Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid.
Part 5: On the Market and the Birth of Flexity, LLC
Now in stores, the PowerSquid easily lived up to my expectations. The next few months were heady, as Wal-Mart, Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond agreed to carry the product. Then it was a huge hit on television-shopping network QVC, where the PowerSquid became a regularly-featured item. Sales boomed and royalties flowed. Everyday there was a dose of good news. I was ecstatic.
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Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid.
Part 4: Engineering
With signed licenses in hand, Power Sentry began developing the products for production. They decided to start with a non-surge-protecting outlet multiplier version of the PowerSquid, and an adapter version of the Ejector Plug that could retrofit existing cords. They worked with a factory in China to translate our design concepts into real products that could be manufactured. We were sent occasional updates on the PowerSquid as the engineers tried various methods for handling the interior wiring, which was complicated by the fact that there were so many cords coming into the enclosure. Six cords (one coming in and five going out), each with three conductors, meant there were 18 cords that had to be soldered in a very small space, with consistent quality and reliability. We suggested a bus-system, where the wires would be soldered to three metal bars. This was eventually chosen as the most cost-effective method. This problem sorted out, the tooling process began. Four months later, we saw the first sample. The Ejector Plug went through its own engineering process in parallel. We received samples of it shortly after the PowerSquid.
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Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid.
Part 3: The License Hunt
Armed with our handmade prototypes and fancy brochures, we set about searching for a partner. We felt it would be easy. We thought we would call up the companies, tell them about our revolutionary products, and they would line up to see them. Then they would immediately recognize the beauty of the products and fight over the right to be the exclusive distributor. As you might guess, we were wrong.
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Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid.
Part 2: Development
With the PowerSquid concept in the house, we began our development process by researching the market, to see if a similar product was already out there. We did our own patent and internet searches and combed through mail-order catalogs and hardware stores. We ordered catalogs from manufacturers and searched them with baited breath. But nowhere did we find another PowerSquid. In fact, there were no interesting power strips on the market at all at that time. They were all just rectangular boxes with outlets.
We brainstormed for weeks about the form of the PowerSquid. We wanted to stand out on the shelf, so we determined our new product should be biomorphic, looking like an actual squid as opposed to something more traditional and square.
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Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid.
Part 1: Genesis
This is a story of the birth of a product, a company and a career. It’s an example of how to turn ideas into reality. But, more importantly, it is also a story – albeit a cautionary one – of how to earn a profit from new product ideas, something easier said than done.
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