Trevor Lambert bounced around before founding Enhance. His firm now helps transform inventions from idea to reality.
Trevor Lambert thought he was going to become a priest while he was studying at the University of St. Thomas.
He later contemplated a career as a log-home builder in New Zealand after working on a job there that helped him pay his way through college. After changing his mind several times, Lambert decided to use the craftsmanship skills he learned from building log homes to become an inventor.
The Eagan native became increasingly frustrated with companies and licensing agencies that promised to help him turn his invention ideas into reality.
So Lambert changed his career path once again and in 2000 opened Lambert and Lambert with his father.
The licensing agency helps inventors take more developed ideas into the marketplace.
“I really wanted to have an industrial design firm and it didn’t make sense to have it in Lambert and Lambert, so that’s how Enhance was born,” Trevor Lambert said.
Following years of steady growth, and eventually trading his garage for an office in north Minneapolis, Lambert decided he wanted to help inventors in more ways.
His passion was in product development and he wanted to go after inventors with less developed product ideas.
“I really wanted to have an industrial design firm and it didn’t make sense to have it in Lambert and Lambert, so that’s how Enhance was born,” he said.
So Lambert and Lambert stayed put, and in 2010 he started Enhance Product Development, an industrial design firm in Champlin that turns invention ideas into products.
With about 20 employees, Enhance walks clients through all the steps of curating an invention idea, from several rounds of concept sketching, CAD development and photorealistic rendering to logos, graphic design and generating a full presentation for pitching the product.
Enhance Product Development mainly works with start-ups and inventors looking to license their products.
The company also works with brands not large enough to have a design department or enough marketing expertise in-house.
Designers then go through several sessions drawing up mock-ups for the idea.
The design for products takes place in what Lambert calls the “invention lab,” a large design studio space with sketches, concepts and a 3-D printer.
They then take the client through graphic design, creating a logo and a presentation for how they will pitch this product to stores, investors or As Seen On TV, a generic marketplace for products advertised on television and a popular landing place for clients.
One of the products helped along by his company was HurriClean toilet cleaner that Lambert said is popular on As Seen On TV.
Others include the EggZact Boiler, which holds boiling eggs; Hover Cover, a magnetic microwave lid; and Smart Capo, an iPhone holder for a guitar.
Enhance Product Design has grown to include both international clients and workers, including in China.
Lambert said they have a range of employee backgrounds because of how tricky it can be to find qualified industrial designers.
Lambert said his privately owned business is making money, but profit margins aren’t big enough for expansion.
He also doesn’t have a long-term plan for expansion, he said.
In the next three years, though, the company hopes to launch its own line of in-house products.