He wins when clients laugh at his products.

• Position: Boink Product Innovations Group LLC founder Leslie Mann

Between describing the toilet-replica guest chairs in his vice president's office and explaining his idea for a talking camera that makes zit jokes, Leslie Mann takes a moment to point out that he's not running a freak show. As founder and president of a Davidson-based product-development company, he has given the world alarm clocks that insult people out of bed and edible watches that "run on saliva." But that doesn't mean he lacks a serious side. "We have some conventional products we develop," he says.

Conventional doesn't describe the office of Banks Product Innovations Group LLC. It's sort of a 1,600-square-foot amusement park. Door handles are rigged to shock. Chairs hang from ceilings. Outside, the Boinkmobile - "a cross between a VW and the Jetson vehicle," Mann says - taxis clients around.

Mann, 37, founded Banks in 1995 - the latest in a series of moneymaking schemes that started at age 12, when he painted mailboxes in his Toronto neighborhood. After high school, he taught skiing in Alberta, Canada, studied landscape architecture at Guelph University in Toronto and dabbled in real estate. In 1990, he started Toronto-based San-Ban International, a product-development firm. Among its inventions: a watch with a pop-up bubble-blowing wand.

After discovering Lake Norman on a drive to Florida, Mann sold his stake in San-Ban, moved to Davidson and started Banks. He drew up concepts for gummy watches for Mooresville-based Beacon Sweets Inc. Later, he invented the Rude Awakening alarm clock, Banks's most successful product, which sells for $25 and orders people to "get their fat, lazy asses out of bed." Banks markets 25 other products - 15 invented in-house.

About 70% of revenue, which topped $3 million in 1998, comes from inventing and hawking products for other companies, including heavyweights such as Coca-Cola Co. and Walt Disney Co. Among those developed for Coke: a talking soda can that oohs and ahhs when squeezed, "We're sort of a think tank," Mann says. "We help companies come up with ideas that would support their marketing and merchandising."

Payroll is up to 16 full-time employees - 11 in Hong Kong - and 40 sales reps, who work on commission. A Chinese factory, partly owned by Mann, makes the products. "We're trying to add a little fun to everyday products," Mann says. "If I get rich in the process, that's the price I'm willing to pay."

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