Comfy Cup Chronicles
The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 8: How we Turned Product Testing and Evaluation into "Happenis Hour".
"Good feedback is the key to improvement."With thirty prototypes in hand, we needed to find out if kids actually liked the Comfy Cup™ and if it actually worked. So, like any fun and borderline crazy mom would do, on a cold January day we hosted an After-School Happenis-Hour-Comfy Cup™ Testing party. Cocktails for mamas and Comfy Cups™, dart blasters, and rough and tumble play for the boys. It. Was. Crazy. Kids were punching each other in the crotch and moms were blasting kids in the crotch
The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 7: How The Comfy Cup Got It's Name.
In order to add a trademark symbol to the product, it needed a name and a logo. We tossed around quite a few ideas for product names (and had lots of laughs in the process):Beanie weenie Pee wee protector Dicky defenderBall bouncer Kyler ultimately decided on the name: “Comfy Cup”. We all agreed. It was the perfect name.I tried outsourcing the logo design utilizing a website called Fiverr, (in case you don't know about Fiverr.com, you pay $5 for people to do all kinds of things, including
The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 6: To Patent or Not to Patent? That Is the Question.
As the reality of mass production hit, we consulted a patent attorney, Denise Mashburn, a cousin to our neighbor, Christy, to make sure 1) our product was not infringing on any other patents and 2) decide if we should apply for a patent.Denise advised us that obtaining a patent for Kyler's athletic cup invention would be very difficult, time consuing and costly ($10,000 or more)-- beyond what we could afford. We decided to move forward without a patent. Instead, she advised us to add a ™
The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 5: The Evolution of the Comfy Cup
“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.Kyler and I went back to the drawing board. This was an interesting phase, as we had to ask for some very personal information about pelvis and "peanut" sizes from Kyler’s close friends and teammates. These details helped Kyler and I know exactly how big, wide, and deep to make the comfortable athletic cup. We were thrilled to learn that Tony had his own graphic
The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 4: Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help. How We Found a Factory to Manufacture the Comfy Cup.
"If the original plan doesn't work, change the plan, but never the goal."As luck would have it, my cousin's father-in-law, Tony, owns a company in California, Austin Enterprises Inc., that turns ideas into products. With resources in Newport Beach, Hong Kong, Sydney & Amsterdam, Tony and Austin Enterprises was able to meet our manufacturing needs. We emailed Tony the CAD of Kyler's comfortable cup invention and mailed him the prototype Kyler and I developed in our dining room. Tony took the
