Three fathers bring Whizz Bang potty-training game to market through Make48, Handy Camel
September 7, 2018 | Elyssa Bezner
The Whizz Bang gamifies potty training and saves the bathroom floors of all parents, said Amy Gray.
The device, which hooks on the underside of a toilet seat lid, emits a LED light target at the bottom the bowl. Once hit, the device plays musical praise, said Gray, the head of sales for Handy Camel, a KC-based online store for innovative gadgets like the Whizz Bang.
A crowdfunding campaign is a great way to test the market, she said. Click here to learn more about the Indiegogo effort.
Handy Camel hopes to raise $10,000 for Whizz Bang in the next month, with several companies on tap to create buzz around the product, she said.
Jungle Creations, an online media company, is developing comical videos promoting the product to push out on social media, and Enventys, a product development company, will handle the minutia of running the campaign, said Gray.
Whizz Bang was created by a team of three fathers at a recent Make 48 invention competition, a contest hosted by Handy Camel that poses challenges to teams and ends with a product pitch to a panel of judges, she said.
“The whole idea of Make 48 is to really empower the inventors and show them the process and the stumbling blocks and how hard it is to get into an invention to market,” Gray said. “So you may have a wonderful idea, but getting it to an actual hands-on-user, a consumer in the end, is a difficult process and it takes many, many steps. Lots of money.”
After the competition, Handy Camel picked up the three leading products, including the Whizz Bang, for licensing deals and royalties for the inventors, said Gray.
“I have two boys myself, and the first time I saw this product at the competition, I was like blown away and thought, I need this so bad!” she said. “So I know that there are other moms out there that are thinking the same thing. So it really does solve a problem and we’re excited to bring that to consumers.”
Pivot International, a KC-based product design and engineering firm, modified the device after the contest and will manufacture Whizz Bang once the campaign is complete, she added.
Anyone wanting to become an inventor should follow and learn from the experiences of others, Gray said. Most such entrepreneurs believe they have a million dollar idea, she said, but unless there’s mass appeal, it might not be a concept that’s actually viable.
“Don’t be afraid to share the product idea with other like-minded people and other consumers out there to really vet your idea and make sure that it is something that people are going to really spend money on,” she added. “That knowledge that you can get from that is just priceless.”
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