More Volume!

Tweet

By 2003, Ultimate Ears was a solid operation with five employees and close to a million dollars in revenue. The company estimated it had 80 percent of the professional market. Noy took over the operations of the lab, Jerry continued to work on enhanced custom models, and Mindy handled everything else. The turnaround time for a new set of earpieces was down to a couple of weeks. Things were clicking, and Jerry was itching to come out of retirement. Mindy understood the need for grass-roots marketing, so she acquiesced when Linkin Park--kind of a Van Halen for a new generation--came calling.

Going back out on the road would take the company in a whole new direction, eventually leading to an Ultimate Ears eruption.¹⁰

Jerry was milling around before a Linkin Park gig when a member of the band's production staff handed Jerry a music device that he was unfamiliar with. An iPod. It blew him away. He left the tour early; he had to get back to design a less expensive version of Ultimate Ears aimed at everyday audiophiles.

In January 2004, the $550 UE-5c model debuted, featuring dual drivers tuned specifically for digital devices. The earpieces were a smash hit and doubled company revenue.

So why would the Harveys pack up in 2005 and take the show on the road, moving the company from Las Vegas to Irvine, California, in the heart of suburban Orange County? Perhaps to heed the 1988 Van Halen challenge: Come on baby, finish what ya started.¹¹

When the Harveys first toyed with the idea of making lower-cost custom earpieces, they recognized that Ultimate Ears needed outside capital but weren't quite sure how to proceed. Jerry eventually talked to Matt Bruck--Eddie Van Halen's guy at the 5150 studios--while making arrangements to ship Alex's newly upgraded earpieces, the UE-10s. Bruck turned out to know a guy who knew a guy who had helped bring Jabra cell phone headsets to market.

The guy was Bob Allison, owner and CEO of the investment holding company Innovate Partners. Allison felt that the rock-and-roll community's embrace of Ultimate Ears validated the technology. He was thinking bigger than just custom designs, though, and wanted to talk to the Harveys about a low-cost entry into the mass consumer market. The Harveys were game. Innovate agreed to put the money behind development and use its industry connections and knowledge from the Jabra experience to set up a manufacturing operation in China. Allison is not a particularly hard-rocking guy, but he's now the CEO of Ultimate Ears. Mindy is the president, Jerry the chief technical officer.

In April 2005, Ultimate Ears came out with the Super.fi 5 Pro, a $250 unit that was its first universal-fit product. Allison says 2006 revenue was in excess of $10 million and the 2007 plan is to grow to $22 million. Ultimate Ears has three new products coming out this year--one custom, two universal--and has entered into co-branding partnerships with the speaker company Altec Lansing and the pro-audio company M-Audio. Ultimate Ears products now begin at $79.

Getting the word out is still vitally important. Allison estimates that 8,500 artists in the music industry and another 3,000 audiophiles currently use the top-of-the-line customs, but there are plenty of big-time acts to woo. "A lot of our bands are still the early adapters, and we get their repeat business," says Allison. "There is a lot of room for deeper penetration with our stunning new product." He is referring to the UE-11, a $1,000 custom design featuring Jerry's first triple drive, which further separates the low-end frequencies. The company will be expanding the base while expanding the bass: The first performer to give the UE-11s a go is platinum-selling country artist Kenny Chesney.¹²

There are always up-and-coming bands like Fall Out Boy¹³ discovering Ultimate Ears. And if the rock market ever gets saturated, there's also the biggest music genre in the universe to tap. "We haven't had a lot of luck in the hip-hop community yet," says Mindy, "which is too bad because Ultimate Ears really bring out the bass."

Ultimate Ears is living the fast life even as Jerry and Mindy slow down. The company's 30 full-time employees share its Irvine headquarters with Innovate Partners and a few of Innovate's other companies in a nondescript office park. "We're a tad less rock-and-roll these days," says Jerry. "But I haven't changed, I'm still the same guy with a sleeve of tattoos."

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5  NEXT 

Read more:

Sign-up for our Technology Newsletter

Email Address: