According to her father, "Yasmeen Jamil Elbanna was 11 years old when she came home one day and told me about a little girl at school that tripped on her loose shoelaces and skinned her knees somewhat badly." It was the birth of a brand and a whole new innovative product.
Knowing her father was an engineer, young Yasmeen, in her own way, demanded her father help her come up with a simple solution for shoelaces, something that could also be trendy at the same time.
Jamil Elbanna says, "I didn’t give it much thought at the time, as I was immersed with a design project I was working on for Spine Implants to help simplify back surgery."
It wasn't until one day while they were watching the movie, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, specifically the part were Flint Lockwood invented those Spray-on shoes…which, in his mind had to be elastic, comfortable, and the laces never have to be tied. And Mr. Elbanna then looked at Yasmeen and asked her if she wanted to help in the process of designing and creating those shoelaces she had previously suggested inventing.
Yasmeen and I Mr. Elbanna started conceptualizing different ways of creating these install-and-forget shoelaces. They looked at the those curly laces that claimed to do the same thing, yet they found out that everyone whom had tried them did not get the reliable functionality they were seeking. Mr. Elbanna then looked at other options, such as the draw cable with ratcheting knobs used on ski boots, but they were complicated and they still require adjusting every time.
Mr. Elbanna talked to friends to see if they had ideas, one idea was take regular shoelaces and cut them into individual segments and tie a knot on each end and insert them one by one into the shoe eyelets, something that was clearly not practical, but some skaters painstakingly did to get the look called, Bar Lacing or Barlace! Then one day in April of 2012, Yasmeen and Mr. Elbanna were our shopping and she asked him to buy her those colorful bands called “Silly Bands“, and it was at that moment that they both actually realized that they had a path! Stretchy laces that come in different colors. It sounded so exciting, and at first it seemed like it was going to be the easiest design project he would have ever been involved in…not exactly.
They began the conceptual design and the prototyping process. They had to then try a number of different ways to attach these laces to shoes. Figuring out the sizing and length that would work for most shoe styles and shoe sizes. Then had to configure the selection to be somewhat universal in order to reduce inventory and make the product cost effective, for both them, anyone selling the product for them, and the end consumer. We had to try over 50 different materials in order to arrive at the exact blend of materials that offered the correct elasticity, shape memory and durability, after all, his daughter wasn’t about to let Mr. Elbanna design something that didn’t last!
It took them just over nine months of development to arrive at the desired design. His daughter, Yasmeen, helped in every aspect of the project, even the packaging layout, the question had now become, ‘how do we make it a good product that people will be happy to have?’ They eventually got it, and of course, this family hopes you will love it! LaceOut.com was born.
Mr. Jamil Nader Elbanna is from San Diego, and he wanted to personally and publicly thank my daughter, Yasmeen Jamil Elbanna, for helping to push him into creating such a neat, low-cost and demographically diverse product.
LaceOut.com has recently added Findiit.org (Findiit Media Group) to the team in order to handle the marketing the product, and so far they have set up numerous events, some minor endorsements from semi-pro skaters, and helped gain traction online with the brand through organic SEO and building a website that is optimized for Google.
Also, we are pleased to announce that The Law Office of Eric. B. Alspaugh has been retained for corporate and marketing transactions.
Product is available now!
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