Gord Duncan has a first, and he's about to see who's willing to invest.

The longtime Whitehorse resident and his team have developed TEO, a keyless padlock which is locked or unlocked using a smart phone or other Blue-Tooth device.

Want to let your friend use the cabin for the weekend but you're out of the country?

Just send the keyless app electronically, he explains during a press conference held late Tuesday morning to announce the launch of the product.

If you don't want your buddy using the cabin after the weekend, Duncan says, you can time-out his access through the app.

TEO, he says, is handy.

"I don't know how many doors I've taken off their hinges because I've lost the keys,” says Duncan who describes himself as a bit of an inventor and tinkerer type of guy.

He says statistics produced by the insurance industry indicate the average Canadian has nine keys on their key chain, three of which they have no idea what they're for.

TEO's commercial applications are endless, says the president of Total North Communications. He developed the product under a separate company, but with the assistance of Total North employees and other local and Outside firms.

Take a security company responsible for a number of industrial plants, or a company managing a yard full of storage containers. No need for a bulky ring of 200 keys.

A keyless padlock operated by a smart phone would be a natural for Northwestel Inc. and Yukon Energy, which have employees visiting different sites all the time, says communication advisor Amanda Leslie.

In fact, says Duncan, the commercial sector will be the initial target for sales.

Duncan has submitted his product to Kickstarter, a crowd-funding Internet site, in hopes of raising at least $165,000 to bring his product into production.

Kickstarter is expected to let Duncan and his crew know this week whether they've fulfilled all the requirements to have TEO – transferable electronic operation – posted on their website.

The team members are confident they've met all the obligations, including the production of a professional video shot recently in Vancouver featuring Ashley Hunking, originally from Teslin.

Duncan says Hunking's involvement was entirely coincidental.

The videographer who hired her, he points out, didn't even know she was from the Yukon until she met Duncan and graphic designer Mike Rice, who were down from Whitehorse for the shoot.

Duncan and his team, including a Silicon Valley company which specializes in military hardware, have been working on the prototype for two years, ever since Duncan returned from a vacation with a new idea bubbling in his head.

He and his family were in Costa Rica, driving around in the middle of nowhere, when Duncan looked to the car keys hanging on a carabiner.

"I am deathly afraid I am going to lose these things because we are going to be in a world of pain,” Duncan says in the opening of the video.

"I thought wouldn't it be great if you could lock this carabiner, and it kind of morphed from there.”

Duncan points out how TEO still functions something like a carabiner, though it's been carefully designed to accommodate all the common uses.

"We went through a gazillion iterations to get here.”

The video features Hunking using it to secure her bike on the streets of Vancouver. There's a shot of a student using a smart phone to unlock a school locker.

At an initial price of $79, Duncan says, the market in the beginning will be the higher-end user, though there will be an opportunity in time to move into other markets with a less expensive TEO.

He says using a crowd-funding site like Kickstarter to raise money provides the team with three distinct advantages.

Of course, it allows Duncan to raise money.

It also enables the team to gauge public reaction to the product as well as open a window to the possibility of attracting corporate interest.

The technology behind TEO is currently under patent protection awaiting final patent approval, he explains.

Kickstarter prohibits contributors from earning an ownership interest in the product through the on-line campaign.

Rather, the company promoting the product is required to return a gift for each contribution.

Under the TEO proposal, for $89, the "pioneer” level, Duncan will provide a TEO.

At the "prospector level” of $112, contributors will receive a TEO and a package of coffee from Bean North Coffee Roasting.

For $1,001, Duncan will ship them a TEO with a poke of gold locked onto it.

The maximum investment of $8,000 earns the contributor an airplane ticket to Whitehorse to meet with Duncan and his team – the thinking being if they have $8,000 to contribute, they might be looking for a bigger piece of the pie.

Total North vice-president Josh Clark points out the Pebble Smartwatch generated more than $10 million on Kickstarter from nearly 70,000 contributors.

On the other hand, if Duncan doesn't raise the full $165,000 in the 60-day time frame they've set, he doesn't get a cent, and everybody gets their money refunded.

For private business purposes, Duncan says, he doesn't want to disclose what he has invested so far, nor does he want to discuss how much above the $165,000 is needed to bring TEO into production.

But he insists if he gets the $165,000 – or more – TEO would be rolling off the assembly line by the end of next year.

If he doesn't hit the target, he says with a laugh, he'll have the most expensive Christmas gifts ever, referring to the three prototypes sitting in front of him.

"This is a Yukon story, and I could not have done this without the backing of Total North and the fellows that work here.”

Duncan and his team will host a public launch of the product Thursday afternoon at Total North's shop off Tlingit Road, behind Yukon Salvage.

"The future of the padlock is here,” says the video.