Latest / Glovisor Podcast / He Invented a Rescue Device Used by SpaceX. Then Shark Tank Said No | See Rescue Streamer [Ep 82]
Transcript
- Dr Rob Yonover: we've included it in the spacecraft and now it's under the seat of the astronauts, which is really cool. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Welcome to the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore business growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with people who make an impact. Our guest invented Sea Rescue Streamer, a signaling device used by the military and SpaceX. And he even took his invention to the stage of ABC's Shark Tank. Glovisor welcomes Dr. Rob Yonover Dr Rob Yonover: Thanks, Joe. Great to be here. I appreciate that. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Pleasure. All right, Rob. So tell us a little bit more about the C streamer. Dr Rob Yonover: Yeah, sea rescue streamer. Basically when you're lost at sea or on the mountains, your head's a little speck. So it's proverbi proverbial needle in the haystack. So the people that are lucky enough to live through it always say the same thing. You flew right over me. Why didn't you see me? And the reason is your head's a speck. It's like a size of a coconut floating in the ocean or a rock on a mountain. So I came up with a simple device, a long orange piece of plastic that trails you, and I patented struts in it. Like spreader bars so it doesn't twist up and curl up. I like to go to I'm I'm very much into biomimicry, mimicking what nature's done. So by putting those spreader bars in there, that's what a centipede does, a caterpillar, your vertebrae, segmentation gives you strength for things that are elongate. So it it started a long time ago, forty years ago, I think came up with the idea, and I've been working it ever since, and just it's been a slow process because I'm basically disrupting an industry. S flares, smoke signals, a mur water dye, even ePERBs, electronic devices. Everyone no one had a visual continuous signaling device like the streamer. And to be a guy at the time I was a young guy from Hawaii, surfer, scientist, come to the military and say this is a better way to do it, I wasn't exactly open, welcomed with open arms. So It's kind of an uphill battle trying to launch something new and so new and so simple. Most people in the technology world don't want to hear about simplicity. I mean, they do, but they don't. So I don't know if it was an insult to them or anything. But but ultimately they gave it a shot. And when we did head head to head tests, this was my favorite part. You go in a raft and we test flares, smoke, sea dye, you put that in the water and it's gone quickly. put the streamer out and I go, I'm going to take a nap and my streamer's still working for us because it's the Navy called it the only passive and continuous signaling device. It stays out there forever. So it w it's a quite simple device and it was hard to make it work, but once I got it to work, it's been pretty well received in in the whole global civilian not military com communities. Civilian's a little different story 'cause civilians don't like to spend money on safety. 'Cause they don't think it's gonna happen to them. So but the military has to 'cause they gotta be safe. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: you definitely can see the value here. But can you take us back? Cause you had this idea many years ago, but Dr Rob Yonover: Yes. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: how did you come up with it and why did you come up with it? Was there a reason that it caused this? Dr Rob Yonover: Yeah, yeah. Well, I was flying to the Outer Islands. I was just got to Hawaii to work on my PhD working on volcanoes and a fellow grad student had a pilot's license. He said, You wanna fly to Kauai? I go, sure. So we he rented a plane. I don't know if you've ever been in a rented plane, but it doesn't sound good 'cause it's not really you know, it's a rental. So it's kinda missing a little. I'm like looking down at the ocean, it's just blue everywhere. I'm like, Jeez, if we crash I could probably swim to shore, but my wife and his girlfriend and him, they're all gonna d drown. So I it really bothered me. I'm like, 'cause they only have smoke, flare, die, but that's gonna go away. And and again, once you've been up high and ever next time you take a plane ride, look out the window and look at the ground or the water, and it's massive. There's no way you can see a person's head in the water or on land. So that was the impetus to try the idea and then few weeks later I flew to Miami where I'd grown up and Christo the artist had wrapped these islands in Biscayne Bay in pink plastic. And when we banked a turn to to land at Miami International, I saw that pink plastic from the air. I'm like, that's it. I just need a piece piece of plastic. Then it took me years to figure out how to incorporate the struts to make that long orange plastic tail not curl up. So it's been a very, very long process. And that's still That's my overall strategy in life is to play the long game. You know, instead of trying to rush things, take your time and do it right and ideally don't have the pressure to make money from it. That's the you know, don't quit your day job. So you can quit your day job. So I just kept chipping away and then I you know, again, it's an uphill battle introducing a new technology. So I my brother who was in advertising goes, you you should work the media. They're sitting on their butt wondering what to write about. So I got it on I I did these at at night I would do in the olden days a fax machine, which your listeners probably don't even know what what it is, but even worse so the landline phone call at eleven one at night was cheaper than the whole you know, after eleven. So I'd w at eleven one I would just keep sending the same one page press release on my fax all over the world trying to get some media play. And actually the Miami Herald wrote about it first. And then I would take that article and send that out. It was like a fishing mission and you keep putting a hundred lines in the water. And then I got it on s outside magazines, CNN, sailing magazine, diving, flying, everything. I even got it in Playboy. I mean I've gotten I used to take my little binder to meetings to show the media I got. And now it's like This th it's too thick, which was really cool. So now it's morphed into social media is another way to get it out. So I've kind of pivoted a little