September 2, 2023 • 27 mins
Dive into the captivating journey of entrepreneur Jerry Rodriguez in this podcast episode, as he takes you through the fascinating evolution of his smart cookware product, Intellipan. Unveil the intricate process of transforming an idea into a tangible product, while gaining insights into the challenges that tested Jerry’s determination along the way. From concept to realization, Jerry’s story offers a glimpse into the world of innovation and resilience, showcasing the transformative power of turning ideas into tangible reality.
https://intellipan.com
To watch this video interview on YouTube CLICK HERE
--------------------------------------------
Unlock Your Invention's Potential with Inventor Smart! Inventor Smart Community - The Ultimate APP for Inventors to connect, collaborate, network, and drive invention ideas forward! Join social networking, participate in group chats, events, visit the library, and find the support you need! Download the Inventor Smart Community app here http://inventorsmartapp.com Join us today!
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world!
Are you patent pending?
Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate?
Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention?
Are you looking for a manufacturer?
Do you want to raise money or find an investor?
Do you want to sell your invention?
Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of!
Your video can be used to: Post to your social media add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors
Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Inventor Expert, Founder of Inventor Smart and National Inventor Club, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews. https://gotinvention.com Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com Host Inventor Expert and Mentor Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com
https://intellipan.com
To watch this video interview on YouTube CLICK HERE
--------------------------------------------
Unlock Your Invention's Potential with Inventor Smart! Inventor Smart Community - The Ultimate APP for Inventors to connect, collaborate, network, and drive invention ideas forward! Join social networking, participate in group chats, events, visit the library, and find the support you need! Download the Inventor Smart Community app here http://inventorsmartapp.com Join us today!
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world!
Are you patent pending?
Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate?
Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention?
Are you looking for a manufacturer?
Do you want to raise money or find an investor?
Do you want to sell your invention?
Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of!
Your video can be used to: Post to your social media add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors
Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Inventor Expert, Founder of Inventor Smart and National Inventor Club, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews. https://gotinvention.com Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com Host Inventor Expert and Mentor Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Welcome to the Got Invention Show.I'm your host Brian Freed, and our
guest today is Jerry Rodriguez. Hehas an invention called the Intelpen. Welcome
to the show, Jerry, thanksfor having me, Brian. How's everybody
doing. Everybody's great, and we'reexcited to hear and learn a little bit
more about you and your invention andwhat the problem was and what the solution
(00:39):
is that you came up with,and your journey and where you are today
and what the future looks like forin Telepen. So to start off with,
Jerry, why don't you tell uswho you are and where you're from
and what do you do for aliving. So, as Brian mentioned,
my name is Jerry Rodriguez, andI'm an entrepreneur and inventor of the product
called the Telling. And I amalso a day trader. Okay, very
(01:03):
nice to again meet you, Jerry. And so here you are. You're
a day trader. I don't knowhow long you've been doing it for,
but you you're just out there makinga living and all of a sudden you
have this aha moment. So whatwas the problem for us that you were
having? Well, to give youa little bit of background. I was
(01:25):
overweighted. I played video games allday, and I found a passion and
fitness, and throughout that whole journey, I realized that the diet part of
it was probably the most important thingin losing weight. Right. So throughout
that process I got into this thingit's called tracking calories or tracking macros,
(01:46):
which involves weigh your food portions inorder to get an accurate account of your
calories. So fast forward. Ijust sat there, I'm like, man,
why is there not a pan thathas this technology we already built in.
I went on Amazon, I searchedpan with scale and there was nothing,
And sure enough, you know,that's really how the product came about.
(02:08):
Essentially, it's solving the problem ofhaving to weigh your food separately before
cooking, combining it all into onedevice. Very interesting. And I know
on top of that you added thetemperature within. That's correct. Yeah,
So in the in the development processthat the main focus was the scale component.
(02:28):
We were trying to figure out whatother you know, technology can we
implement into the PAN to take advantageof the LED screen, What you know,
what else can we add? Sothrough those discussions, we decided to
add the temperature component on the screen, you can see the temperature of the
pan as well, so you cansee the weight of the food or ingredient,
and then you can also see thetemperature of the pan for those enthusiasts
(02:51):
that aren't interested in knowing how hottheir pan is and you know, wanting
to cook their food to a youknow, the perfection. Got it.
