Meet Bob Thorsen, master contractor on elite residential projects, president of award-winning Thorsen Construction, community supporter, father of five, and a guy who helps his wife in the garden (i.e., human burro). One sunny Saturday, as Bob worked shoulder-to-shoulder with his wife Sudie, lugging tools, sand, water, lemonade, hoses, and potting soil around their six-acre yard, an idea began to gel. When Sudie looked up, Bob was gone. Plugging away in his tool shed into the wee hours, Bob proudly emerged with the Little Burro prototype. Sudie was delighted as the first Little Burro was put into service in her garden.

How to bring Bob’s great idea to light? It needed industrial design, engineering, testing, and a prototype. And, of course, it needed a brand. Through fortuitous connections and relationships, Bob found BOLTGROUP. We loved his idea and immediately immersed ourselves into his invention, his vision, and his business goals. Through our integrated service lineup, we not only had our industrial design team developing the physical product, we were creating the purpose, promise, pillars, personality, positioning, and brand strategy to bring it to market.

We extended Bob’s imaginative idea, building a series of models to study how home gardeners would react. Then we researched the most popular wheelbarrow brands to size the product accurately. Our industrial designers carved out a visual design that looked sleek and rugged. We designed hooks for long-handled tools, a waterproof phone cubby, and holders for hand tools and beverages. These innovative features were built around the main tray that accommodates everything from flower flats to 80 lb. concrete bags—all while allowing access to the main wheelbarrow bucket.

BOLTGROUP engineers created the 3D CAD for manufacturing and ran FEA to optimize the structural design. Our brand team created the Little Burros branding, packaging, and website. And we helped Bob find a competitive, domestic molder so the Little Burro could proudly claim “Made in the USA”.

What happened next was no surprise (at least to us!).

• Little Burros was named the Retailer’s Choice for best new product at the 2014 National Hardware Show. The booth spilled into the aisles with appointments, and #burrobuddies Instagramming was all over Las Vegas.
• Earned placement in Ace Hardware, True Value, and Tractor Supply Co stores across North America.
• Evolved Little Burro to smaller footprint product, Burro Buddy, which won Retailer’s Choice for best new product in 2017 (again!), and earned placement in Lowe’s and Walmart
• National Hardware Show recognized them yet again with “Most Outstanding and Innovative Product”
• Earned appearance on Shark Tank (they smartly held on an offer from one of the sharks)
• Went on Instagram Live to give their followers a behind the scenes look at how their product and brand came to be