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INNOVATION RESOURCES

Sno-Easy

Breakthrough:
An ergonomic snow shovel that avoids users having to bend or twist their backs.

Inventor:
Peter Lerman, United States

Financial reward:
$3 million +

The Story:
Sno-Easy

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 decided to give his aching body a break by inventing a special kind of snow shovel, so that he didn’t have to bend down and twist his back.

“I came up with the idea ... when I hurt my back shoveling snow. I'd been reading articles forever, the way everybody has, that say, 'when you shovel snow, you shouldn't bend, you should lift with your arms,'" Lerman recalled in an interview.

The novice inventor started to research the health risks that could be posed by shoveling which helped him to come up with his designs.

Breaking the Ice

He wasn’t the first inventor to develop such a back-saving device, but whereas previous attempts failed or had only met with minor success Lerman’s Sno-Easy has broken the ice so to speak and is a hit with retailers and consumers.

Lerman found that whilst other snow shovels had addressed the bending down problem, none had come up with a way of avoiding the issue of twisting your back when you dump the snow.

Ergonomic Shovel

He engineered an ergonomic design that uses a two-way pivot hinge and a “helper handle” so the snow can be lifted without bending, and then a small flick of the wrist rotates the main shaft to get rid of it.

The shovel is lighter and the scoop smaller than typical shovels which the company marketing the innovation claim is safer as it limits the weight of the load to be lifted.

Lerman’s snow shovel did not exactly enjoy a smooth ride to market as he had to contend with a cautious industry and consumers who had grown tired of new products. But it didn’t put him off; it made him concentrate all the more on coming up with a winning design. He didn’t ignore the market, but he didn’t worry about it either; his energies were devoted on coming up with a shovel that would work.

Knowing that inventors have only a few seconds to persuade people that their idea is better than anything else on the market he knew he would have to create something that people could understand immediately.

Prototype Changes

Lerman designed a prototype that included the "helper handle" for the hand that is not holding the shovel. But in his mind it wasn’t quite right; it needed to be more durable and easier to manufacture. So he continued to modify it.
Overall, he spent about $6,000 on engineering drawings and prototypes until he arrived at a design he was happy with.

The next time it snowed he took his invention out for a test run and it worked; his back didn’t feel a thing. But then he spent the next few years trying to find someone interested in manufacturing and marketing his product.

Product Licensing

He pitched to a company that did 60-second TV commercials for household gadgets, but they passed on it. However, he was put in touch with Lou Matinale, president of Matony Products, a company that licenses products from inventors. He loved the idea and took over production and marketing, striking an exclusive deal with Lerman that gave him a percentage of the wholesale price.

While Matinale concentrated on getting designs to manufacturers in China Lerman rebooted the patent process that he had started years earlier but failed to complete because he couldn’t afford the fees.

Major Order

The first big order for Sno-Easy came from The Home Depot who wanted 38,000 of them in their stores, and since then thousands more customers all over North America have warmed to Lerman’s invention.

[NEXT STORY]Article by: Paul Arnold

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