Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Invention, Rejection, and Resilience: The Story of the Sea Rescue Streamer with Dr. Rob Yonover

Transcript

Invention, Rejection, and Resilience: The Story of the Sea Rescue Streamer with Dr. Rob Yonover · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:03
  Now, it saved lives.
• 0:04
  It's on fighter jets, it's on aircraft, and it's very simple.
• 0:08
  What if a single observation from an airplane window led to an invention that saved lives around the world?
• 0:16
  Today's guest, Rob Yonover, is a volcanologist turned inventor whose Sea Rescue streamer is now used by the US Military and armed forces globally.
• 0:27
  He's pitched on Shark Tank, battled patent thieves, and spent years navigating the brutal reality of bringing a life saving product to market, all without quitting his day job.
• 0:39
  In this conversation, Rob gets real about the long, unglamorous road from idea to impact.
• 0:46
  The licensing battles, the copycats, the setbacks, and why slow, steady persistence beats the overnight success myth every single time.
• 0:56
  If you're an entrepreneur with a big idea wondering whether it's worth the fight, Rob's story will remind you exactly why it is.
• 1:05
  This is innovation, grit, and purpose all in one incredible journey.
• 1:10
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:16
  All right, Dr.
• 1:17
  Rob Yonover, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:20
  Thanks, Dave.
• 1:21
  Great to be here.
• 1:21
  Appreciate it.
• 1:22
  Yes, we appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:25
  So, Rob, you are a very prolific inventor and you are best known for inventing the Sea Rescue streamer.
• 1:35
  And it's a fantastic product.
• 1:37
  It's used by militaries, our US Military and many other militaries all around the world.
• 1:44
  You appeared on Shark Tank and you've had a long, illustrious career with this invention.
• 1:50
  So can you just say, set the stage for our audience to talk about how you became an entrepreneur?
• 1:56
  Yeah, I mean, it's in my blood.
• 1:58
  My father started a business in our house when I was a little kid and our family motto was never get a real job.
• 2:04
  And if you got a real job, you were a disappointment to the family.
• 2:08
  So we were programmed to start our own business.
• 2:10
  And I mean, we used to take our alligator around in Miami, a little alligator, and get 5 cents to show it to people.
• 2:17
  So I started my entrepreneurial journey very, very early on.
• 2:21
  But I got to Hawaii in the 80s and I was flying interisland and saw how if you were lost at sea, they only had smokes, flares, or electronic devices.
• 2:31
  But those all go away quickly.
• 2:33
  And I realized if you could just get a signal, it stayed there.
• 2:36
  And I flew back to Miami and Christo the artist wrapped the islands in pink plastic and I came up with an orange plastic streamer behind you.
• 2:46
  And I patented the struts in it.
• 2:47
  So there's spreader bars every three feet so it doesn't twist up or curl.
• 2:51
  Up and I patent it, got military approvals.
• 2:55
  It's used all over the world now.
• 2:57
  It's saved lives.
• 2:58
  It's on fighter jets, it's on aircraft.
• 3:01
  And it's very simple.
• 3:02
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• 3:47
  Calm folds up and it fits on, you know, fits in a little holster, goes on your belt.
• 3:52
  And the military loved it because it was the only passive and continuous signaling device.
• 3:57
  Smoke flare, C dial goes away.
• 3:59
  The streamer stays extended forever if you wanted it.
• 4:03
  If the enemy comes around, you can put it away and then redeploy it.
• 4:07
  And you know, my whole PR was my whole thing.
• 4:11
  My brother was in PR and advertising.
• 4:13
  He taught me to work the media.
• 4:15
  And I've been doing that forever.
• 4:16
  And I've been in all the magazines.
• 4:18
  My press book is too fat to hold anymore.
• 4:21
  I was even in Playboy.
• 4:22
  I got the streamer in every magazine, outdoor magazine, men's journal, and I kept doing that until ultimately I got CBS innovation nation show.
• 4:32
  And now shark tank.
