When the sharks begin asking further questions, Joe reveals that each screen is custom-made, which understandably causes some very upset noises among the sharks. He only makes $1.50 on each screen sold, due to the window manufacturers being unwilling to budge on the price. Then, Joe explains that he only made about $40,000 profit on those sales. The sharks are blown away by this at first.
He got a patent, and the company seems to be doing well, with $5.1 million in sales during the previous year.
#Flex screen windows
So he invented Flexscreen, which uses a proprietary frame that bends without breaking, making it easy to pop the windows in and out of your windows. After 20 years in the window business, he got tired of seeing bent, broken aluminum frames. Joe Altieri, a “window guy,” came up with the idea for Flexscreen while trying out different things in his garage. Business: Flexible window screens for home.
#Flex screen update
Will the sharks be open to a deal with this potential new standard during the Season 11 pitch? Find out in our Shark Tank Flexscreen update and pitch recap.
Flexscreen is a new standard for windows. If you’re tired of replacing your window screens due to bent frames, Joe Altieri has a solution for you. Standard window screens are stiff, and the frames break and bend easily. You can contact Patrick by email at or via Twitter. Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. “I gave up my career,” he said, “so it was either make FlexScreen successful, or start selling cars.” “If an entire industry is doing something one way, why change? We had to give them a good reason.”Īnd for Altieri, there were really two options. “We’ve been overly aggressive in bringing our message to our customers and our customers’ customers as well.”Īltieri said doggedly pursuing his goal was a key part of his success. “Depending on growth this year, we may have between 70 and 90 employees down the line,” he said. The Murrysville production facility along with the other three typically employ about 40 workers each, a number he hopes to boost over the next year. I recently traded it in with a quarter-million miles on it.”Īltieri has begun selling FlexScreens to Canadian consumers, with an eye toward expansion into Europe, South American and Australian markets. “When I started, I had aįord F-150 (pickup truck) I used to drive samples around. “Just creating the process to make a FlexScreen is a $1 million investment,” he said. “With ours, it’s closer to one of every 2,000.”Īltieri also credited the group of investors who helped him launch and grow the company. “With traditional screens, about one of every 25 gets damaged during shipping.
“Not a lot of people are doing mail-order window screens, because they don’t ship well,” he said. “We have this unique product that no one else is doing.”Īltieri patented the FlexScreen design - which uses high-carbon, oil-tempered spring steel as its base - and the screen’s resistance to the type of easy damage inflicted on other window screens puts the company in an advantageous position. “When we ordered our first semi-trailer, we drove over to the plant, and when we pulled in and she saw that trailer with ‘FlexScreen’ written on the side, she started crying,” he said.įlexScreen has nothing to cry about today: Altieri has partnered with multiple window manufacturers who have begun tailoring their products to accommodate FlexScreens, he is working on sales agreements with national retailers like Lowe’s and Menard’s home improvement stores, and is shipping his product all over the country every day. his wife had trouble accepting the reality that her husband was staking the family’s financial future on an invention he created in their garage. It has a thin frame that disappears into the screen track, it is coated with PVC so that it won’t dent and tear like traditional aluminum screens, and it can be bent nearly in half to pop in and out of a window frame.Įven as Altieri began laying the groundwork about five years ago for what today is FlexScreen - a nationwide company with manufacturing facilities in Murrysville, Detroit, Alpharetta, Ga., and Vermillion, S.D. “So you have 100-year-old technology on modern windows.”Īltieri, 43, developed and patented the first “flexible” window screen after more than 15 years working in the window and door industry. “The current patent on window screens dates back to 1907,” Altieri said. When Joe Altieri began seeking a way to make a better window screen in his Plum garage, he was just looking to improve on what was century-old technology.
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