Our team continues to review ideas from our Innovation Fund to determine which will continue on to the next stage, and today we’re excited to announce another selection!
Edison Nation is a diverse community. We’ve seen great ideas come from a sketch on a napkin to refined prototypes and production samples. Today, we’re congratulating both an independent inventor and his design team.
Trevis Kurz and the team at Trident Design are moving into our Concept Research Phase! Learn more about what occurs during the Concept Research Phase here.
Trevis’ Story
As an Ohio State University student studying Industrial Design, Trevis Kurz began working on a project to solve problems people have in their homes for the 2010 International Housewares Show in Chicago. While researching his project, Trevis decided to focus on the baby-boomer generation and asked several people he knew what problems they deal with in their homes. His uncle mentioned an issue with a particular home device that immediately struck Trevis as something many people undoubtedly deal with — that’s when the idea hit him to create a solution. After MANY iterations, Trevis submitted his design to the competition and won first place.
Immediately following Trevis’ win, he was introduced to representatives from the product development company, Trident Design, LLC, who encouraged him to pursue his idea further and offered their services. Trevis soon began working with the Trident team on a plan to commercialize his invention and take it to the next level. Trident worked to further develop the mechanism for the product and also applied for a utility patent. Unfortunately, when presenting the product to potential licensing partners, many were hesitant due the unknowns left in the engineering phases.
Wanting to move forward with development, the team at Trident learned of Edison Nation’s Innovation Fund and they, along with Trevis, agreed to submit the idea. Their hope is to get the product further developed to a point where it will be easier to gain manufacturer buy-in, as well as leverage their clout with the larger companies.
As this idea moves on to the next phase and undergoes further research, our team will determine if we can take this product on and help them do just that!