Your smartphone is probably one of the most valuable things you own, both monetary and sentimental. It's pretty amazing and a bit scary that just about all of us have expensive little supercomputers stuffed in our pockets or tossed haphazardly into our bags. Chris Peters and Rob Ward recognized exactly that when they launched not one, but two successful e-commerce companies selling products for protecting and traveling with smartphones. This turned out to be a market with huge potential, and today Quad Lock is one of the most well-known appliance and accessory fitting companies. When they started, however, the smartphone wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today, and consumers were just figuring out how to integrate the device into their daily lives.

This meant users weren't always sure what they were looking for, so the duo had to employee email database carve out a new market for themselves. Today, Quad Lock targets a wide variety of users, whether car commuters, cyclists, hang gliders or kayakers, tapping into valuable pockets of potential customers that haven't always existed. . Over the past seven years, Peters and Ward have built an impressive case study of a company that not only brought attention to a huge market need as it evolved, but also developed a range top-notch products to solve it. Here's how they did it. From Opena to Quad Lock Quad Lock wasn't Peters and Ward's first rodeo. Before the device-mounting brand came Opena, a smartphone case that doubled as a bottle opener. Although Peters and Ward first had the idea for Quad Lock, they saw an instant opportunity with Opena.

They got the idea during a quick phone call on Sunday night and moved forward with the device as their very first Kickstarter project. In 2011, 578 backers pledged over $28,000 to bring the project to life. In a way, Opena was a guinea pig for Peters and Ward. The team didn't have to create a market for Opena (as they later did for Quad Lock), so the product was a much easier idea to execute. This was one of the main ways Opena differed from Quad Lock. “People had iPhones and drank beers they couldn't open,” Ward says. For this reason, Opena entered the market and was immediately welcomed. Consumers also approached Opena in a different way than they would eventually have with Quad Lock. "It was a very different purchase," Peters said. “It was an impulse buy…a conversation starter. Because the price was so low, people stumbled upon Opena and made a quick purchase. Peters and Ward did not have to explain why consumers might need their product.