DAV Patriot’s Pitch contest - Tigra Soleil - Helpful Handle

Duration: 3:45 558 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Tigra Solace, a former Air Force veteran and weapon system specialist, introduced herself as the founder and inventor of Helpful Handle, a versatile tool designed to solve the critical problem of lost or broken gear. Drawing from her experiences healing through white water rafting and building flame effects for major festivals, she identified that thousands of dollars worth of equipment often gets damaged or lost because most items lack proper handles. This issue frequently leads to injuries, with OSHA reporting over 40,000 hospitalizations annually related to such incidents. To address this, Tigra created an easily adjustable multi-use tool that combines a climbing-quality carabiner with an adjustable cam strap, effectively creating a single device capable of securing hundreds of different items ranging from water bottles and skis to wheelchairs and bicycles. The invention is designed to be universally useful for everyone from ravers and ranchers to busy parents and extreme athletes, ensuring that people can carry their belongings hands-free and safely. Beyond its practical application as a tool, Helpful Handle serves as a mission-driven brand with the goal of donating a majority of its profits to river conservation and helping disadvantaged individuals access "river medicine," which Tigra credits with saving her life. The business is currently generating revenue through direct customer sales, custom corporate branding for events and teams, wholesale partnerships, and promotional product placements, all while maintaining strong profit margins despite a low cost of goods. Recent success for the fledgling company includes its biggest month in less than 30 days, where over 600,000 viewers on social media channels translated into $5,000 in sales without spending any money on advertising. Major retailers such as Bass Pro Shops and REI have publicly reached out to submit the product to their buyers, and the brand has secured co-branding opportunities with large events like the Envision Festival. Tigra emphasized that pitch competitions like this one are vital for providing momentum during a critical growth stage, and she actively sought connections with retail distributors, mentorship from those who have scaled products, and partnerships with companies looking to feature their logos on promotional items. Concluding her presentation, Tigra reflected on the important lessons learned at DAV Patriot Boot Camp, specifically the imperative to take care of one's people and one's stuff, which aligns perfectly with Helpful Handle's core mission to help people handle their belongings. She encouraged the audience to follow the brand on Instagram to interact with its media and make a difference, while expressing gratitude for the support received from the community. Her pitch ended with a call to action for anyone in the room who has served to connect with her, highlighting how the tool not only solves a physical problem but also embodies the values of care and safety that she learned during her military service.

Read the full video transcript

Tigra Solace is an Air Force veteran and former weapon system specialist. She is the founder and inventor of Helpful Handle, a multi-use tool made to carry everything from water bottles to wheelchairs. Tigra is an alumna of DAV Patriot Boot Camp's Spring 2026 cohort. >> As a service disabled veteran who found healing through guiding white water rivers around the globe, building flame effects for some of the world's most iconic festivals, and living on a ranch, I saw a common problem. Thousands of dollars worth of gear getting lost and broken, and sometimes leading to people getting injured. I'm Tigra Solace, the founder and inventor of Helpful Handle. Everyone has stuff to handle, yet most things we carry don't have a handle. Currently, people are using ropes and straps that fail and cause objects to fly, slings that tangle, and existing attachment existing attachment points that fail, causing items to fall. According to OSHA, over 40,000 people are sent to the hospital every year, hundreds of which don't come home. And this is why I invented Helpful Handle, an easily adjustable multi-use tool that integrates a climbing quality carabiner with an adjustable cam strap, creating one tool that has hundreds of uses. It can create attachment point on skis, water bottles, yoga mats, power tools. You can gather groups of items, or create an attachment point on strollers, bicycles, wheelchairs, motorcycles, almost anything. Helpful Handle makes it easy and safe to carry items hands-free. It is useful to everyone, ravers to ranchers, busy parents, extreme athletes to people who need a little helping hand with accessibility. It makes a fantastic promotional product, and Helpful is not only as a tool, but as a mission. It is our goal to give back a majority of our profits to conserving rivers and helping disadvantaged people get access to the same river medicine that saved my life. We are currently making money in three ways: direct customer, custom business visits branding through events, corporations, and teams, and wholesale partnerships with a handful of retailers across the United States. At $4 cost of goods, we have strong margins. Helpful Handle just had its biggest month. In less than 30 days, we had over 600,000 viewers on just one of our channels. This converted to $5,000 in sales and didn't cost us a single cent in ad dollars. Retailers like Bass Pro Shops and REI publicly reached out to us asking us to submit Helpful Handle to their buyers. We've been co-branded with big events like Envision Festival with over 10,000 attendees. We are booked for trade shows, and pitch competitions like this are putting the wind under the wings of my fledgling business at a critical stage of our growth. If you have any connections with retail distributors, please connect me. If you've scaled a product, I have love mentorship, and if you buy promotional products for your company, your logo belongs on Helpful Handle. Let's make a deal. Also, easy way you can all make a big difference is to follow Helpful Handle on Insta and interact with my media. Everybody in this room who served learns some important lessons. Two of those being take care of your people and your stuff. And this is exactly Helpful Handle's mission. Help people handle stuff. Thank you. >> Awesome job, Teegra.