“It’s Not Going to Be That Easy to Steal”: A Q&A with Erik Radbill

They say necessity is the mother of invention. I’ve had dogs for the last 40 years, most of them Labrador Retrievers, and they like to eat a lot of things. I walk them behind my house. It’s all open space and woods, and we often walk without leashes, so it’s a smorgasbord out there.

I’d be brushing my dog’s teeth, and Labs will let you do that, they’ll let you pretty much do whatever you want to them. So while I’d have the toothbrush in his mouth, he would be chewing it. And I thought, there’s got to be a better way to incorporate his instinct to want to chew.

What’s out there is either the little toothbrushes they sell at the pet store, or the plastic thing you put on your finger, or chew toys that promote cleaning but aren’t actually toothbrushes.

I had the idea for a while, because like I said, I’d be in the bathroom with my dog. Then right after COVID, my wife said, I’m sick and tired of you talking about it. Go do something.

I went the route a lot of first-time inventors go, and it did get me the utility
patent, which I still have. But it became clear they weren’t really interested in
helping me get an actual product out into the world. So I paid them off as fast as I
could and started doing my own homework.

And the homework was hard.

You’re my second design team, and we’ve been through four factories. I was turned
down by more than a few other design teams, because the product has been so hard to
make.

It’s not an easy product. Yes, it looks like a toilet bowl brush, but because it’s
multilayered, with the silicone insert underneath and the brushes tufted through it,
that is a near impossible thing.

Early on I worked with a smaller boutique firm. I was all excited, they had a design
and they had factories, and the thing they produced, I refused to put it out in the
world. They couldn’t figure out how to incorporate the silicone and the two different
materials, and that was the entire idea of the product. The inner silicone layer, for
dogs that want to feel it, that was the whole thing. So I had to say, I’m sorry, I
have to leave you guys.

I was really depressed, to be honest with you, because I thought, my God, I’m not
going to be able to make this.

It’s funny. I reached out to a guy after that and he said, yeah, you already spoke to
me about a year and a half ago, and we can’t take your project.

So I’d already been turned down twice by the same person without knowing it.

I don’t even remember. Probably on Google.

It was amazing, because the engineer you guys hooked me up with, the guy who came up
with the CAD and everything, he’s in London. What an amazing guy. I still have the
drawing of how he put it together, because I’ll never forget it. He said, give me a
couple of days, I’ve got to figure out how to incorporate the two materials and be
able to get the factory to make it.

Oh my God, did he. It’s the greatest thing ever.

We had one factory that was involved in making the prototype, and they themselves
bailed out of the project. The factory bailed. Said, we’re so sorry, this is too hard
to make.

The factory we ended up with had to buy a new machine, worth about twenty thousand
dollars, because they’re all in on our product. They get independent testing done. It
was amazing how we found them.

Two things, pros and cons.

The pro is nobody’s going to be like, I’m just going to make this thing and steal it.
It’s not going to be that easy to steal. So that’s good.

The bad part was finding somebody who could make it at all.

I was never worried about it, because it took me so long to get here anyway.

I read tons of your reviews before I started, and a lot of what people mentioned was
timing. And I thought, well, sometimes you just can’t. You’re dealing with factories
across the world and you’re dealing with the timeline. I think when Will started our
project it was maybe 12 months, and we’re beyond that, and I couldn’t care less,
because it got done.

To me, that’s the most important thing. I’m really proud of the product we’re putting
out. If you feel it, it’s a substantial product. It’s got a metal insert. It’s legit.

Twenty-seven and a half years was long enough.

There’s no such thing as doing this as a side gig. You’ve got to be all in. We’ve
been doing this for four years and I’m all in.

Sink or swim. All gas, no brakes.

We’ve been stacking the deck. We’ve had a social media presence since I launched the
company, about three years now, and we’re up to almost 700 followers on Instagram.
We get thousands of views on our videos. One of them, me actually using the brush
with my dog Buster, got almost 11,000 views.

We’ll be a vendor on Chewy. And I have agreements with two owners who between them
have ten stores in New Jersey, so they’ll house the product with floor displays. I’m
hitting the local farmers markets and dog gatherings. Really going micro here in New
Jersey and in my town.

I’m not spending thousands on influencers. A friend of mine invented a product for
pickleball and he’s a bit further along than we are, and he told me the pros and cons.
Right now it’s not worth it for him. Whereas putting a couple of dollars into
Instagram ads goes a ridiculously long way. I don’t think I’ve even spent a hundred
bucks.

We came up with that logo in about five seconds. My son, who’s a sophomore in college
now, and his girlfriend made it when he was in high school. We said, yeah, we’ll
change it, we’ll fix it around.

It’s been phenomenal. It’s everywhere. I’ve got stickers with QR codes all over town.

We get our toothpaste and water additive from an independent manufacturer, so we can
extend the line that way.

But I do have a new invention. It’s an outdoor doormat, and we’re going to market it
to dog people. All of the dog mats out there are for the inside of the house, for
when the dog is already in. My thinking is, why don’t we try to get as much crap off
their feet, and their humans’ feet, before the house?

It’ll be multilayered exactly like The Buster Brush, with the silicone and the
brushes, and you’ll be able to lift it out and clean it. Like a tray, so you can
clean out all the dirt and water that collects.

I told Sam my head’s exploding right now. Let me launch first.

I didn’t know a gosh darn thing. Every single thing I use or invent or make, you’re
going to see me use it with my own dogs, in my own house. That’s the whole thing.

And you’ve got to be all in.