Dare to Invent

Party On The Go Transcript

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Joy Clymer is an outgoing person. She loves riding quads in the Colorado Desert and attending picnics and get-togethers with her friends. But going to these picnics was starting to become more frustrating than fun.

(Inventor: Joy)
I was invited to a friend’s house for a barbecue, so I had decided that I would make deviled eggs and I carried them in my vehicle and you know you go around the corners and they slide and you put on the brakes and they slide. So of course by the time I got there, they looked horrible. So that’s when I decided there has to be something that you can carry the eggs in that will keep them solid and won’t have them slide around.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Joy came to us with a challenge. The challenge was how to transport deviled eggs and get them to a picnic in perfect form. Well, picnics have been around since ancient times. The picnic basket was actually introduced back in the 19th century to help transport food. But, Joy’s idea for a new device to carry deviled eggs? That could change the way we bring food to picnics and parties forever.

(Clay)
When I first got Joy’s idea my initial reaction was… I don’t really like deviled eggs.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Clay was assigned to be the chief creationeer on Joy’s idea. He not only had to solve Joy’s egg destruction problem, but he also needed to find a solution that was inexpensive to manufacture and able to meet retailer’s very specific requirements regarding shelf space, shipping, and manufacturing costs. With that in mind, we decided to target the Glad Company, because they were the best known manufacturers of the disposable plastic food containers.

(Clay)
The disposable Gladware containers were relatively new on the market at that time. We got some of them in, so that we could look at them manufacturing methods on all their different products.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
The initial design was a disposable covered serving tray with a ring of divots to hold deviled eggs.

(Clay)
The initial disposable version worked pretty well. It didn’t have any problems.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Except that Glad showed no interest in the product at all.

(Clay)
Sometimes it takes years for a concept to get licensed and a lot of concepts never get licensed.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Instead of calling it quits, we shifted gears and targeted a competitor of Glad’s called XHP, which is short for Xtraordinary Home Products. They manufacture kitchen based products that sell at Walmart, Target, and other big retailers.

(Clay)
It went through a lot of tweaks and changes. We just kept going back and forth. They wanted something that wasn’t disposable; they wanted something that could handle more than just deviled eggs.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Joy’s idea went back to the drawing board. And Clay insisted on testing it on the front lines.

(Clay)
On that thing. Here we go! This is product testing at its finest. Oh this is cool. No problem! Alright, let’s see how we did here. Well, I think that the evidence speaks for itself.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
Even though those eggs didn’t come out perfectly, that testing did provide us with the crucial information to make the necessary tweaks to perfect the product, and then that’s when it hit us. We could expand the idea to carry more than just deviled eggs!

(Inventor: Joy)
They went with my basic idea, but they improved on it, and I give them credit for that, because they have made it from the deviled eggs to the cupcakes, to the cookies, and to the relish tray.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
XHP licensed the product, and it debuted on QVC, selling 30,000 units.

(Inventor: Joy)
I’m not sure that any of us had really thought that this, even seeing it on QVC, that it was really happening. So when I saw that, I was happy.

(Narrated by George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
The Party on the Go had become an official success. Joy took on the establishment, she actually went out there and took a chance, and it was a big chance. She went out and reinvented the way we transport food to picnics today. And we even made an effort to congratulate Joy in person by surprising her with a picnic that she’d never forget.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
It was your dream, you started all of this with your idea to have a party on the go and the great news is that we’re going to fulfill that dream today. That’s your first royalty check.

(Inventor: Joy)
Oh my gosh, I can’t even explain, it was a shock.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO & Founder of Davison)
I mean, it was unbelievable. Her friends were hugging her and the kids were all reacting and screaming.

(Inventor: Joy)
I am so thrilled, I really am I can’t believe it. I keep saying things like this don’t happen to just people like me and it has and life is good.

 

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