A letter from the creator of Versacarry®, Justin Sitz:
I am often asked: "How did you come up with the idea for Versacarry?" Odd as it may sound, I owe the creative spark to a fire in June of 2010, that took my home and all my belongings.
My first reaction was shock that everything I owned was now a pile of rubble in a blackened hole. Thankfully, my younger brother and I were not home sleeping when the fire broke out. I will forever be grateful that we were both up and out of the house early that day. Unfortunately, my German Shepherd was at home, and I lost her.
The day my house burned down it was pouring rain, and as I watched the firemen try to stop the blaze, I can remember how ironic it was to have everything burning up on a day it was pouring rain. Sadly, neither the firemen nor the storm could stop the spread of the fire to the rest of the property. Everything I owned was a total and complete loss.
The next day I began working with my insurance adjuster to figure out the next step in the process of trying to piece back together my life. I had lost everything and needed to go shopping for essentials. Did I go buy underwear and a new toothbrush? No, my first purchase was a handgun. Little did I know that purchase would be the first step toward my first patent.
I had good insurance and was fairly compensated, a person doesn't fully realize how valuable good insurance is until you lose it all. With the compensation for the small 500-square-foot home I lost, I began working on a plan to rebuild my new home. I had decided I would live in a small 27ft travel trailer while the new home was being built. This plan enabled me to save a little money, be on the job site to supervise the construction, and do part of the work myself. It was during this construction period that the idea of Versacarry came to me.
I had purchased a Ruger LCP and a Sig P238 back-to-back and encountered the same problem with both. I just could not find anything to easily and comfortably carry either of these guns. As a gun owner, I had encountered this problem many times before. After buying a new gun you have the task of searching for the right holster.
If you pick something too bulky or that is a pain to put on, you find yourself slowly reverting to carrying less, ultimately defeating the purpose of having a CHL. I began searching for something lightweight, effective, and simple to put on because if it were simple to operate, I knew I would be more likely to use it. Then it hit me, why not use the one thing both shared, and for that matter all guns of the same caliber share, their barrel size. The solution hit me while I was in a doctor's office, and I could not wait to get back to my travel trailer.
As soon as I got back, I began digging for parts to throw together a prototype. I went to the kitchen drawer which, before the fire, had housed a variety of different objects and forgotten things that might be used to construct a quick version. The drawer’s contents were limited, but I was able to create a very rough-looking model after a short trip to Lowes. After a few days of use, I decided the idea had real promise and I could see others finding it useful as well. This led to a big challenge. How could I financially get this project going? Patents and machinery to build a new product from scratch would not be cheap. Before losing my home, I did not have a lot of savings or financial resources. The most money I ever had was the day I received a check from the insurance company to rebuild my home. At this point, I faced a decision. I could go the safe route and build a house, or I could use the money to start a new company. I had already invested money in rebuilding my home and in fact, had already had a very expensive slab poured, but I stopped the build, and diverted all my funding into Versacarry.