and I try the one of the things I enjoy about meeting people online, you know, on podcasts or wherever, is that it's a third party assessment of the technology. I don't know you, you don't know me, I didn't pay you to say the streamer's a great thing. So I think that has a lot more value and you know, it it just it gives you better credibility. And then ultimately the home run of PR was Shark Tank. So and that was, you know, thirty years after I had already been working on it. So, you know, it it's it's it was already a mature product, but the idea in Shark Tank was to try to get it on the civilian people's shopping list, which is still a heavy lift. So that was quite an experience and You know, even that, y you never know what media's gonna ha what what's gonna happen to it. Like even this. I don't know who's gonna watch this interview, but it might be some admiral that sees this and makes a big move. Same thing with Shark Tank. Shark Tank got picked up by someone on TikTok and it got sixteen million hits, my pitch. And then just last year someone picked it up on YouTube, it got fifty-eight million hits. So These things have a life of their own, you know, you just gotta put it out there and hope for the best. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: you gotta put those lines out there because you never know what you're gonna get. Yeah, and yeah. Dr Rob Yonover: Right, right. It's it's it's just like fishing. If if you have no lines in the water, you're not gonna catch anything. That's the Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: And Dr Rob Yonover: only guarantee. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: just like the streamer, just the simplicity of it as well, right? Dr Rob Yonover: Right. Exactly. I mean my whole thing is simple and I I just that's my whole MO because I like to try to solve problems with the least amount of material, least amount of technology. And you know, technology's a weird word, but it's still technology. And to me a and the patent office reflects this. The broadest patents are the simplest ones. Because you can't design around like the streamer. It's hard to build it and have struts in it. without infringing on my patent. There's really hard to make it stay in stretched out and not curl up and twist up. So it's ironic, but you you think high tech like on i an iPhone or something. You know, the it's so easy to design around certain components in it. But if the broadest claim is something very simple, it's very hard for p piraters to steal it. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: you also managed to sell to the military and SpaceX. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Dr Rob Yonover: Yeah. in parallel to the media I learned about trade shows and I love and hate trade shows. They're a hassle, but they put you shoulder to shoulder with the powers of any industry. So early on I would go to trade shows and walk the floor. I didn't have the money for a booth, but I'd have a streamer in my pocket. So And I practiced my elevator pitch. I had thirty seconds to impress someone. So and I try to poach them from other booths or I you know famous stories I chased the guy into the urinal to g to get his attention, which sounds worse than it is. But whatever whatever elevator scenario you can get, that's where you go. And that ultimately has led to so many great things because again, last ten or so years, I had a licensee for fifteen years and we had a booth. And then when I took over the license, I took over the booth and and from then on I s I do trade shows where I have a booth. So that's better because people come by my booth. So I'm not poaching them from someone else's booth. People try to poach them from me now. But anyway, you meet people. You just, you know, you just keep keep, you know, networking. And the thing about SpaceX is they were at a I'm part of the Safe Association. It's an international military survival. group for all over the world. These guys come every year to the to US and they come around all you know, the and the streamers on British British Air Force, Canadian Air Force, Singapore, Sweden, Belgium, it's all over the world. It's really cool. So these guys come by and in in those in in addition to military, there's groups like NOAA, NASA and SpaceX, a couple of young Young kid, I call kids, like thirty year old engineers come by and they go, This looks good. So I get you know, and I see their l their boo their badge says SpaceX. that's cool. Talk it up. I didn't think much of it. Then t a couple of years ago, two weeks before the first manned launch, they said, You got a material data sheet on this? And I go, Why? They go, Well, it's going up. We're we've included it in the aircraft and spacecraft and we want to make sure it's not gonna make the spaceship blow up. So I go, it's only plastic, so I sent them and and now it's under the seat of the astronauts, which is really cool. So my d my DNA goes to space, even Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Yeah. Dr Rob Yonover: though I I I didn't get to go. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: That's really cool. Now, what would you say is your biggest challenge of growing your business? Dr Rob Yonover: the military's a weird animal for being in business. It takes years to get national stock numbers, get approval, get people to buy it. So it's a very cyclical and then you might get a nice order, but then it's quiet for a long time. So that's that's the number one challenge is trying to perpetuate a company throughout quiet periods. And my licensee had this problem because it would it would go up and down to get a big order and then you didn't Then it was crickets for a while. And all the time, for forty years, I've been trying to sell this to the civilians, and I do, but it's a tough sell. So it's still to this day very hard to sell safety gear to people, to consumers that don't need to have it. It's not a required product. So Joe Boder would rather buy a six pack of beer and Joanne Heiker, you they don't they don't care, they don't think about safety. The women, I ironically, think more about safety. So they're more likely to buy it, which is kind of weird. So that's been the challenge. And fortunately, I took a dual track approach, which is keep the military business going and try the civilian, but don't put too much pressure on the civilian market to succeed. And even on Shark Tank, all five sharks. Loved it, thought it was gonna save lives, but