Invention Success Stories
We are all excited about invention, and how it can impact our businesses and our lives.
Here is a place you can share your invention success stories with other innovators and help to inspire and motivate the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs.
Debbee Barker, United States
$20 million
Debbee Barker had a problem. No matter how many times she scolded her two teenage daughters, she just couldn't get them to keep their clothes neat and organized.
They complained it was just too har...
Lake Resources Group, United States
You wouldn't think there would be much room to reinvent the fishing lure, but <i>Popular Science Magazine</i> dubbed the IronClad™, one of its "Top Ten Inventions of the Year" for 2009.
The n...
Boogie Wipes, United States
Poor baby. Sore throat, nasty cough, and oh that chapped little dribbly nose.
Mindee Doney and Julie Pickens, are two moms who just didn't want to see their little tykes suffer any longer by blowi...
Stephen Key, United States
Stephen Key has inventing in his blood. Just take a look at his history: from selling hand-made products at fairs, to designing and sculpting plush animals, to working on best-sellers such as Teddy Ru...
BioLite, United States
A shocking 3 billion people burn wood for fuel every day, producing emissions equal to that of a car, causing smoke-related deaths, hastening deforestation, and creating black carbon, the second highe...
Bogdon Music, United States
Success can come from unexpected places. Just ask inventor Bodgon Vasquaf. He was totally broke and couldn't afford an $800 upright bass, so he invented one made up of a cardboard box, weed whacker tw...
Dennis Metzger and William Lund, United States
In the late 1980s, Dennis Metzger and William Lund were selling their hot water saving device at trade shows. Known as the Hot Water Saver (HWS), it saved homeowners up to 40% of their water heating c...
Shawn Nelson, United States
$40 million
Shawn Nelson, decided that watching TV on his couch just wasn't very comfortable. Envisioning something like a huge beanbag, he bought 14 yards of vinyl and spent three weeks stuffing it with foam tha...
Dr. Lonnie Johnson, United States
$4,000,000+
Who would have ever believed that a simple toy could bring inventor Dr. Lonnie Johnson, more than $400 million?
Johnson, a nuclear engineer, had an ides to invent a performance toy water gun. Eight...
Andre Nel, United States
In 1996 Andre Nel was faced with the dissolution of his marriage, and the possibility of being edged out of his job. Out of the chaos, he decided to go into business for himself. If his company could ...
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Tobi Skovron loved his dog Subi, but hated braving freezing cold winds, rain having to take his dog outside the apartment to do its business.
Tobi and his partner Simone - a vet nurse - have come u...
Natalie Ellis, United Kingdom
$3 million +
Inventor and entrepreneur Natalie Ellis endured a plethora of personal and product challenges as she navigated the product development maze to come out the other side with a multimillion dollar invent...
Sharon Wright, United Kingdom
$1million +
Since her eureka moment saleswoman-turned inventor Sharon Wright has enjoyed a rapid rise to success, getting her product patented, prototyped and rolling of the production lines in under two years. ...
Julie Austin, United States
$250,000
After passing out from dehydration while running I decided to come up with a hydration product that was hands-free. I came up with Swiggies, wrist water bottles.
It took many years of development ...
Lisa Irlam, United Kingdom
$1 million +
Since its launch in September 2009 Pool-Mate has been making a big splash in no fewer than 60 countries. It is a fully automatic swimming computer and prior to its invention there was nothing like...
Pam Turner, United States
$250,000
Unless you posses the nimblest of fingers and sharpest of eyes threading a needle is a task guaranteed to frustrate and tie you in knots. The apparently simple procedure of putting a piece of thread ...
Howard Stapleton, United Kingdom
$6 million+
Although not aware of it at the time, inventor Howard Stapleton from Wales came across the idea that was to form the basis of his innovation when he was twelve years old and visiting a factory with h...
Andrew Mackay and Richard Starrett, United Kingdom
$500,000+
“Girls would walk into the toilets and scream and shout and get excited. Exactly the sort of reaction we thought it would be.”
There aren’t many inventions that would elicit that kind of res...
David Fisher and Quintin Davenport, Australia
$100,000+
Australia’s attempts to drastically reduce the amount of water it wastes has been good news for the environment, but bad news for sewage systems that need large volumes of liquid be flushed through ...
Imogen Mirmikidis, Australia
$500,000 +
A scary moment in her car was the spark that inspired Imogen Mirmikidis to create Hurphy Durphy, a multi-award winning safety device for car child seats.
Mirmikidis was driving down a busy freeway ...
Andrew Gordon, United Kingdom
$1 million +
Andrew Gordon, a marketing manager for a large insurance company in the UK came up with the idea for his barnstorming invention after a night out and a few pints of Guinness. The table in the pub wa...
Louise Stoll, United States
$3.5 million+
For Louise Stoll the “eureka” moment came as she was watching her pregnant daughter struggle to get off a plane with a toddler on her hip, a diaper slung across her shoulder, and a 20-pound car se...
