MattWorld — Entrepreneurial Inventions (2002–2005)
Alpha Slips Inc.
Compact Disk Organization System
Origins
As the original vinyl generation, I grew up surrounded by Sealtest milk cartons filled with records during a magical time when the greatest bands in history were releasing all-time classics in an endless, steady stream. Week after week, month after month, it was "Hey Jude", "We Are the Champions", "Whole Lotta Rosie"—you name it—puncturing virgin ears for the very first time. Google best hits of 1977 and be amazed.
My dad was an OG audiophile who sang opera in high school, then spent scads of money on the highest-fidelity stereo equipment to blast the living shit out of his Beethoven and opera music. When dad wasn't home, my brothers scrambled to blast the living shit out of their rock'n'roll music. Nothing beats those amazing sounds growing up.
My first serious lesson in high fidelity happened around age 7 when my brother Peter sat me down between two speakers to marvel at the first real stereo sound of Beatles Rubber Soul (everything prior was recorded in mono). On my 12th birthday, I received my first portable record player with Queen's 45 RPM of Bohemian Rhapsody (B-side: Need Someone to Love). Due to its length of 5 minutes and 55 seconds, record executives at that time believed it was too long and would never be a hit. This was, after all, the era of two and a half minute hit singles popularized by song writing geniuses like the Beatles.
I was handed my first hand-me-down component stereo system at age 14, courtesy of older brothers now firmly in the grip of dad's addiction, and now acquiring progressively powerful sound systems. During my early teens, my brother Dan would often return home excited from Sam the Record Man clutching the latest new release. He'd be like, "I just bought Aerosmith's new album. It's called Toys in the Attic. Let's give it a spin!" WOW. Same with Frampton Comes Alive, Rush 2112, Who's Next, Joe's Garage, Live at Budokan—it never stopped. My first concert happened at age 15 with Boston's amazing guitar ship tour at Ottawa's Landsdowne Park on August 25, 1978. My absolute favorite concert was U2 Achtung Baby at the Montreal forum on March 23, 1992, thanks to by my good friend Derek Medland.
My brother Peter bought his first mega stereo using his first Visa card then spent the next 30 years paying it off. His deep and eclectic taste in rock'n'roll music made his room the place for maximum volume introductions to the amazing songs of Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Alan Parsons Project, Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Grand Funk Railroad, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Queen, Supertramp, Steely Dan, 10cc, and Yes. Blasting that drum solo in Spartacus Triumvirat is one of my fondest memories of those early years in the high-quality world of sound.
The Idea
In 1982, when I was 18 years-old, I had a great idea about how to better organize those records in the milk cartons. Coining my invention "Alpha-Clips", I went to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) in Ottawa to do a manual patent search that confirmed my big idea hadn't already been taken. My victory was short-lived however as the compact disc made its debut to the world later that year.
15 years later, as my aging peers and I struggled to organize the hundreds of CDs in our collections, and strained to read the small text on those spines, the idea of Alpha-Clips morphed into Alpha-Slips and I dived right in. With Matt-A-Graphics in it's zenith, I poured money into developing a prototype for a compact disc organization system with white styrene plastic dividers printed with black UV silk-screened ink to separate larger disc collections by letter, category, artist, and genre (just like the record store).
The Company
Click to see complete product line order form
After the website was up and sales started coming in, I was contacted by a specialty promo company in the U.S.A. offering to subsidize the production of an "As Seen on TV" test market commercial which included 50 placements on both MTV and VH1. Unfortunately, sales generated by the ad were underwhelming, so along with my weekly web orders, the remaining inventory was sold at local home organization and record stores until the 1000 starter packs, theme and artist slips were gone.
The End
The day I ripped all 400 of my CDs into my first Apple iPod, I knew the CDs days were numbered. In 1995, Alpha-Slips Inc. was amalgamated into Matt-A-Graphics Inc. to write off the loss, and Alpha-Slips became (rock'n'roll) history.
