Wade Armstrong

• Latest
• Archives
• Links
• About Me
• Projects
• Contact Me

American Inventor: Episode 11 Recap

Posted Saturday May 6, 2006 in Entrepreneurship

I would really like to play poker with American Inventor judge Doug Hall, because I could tell who he was going to pick as his bracket’s winner through much of his final speech in episode 11. Now, you have to read through most of this entry before finding out who that was, but that’s fine because we had some fun watching some of our competitors this week — magician Joe and his wife Jenny Safudo and their FlushPure toilet seat; grandmother Sharon Clemens and her restroom door clip; and Janusz Liberkowski and his (potentially) revolutionary car seat.

Joe Safudo provided the most entertainment value, with his overall attitude problem. He was the man in charge from the beginning, whether he was talking to his designers or to his wife, over whom he had no problem speaking. Now, Joe had pitched poorly before, jokingly saying he’d take the $50,000 and go to Mexico, and Doug Hall was quite clear that Joe should let his wife Jenny pitch. Every time Jenny got a chance to talk, she was articulate and commanding, but Joe wanted to be in charge — as a magician, I guess he was used to performing.

Joe started off his dominance by basically telling his designers to design something but not to change what he made in any way; he wanted the product commercialized, but he clearly told the engineer “you’re not here to make it better!” the first meeting was a fiasco and the second a yell-fest as Joe became infuriated over the volume of changes the engineer had made. Ultimately the engineer stormed off and Jenny, who looked disgusted (I thought with her husband, but she quickly spoke out on his side), had to calm things down and push on to the prototype.

The prototype tested well. The FlushPure is a toilet seat and lid that are designed to keep bacteria in the toilet, rather than allowing them to be blown around by the strong flushing action of the toilet. Lab tests of the Flush Pure showed that it made a measurable difference in the amount of bacteria present in a bathroom. And Joe and Jenny presented well, too; they spent part of their money on a presentation coach, and made a serious, clear presentation that worked (although Joe still ran the show). The big problem with the FlushPure was that the user had to put the lid down for the product to work. Was that too much of a cultural change? Or would the FlushPure advance?

If the FlushPure advanced, it would have to do so at the expense of determined grandma Sharon Clemens and her restroom stall door clip, which could be used to clip shut the door of any stall whose lock didn’t work. Doug suggested that Sharon redesign her product to be a “bathroom survival kit”, a suggestion reinforced by the results of a focus group. So she called up a designer and went over some concepts; after a day with that designer, failing to see eye-to-eye, she fired him and moved onto another designer. This designer came up with simple, conventional concepts and Sharon quickly decided which one to move forward with.

The final prototype they rolled out matched Sharon’s expectations, although, carried in a stylish case and featuring wipes, a seat protector, and more, the price would seem to me to be beyond any checkout aisle impulse purchase. I’m also concerned that the focus on the clever clip has been lost; the redesign tried to use the clip as a support structure for a hook on which people could hang their handbags, hand wipes, and more. If the clip was good, why go with more? Those Bag Clips you see everywhere didn’t need to be “the food storage solution,” people just needed clips to close their bags!

Of course, the cost of the bag clip was nothing compared to Janusz Liberkowski’s innovative child car seat. The seat itself is held inside two inverted half-domes, the outer of which attaches to the car seat and the inner of which rotates freely in the outer. The result is that, in an accident, the baby’s forward momentum is converted to angular momentum and the seat does a little loop, spiraling the baby head-over-heals within the car seat enclosure. Whether or not that’s better for a baby than having their momentum absorbed by seatbelts, I leave to the pediatricians. No mention of Janusz’s background is available so I don’t know what kind of engineering or medical experience he has that would qualify him to make such a product. However, some crash testing of the product gave positive results.

The downside was that the seat itself was gigantic, easily too large to fit in the back seat of any vehicle. Janusz thought that car buyers would insist that automakers build cars that can fit such a seat, but ultimately some other design may be necessary. Can Janusz do it? Are there too many unknowns for him to move forward?

Not in Doug Hall’s mind, perhaps because Hall is an inventor himself and Janusz’s car seat was so clever. Janusz moves on; the others are eliminated.

My first inclination was to think of ways that Sharon could get her restroom clip in stores, because I do think it’s a good idea and a product I’d buy. However, Sharon’s stated goal is to make enough that her husband can retire; thus, it’s inappropriate for her to take any risks or invest any substantial sum of money in moving on. The only fall-back is that it might be possible for her to have a machine shop make single metal clips by hand, at a high cost, and she could perhaps try to get some local demand for her product where she lives.

Joe and Jenny have a good product, too, even though it’s an unglamorous toilet seat. They should go to top LA area designers and pitch the FlushPure as a very high-end, handmade, super-clean toilet lid. At the prices they’ll be selling, they can afford to make instances by hand, until they get a star who wants to bankroll them.