I am a software engineer, but an avid optimiser at heart. When I worked abroad, I always looked for the shortest way from my accommodation to the office so as not to waste time. Later, when I commuted daily from Pardubice to Prague, I optimised the journey with a folding scooter — no motor, there were practically no electric scooters almost a quarter of a century ago. Over a few years I managed to inspire a fair number of fellow travellers that way.
I react to a badly designed product the same way: I start coming up with simple and cheap improvements for it. I consider it a crime when a useful function is spoiled by laziness, stupidity or the narrow horizon of its developers. A typical example: when defrosting on our microwave, the weight can only be set from 200 g upwards, while the portion of meat for our cat is somewhere around 80 g. I can find more nuisances of that kind in its user interface — and hunting for a better replacement is futile: from years of experience, another model from another maker will bring a fresh set of nuisances of its own. You will usually not read about details like these in the catalogue or the manual — you notice them only once you are using the thing.
Somewhere around the turn of the millennium I came up with a concept for a hybrid car. It seemed excellent to me, I only did not know whether it would founder on insufficient efficiency. It did not: our Honda with the e:HEV drive is the proof, as it comes close to my concept in principle — only it is nowhere near as refined and does not solve nearly as many technological challenges. 🙂 When the era of electromobility began, I wrote to a number of manufacturers with an offer of cooperation. Today I know that this is not how it works. Which is a pity: Škoda Auto could have been the flagship of Volkswagen, and Volkswagen could be crushing the Chinese competition today. 🙂
Some two decades ago I devised, in much the same way, an alternative concept for the tax and social system (in Czech only) and took it almost to perfection. I went round a number of senior politicians with it and fared much as I later did with senior managers. In their defence I have to say that my proposals are rather unorthodox and call for a good dose of courage on top of understanding the principles.
Over time I began writing my ideas down so that I could use them when the moment was right. There are getting on for a hundred of them.
All of that is merely an illustration of my innovator's nature.
After retiring I decided to devote myself fully to my innovative visions. When the feasibility of my hybrid car concept was confirmed as belatedly as that, my confidence rose a little. 🙂 And the toothbrushes I bought soon afterwards showed me a way forward with potential I had not suspected.
Some time ago I bought electric toothbrushes for the family. The natural choice was between Braun Oral-B and Philips Sonicare; Philips won, on the strength of references from people around me and thanks to being closer to a conventional toothbrush. As I used it, however, it dawned on me that the shape of the Sonicare head, close to that of an ordinary toothbrush, brings no significant advantage. Within a few days I had, as is my good habit, uncovered several further small imperfections. And the rotary oscillation of the round head, once I had looked into the competing concept, did not strike me, unfortunately, as an adequate answer to the quality of cleaning either.
So neither of the two solutions I had considered was optimal — and I threw myself into designing my own version. Right at the outset several original design solutions occurred to me, ones with unexpected advantages.
I also said to myself that it would be a shame not to combine conventional brushing with ultrasound. My own way of combining the two gave the technical design, in my eyes, an air of first-rate originality.
And it occurred to me to conceive the whole thing as an open system: a shared power handle and interchangeable attachments. In the end the handle swallowed a fair amount of effort. It has no buttons and no screen, there is nothing to switch on or set, and hardly any tremor reaches the palm from it. It is water-resistant to IPX8, easy to disinfect, it is meant to withstand thermal shock up to 85 °C, and the battery in it can be replaced without breaching the shell — and every one of those properties rests on a design solution of its own.
The handle knows nothing about the attachment — and does not need to.
I put together a concept that surpasses the competition in many respects. With a description of it and a few drawings I went to see a patent attorney. Right at the outset I found out that the cost of filing a national application covering the basic principles could climb, at a rough estimate, to as much as two hundred thousand crowns. That is still not out of reach — except it is likely that I would have to present a fully working prototype, and that is already beyond my personal means. At the same time I would need to find funding for international patent protection, which calls for investment an order of magnitude higher.
Inwardly I decided to give it a try. Since I was in Prague anyway, I dropped in on my former colleagues and showed off my new hobby. My former boss cooled my enthusiasm: a solution that fails to clean all parts of the teeth properly is worthless, and that matters far more than any ultrasound. He is a man who always manages to hit the nail on the head. That evening I went to bed tired and disappointed.
It was that very objection which showed me that ultrasound is not all-powerful and that my design had to be improved in the direction he had pointed to.
Towards morning I woke up with a solution in my head. I worked it into the concept and started approaching potential investors. It turned out that without a prototype I probably do not stand a chance — and that even a prototype need not dispel legitimate shadows of doubt.
I decided to go about it differently. I am looking for a partner with resources enough, who uses an electric toothbrush every day themselves — and who will see the enormous market potential in my solution. These lines, perhaps somewhat naive, are part of that search.