Peter Lerman, United States
$3 million +
The lush snowy landscape of a winter wonderland may look beautiful but shoveling the white stuff off your driveway can be a real pain in the back. So much so that Peter Lerman of Bethel, Connecticut ...
Kathy Cioci , United States
$100,000+
According to inventor Kathy Cioci she’s come up with the first innovation in the domestic cleaning industry for over a decade. Angel Mop is a convertible cleaning gadget with flexible wings. The p...
Karen Wildman, Lisa Holmes, United States
$100,000+
If you have ever dropped your cell phone down the toilet, or had your Blackberry soaked in the rain, then sisters Karen Wildman and Lisa Holmes reckon they have just the thing to save your gadgets and...
Ken Evans, New Zealand
$4 million +
A boiling kettle and a cup of tea were the inspiration for Ken Evans’ mould-busting condensation-beating invention the Showerdome - a clear plastic dome that can be cut to fit most shower units in a...
Kyle Reeves, Canada
$1 million+
Adrenalin junkies now have a new toy to play with. Skiers and snowboarders are making room on the slopes for mountain bikers with bikes specially adapted for the snow.
Cool Idea
Ktrak is a pat...
Tal Golesworthy , United Kingdom
$100,000+
An engineer from the UK saved his own life with a repair kit he designed for people with a specific type of heart problem.
Tal Golesworthy suffers from Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that aff...
Joi Sumpton, United States
$1 million +
Joi Sumptons’s story will be familiar to many inventors. Her innovation was born out of a frustration in her own life. Namely, the difficulty washing her children’s hands in public restrooms. S...
David Gow, United Kingdom
$20 million +
The i-LIMB Hand is a highly functional bionic hand that took more than 20 years to develop and was invented by a Scottish NHS (National Health Service) employee, David Gow and designed and built by To...
Peter Mclean, Australia
$5 million+
Peter Mclean has taken a few tumbles in his time. But he really became aware of the scale of the problem of pavement pitfalls when he observed council employees replacing more than 80 concrete slabs ...
Yehonatan Knoll, Israel
$90,000
The Motivation
During the two year period the Knoll family spent in Canada, Yehonatan Knoll, the inventor, was only twelve years of age. Yehonatan was surprised to discover that the school locker ...
Denise Anstey, United Kingdom
$400,000+
Ever since sustaining injuries in a car accident Denise Anstey has suffered from mobility problems. She was dissatisfied with the basic design and function of conventional walking sticks, and so cam...
Arra David, United States
$1 million +
When the snow starts to fall it’s out with the driveway markers to show snowplow drivers and others where a road ends and a property begins. They are a winter necessity in many areas, but as Arra D...
Ali Brey and Irshad Khan, South Africa
$10 million+
A jeweled parliamentary mace is an age-old symbol of authority and power, but to Ali Brey and Irshad Khan, two Cape Town-based inventors it is a dazzling demonstration of their inventing prowess and t...
Andrew Harsley, United Kingdom
$10 million+
Andrew Harsley is an overnight success that’s been twenty years in the making. He first conceived the idea of a flexible fastener when he was a teenager taking out rubbish bags. “I recognized t...
Justin Kuhn, United States
$1 million +
Justin Kuhn was growing increasingly frustrated by the amount of time and effort it was taking to scrape five layers of wallpaper off a farmhouse wall. And his tired hand and aching muscles were non...
Glenn Hudson, United States
$1 million +
Glenn Hudson is a huge basketball fan, and back in the day at high school in the 1970s he was a pretty mean player too. Key to his success was practice, practice, practice and continually shooting ho...
Peter Hutchison, Australia
$2 million+
They say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, but fire sometimes can as Peter Hutchison found out. On two separate occasions his friend’s chimney caught fire, and he just happened to...
Jag Heer and Arjun Goyal, Australia
$300,000+
It is not just patients who are worried about needles - medical students are too! The ability to give an injection without damaging the patient in the process is a challenge that many face with much a...
Susan Elder, Shane Williams, Australia
$20 million +
Susan Elder has spent most of her life caring for patients in intensive care units. But the nurse turned inventor when she came up with a way of solving an age-old problem in emergency situations. Na...
Mircea Tudor , Romania
$20 million+
The rise in terrorist activities, the illegal international drugs trade, and smuggling of contraband demands innovation in security systems to keep several steps ahead of the criminals. However, it i...
Marcus Plummer, United Kingdom
$200,000+
Marcus Plummer’s innovation started out like many other brilliant ideas. He discovered a problem, couldn’t find a solution, and so he came up with his own. “People see problems as a terrible d...
Steve Smith, United Kingdom
$1 million +
It is one of the frustrations of modern life; unwanted and nuisance callers, particularly telemarketers who try to sell you everything from double glazing to door hinges, a zillion things you either a...
