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Episode 1: TubShroom — The Business Hiding in a Clogged Drain · Overlooked Ideas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There are things we dream about buying, and then there
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: are things we buy because we're tired of dealing with
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the same annoying problem. A clogged bathtub drain belongs firmly
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in the second category. Nobody wakes up excited about drain maintenance.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody invites friends over to admire how quickly the bathwater disappears.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But stand ankle-deep in water during a shower, and suddenly...
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a small household inconvenience becomes the most important engineering problem
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: in your life. For most of us, the response is familiar.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Clear the drain. Clean up. Move on. Until it happens again.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But what if that repeating frustration was more than a chore?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: What if it was a product waiting to happen? I'm
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Henry Gray, and this is Overlooked Ideas. Here, we explore
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: small inventions and the people who turned them into real businesses.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: For our first story, we're going somewhere unusually unglamorous. The bathroom.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Because a little mushroom-shaped object called Tubshroom offers a useful reminder.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: A business idea doesn't have to look impressive to solve
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  Speaker 1: a problem people care about. Picture a familiar scene. You're
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: almost finished showering. The water is still running, but it
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: isn't leaving as quickly as it should. You glance down.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: There it is. The slow, disappointing rise of water around
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: your feet. What follows probably isn't your favorite part of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the day. And that's precisely what makes this kind of
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: problem interesting. It repeats. It interrupts an ordinary routine. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: fixing it can be unpleasant. People already understand the problem
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: before anyone explains it to them. That gives an inventor
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a starting point, but it doesn't automatically give them a business.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: For that, someone has to build a solution people can
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: use and then persuade them to pay for it. Serge
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Carnegie's starting point was his own household. In a first-person
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: account published by Small Biz Daily in 2018, He described
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: recurring drain trouble in a home with two daughters and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: multiple pets. He experimented with a device for his own
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: bathroom before considering a wider market. That's an important distinction.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: He wasn't starting with a pitch deck asking which enormous
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: industry he could disrupt. He was starting with something that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: annoyed him. There's a practical advantage to that. When you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: experience a problem yourself, you don't need to imagine every detail.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You know when it happens. You know what you dislike
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: about the existing solution. And you can test whether your
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: alternative actually makes life easier. Of course, solving your own
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: problem is only the beginning. Your bathroom is one bathroom.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: A customer's bathroom may be different. A working invention has
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to survive that difference. So, what was the idea? Tubshroom
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: is a small drain insert with a mushroom-like shape. Instead
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of letting loose hair travel farther down the pipe, it
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: gives the hair a place to collect around its body
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: while water passes through openings. The user removes the device
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and clears away the collected hair. The company describes its
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: design as an effort to balance water flow, appearance, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: ease of use. Its product information also makes clear that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: different drains need different models. The principle is easy to understand.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Catch the nuisance somewhere accessible before it becomes harder to reach.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And that's where a small physical product can have a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: strong story. You don't need a long explanation of what
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the customer gets. You can show the problem, show the device,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: then show where the hair ends up. It may not
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be the demonstration you want playing beside your dinner, but
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you'll understand it. And for a new product, being understood
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is valuable. a customer can't appreciate a benefit they haven't grasped. Now,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: let's go back to the first version. In a December
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: 2017 interview with Edith G. Tolchin for Inventors Digest, Serge
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: described making his initial prototype from PVC pipe and rubber.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: A computer-aided design and silicone prototypes followed. The same interview
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: records the first Tubshroom Kickstarter campaign. Launched in September 2015,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It raised $ 59, 267 from 2,059 backers against a $ 12, 000 goal.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Those numbers matter. But let's be precise about what they mean.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: That was crowdfunding pledged to a campaign. It wasn't annual profit.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a company valuation. And it wasn't proof that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: every future customer would love the product. What it did
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: provide was an encouraging signal. More than 2,000 backers were
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: willing to support this particular solution. An idea that could
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: sound almost comically narrow, something to catch hair inside your
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: bathtub drain, had found people who wanted it. That's one
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of the most interesting moments in a small business. The
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: moment your personal frustration starts to look like shared demand.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Before that, you can spend months wondering, is this useful
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: only to me? Am I making something people will actually want?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Will anyone care once I ask them to pay? A
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: campaign can begin answering those questions, but it also introduces
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a new one. Can you deliver? Because there's a considerable
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: distance between making one object work and manufacturing enough of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: them for customers. One prototype can be assembled by hand.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You can adjust it, trim it, try again. A factory
