If you want to know more about UltraDrainer visit the official site or read our review.
Shane Chen is the inventor behind UltraDrainer which has been sold on QVC both in America and Germany. Shane is also a serial inventor and invents for a living.
In this interview Shane gives some great insights into what an inventor needs to do to develop their idea into a product and also some tips on how to be an inventor.
Have you invented before? If so how many inventions have you got?
I am an inventor by trade. I have 10 patents so far and others are on the way. I also have a few provisional patent applications in.
Take us through the steps you went through in creating UltraDrainer?
I stated with a flat strainer, kind of like a hockey mask laid flat. I did research by going to kitchen stores and looking at all the different strainers and drainers on the market. I thought if I could combine a few of the features together, I could have a more versatile product.
I use a CAD program and then started designing. There is a lot of fine tuning when designing a product like this, so it took quite a few weeks to get the design I have now.
How long after having the idea did it actually take to create a working model for UltraDrainer?
About 1 year. There were a few prototypes before the final version was approved.
What problems did you face from taking your idea and making it into an actual working product? And how did you solve the problems?
There were some problems with the plastic material. We had to conduct a few cooking experiments before we found a plastic suitable for the microwave to the dishwasher, to boiling water.
What has been the hardest part of the whole process?
Getting the product on the market. It is a very useful item, we use ours all the time. But convincing others that this is a useful product is hard. When we have sold the item, we have always gotten good responses from consumers with low return rates for sellers like QVC.
What are the current avenues you’re using to sell UltraDrainer?
I have been selling the UltraDrainer by the container to QVC. It has been mildly successful there. We’ve gone with QVC because our product fits in with their kitchen line and they were interested. We also sold fairly well on German QVC.
What plans do you have for the Ultra Drainer in the future?
We plan to keep on offering it to buyers who would like to see the UltraDrainer in the stores or on their web sites. We are also thinking of coming out with a second version.
What inspired you to create this product in the first place?
Seeing the pasta pots that were sold on TV a few years ago. Those pots were of very poor quality. I thought I could make something that would work in a similar fashion, but that could be more useful in other ways.
Also, most people already owned posts and there didn’t really seem to be a good reason to buy more. So, with the UltraDrainer, you can drain your pots of pasta AND do so much more, wash food, steam vegetables, cook bacon, store leftovers, use it as a serving dish, snap out the middle section and use it to strain canned food, etc.
What advice could you give to anybody out there who wants to be an inventor?
Give yourself a broad range in education. For instance, physics is good because you can branch off in to many other fields of products by the knowledge you gain.
Don’t fall in love with your product. Watch out for scams that ask for money up front to market your invention.
Have you had any surprises along the way? If so what were they?
That selling a product to the buyers and public would be so hard!
Will this be your last invention or will you be looking to create more?
I have many more on the way. The field I make most of my inventions is in sports. I have a new skateboard coming out along with new quad skates, and the Orbitwheels.
My best selling invention is the AquaSkipper, which is also for sports, or water recreation.
I also have another product that I licensed to Razor Scooters. It’s called the PowerWing
If you could go back and do this all again, what would you do differently and why?
I would have hired a more aggressive marketing/sales person earlier. I had another business that didn’t really interest me, but that took up a lot of my time. I would have sold it sooner, so that I could have concentrated on inventing sooner.
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