Business & Tech

Area Residents Compete to Get Product on Walmart Shelves

iLowerBP, a product meant to help lower blood pressure, is among the products competing for Walmart's Get on the Shelf contest.

Jeremy Lessaris of Lake in the Hills has been out shaking hands and encouraging friends, family and even strangers to vote but his campaigning has nothing to do with the recent primary election or politics. 

Lessaris and his wife, Stephanie Lessaris, are competing for a chance for their product, iLowerBP, which they originally created out of their Lake in the Hills home, to be sold on Wal-Mart’s shelves. iLowerBP is one of 4,000 products up for vote in Walmart's Get on the Shelf contest

"I feel like I'm Obama out on the campaign trail," Jeremy Lessaris said. 

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The Lake in the Hills couple and owners of iLowerBP have gone so far as to buy a billboard in New York City’s Times Square with hopes of drawing votes. Voting can be done on Wal-Mart's Get on the Shelf iLowerBP contest page

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Jeremy Lessaris said he hopes the "campaigning" and billboard will all be for a good cause.

Winning Walmart's contest could mean "overnight success" for iLowerBP, which is a 12-minute fitness program that can be done from the comfort of your couch and is designed to help lower blood pressure through yoga-style breathing and isometric hand squeezing exercises, Jeremy Lessaris said.

Jeremy and Stephanie Lessaris launched their business in January. The iLowerBP kits include the book High Blood Pressure For Dummies, an iLowerBP Exercise DVD, two Heart Shaped Tension Devices and an electronic armband blood pressure monitor. Kits cost between $99.99 and $119.99

The first round for voting in the Get on the Shelf contest already is under way and will continue through April 3. Ten finalists among the 4,000 competing will be announced by Walmart.com on April 4.

Ultimately, three winners will be selected after the second round of voting, expected to go from April 11 through April 24.

The top winner will get the chance to have their product sold on the shelves at Walmart and placement on Walmart.com. The second- and third-place finishers will have the chance to have their products sold on Walmart.com.  

iLowerBP is being sold online and at select retail stores and some alternative/holistic medicine businesses. Attention through Walmart could be huge, Lessaris said. 

"For a start-up company like ours, simply to have our product on the homepage of Walmart would be an overnight success," Lessaris said. "Walmart.com gets millions of visitors every day."

How Did iLowerBP Come to Be? 

Jeremy and Stephanie Lessaris got the idea for iLowerBP from a friend, Barry Shore of West Dundee, who was 71 years old and had been suffering from high blood pressure since his early 30s.

Shore had been using blood pressure medication but that medication began to stop having its proper effect.

Shore then turned to natural alternatives. He spent around $900 on a medical device that taught him how to breathe and another $900 on a hand-squeezing tool. Both devices helped him to lower his blood pressure.

Shore figured he could create a similar kit at a fraction of the price. He put it together, used it himself with successful results and then began to sell it on eBay. 

Shore brought his product to Jeremy Lessaris, an accomplished entrepreneur, to help polish the product, expand distribution and continue to sell his kits, according to the iLowerBP website.

Jeremy and Stephanie Lessaris worked with neighbors and partners Clyde and Paige Passman over the past two years on research and development of the kits.

In October, they partnered with Lambs Farm, a local community rehabilitation facility, to employ adults with developmental disabilities to help assemble the kits and for inventory control.

iLowerBP was launched in January. 

"We made instructions, put the kit together and used it for a couple years before we brought it to the market," Jeremy Lessaris said. 

Read more on iLowerBP on iLowerBP's website. Vote for iLowerBP by visiting Walmart's Get off the Shelf contest page.


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