them with PIMPLE PUS, I would cut the rolls of clear cellophane and wrap each Pop it Pal in it. I would then put the Pop it Pal inside the cellophane bag along with 1 bottle of our hand filled & hand labeled Pimple Pus, 1 filling tool and the folded directions.Building the websiteNow when we contacted Kayla Roof who has her MBA once we had the prototype for made, she asked us “What platform are you guys selling on?” Billy and I looked at each other and said what the heck is a platform!? We had no clue and we had no clue on how to create a website… I had been attempting to create one for days and was seriously struggling.Thankfully Kayla took over and built an amazing website. We spoke with Kayla and her husband Collin Roof who has his Masters in Mechanical Engineering that night and asked if they would like to be apart of this business/journey with us to which they happily accepted! Now that we had this product with good feedback from family and friends we needed to protect it and it’s name. The day that we had a working prototype was December 26th, 2017. We immediately that day we filed for our patent.Going viralThen on January 19th 2018, we launched our Facebook and website and within 2 weeks and $35 in facebook ads I received a private message from LAD Bible asking if they could share the video. I had no idea who LAD Bible was so I got on our group text with the 4 of us and said hey these people by the name of LAD Bible want to know if they can share the video.Kayla immediately said umm YES! We gave LAD Bible permission that day to share the video. About an hour after hearing from LAD Bible we started getting more and more social media sites asking if they could use the video and add GIF’s to them. We, of course, said yes.Here’s an example of one of the videos that went viral.As soon as the social media sites started sharing the videos, the sales started coming in! Our apartment then turned into a full-time manufacturing facility with family members coming down from Michigan to help us lol!Following our first viral video, we did over 100k in 8 days! At this time and up until December 2018 we have been making them by hand! We hand built over 10k POP IT PALS in that year! We were on a 6-week wait and thankfully our customers were very nice and understanding. We were just normal people making a handmade product out of our house. Family and friends came down to South Carolina to help us build, fill and package the POP IT PALS.Since there had never been a toy like this made before there was no mold for what we were doing. We contacted a management company who helped us find a manufacture overseas. The mold had to be made, once the mold was made our manufacture would send us samples which took about 3 separate times before we finally had a product that we felt was as good as the one we hand built. This process took 10 months start to finish.To initially start this business it took $7,500.00 out of pocket. That was for silicone and start up items. Once we went viral the money was made back! We were able to use the funds that the business made and pay for the patents, lawyer fees, packaging design, trademarks and manufacturing start up.Our 1st packagingOur 2nd packagingOur newest PackagingLessons learnedDuring those first 2 weeks before we went viral Billy and I would sit on the couch and watch the traffic on our website through Shopify. We would see a person get on, then they would start a cart then all of a sudden they would leave. We would be like no!!! Why didn’t they buy lol! We were so new and nobody had heard of us, they didn’t know if we were legit or not.Lessons learned from the start up process would be once you have your prototype made do some research and find potential manufactures before you start selling your product. That way if your product does very well you know exactly where to go to start producing it on a mass scale.Another lesson would be is that Amazon is huge, people love to buy from their site. As a seller, actually selling your product on Amazon can be very aggravating. I say this because before we became entrepreneurs I would order from Amazon and never actually look at who was selling the products I was purchasing. Since starting the business we have learned if you don’t have a full patent (not just pending) or trademark (brand registered on Amazon) people can hijack your listing and sell counterfeit versions of your product. So as people are buying from what “they think” is your listing because everything looks the same, you have to read the fine print to know who your buying from. When the buyers receive their orders which have the same name as your product, product can look the same but may be inferior to yours in many ways. The buyer will either assume this was the real thing and give you a bad review or they will recognize that it is a counterfeit and leave a review saying YOU are selling a counterfeit product. You as the seller will then call Amazon and tell them what’s going on and they will do nothing to help you, if you do not have a patent or registered trademark.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?We have found that social media, the ads you can create has been the best way for us to attract and retain customers. You can create a video of how your product works or show someone else using the product and enjoying themselves.There are many different tools for creating videos. A really good one is Animoto which allows you to create videos that look professional and you can use them to create an ad. You can add in different Gif’s, text, stickers and combine multiple videos.Also, being able to say As Seen On Shark Tank and that we’re invested in by Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful has also been a unique tool we’re able to use when advertising.It’s amazing how you can target the people who you know are buying or interested in buying your product. The power of social media is huge. It took us from selling 1, 2 or 3 a day to in one day making over 27 thousand dollars!Shark TankOur Shark Tank experience was honestly amazing. Shark Tank is a huge T.V. show! We have watched Shark Tank for years and so have my parents who watch is religiously.In February of 2018 a producer of Shark Tank contacted us, he had seen the article that Fast Company wrote about the Pop it Pal. He said if we wanted to apply to the show that the deadline was in March or April.We, of course, wanted to apply. We were beyond ecstatic when we found out that we had made it onto the show! Everyone who is involved with the t.v. show was so very nice. We will never forget walking out and pitching to the Sharks. We were, of course, nervous but we nailed the pitch!We had been practicing for months so that we hopefully wouldn’t mess it up. I told Billy that next to having our children that going on Shark Tank was the coolest most amazing thing we’ve ever done.