SHOLD | Gimmick Add-on
How it started - basic product idea:
Lost of ideas popup when you are in relaxing modus specially when drinking a cold beer in the summer. During playing with a beer coaster the idea of a kind of Gimmick started. When the cold glass of beer is in full sun the beer gets pretty quickly lukewarm beer so the trick is to drink the beer as quickly as possible ( ;) ). Off course thats not a good idea ( for your health) so the idea came of putting something between the sun and the bottle or glass of beer. It would prevent ( a bit ) the fresh cold beer getting to quickly lukewarm. The base of the product was born! A first quick prototype was also build in 2013 please see below:
It took almost about 7 years *) to give to really start with the project so Rob Wuijster - Rowumedia and I ( Bob Groothuis ) started brainstorming some more.
*) due to more urgent projects
Brainstorming & product development
Additional functions:
Rob came with a nice extra purpose of the Shadow product. As a menu card so it can be used in the pubs, restaurants,hotels etc. ( food and beverages ). Next to that it can be use as advertisement space.
Product name:
Shadow + Cold = SHOLD
Product Description:
Gimmick Add-on to keep drinks cool for a longer time in the summer. It can be added to glasses, bottles etc. And be used as menu card or as advertisement space.
Basic protection:
Its always advisable to store a idea at a safe place before you start talking with possible investors. A simple and affordable solution is iDepot.
Note that iDepot it not giving you full protection but you can give your idea a minimal protection.
For SHOLD did the iDepot somewhere in 2018.
Novu + de Vos & Partners:
To have some advise regarding SHOLD & possible protecting of the idea we contacted the NOVU ( Dutch Inventors association - more info please see the colofon at the bottom of this page ). The Novu came with a improvement of the hanging system ( connection point between the bottle/glass ).
The Novu also advise to contact a Lawyer firm in the Netherlands De Vos & Partners ( more info please see the colofon at the bottom of this page ) to check if there could be some legal protection regarding SHOLD. De Vos & Partners are specialized in Intellectual Property.
Further improvements, new show material & “commercial”:
Rob went “wild” with designing new fantastic show material with even more variants & made kind of commercial.
Real-world test models
The "Commercial"
The bottom Line:
De Vos & Partners did some research and came to the conclusion thats almost impossible ( specially for a gimmick kind of product ) to get protection regarding SHOLD.
A possible third party that could be interested was at the end not interested.
Well what to be done next? Keep on going searching for other partners? The thing for us with such projects is that it should be fun to work on. And spending lots of extra time/energy into “selling” the product results in destroying the fun part of it. So we “axed” the project about end 2018.
Preventing the SHOLD idea would never see the daylight we decided in 2021 its time to show it here on this website.
Colophon:
Novu - Dutch Inventors Organisation for consultancy | Website English ( Google translated )
De Vos & Partners Advocaten - for legal advice | Website English ( Google translated )
Hans Groothuis - Hans had the same idea for the menu card extension as Rob