Behind the Scenes...How LEVO Came to Be
- News
- 28 Apr, 2020
The story behind LevoStore.com and its inception is one that epitomizes the adage – “opposites attract.” This phrase couldn’t be truer when it comes to Dave and Nan Simon, who have been married for fifteen years and have two children together, Molly and Brock. Dave and Nan created LevoStore.com to bring uniquely patented, hands-free stands for tablets, books, and e-readers to the masses.
Dave is an entrepreneur and inventor who touts that he’s only ever had one job, and that was the four years in which he worked as a bartender while he attended Wayne State University in Detroit. Nan, on the other end of the spectrum, had always worked in the corporate world as an attorney. She grew up in Lakeland and attended Florida State University, before joining the FBI for a five-year stint of chasing bad guys in Chicago. Who would have thought those two backgrounds could ever mesh in a single business?
Their story goes like this:
Dave first harnessed and nurtured his entrepreneurial spirit at the young age of 14. His dream was to have a custom furniture shop, but that quickly evolved into plastics as he encountered a problem he needed to solve - he wanted to build furniture for his pet birds, but they kept chewing through them. His solution was to design a machine that could apply a wood grain texture on PVC pipe.
Initially, Dave created his own machinery and products in his basement before a friend with an injection molding machine shop allowed him to use $50,000 worth of equipment. This auspicious turn of events allowed him to streamline his process and within a year, he had both paid back the cost of the equipment he used and helped to create the Parrot Tower, which was the best-selling bird gym in the United States for many years!
In 1988, he founded the company that would eventually become PetStockRoom which was
A direct-to-consumer Internet and catalog retailer. After Nan left the FBI in 2003 and joined Dave in business full-time, the company quickly grew to fill an 80+ page catalog containing thousands of items. In just the first 40 pages alone, inventions that Dave and Nan had designed were featured. Dave and Nan sold PetStockRoom and its corresponding website in the mid-2000s. But a few years earlier, they had developed a separate invention that would eventually become their bread and butter.
In 1998, The Levo Bookholder Company was formed. Although Dave and Nan felt their book holder was a great invention, PetStockRoom consumed most of their time. When PetStockRoom was sold, they were able to shift their focus to the Levo Company, allowing room for new ideas and inventions to be born. With the introduction of tablets to the marketplace and the rise of tech savvy consumers, they decided to take the book holder and design it to accommodate tablets. Thus, the Levo Brand was born, becoming the first true, hands-free experience that didn't require a desktop to hold one’s tablet hands-free!
Since then, LevoStore.com has designed and developed many life enhancing inventions for individuals of all ages. Their products are used world-wide and have been praised by medical communities, schools, professionals and consumers throughout the world. With their “sky is the limit” attitude, new ideas and inventions are always on the drawing board and they are continually designing cutting-edge solutions to technological advances in our tech savvy world.
Dave is an entrepreneur and inventor who touts that he’s only ever had one job, and that was the four years in which he worked as a bartender while he attended Wayne State University in Detroit. Nan, on the other end of the spectrum, had always worked in the corporate world as an attorney. She grew up in Lakeland and attended Florida State University, before joining the FBI for a five-year stint of chasing bad guys in Chicago. Who would have thought those two backgrounds could ever mesh in a single business?
Their story goes like this:
Dave first harnessed and nurtured his entrepreneurial spirit at the young age of 14. His dream was to have a custom furniture shop, but that quickly evolved into plastics as he encountered a problem he needed to solve - he wanted to build furniture for his pet birds, but they kept chewing through them. His solution was to design a machine that could apply a wood grain texture on PVC pipe.
Initially, Dave created his own machinery and products in his basement before a friend with an injection molding machine shop allowed him to use $50,000 worth of equipment. This auspicious turn of events allowed him to streamline his process and within a year, he had both paid back the cost of the equipment he used and helped to create the Parrot Tower, which was the best-selling bird gym in the United States for many years!
In 1988, he founded the company that would eventually become PetStockRoom which was
A direct-to-consumer Internet and catalog retailer. After Nan left the FBI in 2003 and joined Dave in business full-time, the company quickly grew to fill an 80+ page catalog containing thousands of items. In just the first 40 pages alone, inventions that Dave and Nan had designed were featured. Dave and Nan sold PetStockRoom and its corresponding website in the mid-2000s. But a few years earlier, they had developed a separate invention that would eventually become their bread and butter.
In 1998, The Levo Bookholder Company was formed. Although Dave and Nan felt their book holder was a great invention, PetStockRoom consumed most of their time. When PetStockRoom was sold, they were able to shift their focus to the Levo Company, allowing room for new ideas and inventions to be born. With the introduction of tablets to the marketplace and the rise of tech savvy consumers, they decided to take the book holder and design it to accommodate tablets. Thus, the Levo Brand was born, becoming the first true, hands-free experience that didn't require a desktop to hold one’s tablet hands-free!
Since then, LevoStore.com has designed and developed many life enhancing inventions for individuals of all ages. Their products are used world-wide and have been praised by medical communities, schools, professionals and consumers throughout the world. With their “sky is the limit” attitude, new ideas and inventions are always on the drawing board and they are continually designing cutting-edge solutions to technological advances in our tech savvy world.
