In honor of Father’s Day, we thought we would share the backstory of Twist and Seal and how Bryan Nooner, father of four, inventor and entrepreneur, started the Twist and Seal Family of Products.
We are following suit of some recently published articles on Bryan as an amazing and cool “Dadpreneur” at Buiness.com, Forbes.com, Good News Network, and Arizona Foothills. Check them out!
So the story behind the amazing and cool “Dadpreneur”:
Every Christmas Eve, Bryan and his family host a large family party. Fit with plenty of holiday lights and Christmas decorations. When it rained or snowed, the water got between the holiday light connectors and pop the GFI, and the lights would go out. Bryan, his wife and kids would head outside and tape the cord connections and Bryan would cut up bottles to put around the connections just to keep all the holiday lights on for the party. Bryan tried all kinds of things, but nothing truly kept the water out. It went on for years. The lights would go on and off, and he would head outside to figure out which light was shorting the circuit.
Once again, the lights popped during a big family holiday party on a rainy January 2011, so Bryan and his wife Mari-Beth went outside to fix it and Mari-Beth cried out, “You fix everything else. Why can’t you fix this?”
So Bryan, who had a science background and loves tinkering, skipped the party and headed to his office to figure it out. The kids kept poking their heads in to see what he was working on, but Bryan kept it a secret until he had everything figured out. He brought his crude sketches to an artist friend to perfect, and those drawings went to an engineer friend who did three-dimensional modeling on a computer.
Nooner made a prototype, water-tested it, tweaked it and unveiled his design to the family. They were all so excited and so proud to see his new invention. Bryan then took another friend’s advice to set up a booth at the National Hardware Show in May 2012.
Nooner, his son and a few others headed out to Vegas for the show in the Suburban. They set up the booth together and worked the show together. Not expecting much to happen, Twist and Seal won the Most Innovative Product of the Year.
Bryan didn’t even go to the awards ceremony. Someone from the show had to come find him to present him the award. When he got back to his booth, Ace Hardware and Home Depot buyers were waiting to learn more about Twist and Seal.
That year, Bryan produced and sold 30,000 units – and he knew he had a product people needed.
Fast forward a few years and four more products later, Bryan has won more awards than any other company, product line or individual inventor at the National Hardware Show. Over one million Twist and Seal Mini’s have been sold, and Bryan is projected to have his biggest year yet in 2016.
The product line includes the Twist and Seal Mini, The Cord Dome, The Cord Protect and The Maxx.
His family is especially proud of his hard work, and they are so thankful to have seen their dad take an idea and bring it to life! A fun and rewarding journey that is still gaining much momentum