• 4:34
  9 million people saw it and now 58 million saw it on YouTube versus from the shark Tank pitch.
• 4:40
  And I just keep pushing the company forward, using the PR for the consumer side, which sometimes leaks to the military.
• 4:49
  And then I'm part of a safe association, a military survival group that has all the international groups in the world.
• 4:56
  And I go every year to a trade show, which I love and hate.
• 4:59
  But trade shows are great because you get in front of people.
• 5:02
  I shave and I wear a suit and tie.
• 5:05
  And you're very respectable and you get to rub shoulders with the decision makers.
• 5:09
  So I've been doing that forever and I keep doing it and it's been really, really exciting.
• 5:14
  And I invent a bunch of other survival gear type things and just keep pushing it, you know.
• 5:19
  And I was able to quit my day job, which was I was a volcanologist.
• 5:23
  I worked on submarine volcanoes off the Galapagos and got, you know, science and then inventing and entrepreneurship mixed it all up and this is what you get.
• 5:33
  And big wave surfing.
• 5:34
  So that's, that's kind of the mix you see before you.
• 5:38
  Okay, all right, so a whole lot, whole lots unpack there.
• 5:41
  All right?
• 5:42
  Yes.
• 5:42
  So, so this invention, like you mentioned, it's very simple and it came out of a problem that you just noticed flying into Hawaii, is that right?
• 5:53
  If, if you're stranded, like you said, there's just smoke or there's, there's these other signals that go, yeah, sea diver.
• 6:02
  But what people don't realize is your head is only as big as a coconut floating in the water or a rock on the mountain.
• 6:09
  The streamer works, as you can see behind me, it works on land or sea.
• 6:13
  So if you're ahead bobbing in the water, you talk to people that were saved, they say the same thing.
• 6:19
  If they're lucky to live through it, they always say the same thing.
• 6:22
  We saw the aircraft fly over us five times.
• 6:24
  They never saw us.
• 6:26
  The reason they didn't see you is your head's a speck, but with a 25 or 40 foot long orange tail.
• 6:32
  There's no orange eels in the ocean.
• 6:35
  So when they see an orange tail, the rescue guys know something's up down there.
• 6:40
  So it was a very, it's a very simple idea, but it was difficult to make it work because it would curl up and twist up.
• 6:46
  I don't know if you can see, but there's white spreader bars every three feet.
• 6:50
  There's one right there.
• 6:51
  So that makes it like a centipede.
• 6:53
  It doesn't twist up.
• 6:54
  And that gives me some of the strength of the pattern, the patents that I filed and got awarded.
• 6:59
  So it's a very simple device.
• 7:01
  And that's kind of my mindset, is simpler, is better.
• 7:04
  Don't over engineer something.
• 7:07
  And especially in the survival space, stuff goes wrong in the ocean.
• 7:11
  Things corrode, batteries don't work, you know, things fall apart.
• 7:15
  This thing is simple and reliable.
• 7:17
  And that's what I want to save my ass.
• 7:19
  So I knew if it was good for me, I would want, I would want other people to have it also.
• 7:25
  Okay, so I mean, let's talk about when you have this idea, you have this epiphany because we hear the stories all the time where people maybe had a great idea, they didn't act on it, and then someone else
• 7:35
  eventually did.
• 7:36
  So when you notice you have this idea and you see this problem and you have this idea for an invention, what was the process of like, of taking that idea and making it Into a tangible product with no
• 7:50
  good question.
• 7:50
  I mean first of all, you write it down and in the old days you notarize it if you don't file for the patent.
• 7:56
  So you notarize it or send it to your patent attorney so you have a documentation that you thought of it on.
• 8:02
  1980, when I thought of it was 1985, believe it or not.
• 8:06
  I still have the original drawings that I submitted to my patent attorney.
• 8:09
  And then I got patents and then I got military approvals.
• 8:13
  And then I started trademarking the name Sea Rescue.
• 8:16
  You have to be seen to be rescued.
