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Waterproof Windproof silk and faux mink making your outdoor experiences luxurious, weatherproof and warm! The Pretty Rugged Luxe Original Blanket won best in market at NY NOW in 2018 and the Pretty Rugged Luxe Pet Blanket was awarded one of Oprah’s Favorite Things 2018 – both within the first year of being in business. Get your holiday gifts today! Hope they stocked up on the snow leopard caplet!
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Read the Transcript
Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles
I’m Christon and
We are at the 2019 Newport International Boat Show with
Tracy Slocum and Sheila Mendlesen
of Pretty Rugged Gear
Hi ladies
Hello!
How exciting! How many times have you guys been to the show?
This was actually our second show, so we’re still newbies
How many shows do you guys go to throughout the year?
We do several different kinds of shows,
We do boat shows because of our blankets really and the waterproof nature that all of the products have
but we also do New York Now shows and AtlantasMart
those types of shows, so it’s like buyers Mart’s. Things like that, yeah
Sheila, tell us a little bit about what we’re looking at here. What is your product?
We started out with our signature flagship blanket which is over here to the right and sitting behind me and they’re
all made out of the luxurious faux fur that’s super soft but what makes this
really unique is that we are the ultimate nautical blanket because we are waterproof windproof.
Waterproof and windproof and faux
and faux
Wow
Yeah it’s a nice unique combination. The blanket was really developed so that you could wrap yourself in the fur so
it’s like beauty on the inside and then you’ve got a backing that’s completely
waterproof and windproof so you can put it on like a wet boat seat or on the
ground and they come in this beautiful waterproof duffel so they’re easy to store.
I don’t want to hide this pink one back here.
That’s the baby.
That is so adorable.
They’re amazing and you know one thing to mention which I know all boaters love
is all the blankets can be embroidered with your boat names which is fun.
Very fun.
Where do you make your product?
We are in Albany New York upstate.
Yeah so not far.
And you guys ship
We ship all over the world.
Which one is your hottest market?
U.S. , we are also branching out the Netherlands, we have a distributor in the Netherlands and also in South Korea.
That’s unique.
That’s for the pet market.
What kind of pet products do you carry?
We have a pet blanket that has the same backing on it so people when they’re outside or in
their cars they use the blankets even in their house. My dog loves them, they’re amazing.
I was gonna ask you guys if you had any celebrity story’s.
Yeah, we do! On our first show that we did in New York Now,
that was February of 2018, we met Oprah’s team which is Rae Ann Herman and
Adam Glassman, who we’ve since become friends with and they just loved our
blankets, at the time that’s all we had, and we knew that we were going to be a
serious contender for Oprah’s Favorite Things, and then it was this time last
year that we found out that we were picked.
What is your hottest selling item?
The caplet right now,
everyday we’re selling so so many, but what’s interesting is, we just introduced two
new products, one of them I’m wearing, this is the pretty puffer.
Again, it’s a completely waterproof shell, actually it’s our first non fur item,
which is interesting, and then the other one is the reversible bomber so this
bomber is a faux mink, it’s our signature mink on one side and then when you
reverse it, it’s a waterproof satin material so Pretty Rugged is really known
for their innovative materials that they use, that we use, and we create as a
company and so with the bomber when you reverse it, it really is two garments in
one and the price point is amazing.
oh it is sooo soft.
The snow leopard is our number one color.
It is luxurious.
No sleeves, it’s hands-free. It’s got a front slip pockets.
Do I look thin?
Yes you do! Actually, do I?
It is very comfortable, you can dress it up, dress it down.
You can put your initial right on the pocket.
It’s kind of like a spin on the fur coat
You can carry your phone in your pocket.
It’s a waterproof pocket.
What are your color schemes?
Our blankets come in seven colors.
The bombers are in two, which is navy and white.
The caplets are in five colors.
We’ve got the leopard, there’s white, there’s navy, there’s black, there’s chocolate.
There’s different color waves for each product.
We’ll be adding new colors, we’re gonna do this caplet in red.
The bomber will come in a leopard as well as the navy.
We’re adding colors all the time.
You guys have retail centers or do you sell out of stores how can people find your products?
We have a website www.PrettyRuggedGear.com
and then we’re at shows, we’re in many stores. We are probably in about 200
boutiques across the country. You can find us in a lot of places.
You guys are a lot of boat shows hosting your wares. What is your favorite boat?
My favorite boat in the whole wide world?
