Julia Rhodes, Inventor of Kleen Slate Dry Erase Markers and Whiteboards.

Julia M. Rhodes is President of KleenSlate Concepts, a successful international product development company she founded in 2001. Julia invented, patented, manufactured, marketed and distributed her first product: The KleenSlate Attachable Eraser for Dry-erase Markers. She single handedly landed contracts with both Office Depot and Staples and understands what it takes to “do business with the Big Boys.” In the past seven years she has built a thriving company with a growing line of award-winning dry-erase products.

Building a business from an idea for a product requires a can-do attitude, which is reinforced by Julia’s growing success, and she is generous in her desire to share this information with others just starting out in business. Invention is just the first step in product development and her passion is supporting other inventors in understanding the steps required for taking an idea and making it a reality.

A former school teacher, Julia’s dedicated to improving education, and all her products are designed to be of the highest quality and employ creative approaches to communication both in and out of the classroom. Her newest product, KwikChek II just won the prestigious award, “Teachers’ Choice 2008” from Learning Magazine. She is constantly engaged in crafting new educational products to expand her current offerings and is also working on her first book – “The Right Sisters: Modern Day Women Inventors,” which she hopes will inspire young adults to pursue their passions and believe in their ideas. Julia has been featured on radio and television, most notably The Entrepreneur Hour Radio Show and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She is also a Founding Board Member of Inventing Women™

In this session Julia will be giving an overview of taking an idea from your head, to market. We discuss how she got the idea, how she researched it for marketability, how she patented it, who she used to help her get her idea off the ground, how she spread the word about her idea using whiteboard clothing (which she also invented) and more! Listen to Julia now!