• 8:18
  You just start building the barriers to entry.
• 8:21
  And that way once I got the patent issued, then I was free to go to the media and spread the word because then I was not worried about someone infringing because I already had it protected.
• 8:33
  So I actually wrote a book, Hardcore inventing about this whole process.
• 8:37
  And my whole M.O.
• 8:39
  early on was licensing.
• 8:41
  I wanted to license it because I want to keep inventing.
• 8:44
  I don't want to be a business person, I want to be an inventor.
• 8:48
  So I license it for 15 years.
• 8:50
  And I was fortunate to get a licensing deal that had a guaranteed royalty payment which was really good for both parties because that way the licensee wouldn't just sit on it, they'd have to pay me.
• 9:02
  So they were, they were motivated to sell, you know, sell product because they, they had to pay me.
• 9:08
  So that way we were both in good position and they could back out any day, anytime they could give it back to me and I would keep it going.
• 9:16
  And that ironically is what happened.
• 9:18
  It actually went the full 15 year term.
• 9:21
  The licensee made a bunch of money, I made some money and then he didn't want to re renew it.
• 9:27
  And no, I couldn't find anyone else to pay for a guaranteed royalty.
• 9:32
  So I just kept it going by running it myself.
• 9:35
  So now I do run, run it as a small business.
• 9:38
  So instead of the licensing model, there are different models.
• 9:41
  But the basic answer to your question is the patent process is what I go through.
• 9:46
  And it has to be unique to patent something.
• 9:48
  It can't have been done before.
• 9:51
  It could be different something components of it can be done.
• 9:54
  But if you invent something new that can make it viable for a new patent.
• 10:01
  And since the new patent was the original patent was filed, the air force came to me and said we wanted a self deploying one because the fighter pilots get ejected out and they're injured, they want to deploy the
• 10:12
  streamer automatically.
• 10:13
  So I use a water soluble plastic like the Stuff you throw in the dishwasher, that stuff dissolves.
• 10:20
  So there's a pouch.
• 10:21
  And when the pouch dissolves, the streamer goes out automatically and has flashing lights.
• 10:26
  So that enabled me to get a second patent, which gives me another 20 years that I dovetailed with the first 20 years of coverage.
• 10:33
  So that protected me from the big guy stealing it.
• 10:37
  And that's where we stand today.
• 10:39
  Okay, and so when you're first inventing this too, did you have knowledge of kind of how the whole patent process worked, or was it just trial and error?
• 10:47
  And you were trial and error.
• 10:49
  I read a book called Patent it Yourself, and the guy said, right, write the patent yourself.
• 10:54
  Which I did, but then I.
• 10:56
  And I got it rejected.
• 10:57
  Then I realized there's no way to do it without a patent attorney.
• 11:01
  If patent, you want a strong enough patent that's enforceable.
• 11:05
  And the way I write patents is I write the whole patent and then I pay my patent attorney to write the claims.
• 11:12
  The legal claims are the critical part.
• 11:15
  But that protects you.
• 11:16
  That really defines what you're patenting.
• 11:21
  And I've gone on to patent pocket flotation device, inflatable rescue board, portable desalinator, video search and rescue device, water bicycle.
• 11:34
  I have all sorts of patents.
• 11:35
  Most of them are in the survival space.
• 11:38
  Okay, all right.
• 11:39
  So you figure out how to create the patent, you go through the process, you get the attorney, you get it patented.
• 11:46
  What was the process like of bringing it to market in terms of like, did it take off right away?
• 11:51
  No, I mean, again, I used the media.
• 11:53
  Did not take off right away.
• 11:55
  I made a couple of my own, and my strategy was to keep prior plugging it through the media.
• 12:00
  And believe it or not, I gave a business plan, competition here in Hawaii, and one of the media members covered it, and they wrote an article in the Pacific Business News, and that led to a bidding war for
• 12:13
  the license.
• 12:14
  So that's how I did it.
