Feedback AV: New Manufacturer Helps Feed America

Feedback AV is a new manufacturer in the custom electronics industry founded on two guiding principles: one business-oriented and one philanthropic.

On the business side, the Jupiter, Fla-based company aims to give its integrators/customers an active role in determining the product mix and features it carries. To achieve that mission, Feedback AV has some real star power on its side. Not only is the company owned by the folks at Audio America, a successful distributor that is part of the PowerHouse Alliance, but former Niles veterans Al Burdett and Mike “Sparky” Detmer, who in June 2012 announced he was leaving Niles, are onboard as advisors to interact with integrators and to manage the product strategy and manufacturing, which will be done with OEM relationships in China.

Feedback AV will be offering integrators high-margin products such as cables and mounts with more categories to follow. Part of its mission is honest, active and frequent communication - “feedback” - with its dealers.

“Everyone thinks they can build a better mousetrap. Well, this is their chance,” says Feedback AV CEO Ryan Munder, who also is CEO of Audio America. The company will be directly soliciting dealers for feedback to design and innovate home A/V products. Munder promises the company will already have “mildly innovative product” at its launch, which is scheduled for December 1, 2012 (product will not be available to ship until January 1, 2013.)

Dealers will be incentivized with discounts and rewards for their feedback, starting with just responding to a simple “Question of the Day” on Feedback AV’s website. “Our goal is to redefine the experience when purchasing electronics,” says Munder.

The philanthropic part of Feedback AV involves “feeding back” America. A percentage of every sale at Feedback AV will go to the charity Feeding America, which supports more than 200 food banks across the nation. Every $1 donated to the charity equals 8 meals for low-income U.S. citizens. The charity network supplies food to 37 million Americans each year. Already, Feedback AV has donated more than 100,000 meals to the charity.

“I just want to inspire this industry and look at this business in a different light, and hopefully inspire others to give back in different capacities,” says Munder.