ShareThisBy SARA GANUS
The Oklahoman
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Alyssa Hapgood U.S. patent No. 6,820,033 in 2004 for her formula that measures the weight of horses, she was ecstatic - and only 17 years old.
After waiting for more than three years - most of her days at Mount St. Mary High School in Oklahoma City - Hapgood immediately began dreaming of selling her patent for thousands of dollars and using the money for clothes, a savings account and college. But the excitement was short-lived.
"After I got my patent, it was like 'Yay!' and then it was kind of like that was the pinnacle of excitement," said Hapgood, now 20. "We had no idea what we would do after that. We were like, well, we have this patent, so I guess we could manufacture calculators, but how do you even go about that? How do you even know what to do?"
That was almost three years ago.
Although Alyssa Hapgood, along with her father, Joe Hapgood, had little business sense about manufacturing and marketing an unknown invention when they began, the Hapgoods - along with Alyssa Hapgood's grandfather, Lyle Hennessey - have since found a U.S. manufacturer to produce 1,000 devices that calculate the "Hapgood Formula," started an Internet-based company out of their home and secured at least two area dealers, all on their own.
In 2006, the Hapgoods trademarked the name Equi-Calc for the device, which is the size of a standard calculator, and received a wooden prototype in February.
With the financial backing of Alyssa Hapgood's grandparents, Pittsburg, Kan.-based Control Vision engineered, manufactured and delivered the first 1,000 horse weight calculators to the Hapgoods in June.
"We've done all of this sort of on the seat of our pants," Joe Hapgood said. "We didn't have a Web developer. We went to Yahoo!'s small business, established a Web presence through them and then worked in the e-commerce aspect of it as we've gone along. There's been no reliance on anybody."
Since launching their Web site, equicalc.com, in March, the Hapgoods have sold three devices and are focusing on finding more dealers and advertising in national horse magazines.
"Right now, no one really knows about it," Alyssa Hapgood said. "It's kind of an unknown thing, but I know that once people learn about it, I know the word's going to spread.
Knowing a horse's weight is required for their medication dosing, nutrition, feeding requirements and training, she added.
Zoe Midyett, owner of Red Earth Feed & Tack in Oklahoma City, said she requested five units in July. Although they haven't sold any, Midyett said she expects the devices will be popular holiday gifts.
"There's a real need for this in the market," she said. "People are just in the curiosity stage right now, but I think it's going to be great for the big horse operations. I don't know if we're going to sell it to the one-horse user, but maybe we will."
The Equi-Calc retails for about $108.
If Alyssa Hapgood's road to discovery sounds easy, it hasn't been.
Her quest to find a more accurate way to measure a horse's weight began in 1999, when she was in seventh grade. Her family had just bought her a retired racehorse named Champ who was malnourished and headed for the "killer" market. At age 13, she was determined to restore his health.
"You could see all of his ribs and you could basically put your hand between his ribs," she said. "He looked so horrible. Anyone who had any kind of horse knowledge wouldn't have bought him, but I loved this horse to death."
To help Champ gain weight, Alyssa Hapgood had to properly feed him according to his current weight. She bought several girth weight tapes from a local store and tried each one out. Every time, she found at least a 200- to 300-pound difference.
It wasn't good enough for her or for Champ.
That fall, she decided to test the accuracy of different brands of weight tapes for her science project. She met with veterinarians at Oklahoma State University who let her use a research herd of 75 horses and collected the girth, height, length, age, breed and gender of each one.
After spending a day in the field, she looked at her data, and with the help of her father, she used statistical software to crunch numbers and test which measurements were statistically most significant when predicting a horse's weight. From there, she devised her own formula that proved to be 98 percent accurate.