• 12:17
  I always went through the media first or third party, like the military.
• 12:21
  So I had military approvals, a navy like this, and then a magazine or newspaper wrote about it.
• 12:27
  So I took those two pieces of ammunition and then went out and tried to find licensees, people that were willing to start a business or add it to their business and sell it that way.
• 12:39
  That's the way I went about it.
• 12:40
  I still think it's a good way because it's hard to start up a business from zero to 60 miles an hour when you're just starting out.
• 12:48
  There's a big outlay, outlay of money Working the media is basically free.
• 12:53
  And the patents, yes, they're expensive, but it gives me the knowledge that if it does take off, I'm protected and someone's not going to just rip me off.
• 13:01
  Okay, and over the years, too, did you ever have someone try to copy it and violate the patent where you had to, you know, enforce your.
• 13:11
  Enforce the patent and basically shut them down?
• 13:14
  A couple stories, yeah.
• 13:15
  I mean, someone, One of my reps overseas, tried to basically rip me off, and they built a bunch and sold it to their own military.
• 13:26
  And I wrote a series of protest letters to their government saying, you just bought a bunch of material that has never been tested.
• 13:34
  The streamer, which has been around for 30 years, had gone through millions of dollars of military testing to get its approvals and stock numbers.
• 13:42
  And I'm saying, you're putting your stock, you're putting your service members at risk by having a, you know, basically a pirated copy.
• 13:50
  And they listened to me, they looked at it and they.
• 13:52
  They returned all those and bought from myself from the original.
• 13:57
  The other story is that the inflatable rescue board I invented, that led to a huge patent battle.
• 14:04
  Fifty companies teamed up against me because when I invented it, it was just a regular inflatable rescue board that can be used as a paddleboard.
• 14:12
  But what happened is the inflatable paddle board stand up, paddleboarding took off, and all of a sudden, everyone's making them, and they were pissed off that some guy in Hawaii is going to, you have to pay me royalties.
• 14:24
  So they fought me, and I did have to defend the patent in, you know, patent court.
• 14:31
  And ultimately we came to a settlement because they tried to show that it was done similarly in the 70s in Europe or something.
• 14:40
  But what it did was they scared my patent attorneys enough to put a freeze on their efforts, so that unfortunately, I kind of lost, or it was a draw.
• 14:50
  At least I made some.
• 14:52
  I got royalties for a few years, but then it stopped when they refused to.
• 14:58
  You know, everyone teamed, they teamed up against me, and it was.
• 15:00
  It was kind of like a.
• 15:02
  Kind of like an antitrust thing.
• 15:03
  But they were allowed to do that because we initiated the action first by trying to get them to work by enforcing our patent.
• 15:11
  That's a long story.
• 15:11
  I could talk for hours about that.
• 15:13
  But those are the two cases where people tried to rip off my patents.
• 15:17
  And in one case, I countered it with all the military approvals and letter writing campaign, showing them all the patents, showing them all the military approvals, showing them all the testing that went into it.
• 15:29
  And they looked at their, you know, basically counterfeit version and said, wait, this is a risk.
• 15:34
  Some of our service members might be killed because this device has been pirated.
• 15:39
  Doesn't work.
• 15:40
  Whereas the Sea Rescue streamer works and has been tested to work.
• 15:45
  Okay, and as you're developing this product too, right.
• 15:49
  Like you mentioned, it scaled, it scaled slow and it took years and years to kind of get this right and really traction out in the market.
• 15:57
  Was there ever a point where you thought about giving up?
• 16:02
  Yes and no.
• 16:04
  Me personally, no, but my late wife, yes.
• 16:07
  I mean, I was told, stop playing with this piece of plastic and get a real job.
• 16:12
  You know, a lot of people questioned it.
• 16:14
  And it's so simple.
• 16:16
  You gotta understand something.
• 16:17
  This is on a $300 million F16s.
• 16:22
  They carry these.
• 16:23
  I don't even know what a SpaceX aircraft carries.