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Unique Obsessions, LLC future is very exciting to think about. We have lots of ideas for new products and are currently in the process of our 2nd Unique Obsession. We’re very excited to be doing a product test run with Spencer’s!We have quite a few things working in the pipeline, we’re very excited to see what’s going to happen in the future.We are profitable, but we have learned that running a business is not easy. It takes time, money, hardwork and dedication. Often times I will be asleep and will hear my phone go off with either an email, social media message/comment or even a text. I will wake up out of a dead sleep and squint to see the message so I can respond right away.As business owners we want to be available for our customers at all times and while you’re asleep the other side of the world is awake and on the go. So as you lay in bed asleep someone else is awake and working just as hard as you are and it could be your competition.Our ultimate goal is to get into major retail stores and create all types of Unique Obsessions (new products). I have to say the day that I walk into a major retail store and see the product that Billy and I invented will be one of the happiest days of our lives and I will most definitely cry tears of joy!Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Since starting the business we have learned that a pending patent or trademark really does not help you at all. Until your patent has been fully issued or your trademark has been fully registered other people throughout the world can copy your product and call it the same thing.About 60 days after we launched our product, we started seeing counterfeits. At first, I felt like someone had my child. It was devastating and I thought to myself this was my idea something my husband and I worked so hard on, to build and bring to life. Now there are people ripping us off!I’m not going to sugar coat it, it was hard and brought me to tears a few times. I would pray every night and ask God why is this happening? As a hardworking normal couple that invented a product it’s hard to take a look around and see the counterfeits out there making money on our hard work, our blood sweat and tears.Then it hit me.I’m looking at this the wrong way. Of course it sucks to watch people make money off your invention but if it wasn’t popular or something that was sought after, then they wouldn’t be making counterfeits!Now I choose to look at it as a compliment. Unfortunately, our patent is still pending, patents take a long time for approval. We send cease/desist letters to the people infringing on our pending patent and once it’s issued we will do what needs to be done. We let them know we will be taking further action when our patent is approved.Because it’s not ok for people to steal other people’s ideas. It took us years to come up with an original idea but we never stopped. We were always trying to think of an invention. If you put your mind to something, you can accomplish anything.What platform/tools do you use for your business?The platform we use is Shopify which has been awesome. Shopify has an app for your phone that will alert you when you make a sale. When someone purchases your product it will make a cha-ching sound which is fun to hear.The Shopify platform is very user-friendly and has many different reports such as your conversion rate, online store sessions by traffic source, sales by social source, average order value and total sales attributed to marketing campaigns just to name a few. The only thing I think that they should add is a scanning sheet.I fulfill and ship all of our orders through Shopify, eBay, and Etsy. I also use to fulfill all of our Amazon orders until we switched to FBA (which means Amazon fulfills the orders). When we started shipping hundreds of orders a day I remember the post office asking if we had a scanning sheet.A scanning sheet would include all of the orders that you are shipping that day and would allow the post office to just scan one barcode for all of the orders being shipped.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?We have always been huge fans of Shark Tank. So when the opportunity came about for us to be on the show, we jumped at the opportunity. Being apart of Shark Tank was such an amazing experience and thankfully we were able to land a deal with the one and only Kevin O’leary aka Mr. Wonderful! My husband and I really enjoy listening to Kevin O’leary’s Podcast Ask Mr. Wonderful. There is a lot of use information on his Podcast.Dr. Matthew Loop, DC is a Social Media Revenue Strategist is Billy’s Cousin and Kayla VP of Marketing & Sales Brother. He has also been very resourceful to us. When it comes to social media he’s an expert!Kayla Roof who is our VP of Marketing & Sales has her MBA. She is also a Business Advisor and creator of The Work from Anywhere Business Academy. She helps women create purpose-driven businesses that allow them to work from anywhere.Billy and I were very lucky that when we started this business we had family who had the knowledge, skills and schooling in marketing & sales which were skills that we lacked. I believe that’s why the four of us make such an awesome team. The four of us also have a strong Christian Faith and we know that whatever happens, happens for a reason. We want to somehow make a difference in this world. Part of our mission is to spread kindness into the world. Inspired by our daughters movement, we will be donating a portion of every sale to charities that support kindness and the anti-bullying movement.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?My advice for other entrepreneurs who would like to invent a product or start a business would be... If you have an idea or dream do not sit on it because if I can do this, anyone can! Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We’re all human and we learn from them.Growing up Billy and I both struggled in school. We were both in educational support classes, school was hard for us and we’re not ashamed to say that. Billy was determined to get his Associates in Business Management and I was determined to get my Nursing License.. At the time our three children were ages 1, 4 and 6 when Billy obtained his Associates and I went to Nursing School and received my Licensed Practical Nursing Degree.So if you’re reading this article and you struggled in school or feel you don’t have the skills and think to yourself there’s no way I could start a business or invent a product. I’m here to tell you that, YES YOU CAN. If I can do this anyone can. If you sit on your idea someone else will have the same idea and they will act on it.If you’re thinking of inventing a product or starting a business and you're not sure of what to do to get it started, please feel free to email me summer@popitpal.com. We want to see people succeed. If the journey and things we’ve learned along the way can help someone succeed, then we would be more than happy to help.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re looking for a Sales Rep that can help us achieve our goal of getting into the big box stores.Where can we go to learn more?popitpal.comSummer@popitpal.comIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM