Founder Profile: Kevin Foley

Two architects with an obsession for toothbrushes is as unlikely a foundation for a company as one could find. But native Briton Kevin Foley, 71, a 1966 graduate of the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, and his partner and fellow architect James O’Halloran, moved from designing houses to changing the look and feel of an object used daily by millions.

The Radius toothbrush, with its chunky handle, thousands of super-fine bristles and big oval head, is irresistibly intriguing; it feels like no other toothbrush, and comes in right- and left-handed versions.

The company continues to innovate since its founding in 1983, with toothbrushes for babies and kids; a toothbrush with a flexible neck; and detachable handles made from recycled materials (wood, money and paper) to be used with replacement heads.

Over the years, Radius has also added a line of natural silk dental flosses; multi-use suction holders; and travel cases for toothbrushes, soap, razors and other personal items.

The company, housed in an 1863 feed mill in Kutztown, prides itself on being green. Its story is an improbable journey from the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands through New York City to Berks County.

What inspired you to start Radius?
(Kevin Foley moved from London to the island of Tortola in 1966; he designed houses there until 1972, when he relocated to San Juan, P.R. to work for an architectural firm; he started his own company to design shipping containers.)

James (O’Halloran), a really good friend, and I were both very interested, for some God-forsaken reason, in toothbrushes. One morning we were on his yacht. . . and he said, “Have you tried the new Johnson & Johnson Reach toothbrush?” and I said, “Yes, I tried it and what a piece of rubbish that is . . .”

That conversation was the start. We (my family and I) moved back to Tortola, and James and I started to work on the design of a toothbrush. . . I still commuted back and forth to San Juan to work, and that kept us alive (while we started the business). James designed the very first toothbrush, and we worked out how it was going to be, the thickness and so on. We had a model made by a Japanese company, then we all moved to New York. . . We rented an apartment and got mold makers and found toothbrush companies. We started on the project in February 1982, and we sold our first toothbrush in November of 1983.

The idea of the toothbrush was to be very thin bristles, and instead of 2,000 we’d put in 6,000 or 7,000. . . If it’s bigger and softer, you can clean the teeth and gums with less pressure. We also came out with a right- and left-handed toothbrush.
The handle would be very thick and very comfortable, so you wouldn’t have to use a lot of pressure . . . you could use a lighter touch and that would make it more comfortable.

We were the first people to come out with a big toothbrush, with an oval head and randomly placed bristles.
We got a manufacturer in Leominster, MA, to make it; we had a mold made by a German company. . . This was all a complete learning experience for us. We taught ourselves about dentistry and about how to make toothbrushes. When we eventually started getting into retail, they all said, “It doesn’t fit in the little slots (in the display areas)”  We said, “We don’t care about your slots; deal with it,” and of course their attitude was, if it’s not going to fit in the slots, we’re not going to sell it.

Meanwhile, we met a buyer (by chance) from a very ritzy design store in SoHo, which was just beginning to burgeon at that point. So we told her about the toothbrush, and I think she just thought we were having her on. Then later we called her up and said, “Hey, remember us? We have this toothbrush and it’s real. Can we come and see you?” This was our only retail contact in the entire world. We went to see her, and it was a really cool store. (We sold her a 24-pack of toothbrushes at $7.50 per brush cost and $15 retail.) This was a Friday afternoon.

Monday morning, Holly called and said, “Have you got any more of those toothbrushes?” We had 25,000 sitting in the warehouse. She said that by 11 a.m. Saturday she had a back-order list. We shipped her more by taxi (from our building in the Flatiron district, where we all lived and had the business). Very shortly afterwards, there was a show called the New York International Gift Fair, which had just started a contest called the Accent on Design Awards in 1984. We won the top prize that year.

Was there a moment when you knew you made the right decision in starting this company?
Almost immediately, we got into Brookstone and the Norm Thompson catalogue. The first year, we made half a million dollars in sales–$200,000 from Brookstone and $200,000 from Norm Thompson. We were amazingly lucky. The next year, GNC decided they liked us and we got a purchase order from them for $483,000. It took three trailers to pick it up. Then we started to go to independent high-end pharmacies with gift sections, and then we slowly got into the natural products stores.

How did you get into doing your own manufacturing?
In 1987, I had bought a farm in Kempton as a weekend place. James started coming out, and he said we should move the company here. Then my realtor . . . had a building in Kutztown that was for sale for about $170,000 . . We came to see it, and the ground floor was pretty crummy, the outside was ghastly, with all sorts of lean-tos on it. But the second and third floors were an amazing, church-like space. It’s gorgeous. It had about 18,000 square feet and a loading dock. So we moved in, in 1988.

What were your greatest challenges in getting this started?
We lost GNC, so we were only doing about $400,000 in business that year. Times were very tough. The Berks Economic Development Council helped by lending us $100,000 to buy a used bristling machine and an injection molding machine so we could make our own product.

We had a parttime person doing the shipping; an employee to run the bristling machine; James ran the molding machine; a person to do the paperwork; and myself. The early sparkle had disappeared. It took us some time to recover and build back the business. The years from 1988 to 1990 were pretty awful years.

By 1993, we started selling to drugstore chains, and a whole new phase in our existence started. Our first customer was Eckerd Drugs. All of a sudden we were in 1,200 stores. Between 1993 and 1998 we were in every drugstore in America.
Currently, we have about 20 employees, plus temps. James retired in 2004; it was a happy parting of the ways. My daughter Saskia is now the CEO; I am the president. She runs the company, and I run research and development; I’m the guy who is producing new products. . . I work with a company in Pennsburg called Eldon Design Associates. Jim Eldon and I have been working together for 15 years, constantly bouncing design solutions off each other.

What’s next for Radius?
Right now we’re working on a travel toothbrush that is based on our replacement-head technology. . . what we’re making is the case that holds the replaceable head. It’s a clamshell with the head inside it; you snap it open, take the head out, unfold it and that’s your handle. We’ll start making it in late August, and it will go to market in November.