We were lucky to catch up with Sharon Kevil recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sharon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When my daughter was three, I realized nothing in our home was hidden, despite my husband’s and my best efforts. I left her coloring in the kitchen while I quickly changed the laundry. When I came back, she was standing on top of a barstool she had silently pushed up to the counter, eating handfuls of candy we kept on the top shelf. That’s when it hit me—she sees everything. And if those candies had been infused, we would’ve had an even scarier situation on our hands. I looked for a lockable storage solution that would fit our home, but all I could find were bulky safes or small stash boxes, neither of which suited our needs or our style. My background is in furniture and interior design, so I decided to take on the challenge of creating a lockable storage solution for the modern home.

I started Forti Goods, a line of app-controlled locking furniture that catches the eye without revealing a thing. We design and sell beautiful furniture that locks with our app, so that our customers can keep their things private and secure. It’s great for homes with children of any age, vacation homes that are rented when not being used personally, and homes with a lot of service providers coming and going (think housekeepers, pet sitters, and home nursing).

There are no visible locks on the outside to detract from your room or tell people you have something valuable hidden away inside. You can seamlessly connect via Bluetooth or WIFI though our app which is your digital key. Share or revoke digital access within the app and view the history of who has accessed the locked compartments over the past 30 days. It’s pretty & convenient which means people are more likely to use it regularly.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Sure! I grew up in Wisconsin between Milwaukee and Madison. I wasn’t someone who had a career path picked out from the beginning, so I struggled a bit. I started college in Wisconsin and then dropped out and moved to California for a few years with a friend to get some distance from home and figure out what I wanted to do. Eventually, I came back to Wisconsin for college and got a BA in Interior Design.

Shortly after graduating I started my first business, a commercial interior design firm, with someone I met at school. Eventually, I wanted other experiences and a safer place to ride out the 2008 downturn, so I got a job with Kohl’s Department Stores where I started in store design and eventually pivoted to product design – and realized my love of furniture design. I learned so much there!

I met my husband through a roommate, and after 7 fun filled years of marriage, we were ready to “settle down” and have our daughter. This year we celebrated 15 years married, got a new puppy after our beloved dog died in May, and took our daughter camping for the first time. 

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The Forti Goods line of furniture was designed with the modern cannabis consumer in mind, to keep THC containing products and accessories secure and away from children. Think of it like a liquor cabinet, but for cannabis. When I launched, I naively thought that we would be okay with some imagery and clever copy that hinted at this use for the furniture. It was well written copy & higher end imagery from our branding team, but unfortunately it caused all kinds of problems for advertising. Even though we weren’t selling cannabis in any form, or anything that you could use to consume cannabis, we still got kicked off of two payment platforms and had our social media accounts restricted from advertising on multiple occasions.

Around the same time, I would be talking about our line, telling people “It’s app-controlled lockable furniture.” And to demonstrate their understanding of what I was saying would respond with something like “Oh! Like, for guns or alcohol?!” When I would clarify that it was for cannabis, it just confused many people. So, our first pivot was stripping out the cannabis copy and imagery and becoming stash agnostic. Now we don’t have the issues with payment processing or advertising restrictions, but it does make me sad that in trying to talk about safe storage, I was forced to omit cannabis from the conversation – especially when the average age of cannabis ingestions requiring hospital visits in the US is 3.5 years old. It’s a preventable accident that I can’t talk about without repercussions.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The entire 4 years I’ve been in business has been lesson after lesson in resilience. The pivot we made away from focusing the branding solely on cannabis was a tough one, but I think the biggest lesson has just been things taking longer than anticipated due to unforeseen setbacks.

We built out our technology using a local development firm. It was early in the pandemic when the project started, and I wanted the funds to support another local business in tough times when projects were on hold or canceling altogether. In hindsight, I should’ve gone with a proven team. We’ve had lots of technical setbacks, and the first team I hired has never really been able to get it together. Eventually, I had to come to grips with the fact that my company couldn’t be successful – or even remain in business – without a competent development team, and I made the decision to sever ties with them and hire a team in San Jose to get us to my original vision.

I’m summing it up neatly, but the last two-years felt like a death march at times. I’m sure a lot of other entrepreneurs felt this way during the pandemic years for their own reasons, too. There were a lot of days there when things felt insurmountable, but here we are!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fortigoods.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortigoods/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonkevil/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fortigoods

Image Credits
Images are courtesy of Forti Goods, Anna Spaller Photography and Trestle Photography.