Elizabeth Ormesher, Everpurse, Woman Entrepreneur

I have written before about a listserv that I am on.  This past June an email popped into my box and this is what it said: 

I am on the advisory board for a brand new start-up in Chicago called EverPurse, it's a clutch bag that  charges your phone on the go. (I haven't used my phone charger in months, I just set my bag down on the charger at night and voila)

We are looking for some upscale fashion blogs to send our product to for review, are there any that those of you in fashion would recommend?

How could that not intrigue me?  There is nothing worse than watching your phone lose its juice over the course of the day.  I sometimes carry a plug but there is the fear that I will plug it in somewhere and forget the phone on the way out the door.  Everpurse sounded like a perfect solution.  I contacted Elizabeth (Liz) to talk about why, what and how. 

Liz grew up in Chicago, one block from the lake.  Her father is an entrepreneur.  He had started his own pharmaceutical marketing company.  Her mother was a teacher until the kids came along and then she shifted to working in after school programs at the local public school.  Her Mom's Dad was an entrepreneur too starting his own engineering company many years back.  Liz is the oldest in the family with a big span inbetween.  When she graduated college her older brother of the two was 11. 

After graduating high school Liz went to Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois so she could be close enough to be involved in her brothers lives. She majored in sociology. Liz did a college internship in Lima at Peace and Hope International.  The organization began after the civil war trying to help find people for families as there was alot of name confusion going on.  Eventually they evolved and Liz worked in the child abuse area giving talks around the country on how to keep your kids safe.  It was a six month program the first semester of her senior year.  It was an amazing experience.  She went alone becoming immersed in the program and Spanish. 

Following in her mothers foot steps after graduating she began to work at the Childrens Place in Chicago.  Liz worked with kids that had HIV.  She made sure the mothers were informed, that they got their kids to doctors appointments and watched their development.  She stayed for four years. 

Liz got married right after college and her husband is also an entrepreneur.  When he got into an incubator program in Silicon Valley, she went too.  She worked in a public school as a social worker for one year.  She had the idea for Everpurse and while she was in SF, she began to work on it as a side project.  Figuring that they would return to Chicago and she'd figure out the next road but the idea for Everpurse took hold.

She made ten purses and sold five.  She had been making the device at her desk.  The concept being that there is a small case that is stitched inside your purse and it charges your phone without being plugged in.  There are a few ideas of different levels of battery.  There could be one on your desk that if you just put your phone over it then over the weekend it will charge.  So she began to fine tune the idea.

She got great feedback just from selling the original pieces.  She had to add magnets so the phone doesn't jump from the charge.  The original idea was the ability to just toss your phone in your bag and it would charge.  A wireless piece that can be transferred from purse to purse would make more sense was some of the feedback.

Liz started to work with manufactures in China and the US that want to license the technology and build the products for her.  She is starting to contact handbag manufactures that might want to have this come with each purse.  Of course like all manufacturing, the more you make the more the price goes down.

Liz's journey has really just begun but today she launched the product on Kickstarter so she can crowd fund and move the idea forward.  If you want...click here and be the first to get an Everpurse and support a woman entrepreneurs first Kickstarter project.