Well, we're going to hear moreabout the story of the intelpen and how
it was developed and where it istoday. But you do have your prototype
on you right do It's right hereright here? Yeah, this is it.
(03:12):
So the colonel, let's say helloand hear what you're seeing. You
can't see a whole lot of it, but this is obviously the LED screen,
and what you're seeing is a splitscreen of the temperatures and celsius and
caw. It switches to fahrenheit andthen also the it has an auto shut
off. But and then you cansee the the unit of measurement on the
(03:34):
other side grams, and then youcan let me see we can here we
go. So that's displaying the weightof the food or ingredient in grams,
and it also displays ounces pounds,and like I mentioned on the temperature side,
you have fahrenheit and you also havecelsius. So that's a great looking
pen. That that and the namein telepen makes it sound very intriguing along
(03:58):
with the way that that pen.But again it's a prototype. It's a
well done working prototype which you haven'tused, but you know that it works.
It does work, yes the ledStreet everything is programmed then it does
work excellent. So Jerry, I'mnot sure if everybody actually thinks about measuring
or weighing their food and figuring outthe temperature, which is kind of interesting
(04:24):
in a pan. But maybe youcan give us a little bit more insight
on why people would want to weightheir food. Well, I mean,
like I mentioned earlier, for me, when I went through my fitness journey,
I spent many years just focused onthe exercise part of things. For
people that Jeff get into exercising,they reach a point where you get you
(04:45):
do your weights, but you youplateau. So then you start looking into
well what else can I do tolose weight or to gain weight? It
could be to go go both ways, and for me it was tracking calories,
so tracking what I was eating wasreally it. Once I started tracking
my calories. That's when I sawthe biggest result in myself and it transformed
me. I mean when I wasa teenager, I peeked I think a
(05:06):
two hundred and seventy pounds and atmy lowest weight through diet alone, I
got to I believe one sixty nineand that was over like about a two
year period. So and it wasjust tracking my nutrition, tracking my calories
and you know, waiting of myfood portions and then U seeing that information
and putting it into an application thatallowed me to track what I was eating.
(05:28):
And really, I mean that wasit. And you can tell by
the food that you eat how manycalories. So I would say I'm buying
chicken. I don't necessarily have thecalorie intake of the chicken, but you
know how many calories X amount ofweight of chicken would calculate to be in
calories correct. So if you Idon't know if you've ever paid attention to
(05:51):
the nutritional facts of you know,any type of food you're eating. So
if you have a box of cookiesand you look in the back and you'll
see the nutritional facts, well,if you look within the nutritional facts,
it'll tell you well, one hundredgrams or two cookies equals one hundred calories.
Right. Well, for protein,it's the same if you if you
(06:12):
have a packet of chicken at homeand you turn it over, you'll see
the nutritional facts and it'll say fourounces of chicken equals so let's say one
hundred and twenty calories. Well,now you know that if I have four
ounces of chicken, I put iton your put it on the scale.
Now you know that you're within therange of one hundred and twenty calories.
So some food does you know,food does lose its cooking weight. So
(06:33):
there's a little bit of like enaglingwith the with the calories, but that's
that's essentially what is it. So, if let's say you you were making
pancakes and you follow the instructions onyour pancakee packet, you can see on
the back it will say two hundredgrams of this mixture equals two hundred and
fifty calories. So when you're usingthe pan, you set the scale two
(06:55):
grams, you pour in your pancakemixture, stick to the to the two
hundred fifty grams, and now youknow you're getting about roughly that amount of
calories when you are eating the food. So, like I said, you
get to a point where you doplateau and then once you get a little
bit meriticulous on tracking calories, that'swhen individuals see the you know, the
most results. And for those peoplethat see those you know, bodybuilders and
(07:18):
fitness enthusiasm and all that, they'reyou know, they do the shows and
all that stuff, that's what theydo. They get to a point where
they track everything that they eat toachieve a certain look. And that's essentially
you know what we're doing here.So Jerry, when you came up with
this idea of saying, you knowwhat, I need to measure my food
(07:38):
and I want to do it ina pen, when you had that aha
moment? What did you do atthat point? I actually went to a
Tony Robbins event in California, oneof his big, big time events.