In the whole wide world!
if I had to pick my favorite boat in the whole wide world,
it would have to be a Hinckley.
Any particular Hinckley?
I love the picnic boats, that’s the one that I would choose.
We have a Hacker Craft, which I also love, and they’re beautiful but there’s something about a Hinkley boat
and I think Pretty Rugged should be on every Hinckley boat in the world.
Well, you just might be in luck today! We happen to have a Hinckley Picnic Boat ! That would be so fun!!!
Oh my gosh, we do need to get on there and photograph the blankets, so fun.
I love the Hinckley’s. There’s something about them.
They’re beautiful, but down-to-earth and gorgeous. I just I just think they’re so amazing.
Sheila?
I’m not really a sailor so I would love to have a sailboat someday and learn how to sail.
I grew up on motor boats, Chris Crafts and my dad has a Hacker Craft, too.
They are just beautiful, but there is something about sailing that is so mysterious to that I kind of want to learn how to do it.
I couldn’t get to the other end of the tent, so I don’t know how I would actually read a compass!
Which is an interesting thing to say
since our heritage is really built around my great-great-grandfather who
was the first man to sail around the world alone, Joshua Slocum.
Yes I’m Tracy Slocum, yeah so that’s a really important part of the company and who we are.
In his trepidation, and his adventure and and the things that he did in his life and the chances that he took.
It’s just an amazing story if you’ve never read his book, you should.
It’s called, Sailing Alone Around the World, and
It was a best-seller.
It’s still in print and anyone who sails knows who he is.
Do you guys have a specific slogan that you refer to?
The slogan for the company is “Transforming Your Outdoor Experience”
and really that’s what the products are all about.
It’s about making the times that you spend outside even better.
Whether it’s the caplet or the puffer, that just improves those times because
you’re warm and you’re dry and it’s luxurious and you look great!
How long have you guys been in business together?
Just under two years
You guys have been very successful with this!
We have
How did you come up with this material?
I started sourcing way before this became a company.
I was making the blankets for myself
It wasn’t even about being in business.
My husband’s a third-generation clothing manufacturer,
so he was very helpful with helping me source products and and fabrics
Thanks ladies for joining us.
Thank you so much.
It was a lot of fun.
This is great.
I hope that we get to do it again sometime soon!
Thanks for coming to visit us.
We look forward to seeing you on
Newport Living and Lifestyles
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Read the Transcript
Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles
I’m Christon and we were at the
2019 Newport International Boat Show with
Dan Harper of Siren Marine
Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Great to be at the 2019 show.
We’re off and running had a great crowd today.
Yes. It was actually really great!
It was, you know, a little gray outside, but hey, the Sun was shining here.
And it will be shining the rest of the weekend.
I’ve seen that and I can’t wait.
So tell us about Siren Marine.
Yeah, super excited to talk about the company always, of course
Yeah, we’re a Newport Rhode Island based company, very excited about that.
We live and play here and there’s nothing better than actually living in town where we love being on the water
And we’re connected with the marine industry here, especially the sailing piece of the marine industry
Which makes coming to work everyday a bonus.
What is it a drinking town with a yachting problem?
I’ve heard that, I mean, I don’t know that, but I’ve heard that might be the case, yeah
You don’t have a bunch of yachts?
Yeah, I don’t have a tab at the Cooke House, no… That was somebody else…
Yes, they keep my credit card on file, yeah
So what we do is, you see behind me here,
We’ve got a giant iPhone actually and it’s actually a real iPhone it connects with this black box
over in the corner and you can really think of it as Nest for boats.
Like you can change your thermostat or check on what’s happening back home, check the video
What we do is
on any cell phone, Android, iOS, Doesn’t matter
I can click onto our app, which looks the same as this.
Nice boat by the way.
That’s my boat, my swan.
I had not idea.
A little plug for Swan, there.
Swan Nautor
All the things that I’m interested in, my boat is right out here in Newport Harbor, but I’m working a ton, here building Siren.
I’m not on my boat nearly as much as I would like to be and so,
When there’s a storm that comes through or I just want to check and I haven’t got out to the boat for a few days
I just take a look. My battery voltage is right where it needs to be
My geofence is actually broken right now because I moved the boat from my normal mooring
to a mooring just off of the dock for the show. So it’s now gonna be this big red indication,
Hey, there’s something that’s different or wrong and I can I can deal with it.
