When you talk to Dave Paul, it doesn’t take long to see his mix of persistence, creativity, and heart. From his office in Colorado, Dave runs Marketing Concepts, LLC, a small but mighty operation that’s spent more than a decade helping people live more comfortably. His focus? A line of advanced wheelchair cushions that improve quality of life for people who spend hours each day sitting.
But his story didn’t start with wheelchairs — it started with mattresses.
From mattresses to mobility
In the late 2000s, Dave was working on contract sales and marketing projects when a family-owned manufacturer near Salt Lake City reached out. They had developed a new cushioning technology and wanted him to introduce their mattresses to chiropractors.
Dave hit the ground running. Over two years, he built a network of more than 200 chiropractors across Colorado who endorsed the mattress — nearly 100 of them bought one for themselves. The business model didn’t last, but Dave couldn’t shake how remarkable the cushioning technology was.
“I was so impressed that I asked if I could represent them independently,” Dave recalls. “It was literally a handshake over the phone.”
He wasn’t interested in the mattress business, but the company also made pillows and seat cushions. That’s when Dave had a realization: What if this technology could help people who need to sit all day — like those in wheelchairs?
A breakthrough in comfort
Armed with a few cushions, Dave began visiting local nursing homes in Colorado. He would demonstrate the products, showing caregivers what made them different. Several nursing homes started buying.
Then came a moment that changed everything.
A few weeks after selling to one nursing home, Dave followed up with the staff. A nurse told him about a resident with a stage 3 pressure wound. “She told me, ‘When I put the cushion under her, she was fully healed three weeks later. I’ve never seen anyone heal that rapidly on a cushion,’” Dave remembers.
That story lit a fire. Dave went back to the manufacturer and urged them to develop a dedicated line of wheelchair cushions. At first, they resisted — “that’s not our line of business,” they said. But after hearing the impact firsthand, they began researching and, by 2011, released their first wheelchair cushions.
By 2013, a second generation of cushions launched — stronger, more effective, and quickly recognized as the best on the market for comfort and pressure wound prevention. Dave was the company’s very first distributor.
From local distributor to national representative
Word spread, and soon Dave realized he needed a bigger channel. Many Colorado nursing homes were locked into corporate contracts with national distributors. So Dave picked up the phone and called Direct Supply, a major distributor in Wisconsin.
“At first they weren’t interested,” he says. “But six to eight months later, they came back and said they were. The manufacturer and I flew out to their corporate office, signed them up, and got them on board.”
That partnership opened new doors. By 2015, Dave shifted his role from distributor to factory representative — covering wholesale accounts nationwide. At the same time, he launched a second business, Jelteco, to handle retail customers.
Today, Dave works with clients across the U.S. — from New York to California — demonstrating cushions over Zoom, sending samples, and occasionally traveling to train sales teams in person.
The life of a one-man operation
Running a national business solo isn’t easy. “I wear a lot of hats,” Dave admits. “Finding distributors, sending cushions for evaluation, doing live demos — it’s all me. Some days I’m on the phone nonstop, other days I’m shipping products or doing follow-ups.”
One challenge lies in the insurance landscape. Smaller medical supply stores often depend on Medicare reimbursement, which doesn’t always align with cushion pricing. While some models are well-supported, others are under-reimbursed, making it harder for local shops to stock them.
Still, Dave’s persistence pays off. When a potential distributor receives a cushion to test, he always follows up with a live demonstration — showing them why it stands apart. “That’s when the lightbulb goes off,” he says. “They realize there’s nothing else like it.”
Success measured in impact
Ask Dave about his proudest achievement, and he doesn’t mention sales numbers. Instead, he points to his mission: making sure all 50 states recognize the cushions as the best in the industry.
Every client I work with ends up saying, ‘This is the absolute best cushion’. That’s what matters most — knowing people are more comfortable, safer, and healthier because of what we do.
Looking ahead
More than a decade since those first mattress sales, Dave has grown his business into a national presence while staying true to his roots: a personal, hands-on approach, where relationships matter more than anything else.
“I don’t always go with the cheapest option in business,” Dave reflects. “For me, quality and trust are more important. That’s how I choose who I work with, and that’s how I serve my clients.”
And just like the businesses he works with, Dave depends on trusted partners behind the scenes. That’s why he chose Sekure Payment Experts for reliable point of sale solutions for small business — giving him peace of mind so he can focus on what really matters: helping people live more comfortably.
For a one-man operation, Dave’s impact has been anything but small. He’s proven that persistence, innovation, and a genuine care for people can ripple across the country — one cushion, one client, one story at a time.
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