Dare to Invent

Twister Bolts Transcript

(Narrator: George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
Meet George and Ruth Frazer. They’re from Pennsylvania. One day, their son was visiting with his dog, when all of a sudden the dog was running around the house with something in its mouth. It was their toilet bowl cap. They realized not only was that gross, it was also a safety concern for their grandchildren and their pets, so Gary and Ruth came up with an idea to create a new and safer toilet cap.

(George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
And that wasn’t their only problem. When they first started out on their project, they ended up going to a company which did some drawings and they got a patent, but once we started to look at it all we realize, the designs in this patent, they’re not even going to work. So Gary and Ruth, they put the cart before the horse. You know thousands of people do this every year. Investing money in a patent when you don’t know what your product is going to be, it’s going to put you in financial hot water. After Gary and Ruth learned the hard way, they did their homework, and they eventually found our team at Inventionland.

(Jason, Creationeer)
You know, I can totally relate to Gary and Ruth’s problem. Who hasn’t seen those dirty, nasty, grimy bolts at the bottom of toilets, that’s just gross!

(Narrator: George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
Jason and his crew got to work on Gary and Ruth’s idea. Their task was to come up with a cosmetically pleasing toilet cap design, that will stay in place and not end up in a dog’s mouth.

(Jason, Creationeer)
So, the unique thing about our design, whenever we have it made, it will be threaded on the inside, so the caps will just screw in place, rather than just be glued on.

(George M. Davison (aka MR.D), CEO and founder of Davison)
And screw right down onto the existing bolt. It was simple, and beautiful in its simplicity. They’re made of high impact plastic, so the caps won’t break, and ultimately make the molds safer and better to look at. We called it Twister Caps.

(Dan, Licensing)
I don’t think we’re ready to make a deal on this product yet. One of the big issues, we’re running into is that there is a thousand different toilets, in a thousand different homes with a thousand different bolt sizes, that are out there. We need to come up with a universal cap to be able to fit all of them.

(Jason, Creationeer)
So once again, Dan really has no idea what he’s talking about. Granted, there are probably several different types of bolts so we’ll find out what those are. Our resident test dummy Clay, will find out exactly what the situation is.

(Jason, Creationeer)
Ok Clay, It’s time to measure toilets.

(Clay)
What? Huh?

(Jason)
Don’t give me no sass, you know what we have to do. Let’s go measure these things.

(Clay)
Ok

(Jason)
You know what we gotta do, Here.

(Jason points into a public bathroom)

(Clay)
(sigh)

(Jason)
It’s not pretty, but it must be done.

(Clay)
Ahh, who forgot to flush?

(yelling from underneath the stall)

5/16″

(coming from over the top of a different stall)

5/16″

(Jason)
Ok, what was the other one?

(Clay)
5/16″

(Jason)
Ok, that’s two 5/16″

(Clay)
Two 5/16″s

(Jason)
Ok, mark that down

(Clay)
(from behind another toilet)

1/4″

(measuring various toilets)

5/16″

1/4″

1/4″

Alright, we got about five 1/4″ bolts and seven 5/16″ bolts so far.

(Jason)
Ok, that’s a pretty good range, why don’t we go and measure some more? You want to?

(Clay)
I would love to.

(Jason)
Let’s go

(Clay)
Alright

5/16″, 1/4″

(Clay enters the women’s bathroom)

(Jason)
Sheesh, does he know?

(Clay runs out of the women’s bathroom)

(Jason)
So, what did we learn?

(Clay)
Well, all of the bolts that I measured were either 1/4″ or 5/16.”

(Jason)
Well that should make it pretty easy for us then. So, we could go back, design to fit either 1/4″ or 5/16,” or maybe we give them the option of having bolts included with the caps.

(Clay)
Yeah, it’s not a huge challenge.

(Jason)
Alright, well, let’s get it done. Back to work.

(Clay)
Back to work!

(Narrator: George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
Our team went back and designed two different versions of The Twister Caps. The first is a one size fits all solution for 1/4″ and 5/16″ bolts, and the other will just include a bolt in the package to assure compatibility with any toilet. Twister Bolts are now ready for our very own, make a deal, Dan.

(Dan, Licensing)
I was able to present the product to Danco, and they loved it, and wanted to license it, but before they would do so, they wanted to see a couple of more packaging options to go and show at retail.

(Jason, Creationeer)
We’re going to have our team here design packaging based on different retailers, the way they currently package things, give that to Danco, give them lots of options to go to the retailers, and we’ll see what they say.

(Narrator: George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
So, Danco loved our new packaging options and licensed two different products from our original cap design. Twister Caps and Twister Caps and Bolts have gone on to be one of our most sold inventions in stores.

(George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
You know what I really this is cool? You go into any Ace, Lowe’s, Home Depot, country wide and buy the Twister Bolts and Twister Caps. That’s just really cool.

(Dan, Licensing)
When Gary and Ruth came to us with this idea, we were able to get their dream and turn that into a reality and have it sell out there in the marketplace, where they collect a royalty on every single unit that sells today.

(Jason, Creationeer)
You know, it’s really… it’s almost unbelievable that such a little idea turns into a huge product.

(Dan, Licensing)
If you take your idea and you sit on it, you’re never going to see anything from it. They took the chance and it panned out for them.

(Jason, Creationeer)
Everybody’s got them. I have them at my house. Everyone [at Inventionland] has them at their place too.

(George M. Davison, CEO and founder of Davison)
Hey Gary and Ruth, you dared to invent. Over 3 million units sold, and [they are] still selling. We couldn’t be happier for you. Congratulations!

(Christine: Inventor)
And, I dared to invent, you should dare to invent too. Don’t be scared, take a risk, you never know what’s going to happen

Disclaimer: Davison’s services are provided for an upfront fee paid by the clients. The use of Davison’s services typically does not result in a license, sales of the product, or profit to the inventor.

Copyright: Davison, George Davison Studios