FlipLok grows from a family invention to a global safety brand

Anna Rieger’s phone started buzzing on a Tuesday morning and did not stop.

Her Amazon sales had spiked overnight. Her operations manager called asking what was happening. Rieger had no idea. Then a friend sent her an Instagram link of television personality Nate Berkus installing a small aluminum device on a door, flipping a handle to lock it, and telling his followers he sends it to all his friends. The video would go on to hit 5.4 million views. Rieger had never met him. She had no idea he was going to post about her product.

“Our manager was like, ‘What is happening with Amazon?’” Rieger recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, who is this guy?’ I couldn’t afford to pay him.”

The product Berkus held up to the camera is called FlipLok. It attaches to a door frame with four screws. You flip a handle. It drops into position and holds the door shut against more than 1,700 pounds of force, roughly 10 times the strength of a traditional deadbolt. No batteries, no Wi-Fi, no keypad, no code. It installs in minutes on 99 percent of doors.

Rieger invented it in Houston. She sells it in the Amazon store. And the company she built around it now employs 17 people, fills an 18,000-square-foot warehouse, and has placed its product in classrooms, hospitals, and U.S. embassies.

Rieger is a mother and bonus mom of six. She and her husband, John, came up with the idea for FlipLok after realizing there was no simple, universal way to secure a door in an emergency. She wanted a device that worked without keys, codes, or training, and that anyone in a room, including a child, could engage in seconds.
They started calling law enforcement officers, teachers, and facility managers across the country. The feedback confirmed that nothing like it existed.

She established the LLC in September 2021, spent the following year on patents and trademarks, and launched FlipLok in the Amazon store in 2023.

“When all your fine motor skills leave your body and you need to make yourself secure in a room, FlipLok is the answer,” Rieger said. “You see it and you flip it.”

Rieger and her husband had sold other products in the Amazon store before FlipLok existed. They knew what their product needed to be successful in the store. So when it came time to bring FlipLok to consumers, they built the product and its packaging around the tools Amazon offers independent sellers.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) allows independent sellers to have Amazon store, pick, pack, and ship their products, and handle customer service and returns. Rieger said the tradeoff was straightforward. “You don’t have to keep it all in your warehouse,” she said. “You can ship it out, and that frees us up to focus on the product and the sales calls that actually grow the business.”

A+ Content allows independent sellers to enhance their product detail pages with rich imagery, video, and comparison charts, which can help increase customer interest and sales. That proved especially important for a product most people have never seen before. The enhanced listings let Rieger show customers exactly how FlipLok works, how it compares to a standard deadbolt, and why it’s different from anything else in the category. “The A+ Content really helped us get to the next level of sales,” she said. “It helps you give customers a little more details and insight as to why you’re better and why you’re different.”

And Amazon Global Selling enables independent sellers to list and sell products in multiple countries through Amazon’s international websites. FlipLok is now available to customers in Canada, Mexico, and other countries through the Amazon store. “Without Amazon, we would not be global yet,” Rieger said. “We would have had to hire people in those countries, figure out the logistics, figure out the compliance, all on our own. Amazon had the tools in place to help us do it and the expertise to do it right.”

The Berkus video led to appearances on Good Morning America and other national television.

“Every time we’ve gotten enough publicity, Amazon sales go through the roof,” Rieger said. “I think that’s because of the comfort people have. They trust Amazon.”

Today, Amazon accounts for roughly 80 percent of FlipLok’s residential sales. Customer feedback also feeds directly back into the product. Rieger used Amazon reviews to redesign FlipLok’s handle, strength rating, and form factor for the 2.0 version. “You always want to take feedback and learn and grow and change things,” she said. “The changes we made were based on the feedback we received from our original FlipLok.”

Those consumer reviews did more than improve the product. They became a credential Rieger could bring to institutional buyers. Katy Independent School District, one of the largest in Texas, voted unanimously to install FlipLok in all 11,000 of its classrooms. The school version is oversized and bright red, independently tested to withstand over 2,000 pounds of force. On the reverse side, a reminder reads Call 911. The district’s police chief called the devices “an added layer of protection and a visible affirmation to the students and staff that the door was locked and secured.” FlipLok is also installed in schools across the country, at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and in U.S. embassies.

Today Rieger runs a team of 17 out of an 18,000-square-foot Houston warehouse, with her son Nico leading sales and marketing from Austin. She is preparing to launch a redesigned 2.0 version in the Amazon store and pursuing retail partnerships in the United States and Canada, with plans to use her Amazon sales data and customer reviews as proof of concept when she sits down with big-box buyers.

Three years ago, FlipLok was a prototype funded by a family’s savings. Today it is in classrooms, hospitals, embassies, and homes across multiple countries. Rieger built the product. The tools in the Amazon store helped her build the business around it.

“The tools, they give you. The ability to go global, they give you. We would not have that anywhere else,” Rieger said. “Whatever Amazon tools we can find, we use.”