How It All Started | Flight Fillow - Reinventing the Neck Pillow
Hi! I’m Georgia McKinney, Founder of Flight Fillow. I’m so glad you landed here!
Flight Fillow is my creative passion, and I never would have thought it would come to life and I’d be here today. This is my story.
IT ALL STARTED WHEN…
I was fresh out of college packing for a weekend trip to New York, and had the age-old internal debate of
“should I? Or should I not bring my neck pillow”?
I wanted the comfort of my neck pillow on the flight but hated the inconvenience of carrying it around. Since it was a short trip I figured I should pack light.
I left my neck pillow at home.
THE A-HA! MOMENT
What a terrible decision!
I got on the flight, and my seat was SO uncomfortable. This was a budget airline: It basically felt like sitting on plastic, with no recline, no legroom, not even a real seat-back tray. AND, I had the middle seat.
In-flight beverage or snacks? Yeah, that’ll be $12.
In a desperate effort to make 2 hours not feel like 2 years, I crumpled up my sweater to try to use it as a pillow.
I crumpled one way. Then another. Then another. Just trying to get comfortable. And then I found if I rolled my sweater a certain way, it actually felt similar to my neck pillow. BUT, as soon as my head nodded off it would unroll and I had to start all over again.
I thought, “This stinks -- I need something to hold this together and keep its shape. Like a sleeve of some kind.” It was a classic ‘there has to be a better way’ moment.
And THAT was the birth of Flight Fillow.
GETTING STARTED…
I came back from my trip and immediately went to the fabric store to make a prototype. I worked with my dad (Papa Flight Fillow!) to sew together this idea.
We tried it out on that same sweater and it worked! I started using it on all my trips.
Pretty soon my friends, family, and strangers next to me on the flights were asking me about it. When I showed it to them they were saying it would be a huge help not only for comfort, but for making extra space in their luggage.
That’s when I realized this was so much more than I originally thought.
FLIGHT FILLOW WAS LAUNCHED TO SERVE A GROWING PROBLEM.
Picture this: It’s almost midnight, and your flight is at 6am -- you’ve spent the last THREE HOURS packing. Your suitcase is stuffed to the brim and just when you think you’ve got everything inside, you zip it shut and spot that hoodie *still* sitting on your bed. UGH -- how are you gonna cram this inside now? Oh my god you’ll have to repack the whole thing. What are you gonna have to swap out to make it fit?
Flight Fillow makes your decision easy -- you don’t have to choose, bring it all!
Flight Fillow turns that extra hoodie, sweater, or jacket into a comfortable travel neck pillow. Simply roll up your garment into the Flight Fillow sleeve, pull out the arms, and BAM -- you just made a neck pillow to keep you comfortable all flight. Wanna add your wallet, headphones, eyemask, and other items? Go for it! Flight Fillow expands as big or as little as you desire. It’s like having an extra carry-on that the airline WON’T charge you for!
Never choose between comfort and convenience again.
FLIGHT FILLOW TODAY...
Since launching in June 2018, we’ve sold nearly 1,000 patent pending Flight Filllows. We’ve been featured on WGN, Business Insider, MSN, and other local news stations. How cool is that?! The girl who couldn’t get comfortable on a budget airline is now on TV!
WHO AM I
I never planned to be an entrepreneur. I actually took an entrepreneurial class in college and then told myself this wasn’t what I wanted to do… but here I am!
I work a corporate job during the day as a Contract Negotiator and work to change the way people travel on nights and weekends.
This journey has taught me so much, but most of all, it has taught me that you can figure anything out if you look hard enough. If you want something bad enough, there are no excuses!
TRY FLIGHT FILLOW TODAY
I’m so excited to continue this journey, and I hope you’ll hop on board and help Flight Fillow take off!
Safe travels,
Georgia
Check out our interview on WGN's Steve Cochran Morning Show:
The Faces Behind Flight Fillow
My name is Georgia and I am the Inventor and Founder of the Flight Fillow. I live in the suburbs of Chicago and have a full time day job in business. I spend my nights and weekends changing the way people travel (via Flight Fillow)!