• 16:26
  But this little piece of plastic's under the ass of every astronaut.
• 16:30
  So the juxtaposition of a simple $95 item versus a billion dollar, half a billion dollar aircraft or rocket ship, people didn't like that.
• 16:41
  They don't like someone coming in and saying, you know, I was a classic disruptor of the whole emergency signaling system.
• 16:50
  So not only did everyone want me to give up, but I knew, I knew it was the right thing because I'm a water guy, I'm into, I'm into big waves, rough water fishing.
• 17:00
  I know what risks there are in ocean and in volcanoes and out in the, out of the wilderness, you're just an insignificant spot.
• 17:09
  And when you need to signal, you need something reliable that's continuous.
• 17:13
  So I personally never gave up.
• 17:16
  But it did waver.
• 17:17
  And I would get other jobs and other consulting gigs or whatever I had to do to make ends meet.
• 17:23
  But I personally never gave up.
• 17:25
  And I did.
• 17:26
  I never wanted to give up either.
• 17:27
  I mean, everyone else wanted me to, but.
• 17:29
  But not me.
• 17:30
  I stuck in there.
• 17:32
  Okay, wow.
• 17:33
  So, but you had all this difficulty.
• 17:35
  You had to take odd jobs and different gigs just to kind of keep going.
• 17:39
  Absolutely.
• 17:40
  Everyone around you, including, including your wife, just told you, give up and get a real job.
• 17:44
  But you refused.
• 17:46
  Absolutely.
• 17:47
  So what, when it finally broke through and took off, like, what was that feeling like?
• 17:53
  Well, that was the sweetest feeling of all.
• 17:56
  The first license I got, the first check, people couldn't believe it.
• 17:59
  They thought I was lying to them.
• 18:00
  And then more importantly, I went to a trade show, a military trade show, and a guy came up to me and thanked me for saving his life.
• 18:08
  That was the best of all.
• 18:09
  Because if I Didn't fight for it.
• 18:11
  That guy might have died.
• 18:12
  You know, I fought and I'm still fighting.
• 18:14
  I'm not giving up.
• 18:15
  And by the way, this should be on every life jacket, every life raft, every flight jacket in the world.
• 18:21
  It should be like an airbag or a seatbelt.
• 18:24
  It's obvious.
• 18:25
  You should have a degree of visibility, not just a degree of flotation, you know, or whatever is required.
• 18:30
  And it will happen when I'm dead, probably.
• 18:33
  So I'm still fighting the fight and I'm not giving up.
• 18:37
  And it feels great to be vindicated.
• 18:40
  And even on Shark Tank where all five of the sharks loved it and said, yeah, this is great, this will save lives.
• 18:45
  But none of them invested and I was kind of in shock and I had price priced it real low.
• 18:51
  I thought there'd be a bidding war.
• 18:53
  I couldn't believe that they didn't want to save lives and they just cared only about money.
• 18:58
  That was a shock to me and it's still a shock to me.
• 19:01
  But I'm happy it worked out that way because now I'm free to do my thing without other investors, you know, so it's been a long, long road and I'm not giving up.
• 19:12
  And you know, that's just part of my DNA.
• 19:15
  I'm not giving up if I believe in it and I believe in this.
• 19:18
  I mean, my other inventions are great.
• 19:19
  I believe in them too.
• 19:20
  But this was the one and that's.
• 19:23
  As an inventor, you have to decide which is the winner you're going to pick with.
• 19:27
  You're going to win, you know, go with, I'm going to the wall with the streamer.
• 19:31
  And I said that in the 80s when I thought, I thought it, you know, when I thought about it.
• 19:36
  Okay, and let's just go back to the Shark Tank appearance here.
• 19:39
  Like, how did that come about?
• 19:42
  Just like every other person, I went to a 400 person cattle call at a hotel in Waikiki and took a streamer and you know, did my pitch and you know, I was advanced compared to other people because I
• 19:57
  already had the licensing.
