Protective Enclosures Company: From a 20-Minute Conversation to a Global Business
- Flori Meeks Hatchett
- 7 days ago
- 7 min read
It was nearly 20 years ago when brothers Jarad and Justin King started wondering out loud why enjoying television outdoors was such a challenging and expensive proposition. They were sitting on the back porch of a home Justin had just built and briefly discussed adding a large-screen TV to the backyard — at least until it became obvious that installing one would cost $10,000 to $12,000, far more than his budget would allow.
They went on to solve that dilemma for themselves and countless others with the establishment of Protective Enclosures Company. In addition to its patented consumer product, The TV Shield®, the Florida-headquartered company manufactures TV and digital display enclosures for consumers, businesses, and organizations around the globe. Its products are used in backyards, outdoor kitchens, and pool settings, along with arenas, stadiums, theme parks, restaurants, bars, airports, healthcare facilities, hotels, schools, training facilities, government buildings, and retail environments.
These days, the company estimates its enclosures are used in over 59,000 locations in 58 countries.
While the company’s growth has been remarkable, Jarad measures success by more than sales figures and global reach.
“I take a lot of pride in manufacturing in the U.S.,” he said. “That’s where we started, and that’s where we want to continue. I take pride in providing a quality product. And we take pride in being different. We all deal with trying to reach customer service and get a real person on the phone, and it’s abysmal, right? We pick up the phone and go above and beyond on the customer service side of things.”
Jarad is equally proud of how he and Justin built the company. Neither attended college, and much of what they learned about business came through experience, persistence, and self-education.
“We created our own opportunities,” Jarad said. “We were always grinding, learning, and teaching ourselves. I didn’t know what P&L (profit and loss) statements or cash flow statements were until I started my first business. I didn’t know what a balance sheet was. All of those things were self-taught.”
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Those entrepreneurial lessons started fairly early. Jarad remembers the brothers, as kids, finding stray balls from an area golf course and trying to resell them. Justin’s first “official business” was a staffing company, and Jarad, inspired by his big brother, later founded a smoothie shop.
While those early ventures helped him develop his business skills, Jarad credits his wife with motivating him to build something lasting.
“That was a big part of how we grew up. We wanted to make sure we were able to provide for our families and any future children,” he said. “Once I got married, it kicked me into gear to be better and build something for ourselves and our future.”
A 20-Minute Talk
The idea that became Protective Enclosures Company started as a casual conversation between the brothers.
It didn’t take long to determine that a backyard TV was cost-prohibitive. What about buying a TV designed for indoor use, they wondered, and finding a way to protect it from the elements?
“We just sat there and talked about it,” Jarad said. “OtterBox protective cases were pretty big for cell phones, and we said, ‘What about something like that for an indoor television? You’d just make the enclosure.’”
That would be a great idea, they agreed. And then they moved on with their day. The idea sat for another two years.
By the time they revisited it, Jarad and Justin were running a successful marketing company. Business was good, Jarad said, but he began wondering if they’d been overlooking an even greater opportunity.
“I walked into my brother’s office and said, ‘Hey, remember that television enclosure we talked about years ago? Let’s do it.’” Justin liked the idea. Turning it into reality would prove more complicated. Both brothers knew they’d need help if they were serious about inventing, manufacturing, and selling an enclosure that could reliably protect televisions outdoors.
“We knew how to run a business, but we had zero knowledge in product development or bringing products to market, anything like that,” Jarad said. “We ended up hiring an engineer to put our idea on paper.”
The engineering process took about a year. Jarad and Justin, meanwhile, went to work finding a suitable manufacturing facility for their future product. They were not ready to invest in the large infrastructure or personnel that they’d need to make, store, and distribute their product. They found a site in southeast Kansas.
Then came an important reality check.
“We took the year’s worth of engineering we’d paid for and tried to make the first product, Jarad said. “It was a complete fail. That’s when I learned that what engineers put on engineering drawings and files does not typically translate to a final product.”
Designing an enclosure was one thing. Building one that consistently protected televisions from weather, moisture, and wear was another. The team spent months refining the design and testing materials.
“You’re dealing with plastics and then weatherproofing and sealing and making sure that it’s a good product, and that took quite a bit of time. We engaged the engineer in 2009, and our first sale was in February 2012.”
While Protective Enclosures Company has updated The TV Shield multiple times over the years, Jarad still has the first version in his office.
Finding Customers in Unexpected Places
Protective Enclosures Company entered the market with two advantages: a strong team and a distinctive product.
“There were a few things on the market at that point, but they were much more industrial, like big metal boxes for manufacturing or industrial applications,” Jarad said.
When he researched competing products, he saw that their websites invited interested customers to call for a quote. He and Justin wanted to make their products available for online purchases.
“We really pushed on the e-commerce side. We built awareness through some trade shows, but most of our business has been built through our online presence, search engine optimization efforts, and pay-per-click advertising.”
Jarad and Justin expected consumers to be their primary customers: people who like the idea of watching TV while they’re on their back porch or by the pool. Maybe, they thought, some restaurants would be interested in using The TV Shield for outdoor dining areas.
“What we saw pretty quickly, within six to eight months, was that our products were selling in places we never would have imagined, from mines and manufacturing facilities to sports stadiums and schools.”
With demand growing among commercial customers, the company built an additional website tailored to that audience and developed The Display Shield®, an enclosure designed for indoor and outdoor digital displays.
“We really listened to the voice of customers and came out with multiple other products through the years,” Jarad said.
Knowing the Numbers
Ask Jarad what matters most in business, and he’ll start with the numbers.
“Understand your actual margins: gross margins down to all of your costs. You drive your company off that. Understand your key performance indicators, KPIs. If something’s going wrong, you have to know that quickly.”
Jarad learned that lesson while operating the smoothie shop he founded before Protective Enclosures.
“Things were fine after we opened it; we were actually profitable. Then food costs just shot through the roof. This was in 2008. I didn’t run the business understanding the financials clearly and correctly, so I didn’t adjust my prices, and ultimately, the business failed.”
So watch those numbers, Jarad now tells other entrepreneurs, and don’t be afraid to raise prices to stay profitable. Don’t be afraid to negotiate with suppliers and service providers either, he adds. Having uncomfortable conversations is better than losing the company.
Doing all of this is a constant learning process, but the information is available.
“Go online; you can learn anything these days on your own,” Jarad said. “Don’t rely only on what you learned in school.”
Protective Enclosures Company: Looking Ahead
Jarad acknowledges that the learning process is far from over for him. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, making a profit has become more challenging. Increased costs and ongoing supply-chain pressures have required the company to continually look for new efficiencies.
“We’re fighting to maintain the status quo: How can I get better shipping right now? How do I drive costs down to get back to the profitability we had a year ago?”
In recent years, the company has re-engineered some of its product lines and started manufacturing at different facilities to improve its margins.
That said, the company remains healthy. From the beginning, Jarad has had a zero-debt policy that he considers more important than ever today.
“We’re in a niche market, and we have more and more competition coming out every day from overseas. We have probably five new competing products that hit Amazon and e-commerce stores from China just in the last 90 days. This year, we changed gears to try to go after the commercial market more because of the landscape of things like this. And so, the outlook moving forward is to engineer and release new commercial products. We just came out with a full kiosk product at the beginning of this year and increased our line with
The TV Shield PRO Lite to now protect TVs and displays up to 110 inches. Both of these products are exclusively for the commercial market.”
Even in a challenging business environment, Jarad remains focused on innovating and finding new growth opportunities.
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