| Sofa Buddy: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
When Rob and Violetta bought a new home
a few years back, they vowed that, at last, they would get
a coffee table that was practical – “One we could eat off,
as we watched TV or a movie, without getting food all over
the place, or having to sit on the floor so we could eat
off the coffee table. One that Violetta could use to grade
school papers on her laptop, in comfort – she’s a teacher
and she’s on her feet all day. A coffee table I could work
on while watching baseball or NASCAR. And one with lots
of storage space for newspapers and magazines – and a cool
place to put the remote controls so we didn’t have to pick
them up.”
They went looking – and found nothing.
Nothing even remotely like what they were looking for.
So Rob set about designing their table and after many,
many changes, he came up with something they liked –
“…it looked like the Starship Enterprise on wheels…”
– and which did everything that they wanted. They had
it made, started using it – and overnight, their dining
table and desks were almost redundant. |
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Most visitors would say “hey, that’s neat – what is it?”
In response, they’d be invited to sit down on the sofa and
to pull the Sofa Buddy to them. After being coached on how
to do that, they’d gingerly coax the Buddy towards them.
And always, at the very same point – as the Buddy passed
over their knees – they would utter an astonished “wow”.
But it was the one’s who added “I’ve got to have one” that
started Violetta and Rob thinking – “maybe there are many
folks out there who’d like this as much as we do…?”
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A US Utility Patent followed, some major
redesigning to make it affordable for anyone who wants
one, then international patents, and all the while building
more and more prototypes so that the house, at one point,
was overrun with them. |
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And now, after all that, Violetta and Rob are thrilled
at the prospect “of strangers all over the US, and elsewhere,
getting to own and enjoy this product as much as we have.
If they’re like us, they’ll love it”
As Violetta says of the Sofa Buddy: “Before we made it,
it didn’t exist. But now Rob can’t sit on a sofa without
reaching out for the Buddy – it’s become part of how he
uses a sofa, without even thinking about it.” |