When I’m not working, I’m either traveling the world, playing with my fur child named Tammy, or doing something new in efforts to grow as a person. Some of my favorite trips include Ireland, Spain, Greece, and Japan. My most recent trip included Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany for Oktoberfest!
Want to get the inside scoop on Flight Fillow's journey to growth? Follow me on instagram - I am happy to share this exciting experience with you! @georgiamckinney
This is Chris, he wears MANY hats when it comes to Flight Fillow. He reviews every Flight Fillow to ensure the highest quality, takes our product photos, helps to sew prototypes, is my go-to for second opinions and heading checks for big decisions, and is the best moral support!
Chris is a US Army veteran and grew up in Germany. He loves to travel the world, his favorite place to visit being Japan.
Another fun fact? He’s my boyfriend and favorite travel buddy
This is one of our amazingly talented sewing contractors - Marriah! 🌟
Marriah lives in Washington state with her 5 dogs, 2 kids, and husband who is a cop 👮 She has been sewing since 5th grade as a hobby which naturally developed into a cut and sew business
Marriah is filled with wanderlust and travels as often as possible! ✈️ We are SO fortunate to have Marriah on our team.
This is Brad - our super sharp Accountant! He knows all the ins and out of taxes and numbers making him an important part of the team (aka he keeps us out of trouble with the IRS, which is 🔑)
Brad spent 3 months living abroad in Panama and likes to go back to visit often. When he isn’t visiting Panama, he is living in downtown Chicago with his dog Romper 🐶
Fun Fact: Brad and I used to ride the school bus together in high school. Who knew we’d be working together all these years later?!
This is our intern - Ian. Although he’s only a senior in high school, he adds a lot of value to our team. Ian does a ton of research to help Flight Fillow learn and grow. Have a question about PPC or SEO? Ian is your go to guy! He is also amazingly talented in video editing. He was key during auditions for Shark Tank (aka the audition video edits were all done by him).
Ian has traveled all across the globe and loves to play video games. Another fun fact? He is my younger (but taller) brother
This is Mandy! She is a key 🔑 player in making Flight Fillow successful as a seamstress at London Peach Sewing Co. (the company that cuts and sews our Flight Fillows). ✂️
Mandy is 35 years old and married for 14 years with two kids! She loves to sing 🎤 🎶 and often does so while she sews (Mandy Concerts can often be found on @lpsewingco’s IG Story).
Another fun fact? She has 14 tattoos!
This is Mike, he is our PR guru! A few months ago we learned the power of PR and because of that, we brought Mike onto our team. We are so thrilled and grateful to work with him.
Here are some fun tidbits about Mike:
🎤Mike lives in the Dallas suburbs but considers himself a transplanted Chicagoan. You can take the boy out of Chicago but you can’t take Chicago out of the boy.
🎤His dog’s name is Cubbie after their beloved favorite baseball team. 🐻💙❤️⚾️
🎤He was in the radio biz for over 20 years and has two sons. Josh is 20 and Zach is 17. Zach is an actor who recently starred in a short film.
🎤Mike has been married to his wife, Carrie, for 23 years.
This is Marc. He is our attorney and has been very helpful in many aspects of this business. We first started working together to patent Flight Fillow, which extended to Marc helping me establish an LLC, file for a trademark, and advise regarding licensing opportunities and many more! 🌟
Here are a few tidbits about Marc:
🔹marc regularly appears on panels at comic and entertainment conventions about law and pop culture.
🔹he is a sushi fanatic even though he grew up in rural Iowa and never even had it until he was in his 30s!
🔹If he wasn’t a lawyer he would probably be a therapist. He’s a trained hypnotherapist and does volunteer mental health work for 7cups.com.
🔹his first granted patent was for a puzzle with fuzz on it to make it more appealing to small children.
Want to work with Marc? His company is called Legal Inspiration and you can contact him through his website: www.legalinspiration.com