It’s not a problem in this case because it’s right where it’s supposed to be, but it is outside of the geofence.
so really what we do is we
We are your on board first mate and anything that you’re interested in.
You’ve got a beautiful boat a Hinckley 36
Phenomenal boat, we had a lot of work with Hinckley, another hometown team.
Those things like, you haven’t been out to the boat in a few days, you’re wondering if the battery okay,
is the bilge taking on water? Well, all you do is check your app and there you go.
When did you start your company?
Great question. 2011 I started working on the project in 2006, brought the first prototypes and then
really turned it into a formal thing in 2011 and came here and I want to say 2014
I’ve not heard of this for boats previously,
but you’re gonna buy one from your boat tomorrow.
I’m gonna buy one today today
Today, and on film…
He’s got me now, is there any competition
There are
How do you guys stand out?
We’re leading the pack by
It’s easy for me to say that because I own the company,
He’s not biased
I’m not biased at all
But it’s a great question and it’s one that I love talking about because objectively speaking
if we measure our functionality, our features, our price point
What we offer our customers in terms of peace of mind, features and functions and maturity as a company
We’re on our third generation product, most of our competition
Is just getting their feet wet and this stuff is hard
I’ve got an amazing team of engineers that carry out sort of my vision for the company
They’re way smarter than I am these days and I built the first prototypes a long time ago
I can barely keep up with these guys these days, but they are absolute experts in their field of IOT, RF or
low power edge devices, the things that we do and build are built by incredibly smart guys
And then we leverage additional engineering, where there’s a specialized thing like wireless inter low-power
970 megahertz technology, right, but there’s only a handful of guys that do that stuff.
So we pull in this deep expertise where we need it, to build what we believe is absolutely the
Most advanced marine IOT system available, but really because boats are hard too. They’re they’re battery operated
There’s 12 volt, 24 volt, 36 volt, 110 volt , 240 volt
They’re all different Yamaha, Yanmar, Perkins, the propulsion systems, everything’s different
You’ll have five Hinckley 36’s, you’ll have different electronics, probably different motors, different stuff.
As it turns out marine IOT is really hard.
We’ve been at it for ten years now much longer than most any other company and we’ve continued to evolve and build now our third generation product.
We feel like we can say we really are
Not just the best, but the best by a considerable margin.
and right here in Newport, so that’s Fabulous.
Right here in Newport!
Right how many employees do you have now since you started?
23
Started with one myself, and over the years we went to
three kind of a study state for a while, and then five for a study state for a while then
three for a little while, and five for a while, and then seven to nine, eleven and twelve and then
Twenty-three is where we are at today.
Do you have any insightful things you can tell us that might be coming or on the way for next year’s Boat Show?
behind the scenes?
I can!
Next year’s boat show will be an entirely different thing.
So this is actually the Boat Show as you guys know being Newporters.
There’s a building going in so the show has been redistributed this year.
so our booth is half the size as it usually is because everyone’s is.
What you’ll see next year will be an
different look and feel for Siren Marine because we’re introducing
really some new products that involve bringing data off of the boats
really powerful useful data that we believe is going to transform the marine industry.
It’s gonna allow boat builders, engine manufacturers
industry stakeholders the ability to now provide
services and products that they’ve never been able to provide before based on
the kind of information and data that we’re gonna be delivered.
Do you have a very sentimental testimonial from any of your clients that really pulls at your heartstrings ?
A ton of them actually.
Makes you feeling proud?
Just just before you came into the booth. I had a customer here that came through the first,
this was the first boat show we ever did, the Newport International Boat Show and 20 it was either 2010 or 2011
About 10 years ago.
This customer came through and has had all of our products to date and loves them
and ten years later is still coming to our booth and saying how much he appreciates the product and
watching us grow and I think to sum all of the great testimonials up that would be one that was just five minutes ago.
We just missed him!
I know !
A decade long customer that just keeps,
you know, upgrading with our new products and just
comes every year to say how much he appreciates the peace of mind he gets from having a Siren Marine device.
What about celebrities? Do you have any good celebrity stories for us?
Well besides Jay Leno, well ya know!
Just kidding
But Jay if your out there. We would love to hook up your cars, or boats, or anything motorcycles, bicycles… antique cars…
We do, we actually have quite a number of….. I don’t know if we can actually say who…
You don’t have to, but you can if you want…
I would if I could
Thank you so much, really appreciate learning more about you,
Learning more about Siren Marine and
We look forward to seeing you on
Newport Living and Lifestyles