• 19:59
  I had, we had $15 million of sales in the 15 years.
• 20:03
  My licensee did pretty well.
• 20:05
  But you know, that was, that had already ended.
• 20:08
  So they're saying, what's going on now?
• 20:09
  So.
• 20:10
  But I basically pitch, pitch, pitch and, and I keep making, I made the first cut, the second cut, send the video, go there even, you know, I flew to la, I even had to do the, the last cut
• 20:22
  was in front of the producers and they said, your Pitch was a little rough.
• 20:26
  I go, yeah, that's because you guys made me memorize it.
• 20:28
  They said, you don't have to memorize it.
• 20:30
  I said, fine, then we're good.
• 20:31
  And they let me on the air and that was that.
• 20:35
  You know, I enjoyed it.
• 20:36
  I was in there for an hour and what you see is seven minutes.
• 20:39
  And what you see now on YouTube is they boiled it down to my one minute pitch instead of the whole seven minute show.
• 20:47
  And you know, I'm pretty good at it.
• 20:50
  And I've been, you know, I'm a PhD scientist, so I'm used to presenting academic papers or science papers in front of the military.
• 20:58
  So I had that advantage among over the Sharks.
• 21:00
  And you know, they're, they, they got it.
• 21:03
  They, they, they got it, but they didn't want to invest.
• 21:06
  But I did all, there was no like inside deal.
• 21:09
  I, I cold pitch and stood in line like every Shark Tank potential contestant.
• 21:16
  Okay.
• 21:16
  And so we were talking off camera too, and you mentioned something that on the consumer side too, consumers don't prioritize safety with their spending.
• 21:27
  Do you think that has something to do with.
• 21:30
  Yeah, I think so.
• 21:31
  I think the Sharks, they were smart.
• 21:33
  If you watch the show, you'll see it's on season eight, episode 22 and you'll see that they liked it, but they didn't see how they could make a lot of money.
• 21:41
  And I told them it's hard to sell it to consumers.
• 21:44
  And they thought I had to do a whole re, you know, start over.
• 21:48
  It was basically a start over or startup and they didn't want to do that.
• 21:51
  And I had learned, and I'm still learning.
• 21:54
  The lesson is the same.
• 21:55
  Consumers don't care about safety.
• 21:58
  And if you look at the history of the automotive industry, airbags, seat belts, that all came from Europe and the only reason people have airbags and seat belts is because they're required.
• 22:12
  They're not going to voluntarily buy them.
• 22:14
  And some people will.
• 22:16
  And that's who buys the streamers.
• 22:17
  Smart, safety conscious people.
• 22:20
  And believe it or not, and I've thought this for years now and it's been proven out because at least over half our business on the Amazon and consumer sector is women.
• 22:30
  Women are smarter when it comes to safety.
• 22:32
  They care more.
• 22:34
  When a guy goes to go fishing or hiking, they're buying more beer.
• 22:38
  The woman's going, do you have all your safety gear?
• 22:40
  So that's, you know, and I don't mean to be sexist and reverse sexist against my tribe of the men, but we're kind of bad about that.
• 22:48
  So it's a tough sell.
• 22:50
  Consumers don't buy safety, especially when it's optional safety.
• 22:55
  But smart ones.
• 22:56
  $95.
• 22:57
  And the streamer comes in a little sexy holster.
• 23:00
  It looks like a cell phone.
• 23:01
  So it's a great gift.
• 23:03
  And, you know, I'm still hoping for the breakthrough on the consumer side, but I'm not banking on it.
• 23:09
  You know, my motivation and my main focus is the military, who has to be safe.
• 23:16
  They train troop members to be safe.
• 23:19
  They don't want to lose them.
• 23:20
  They don't want to have casualties, so they're much more safe.
• 23:24
  The standard is much higher than a hiker, boater, kayaker.
• 23:29
  So it's frustrating, but I'm okay with it.
• 23:33
  I understand.
• 23:33
  That's the way it is.
• 23:35
  Okay.