they thought it's a hard sell to civilians. I convinced them of that, which is I kind of dug my own grave on that, but I wanted to be totally honest with those guys. And it's just hard. And if you look into our country and and automobiles, for instance, we wouldn't have airbags and seat belts if it was America's decision. Those things came from Europe, you know, and and they saved so many lives. But you know why they save so many lives? Because they're required. You can't build a car without an airbag or a seatbelt now. So someday, probably when I'm long gone, streamers will be required on life rafts, flight jackets, life jackets. As they should be. I mean, it's r really ridiculous because they have a certain level of flotation required for a life jacket or a life raft. They should have a certain level of visibility required, right? So I I I don't get as frustrated as I used to when I was younger and I so now I just kinda hey, if you don't want it, that's fine. Even sharks when the sharks said they didn't want it, I you know, I'm not gonna get mad at That's just that's just their call. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: after all these years, have you had any interesting stories of anyone who's contacted you and said I used it and this is what it did for me? Can you share one of those with us? Dr Rob Yonover: absolutely. Well, I was at a military trade show and a couple of guys walked by and you know, they're kinda gruffy looking, some of the special forces guys, you you can't really tell and they they never wear their badge, they wear it upside down or you can't you don't even know who they are. So I knew they were military. And they said, Hey man, that thing's great. We wor we we use it, it works great, it saved my ass. So I think they were in Afghanistan and they needed to get extracted. The other use for the streamer not only lost at sea signaling, but extraction signaling. So in the Vietnam days they were taught to light a purple smoke to signal the helicopter. But the Viet Cong figured out that a purple smoke would get the helicopter, so they just stole stole them from dead bodies and lit a purple smoke and the helicopter would come in and they'd shoot it up. So the ability to go to a clearing, unfurl a streamer, be spotted, pull it back in and then take you know get extracted was is very valuable. So that's one set of stories. And the other is a local diver said, hey man, this worked. It saved my life. I was on on a free diving expedition and he came up. The real risk, a lot, a big risk is boaters, divers. You go down, especially scuba, you don't know where you are. You come up, the boat's a mile away. So this guy came up and the boat was so far away they were looking for him. And he got creative. He he put the streamer on his spear and held it up higher. You can hold it up higher to to see it from the horizontal. It's mainly designed for aerial searches when you're really lost, but you can see it from a boat because the waves take it up too. The waves you can see it going up and down. So I those are only a few stories. The other thing is the military, they don't really share stories of stuff like that, so th I know they've used it a lot more than. So And that that was the irony of Shark Tank is I tried to convey to the sharks how how good it made me feel to have these guys thank me for saving their lives. And I said to the sharks, Don't you wanna have that feeling? You know, we can save thousands of lives. And they just didn't care. They cared only about money, which was shocking and disappointing. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Could be challenging sometimes. Now, Dr Rob Yonover: That's for sure. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: based on your company's status today, who are Dr Rob Yonover: Yes. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: you looking forward to working with? Dr Rob Yonover: militaries. I'm looking for military groups all over the world and ironically th the the group I'm looking most forward to working with more is our military. It's it's funny, but the foreign militaries have adopted it as much as our military. Our military's approved it as an optional item and we sell it. But it really should be on all life rafts. It really should be on all flight jackets. It really should be on all life rafts. So I'm hoping To one day crack that nut and have some admiral or general say, This is ridiculous. Of course this should be a standard piece of equipment. So that's who I'm trying to get to ultimately. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: where can people find out more about the streamer and connect with you and continue this conversation? Dr Rob Yonover: Sure. well See Rescue Streamer online or I have an Amazon store on See Rescue. That's where we sell the civilians. It's Amazon. And then also on Amazon, just if you just Google my name, Rob Yonover for Amazon or social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, my name's pretty unique. So you can see all my stuff and contact me there. I'm not the greatest social media guy. I I kinda got chided for it over the years. But I put out a lot of new content, so I do I do interviews and podcasts, so there's a lot of stuff up there and i that's the best way, is is just to go through social media or or the site. And I I like, you know, I do a lot of outreach to kids and entrepreneurs and I've written a bunch of books, hardcore inventing, Caregivers Survival Guide. My my wife got MS and with but became paralyzed in the middle of this. So for nineteen years she was in a wheelchair, so I had to build this company and raise little kids all at the same time. So that story as an inventor, scientist, male, being a caregiver is pretty valuable. People really like that book. And I did a children's book, Brainstorm Islands, and it's it's been a lot of it's been a lot of fun. I I really enjoy the outreach. I think I'm a frustrated professor that never so I I'm a virtual professor. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Rob, thank you so much for joining us today and and we really appreciate your time and everything you shared today. Dr Rob Yonover: No. My pleasure, Joe. Thank you. That was great. I appreciate that. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR.com: Thanks everyone for listening. If this episode inspired you, make sure you share it with someone. And don't forget to follow the Glovisor Podcast for more conversations that make an impact. Till the next time.