From Medium.com
ften the biggest life-changing moments begin with one simple step. Like the night Bryan Alintoff was relaxing on his couch contemplating his son Hayden’s upcoming third-grade Shark Tank project.
It was nearing bedtime and his then eight-year-old son, a whirlwind of boyish energy, had just finished brushing his teeth. As a single father, Alintoff knew that there would be a huge mess waiting for him in the sink when he walked into his son’s bathroom.
When he got up to clean the boy’s bathroom, and the inspiration hit him like a lightning bolt! What if he could invent something that would automatically clean the sink?
His invention, gearing up for a July 10 launch, is the Sink Spinner, which comes to market after a successful fall 2020 Kickstarter campaign. Alintoff knows that he has taught his son a myriad of valuable life lessons beyond what it takes to become an inventor.
“For me, it is incredible to have my (now) 12-year-old child be able to go through this life-changing experience with me,” explains the proud dad.
The motto of the family-oriented company, Hayden Endeavors, is: “Together we can make a collective impact and help preserve earth’s most precious resource: one sink at a time!”
“Sink Spinner is my life and I am always working on some aspect of the product,” explains Altinoff, a resident of Middletown, New Jersey. “Whether it is on a Zoom call with my marketing team, assembling boxes, or tweaking something on the production line. This is both my work and my passion.”
Medium recently sat down with Altinoff to discuss how his invention solved a problem, what life lessons the invention is teaching his young son, and how having the gumption to follow your dreams can positively change your life.
How does Sink Spinner work?
BRYAN ALINTOFF: Sink Spinner (patent pending) is a revolutionary faucet attachment that saves more than a gallon of water per minute, attaches to an existing bathroom faucet, and transforms into the most eco-friendly faucet in the world.
How did the Sink Spinner come about?
I am a single Father and after a long day of work, doing homework with my son, taking him to Karate class, cooking dinner, cleaning up, I was exhausted and I didn’t want to clean the sink after Hayden brushed his teeth. I knew the mess he would leave behind for me to clean.
During this time Hayden had a third-grade pitch competition at his school and he couldn’t figure out what to pitch. That’s when I got the idea. If I can automate the water splashing around the rim of the bathroom sink then I would never have to scrub the bathroom sink again! I ran into the bathroom to tell Hayden, he immediately said, “We will call it the Sink Spinner,’’ and that’s how this idea began!
What happened next?
Hayden presented the Sink Spinner at his school’s pitch competition and all of the parents and teachers came up to him and said that they wanted and needed one. I decided to try and build one, reached out to my engineer friend Bill Bredenner, and together we created a prototype. I appreciate that it started with a problem; what all good inventions aim to do. A bathroom sink is often extremely gross, whether it’s toothpaste, shaving cream, whiskers, or makeup. So we know that dirty sinks have been a source of untold stress for hundreds of years.
Why do you want every household to have a Sink Spinner?
Every morning and every evening parents all over the world are scrubbing their bathroom sinks clean. Their kids just brushed their teeth and a mess is waiting. Husbands are shaving and leaving whiskers in the sink. Often, men are too lazy to clean out the sink leaving a mess for their significant other to clean.
So, who is this product for?
Pretty much everyone. Parents are tired of cleaning the bathroom sink all day long. Roommates all over this world have other roommates who are complete messes. Most people leave the bathroom sink gross for others to deal with. The Sink Spinner eliminates this nightmare! This is how easy it is: Simply hook it up to your existing faucet and you never have to remove it from your faucet. The Sink Spinner operates in two separate modes which are easily switched from regular faucet to spin mode and back and forth as needed.
You also offer customizable wraps that change colors and themes, which may make brushing teeth fun again. Also, are there other products in the works?
We have designed “Wraps” that snap around the spinner. We are starting out with pink, purple, blue, and orange. We are working on Wraps that will glow in the dark, holiday wraps, and many other genres of wraps that I know that kids will love! They simply snap on and off so they can be changed all the time. We are working on lighting up our Extenders. The Extenders make sure the Sink Spinner is at the correct height for each individual sink. As the water runs through the Extenders, the water will make the Extenders light up in different colors! We are extremely excited about this and kids will love it!
What life lessons have your son received from The Sink Spinner experience?
Hayden has learned perseverance, accounting, sales, banking, and fundraising. He is very excited about the product and has one in his science class at school. We will be donating Sink Spinners to all the science and art classes in his school.
Please talk about the fact that you were never daunted by any setbacks.
When our engineers said we could never get the Sink Spinner to operate with a 1.0 gallons per minute (GPM) aerator, we didn’t accept that for an answer. We figured it out and made sure we can save TON’S of water. Both Hayden and I learned a lot from our engineers. We were able to provide our simple ideas to the engineers, which turned out to be a huge factor in solving this and many other problems. This all took time, but we persevered. I can’t think of any better lessons to teach my son.
How do you spend father-son bonding time?
Hayden and I love to ride around on our electric scooters, play video games together and we love going out for Chinese soup dumplings.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect your invention and company?
The pandemic slowed down our timeline, however, it also gave us time to tweak ideas about our box, our marketing plan, and the production line.
How will the easing of the COVID-19 restrictions change your new company?
The easing of pandemic restrictions has opened up the speed of the process; however, we are still dealing with the bottleneck issues about getting the product to market. On the other hand, we are now able to physically attend various fairs in New Jersey this summer to launch the Sink Spinner. Most importantly, we are also able to take the sink Spinner to various stores and show what a great product it is.
What have you learned about yourself through this process of creating a product and bringing it to market?
The process from idea to product has been interesting. There have been many hurdles and hoops we had to jump through. My son has learned that when you get pushed down to keep your head up and come back stronger and better. When we were told we needed a “backflow valve’’ in our Sink Spinner, after all the designs were completed, we didn’t give up. We went back to the drawing board and got the problem solved.
I know that California has different standards than other states, can you talk about this?
The Sink Spinner uses the power of the water to spin, batteries are not needed. Our Aerator operates at a 1 gallon per minute (GPM) right now, which beats California standards. In order to get our “spin” mode to spin faster, we will need to lighten the spinner up. We are working on this around the clock and feel we are very close to making this a reality. We also hope California will allow the spin mode to operate at a slightly higher GPM (1.5). The spin mode is used to clean the mess in the sink otherwise our Aerator operates at 1.0 GPM, which is the first of its kind. To note: our spin mode operates at 1.5 GPM which is Watersense and Eco-friendly.
What is the future of The Sink Spinner look like?
The future of Sink Spinner is endless. We had an owner of a restaurant approach us for a version to be used in his commercial kitchen. Think of how much money a hotel would save on housekeeping if the Sink Spinner were in every bathroom. It boggles the mind with endless possibilities.
What does this success feel like after all of your hard work?
I want to pinch myself because we have an amazing product that solves a big problem for families, and it does so in an ecological way by saving countless gallons of water. It is difficult to describe the excitement that I am feeling right now!”
The Sink Spinner will be available for sale on July 10, at https://sinkspinner.com/ and on Amazon.
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