Ben Franklin invented bifocals 225 years ago, and they haven’t changed much since. Finally, a Van Nuys company has what it believes is an improvement, and now it is trying to bring its marketing effort into focus.
Zoom Focus Eyewear LLC is about to launch a limited ad campaign, promoting its newfangled eyeglass technology via the Google search engine and in print.
The Van Nuys company makes TruFocals, glasses that could conceivably replace bifocals. They went on sale in August on the Internet at $895 a pair.
Each lens has two parts: The outer lens that corrects distance vision – for driving, for example – and an inner lens that’s filled with a fluid and can be squeezed with a hand-control slider on the bridge of the glasses to correct near vision – for reading, for example.
Chief Executive Adrian Koppes said sales have increased every month since the product launched, but declined to give figures. Until now, the company hasn’t done any advertising, and it isn’t ready to employ a sales force to convince optometrists to offer TruFocals to the 35 million people who buy bifocals each year.
“We would like to work with doctors, but it’s a tremendous expense,” Koppes told the Business Journal.
He wants to find venture capitalists, private equity funds or other investors to bankroll large-scale marketing.
Not everyone sees the product’s success as clearly, though.
Tim Hart, a spokesman for the California Optometric Association, said the price for a pair of TruFocals is a challenge in the market. Patients can buy bifocals or even progressive lenses, which correct vision with several distances blended into one lens, for a substantially lower cost.
“Why would it be more convenient to spend that kind of money and then have to adjust the glasses manually?” Hart asked.
For now, TruFocals is funded by private investors, including ex-Amgen Chief Executive Gordon Binder; computer angel investor Jonathan Seybold; and inventor Stephen Kurtin, who has been issued 30 patents and developed the TruFocals technology. Kurtin founded the company three years ago.
Koppes said the company’s initial goal was to make sure its facility in Van Nuys could manufacture the product and then build up to anticipated demand.
The company’s sales, which have come without advertising, have validated the product, he said.
“We have shown that we meet a need in the marketplace, even though it’s $895 for an unknown product from an unknown company,” he said. “Each month, more of our glasses sell because of referrals. We interpret that as a satisfied user talking to someone else.”