• 23:35
  All right.
• 23:36
  So as this business has grown and evolved over many, many, many years, I mean, what do you think's the biggest lesson you've taken away from this whole experience?
• 23:47
  I think it's still basically the tortoise and the hare.
• 23:52
  That fable we hear when we're kids about, you know, the hare runs so fast, but the tortoise chugging along in the hair cape.
• 23:59
  The hair keeps taking naps.
• 24:01
  Everything you build takes twice as long and twice as much money.
• 24:06
  And the key for me is to don't quit your day job so you can quit your day job.
• 24:12
  You see, if people think they're gonna have a startup and all of a sudden it's gonna make a lot of money, don't think that way.
• 24:17
  Think about, I'm gonna do it on the side.
• 24:20
  There are 128 hours in a week, 40 to sleep, 40 for your job.
• 24:24
  That still leaves another 48 hours.
• 24:27
  So do nights, weekends.
• 24:29
  Don't put all your.
• 24:31
  And the pressure to make money is too great when you start a business.
• 24:35
  So my advice and personal advice is just to keep plugging away and go slow just in life.
• 24:41
  Also, I'm trying to learn this lesson because I'm pretty amped up guy.
• 24:45
  I'm trying to be mellow.
• 24:46
  Try to go slow.
• 24:48
  Try to smell the roses.
• 24:49
  Just keep.
• 24:50
  Keep going at a slow pace, but have your money making, viable job in the background, so there's no pressure.
• 24:59
  Your bills are paid because you do a job or you have another gig that way.
• 25:04
  There's no pressure because in my case, it took five, 10 years for it to take off.
• 25:08
  It's taken 20, 30 years to get to this point.
• 25:11
  So if I thought it was going to take off the first six months and quit all My jobs, I would have been bankrupt.
• 25:16
  So I go for the slow burn is the best for business.
• 25:21
  Okay, that's great advice.
• 25:23
  All right, thanks.
• 25:24
  And, Rob, given how everything you've been through and how this has turned out, what would you say has been the best part of your entrepreneurial journey?
• 25:34
  I just think the satisfaction of creating something like.
• 25:38
  I mean, I was brought up to be a creative person, whether it's art, music, and I'm not really good at music, and I'm not really good in art, except this is my art.
• 25:47
  So to create something unique that has been recognized and approved and recognized with patents and ultimately save lives, that is the most memorable part for me because I feel like my work is applied as a scientist.
• 26:04
  One of the knocks on scientists is you're just doing science that only a couple hundred people care about in the world.
• 26:09
  But in applied science, the guy that I saved, his life, he cares about the fact that I did this.
• 26:15
  And I see that as my big reward for me because I feel like the effort I put in and the perseverance, I never.
• 26:24
  There's no way I was quitting.
• 26:25
  And the future lives I'm going to save is because I'm persevering enough to not quit, even when things don't look great.
• 26:33
  So that.
• 26:33
  And.
• 26:34
  And it's also my piece of art.
• 26:35
  I created this out of nothing.
• 26:38
  And that is a big reward for me because that.
• 26:41
  That is a creation.
• 26:43
  Well said.
• 26:44
  Okay.
• 26:45
  And Rob, if people want to reach out to you and learn more about what you're currently doing or get in touch for.
• 26:51
  For any other reason, what's the best way people can find you online?
• 26:54
  Yeah, just see Rescue, streamer, website, or Rob Yonover.
• 26:59
  Just.
• 26:59
  Just Google my name on social media.
• 27:01
  I'm in Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube.
• 27:06
  I'm anywhere, really.
• 27:07
  Just drop me a line through the website or through social media.
• 27:10
  Be glad to.
• 27:10
  Glad to chat.
• 27:12
  Okay.
• 27:13
  All right, we will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 27:16
  Thanks, Dave.
• 27:17
  All right, Rob, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 27:23
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 27:23
  My pleasure.
• 27:24
  Thank you very much.
• 27:25
  My pleasure.