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Meet Steve Abbit of Freestand in Ahwatukee / Phoenix

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Abbit.

Steve, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I remember exactly where I was as a kid when I told my dad how I hoped to someday change the world for the better, to genuinely help people. He told me “we are caretakers, Steven”. Your family has to call you by your formal name, right? He said in our family, we always want to help people fix their problems. Turns out, he was right, I was always trying to make others’ lives better by creating innovative solutions to problems. I guess it’s who I am at my core and likely why I had early careers as a chef, a volunteer firefighter and as a counseling psychologist – always wanting to make people’s lives better. After college, I entered the technology industry. After almost 20 years climbing the tech ladder, I realized I had progressed to a place that was a bit off-track from directly helping people. I had this feeling several times along the climb, but the pay was good and I was growing. See, in tech, I started by providing support to corporate employees who had computer problems. It was one-on-one. People had a problem, felt-pain and I had the skills and desire to help them, so I did. It was great.

As I climbed up through Director and Vice President, I found my responsibilities were focused less on directly helping people and more on managing processes, teams, products and projects that helped the company attain its financial goals. Yes, it was exciting at times and commanded a healthy salary, but over time, with increased focus on technical operations and global team management, it seemed I had moved further from my core desire to help people by creating solutions that improve their lives and the lives of their families. When my father got cancer a couple of years back and my employer demonstrated that their “care” for me was very different from my care for them, it was time for me to make a change. Could I take my career success building cohesive teams and world-class products for big tech companies and leverage them to create products that help real people, small companies, families and the planet?

As I had since I was a kid, I watched for things in daily life that were unnecessarily difficult or painful, things that happened over and over, always asking myself, “is there a better way?” Is there a solution that could make this better? For years I wrote down these ideas in my little green spiral notebook by my bedside. At times I’d look back to my notes from years before and find that an idea had been done by someone else of course, and became successful. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I knew the next idea that met my criteria for a successful company would be the one. Then came Freestand™. One night I was standing in my kitchen trying to get the last few ounces from my almost empty barbecue sauce bottle. I smacked it and banged it on the counter. When that didn’t get it all I balanced one bottle on top of the other as I had attempted many times before, with varying success. The top bottle wouldn’t quite balance. It wanted to leak down the side of the other bottle and fall over. I leaned the top bottle against the back-splash and the bottom bottle scooted out, causing it to topple. Jeesh, all I was trying to do was not-waste the product I paid for. After all, our money is important, we don’t want to waste it, right? Then it struck me, this was a common occurrence with tons of bottled kitchen products like barbecue sauce, ketchup, mustard, honey, syrup, salad dressings, hot sauces, Asian cooking sauces and oils. Then I thought, wait, the same thing happens with tons of non-food items like shampoo, conditioner, hair gel, serums, lotions, oils, laundry detergent, liquid soaps. Even laundry soap, paint, garage and automotive products. Turned out, this happened a lot, and all over the house. Then some self-doubt set in, “What if I’m the only person who does this,…who’s cheap-enough to try and get all my products out and not waste my money?”

I wasn’t! Research showed that 97% of people try to get the last drops of their products! Wow, I wasn’t alone after all! And the stats kept coming. 89% of people say products stuck in the bottle are a huge waste, 61% of people try cutting bottles open and 13% of them get injured, 27% of couples have argued about getting the last drops, 59% of people end-up making more of a mess, and people say they dislike wasting their consumer products more than paying their taxes, going to the dentist and doing chores! As I continued to research, the Freestand™ idea became more compelling. I finally found some environmental research that “sealed the deal”. Throwing out bottles with product stuck in the bottom has major negative environmental consequences that most people aren’t aware of. A study in the UK found that 30% of all bottles sent for recycling were rejected by the recycler as “contaminated” and redirected to a landfill because they had too much product left in them. That means billions of bottles each year are needlessly put into the ground for the next several thousand years. Freestand™ can help solve this problem. See, when you Freestand™ a bottle (yes, it’s a verb too), it is clean enough to truly be recycled, no washing, no rinsing, no wasted water and no chance it will end up in a landfill. And, when we get more uses out of our products, we use less bottles, sending billions fewer bottles to recyclers and landfills. Then I knew Freestand™ was a true win/win and I needed to bring it to life for families, small businesses and the planet. So I drew up the very first drawing of what Freestand™ could look like and how it could work. Then the real work began!

