Riverfront-based TSP Enterprises reinvents truck-bed storage

TSP Enterprises thinks it has found a better way to haul small amounts of stuff in the back of a pickup truck thanks to its new product, The Pickup Tuck.

The inspiration for The Pickup Tuck came to one of the start-up's three co-founders when he was taking hay out to his livestock. The bails of hay would slide around the truck bed and force the driver to climb into the bed to get it. The Pickup Tuck is a small-yet-sizeable add-on made of durable plastic that forms a box to keep small items, like bales of hay or golf clubs, contained near the truck's tailgate.

"Now he takes the hay out to the horses and it doesn't slide around the truck bed," says Carlton Powell, manager of business strategy & logistics at TSP Enterprises. "It's right there at the tailgate."

The 1-year-old company is a TechTown client and has established a production facility in Detroit's rivertown district. It is creating its commercial prototype that will validate the product for investors, enabling the three-person company that will raise $180,000 in seed capital to begin production.

"The focus is on the 1.5 million pickup truck owners in Michigan with kids," Powell says. "There are about 50 million pickup truck owners with kids in the U.S."

Source: Carlton Powell, manager of business strategy & logistics at TSP Enterprises
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.