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: needs a process it can repeat, and customers expect the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: finished product to arrive when promised. In the Inventors Digest interview,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Serge recalled a tooling problem. The original design proved difficult
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to manufacture using a mold. Technicians eventually found a solution,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and he said the team met its delivery commitment. By
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that interview in late 2017, He also reported that products
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: from the range had reached national retailers, including Target, Lowe's,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and Bed Bath & Beyond. There's a part of invention
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: that disappears when we look at a finished product. The
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: object seems simple, so we assume creating it must have
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: been simple. But the simplicity we see is often the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: result of work we don't. material choices, dimensions, production methods, packaging, instructions,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the little decisions that determine whether something works reliably outside
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the inventor's home. A small product can contain a surprising
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: amount of effort, and none of that effort disappears because
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the product fits in your hand. Then there's the task
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of getting people to discover it. In his 2018 account,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Serge described using crowdfunding marketing support, Amazon Launchpad, advertising, and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: customer education. He also reported that the business had sold
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: more than 1 million units by that point. That is
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a historical claim from the founder, rather than an independently
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: audited sales total. That gives us a more grounded picture
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of success than a dramatic headline alone. There was a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: practical invention, there was early financial backing, there was manufacturing work,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and there was a continuing effort to put the product
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: in front of customers. The useful lesson here isn't that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a clever object sells itself. It's that a useful object
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: gives the business something meaningful to demonstrate. The rest still
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: takes work. Imagine trying to sell a product without showing
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: how it fits, without explaining how to clean it, without
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: making it clear which version a customer needs. A buyer
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: can like an idea and still hesitate. Will it fit
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: my drain? Will it slow down the water? How much
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: maintenance does it need? Those questions aren't distractions from the sale.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: They're part of the sale. For a practical household invention,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: clear instructions belong beside good design. And there's another reason
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  Speaker 1: this story fits overlooked ideas. It shows how a narrow
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: starting point can create room to expand. A bathtub drain
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is one application. A bathroom sink is another. A shower
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: stall introduces a different fit. The company's product range includes
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: distinct versions for these uses, rather than treating one insert
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: as a universal answer. That offers an interesting way to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: think about growth. You don't necessarily have to begin with
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a broad promise. You can begin with one clearly defined job.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Then ask where else customers face a closely related problem.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The challenge is to preserve what makes the first product
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: useful while adapting to the next situation. Expansion still has
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to earn its place. A customer doesn't benefit from a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: bigger product range unless the right product works for them. Now,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I want to be careful with the phrase overlooked idea.
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  Speaker 1: We don't have to pretend that everyone laughed at this invention.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: We don't need an imaginary room full of investors saying
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it would never work. The ordinary appearance of the problem
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: is enough. This was a household task many people would
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  Speaker 1: rather finish quickly and forget. Serge and the people working
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  Speaker 1: with him treated it as something. worth improving. That's the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: perspective I want this show to explore. What happens when
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  Speaker 1: someone pays attention to an inconvenience the rest of us
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: have learned to tolerate? Sometimes, nothing commercially useful comes from it. Sometimes,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the existing solution is good enough. And sometimes, a small
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: improvement matters to enough people to support a business. The
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: work is finding out which situation you're in. So, what
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  Speaker 1: can we take from this first story? Start by noticing
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  Speaker 1: what repeats. One frustrating afternoon might be an isolated incident.
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  Speaker 1: A problem that keeps returning deserves a closer look. Then,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: make the benefit concrete. Can someone understand what your product
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: does without sitting through a complicated explanation? And finally, respect
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  Speaker 1: the distance between an idea and a business. The prototype
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: is a milestone. So is the first order. But manufacturing, delivery,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: customer support, and finding the next customer all remain part
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of the journey. Tubshroom is interesting because the original problem
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: is so easy to dismiss. Hair in a drain. A chore.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: something to deal with later. Yet that small frustration became
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the starting point for a product that attracted thousands of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: early backers and reached major retail shelves. You don't need
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to inflate the story beyond that. That's already remarkable. The
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: next time you find yourself saying, why is this still
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: so annoying? Stay with that thought for a moment. You
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: may simply have found another household chore, or you may
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: have found a question worth testing. Who else experiences this?
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  Speaker 1: What do they use now? And could something small make
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  Speaker 1: it better? I'm Henry Gray. This is Overlooked Ideas. Small ideas,
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  Speaker 1: surprising success.