What followed was over a year of numerous designs, prototypes, engineering, testing, analysis, graphic design, web development, photographers, videographers, box engineers, package designers, multiple global manufacturers, competing time zones making very long days and nights, language barriers, delays, tariffs, freight forwarders, ground transportation, shipping boxes, technology integration, development platforms, taxes, customs, insurance, social media, accounting, loans, merchant accounts, credit card processing,….to name a few! Now I’m focused on customer satisfaction, inside and outside sales, marketing, account management, paid advertising, social media management, market research, financial tracking, product enhancements, networking, warehousing and fulfillment. Whew! Worth it!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitely not always been a smooth road. An average guy once said “Along the road to success, you’ll make stops in failure and self-doubt. Don’t stay there too long.” That average guy was me after hitting some serious roadblocks and feeling more than a bit discouraged. Struggles included learning to write a patent application that took forever and was extremely painful, concluding afterwards that spending the $1,400 to have it written for me by a professional Patent Attorney would have been WELL worth the money and saved me a ton of time that could have been better spent elsewhere! Engineering designs that worked theoretically with plastic injection molding, but didn’t work in reality and required rework several times as I continued to pay out of pocket for each revision. Design failures like when the original plastic legs, using tabs and notches to hold them in-place, didn’t work even remotely and the legs literally fell off onto the floor when I extended them.

At the time, it was rough and set me back a full month. In hindsight, it was hilarious! Working with multiple overseas manufacturers where a delay from one created a snowball effect of delays with other vendors. And a more recent struggle has been discovering that many freelancers and agencies claim to be social media management experts, Facebook/Google paid advertising experts and/or SEO experts, where the term “expert” clearly has very (very!) different meanings to different people. I found that everything I attempted, whether it worked or not, took more money and time. Usually more than anticipated. As a fully self-funded company with no business partners or investors, everything Freestand™ is on me. Time and money are at a premium. To be honest, one of the biggest struggles is dealing with my own negative self-talk that creeps in, keeping me up at night as I plan, rank and order my vertical market customers, practice my “sales pitch”, review my elevator speech, go over finances, review my tasks for the next day, analyze the effectiveness of advertising, redesign the website in my mind and question if I did the right thing leaving a career with a good salary and benefits to take a huge risk. One that sounds great, but will it pay the bills – bringing to people, families and the planet a solution to a real problem and leave a legacy for my kids that transcends being a good corporate worker. A legacy that includes doing the right thing because it’s right, making decisions based on honesty, morals and ethics, creating your own opportunity, being willing to influence your life, and leaving things (like the planet) better than when you found it.

Struggles abound in everything we do. “It’s not whether or not we will fall down, we will. It’s whether or not we’ll get back up and keep going.” Another saying from that average guy that has helped me stay motivated and keep going.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Freestand story. Tell us more about the business.
Freestand™ is a revolutionary product (and company) that specializes in solving a universal problem virtually everyone in the world faces. Making lives easier, reducing frustration, saving people hundreds of dollars per year and positively impacting the environment, all at once! And it’s easy! You know those frustrating and expensive last few ounces that are stuck in the bottom of virtually every bottle around the house? The ounces you don’t want to waste because you paid for them? The ounces you try desperately to get by banging, smacking or balancing bottles? Or maybe even cutting them open? You’re not alone! 97% of us try some method to get those last drops. But, it’s almost impossible without spending too much time, too much energy and too much frustration. Right? We’ll spend a minute or two, maybe stacking them for a while to get as much as we can, clean up our mess, say “good enough”, and toss the bottle in the trash. There’s not that much left, right? Actually, those bottles can contain up to 25% of your product still left inside; food, cosmetics, health and beauty products, cleaning products, laundry products, car washing and detailing products, even garage products. A few ounces here or there may not seem like a lot individually, but each time we can’t get them it’s frustrating and adds-up to hundreds of dollars per year thrown in the garbage. For companies like salons, restaurants, painting and garages, it adds up to thousands of dollars per year in waste. And every “not empty” bottle hurts the environment.

What sets Freestand™ apart is that by getting every drop, it makes lives easier, saves money, saves time and saves the planet. All at once. I am most proud that Freestand™ is one of the only products in the world that truly gives back more than it takes. Every single time it is used, it actually gives people back their money, saves frustration and time, and improves the environment. It takes nothing more than the initial purchase. I sometimes think of buying a product in terms of making an investment in it. So I think of Freestand™ like this, “would I invest $30 in a product that solves a common problem I have, makes my life easier, and pays me back $200-$300 per year, forever?” For sure!

What makes me proud is creating a product that solves an age-old universal problem that truly gives-back to people, businesses and our environment more than it takes. It’s a chance to genuinely leave the world better than I found it and hopefully motivate others to do the same.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I believe we make our own luck. Sure, sometimes things swing in our favor a bit more or a bit less. But, perseverance, positivity, dedication and a willingness to keep going, to make the right choices even when they’re hard, for what you really want, what you really believe in,….those things influence “luck”.

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
When I started Abbit Brands, the parent company of Freestand™, the Freestand™ Funnel was planned to be the second product brought to market. I spent the first nine months working on a product that ultimately encountered insurmountable obstacles and I came to a point where I had to admit defeat and move on. I couldn’t have known up-front that it would fail, but in hind-sight, I wish I would have started with Freestand™ or at least not burned nine months working on it. Those first nine months were costly from both a time and financial perspective. Additionally, I would have won the lottery or found a long-lost wealthy relative to support me before starting.

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