OHIO students, Xavior and Ilyaas Motley, working to revolutionize protective gloves

Calling all culinary artists, medical workers, fashion gurus, and astronauts! You all wear gloves, right? Yep, that’s right. I said gloves.

Twin brothers Xavior and Ilyaas Motley are Co-CEOs and Co-Founders of Armadillo Protection, LLC, where they have been creating gloves that could be total game changers for multiple different industries. Armadillo Protection, LLC is an Ohio-based company pursuing a glove formulation that acts as a second layer of skin, offering an alternative to latex and nitrile gloves that are more cost-effective, comfortable, functional, durable, and environmentally friendly. “We wanted to revolutionize the disposable glove,” Xavior explained.

Ilyaas continued, “It’s a transparent, second layer of skin. And, it soaks up moisture from your hand and pushes it out of the glove. This allows it to be used for more comfortable wear. It also has a re-sanitization functionality, to where you can wash it up to ten times. And then, it also has anti-microbials incorporated to where it kills bacteria instantaneously on contact.”

The antimicrobials and re-sanitization functions make this glove stand out from the crowd. Traditional gloves do not have these functions; other gloves are just one-time-use latex gloves.

Xavior and Ilyaas are students at Ohio University. Xavior graduated with his BSS in Communications, Coaching, and Business Management in Fall 2020 and is currently pursuing his Dual Masters in Business Management. Ilyaas is in his final semester of his BSS in Specialized Studies studying Business Management, Sociology, Communication, and an Entrepreneurship Certificate graduating in Spring 2021.

Their company, started in 2020, is in the Research and Development stage. They’re focusing on the food industry, and they have dreams of breaking into the medical, fashion, and outer space industries.

Their gloves can already be used in the food industry. Xavior explained, “The industry that we are focused on right now is the culinary / food industry.” Many culinary employees are required to wear gloves when working with food. Instead of taking them off and constantly replacing them, they can actually be washed up to ten times. Imagine the amount of plastic waste that could be reduced!

The idea for this was inspired by a favorite childhood movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. In the movie, the main character is Flint Lockwood, an inventor determined to change the world. In one scene of the movie, young Flint invented spray-on shoes.

Curious if this was possible, Ilyaas and Xavior pursued the idea of spray on shoes, as they often came back from a long weekend with torn up shoes. “We wanted to come out with a spray that we could spray on the shoe, and once we got home, we could take it off.”

This idea was the beginning of many, and throughout the past year, they have created an arsenal of ideas. In addition to the pre-made gloves, they are in the process of creating spray-on gloves. They are creating a machine that sprays and dries the glove directly onto the skin. “The machine will be the size of an average microwave with two separate arm holes where users will insert the hands up to the forearm. Two cylinders will rotate around the hand and spray the formulation directly onto the skin.” And, voila, they are currently in the process of creating a prototype for this product.

Clearly, they are natural innovators, searching for problems that need to be solved. Their ideas have manifested and taken on real substance. This means they have had many victories and challenges along the way. And of course, being full time students and entrepreneurs has been full of ups and downs. To make sure they are prepared for the entrepreneurial world, Xavior has listened to many videos from successful people that have taken a similar journey.

While low days can be tough, Xavior and Ilyaas have a built in support team. Ilyaas said, “I think our biggest success right now has to be the team that we built.” Their team sees the vision that they’ve built and believes in it.

Xavior said that looking back in 2018, it was just an idea, just theoretical. Now they have physical prototypes in their hands. He continued, “I feel like I can do anything.”

They’ve been able to create prototypes with the help of a chemical engineer, who was the first person added to their team. Ilyaas said, “Our chemical engineer--he’s helped us in producing prototypes and communicating with different labs.”

They work with polymer labs, and they use different plastics to create the gloves. At first, Xavior and Ilyaas were hesitant to work with a polymer lab. Ilyaas said that what drew them in was that they’re a biodegradable lab. “We’re all about sustainability,” he said.

Ilyaas and Xavior praise their team to the moon and back. Xavior said, “The team that we’ve developed--they are great… They have been on the team for a year with no pay. They believe in it so much because of the impact it can have… To be able to say that they are there, is the greatest support of all time.”

In addition to the support team they have built within their company, they have relied on help from the Center for Entrepreneurship. “The Center for Entrepreneurship helped us… We were able to take [Professor Paul Benedict’s and Professor Paul Mass’s] classes and it really helped us expand our minds to see the bigger picture.”

Specifically, they recommended MGT 3740 Ideation and Business Models. Xavior said, “Every week, into the end of the semester, you would have a 60 second pitch of a new idea you had to come up with in that week… By the end of the semester, you were honestly pursuing one of them.”

In addition to the support team they have built within the company and the support they have received from the Center for Entrepreneurship, they rely on each other and their family, many of whom were also entrepreneurs. Xavior said, “My dad was over in Afghanistan for the last five years… and for him to give us that critical feedback, the critical feedback to where you didn’t want to hear it. And that’s what we needed.”

Ilyaas continued by talking about the support they receive from their sisters, one of whom is a freshman at Ohio University this year and another who is eight years old. Ilyaas said his little sister, when she was five years old, “was actually the first one--we weren’t even the first ones--to put our gloves on… She inspired us in a lot of ways.”

And of course, they rely on each other. Being twin brothers, they understand each other on another level. “Being twins helps a lot. We didn’t utilize being twins early on in our life, but I think we started to learn how to use each other to our benefit. That’s one thing that we want to inspire people to do: Find someone that you can have a connection with that’s like a twin.”

They rely on each other to know when to keep pushing and when to take a break. They grew up as four sport athletes, constantly competing with each other to improve their skills. Then, they each went to Ohio University on full ride scholarships, playing the same position on the Ohio University Football team as three year starters. They have so much faith in their business that they declined the offer for a fourth year on the football team. Ilyaas said, “It was a big sacrifice… It was like that leap of faith that Xavior and I took with our company. The faith that we had in it is pretty strong, especially with our support team.”

As they continue on this journey, they remember to never give up. As they both said, “It starts with the hands…”

They each have the whole future of the glove industry in the palms of their hands—literally.

Connect with Ilyaas and Xavior on LinkedIn.

Special shout out to the Armadillo Protection, LLC team, many of whom attended Ohio University:

Xavior Motley and Ilyaas Motley, Co-CEOs and Co-Founders

Shane Long, Product Development and Chemical Engineer

Adam Hensley, Product Development and Mechanical Engineer

George Matar, Head of Strategy and Electric Engineer

Anibal Careage: Production Manager and Industrial & Systems Engineer

Domenic Ashburn, Creative Director and Branding