(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
Meet Joe Springer, former United States marine. He’s an EMS pilot that rescues people in distress. He’s a great family man, he’s a bit of a prankster, and he loves brownies.

(Inventor: Joseph)
They have this rule you cut across the top of the brownie, you don’t cut around the edges, well you have to cut around the edges, because it’s firmer. So, I would cut around the edges and my mother-in-law and wife would yell, and of course they knew it was me and sometimes I would tell my mother-in-law my wife did it and well she wasn’t having any of that she knew it was me. So anyway, that’s where I thought, you know it would be nice if I could get a pan that I could just use and not have to worry about cutting around the edges.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
So Joe comes to us with this idea that he’d like to have a chewy edge around every brownie in the pan, even the ones in the middle. I assigned Tim to be the chief creationeer on Joe’s idea. He had to lead the charge on figuring out a way to satisfy Joe’s needs for a custom brownie pan that would give brownies that hard crunchy edge. The pan would have to be inexpensive to manufacture, meet retailer’s specs for shelf space, and fit that targeted company’s manufacturing line.

(Tim, Creationeer)
Joe’s project first came in, you know, we took a look at it, we looked at all the similar products and patents on it and with his idea, it seemed pretty unique and straight forward, so we went ahead and designed it as he pretty much had it.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
The team invented a silicone pan with single inserts that would create separate brownies with hard edges, and had brownie bar embossed on the bottom creating a signature finish on each brownie bar

(Dan, Licensing)
I believe the design team in the initial stages came up with what we thought was a metal pan at that point.

(Tim, Creationeer)
It has always been silicone from the day it came in, you know the client wanted it silicone.

(Dan, Licensing)
It was a gray looking piece of tin.

(Tim, Creationeer)
It came across that it was metal because the darn thing was gray in the virtual board. Nobody reads things. People give things 3 seconds over with their eyes, they saw that it was a pan, they might of read the word pan, they saw that it was gray.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
Fox Run craftsmen was the company that we targeted, they’re in the housewares category. But right off the bat, they said no.

(Inventor: Joseph)
It is disappointing. I didn’t lose faith that there would be a customer because there’s too much strife between men and women. Somebody had to solve it out there, so.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
We didn’t give up on Joe’s idea; we just took Joe’s pan to XHP. It’s a company that we are familiar with but they didn’t prove to be a sure thing.

(Dan, Licensing)
I kind of got kicked in the teeth when they said no, no, no, why do you keep showing this to me? I’m sick of seeing this thing.

(Tim, Creationeer)
What is going on here, you know what I mean, it’s like come on licensing… can I make it any easier for you, I mean, dog with a note, perfect product here.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
Joe’s idea was on life support and we were trying to keep it alive.

(Tim, Creationeer)
To give the project a lot more versatility, they changed it to the silicone dessert tray.

(Inventor: Joseph)
I could’ve fought development and said no, no, no, this is exactly how I want it to be, but I was like hey if you guys want to modify it to make it better, go ahead.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
XHP and QVC paid a visit to Inventionland, we pulled that project out on more time and showed it to QVC who loved it, and then of course XHP loved it.

(Dan, Licensing)
I looked over at the president of XHP and let him know I’m like finally! We found a home for this project.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
Joe’s idea was brought back to life. The meeting had reinvigorated the team and inspired them to come up with adding a metal insert in to strengthen the pan.

(Tim, Creationeer)
It made this product have, you know, one other unique feature that the other silicone bakeware prodcuts didn’t have at the time.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
Before XHP was ready to commit however, the new design had to be tested by someone who was no stranger to testing.

(Clay)
The brownies in the silicone pan here, they seem to have a much crisper, little bit of a harder edge, which I personally like that a lot better.

(Tim, Creationeer)
Yeah but I think we need to figure out how hard this edge really is.

(Clay)
What some sort of a test? Why am I doing this again? You’re just trying to hit my *beep* aren’t you? Well it’s tough enough and it holds together enough that it can hit and not break and that slingshots don’t affect the taste. I think that we’re done testing.

(Narrator: George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
XHP licensed Joe’s idea, and it went in to production. And QVC committed to bringing it to TV, so we called Joe and we gave him the great news.

(Inventor: Joseph)
That was the worst day of my life and the best day of my life. That day, my brother and I were visiting my mom in the hospital and my family decided, with my mother as well, that she was going to go on hospice and there wasn’t anything else they could do for her so, honestly, that day I didn’t care that I had a manufacturer because I was thinking about my mom.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
That was a big shake up for everybody because we didn’t really know how to celebrate the moment from that point forward. So, we wanted to try and do something special for Joe so we invited him out to our office to our Christmas party, and received and Christmas present that they would never forget.

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
We got you your license. This is your first big royalty check. $13,300. He had no idea that there was a check coming, so when we gave him the check, there was this big expression of accomplishment going on and a big warm moment .

(Inventor: Joseph)
I still keep in touch with a lot of my buddies I was on active duty with and I was in Albania with and I get emails all the time you know Marines? Brownie Pans? What are you doing?

(George M. Davison (aka Mr. D), CEO and Founder of Davison)
While it is a brownie pan, now it’s taking different shape. It’s led in to all these different pan designs now, that they’re working on.

(QVC – Home Shopping Network)
The entire top is crunchy so you’ve got a corner in every bite.

(Inventor: Joseph)
It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster. There are ups and downs. I would just tell people to hang in there, you know, don’t walk away from your project .

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