Hubert Novak, Australia
$10 million+
When a back and shoulder injury from playing sport in his youth threatened to spoil his enjoyment of golf, Hubert Novak put his thinking cap as well as his plus fours on. The result was the world’...
Professor Pal Mangat, United Kingdom
$500,000+
Cement is considered by some to be something of an environmental menace, being responsible for 5% of the world’s carbon emissions.
To make Standard/Portland cement limestone or clay is heated to ...
Leslie Gudel, United States
$250,000 +
TV sports anchor Leslie Gudel tried everything to get her baby daughter to sleep. During the first year of her life the restless infant would only doze off in a car seat. But it isn’t an ideal cri...
Meir Gitlis, Israel
$1 million +
Earthquake Alert is a device which is about the size of a shoebox and is based on the seismological principles of global earthquake monitoring systems. There is an arrangement of sensitive pendulums ...
Professor Robert Langer, United States
$2 million +
World Renowned Scientist
Robert Langer’s brain is probably one of the most powerful on the planet. The MIT professor has approximately 750 worldwide patents to his name, ranging from oral contra...
Todd Basche, United States
$3 million +
For many years numbers were Todd Basche’s number one enemy. The former Vice President of Software Applications at Apple just couldn’t remember number combinations. His innovation was born out of...
Philip Hankin, United Kingdom
$500,000+
Lying in his hospital bed in 2002 recovering from lower leg surgery Philip Hankin was frustrated by the physiotherapy devices that were on offer to speed his recovery. “I couldn’t help but noti...
JoeBen Bevirt, United States
$20 million+
The Gorillapod lets you take your pocket camera to places it has never been before to get the shot you want. Hang your camera from the branch of a tree, wrap it round a railing, or leave it dangling ...
Dean Cameron, Australia
$25 million +
For more than 10 years Dean Cameron has been poking his nose into the kinds of places that would make most people shudder – cow pats and rotting animal carcasses. But it’s all been for a good re...
Lucien Gambarota, Hong Kong
$10 million+
Hong Kong based Italian inventor Lucien Gambarota was not living in a mansion, castle or fortress and was therefore astonished to receive a hefty summer electricity bill of one thousand US dollars for...
Allison Backhouse, Australia
$5 million+
Allison Backhouse’s innovation is a rescue mat that can slide easily over all types of surfaces, including stairs, carpets, and concrete and is designed for one person to be able to use. It consist...
Brian Carlin, United Kingdom
$300,000+
During his career as a paramedic Brian Carlin has witnessed many horrendous scenes including road traffic accidents. His job was to keep seriously injured victims alive and get them to hospital as qu...
Grace Welch, United States
$2 million+
Whilst struggling to change her daughter’s diaper one morning in 2004 Grace Welch was discussing with her sister, a researcher from Harvard Business School how she would love to start a home-based b...
Tanya Ewing, United Kingdom
$200,000
Standing outside her Perthshire home in her pajamas in the freezing cold Tanya Ewing was taking a reading from her gas meter. She had just been handed a huge bill and was looking to the meter for some...
Kieu Phan, United States
$100,000
Machine washing is not very bra friendly. A few spins even at low temperatures can put delicates in an even more precarious position. Bras are flattened, stretched, dented, and they quickly lose sha...
Paul Bonner, Ireland
$200,000+
Paul Bonner has had a close working relationship with bricks all his life. A professional brick layer from Derry in Northern Ireland he’s worked on a countless number of building sites, and over th...
Deb Leary, United Kingdom
$100,000+
In 2001 Deb Leary accompanied her policeman husband Richard to a conference in Toronto on forensic identification. During a conversation the topic of equipment came up and a British police officer men...
Wade Sun, United States
$100,000+
Former test engineer turned inventor and entrepreneur Wade Sun is something of a computer geek. Over the years he has burned hundreds of CDs and DVDs containing huge volumes of data. But what do you...
Jodi Pliszka, United States
$300,000+
When Jodi Pliszka was thirteen years old her mother found a bald patch whilst she was brushing her daughter’s hair. A trip to the dermatologist and Alopecia Areata was diagnosed, a condition where ...
Marty J. Carty, United States
$500,000+
It is Thanksgiving Weekend 2002, and we’re in Marty J. Carty’s Dodge Ram 1500. There’s snow on the ground and driving conditions are treacherous. Carty is worried that his truck will slide all...
Noel Goldman, United States
$2 million+
Noel Goldman lives in Florida, and no matter where she went she used to see exposed bra straps everywhere. The failure of women to keep their undergarments under drove her crazy. The breaking poin...
Dr. Andras Nagy, Canada
$1,000,000++
His breakthrough builds on 2007 advancements by Japanese and U.S. scientists who were the first to create stem cells from a patient's skin. However, that technique used viruses to insert the four repr...
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