Trial by fire

Entrepreneur, Oct, 2005 by Sara Wilson

WHAT: Consumer products company that develops home-safety devices, such as the Vocal Smoke Detector

WHO: Bruce Black and Matt Ferris of KidSmart Corp.

WHERE: Roswell, Georgia

WHEN: Started in 2003

When Bruce Black, 30, and Matt Ferris, 28, registered for the business plan competition course that was part of their MBA program at the University of Georgia in Athens, they had no idea it would result in real-life profits. Presented with the challenge of creating a business plan for a new product, they researched ideas to pursue and came across a brilliantly simple one: a smoke detector that plays a personally recorded voice message in an emergency. The idea had been patented by Brent Routman, a former administrator at the University of Georgia's law school and a current shareholder in the business.

With Routman's approval, Black and Ferris ran with the idea. And when new research revealed that children repeatedly sleep through traditional smoke alarms, it only added fuel to their fire. However, it wasn't until May 2003, when they won the University of Texas at Austin's prestigious Moot Corp. business plan competition, along with a $100,000 convertible loan, that the business really got underway. After six months of intense work, the pair made contact with a manufacturer in China and a designer. Says Black, "To actually take something from someone's mind and make it come off a manufacturing line half a world away is probably one of the hardest things anyone could ever try to do."

Today, the KidSmart Vocal Smoke Detector is available in Radio Shack stores nationwide, as well as in catalogs and specialty children's stores. Meanwhile, with 2005 sales projected to exceed $10 million and 10 more fire-safety products and extensions in the works, it seems Black and Ferris' class project has become a project for life.