I am, like I said,I am making my egg whites. I
start weighing the stuff out. ThenI have that moment of like, well,
why is there not a pen thathas this stuff in? It has
(08:00):
to be I'm like this, there'sno way in you know, twenty nineteen.
At that point that there's not apan that has like some technology in
it. The very first thing thatI did was I actually had I finished,
you know, cooking my food,and I sat on my island,
pulled up my iPad and went onAmazon and started looking for smart cooking pans
and found nothing. Then I wenton Google did the same thing and found
(08:24):
nothing. So I was like,okay, maybe onto something here. So
I on a napkin. I thinkI still have it at home. I
drew what I thought the pan wouldlook like, and it has changed designs
multiple times. And the very nextday I looked up for I looked up
companies who specialized in helping start upto get up the ground, that specialized
(08:46):
in electrical engineering, product design andall that stuff. I called a few
of them and found one that couldhelp me get the design off the ground.
And yeah, once I started thatpath, it was off to the
races. And you pretty much knewthe features that you wanted to have built
in. I'm not sure exactly whatyou were thinking and what it is today.
(09:09):
Like you said, I mean,I have plenty of napkins that have
all yeah whatever on it that Ican't even take. You know, it
starts off one way and it kindof veers. But look that prototype that
you have, if you can holdit up one more time, it's well
done. It looks almost like ceramic. Yeah, yeah, this is this
(09:31):
is a ceramic coating. Uh.That was also part of what we were
trying to do was to go asfree of popsins and and and you know,
paravans and all that stuff off thecoating as possible. So that was
also very important to this to makeit as as we'll call it in quotes,
as healthy as possible healthy in telepanSo, Jerry, now you've gone
(09:56):
through, you had that moment,you drew it, you found a company
to help you with designing and gettingthis prototype. I'm sure there was a
little bit of a journey in thatpart of it. It seems like it,
you know, magically shows up.But tell us about your experience of
developing or designing or inventing your firstproduct like this. Yeah. So for
(10:20):
me, I came from a corporatebackground, which made it very difficult.
My backgrounds in business and corporate training, so absolutely have no experience in this.
It was just an idea I thoughtof and I was like, oh,
well, what I do now?And essentially I just focused on hiring
my weakness. Right, I'm nota product designer, I'm not an electrical
engineer. So what do I dois, you know, look for a
company that specializes in all of that. So that's what it did. So
(10:43):
first I started the small route Iwent through. I believe it was this
company called up work, and theessentially have freelancers. I found some people
there too. I found a productdesigner and an engineer that could help me.
I didn't really work out how Iwanted, So then I started going
up and up to like a biggercompany, a bigger firm that handles this
(11:03):
kind of stuff, and we weworked together for about I believe it was
six to nine months. And thedesign that they assisted me with and the
engineering that they assist me with,this wasn't what I was looking for.
So at that point I ended upending our partnership and I look for another
company. And that company is theone that you know pretty much got assisted
(11:28):
me in getting the product to thispoint. And things changed, as you
know, significant amount, right,because you know, there are times where
I'm like, I have these ideasof things I want to add to the
pen, and we couldn't do it, right. The thing about it telling
pen is that it doesn't exist.There's we can't really piggyback off of any
product and just improve it. Thisis like, this is a first time
product. So that alone made itvery difficult to work on in the development
(11:52):
process. So here you are.You're an inventor now right out of the
corporate world. Yeah, inventor goingthrough iterations of your PEN talking to designers
and engineers and prototypers. Can youshare your experience of going through actually is
it patent? It's patent pending.Patent pending, correct, right, yeah,
(12:13):
patent pending. So tell us aboutthe experience of going through that part
of the journey and protecting your intellectualproperty. Absolutely, So that that was
the second part of having the ideaand working with the company on the engineering
and design was the patent side,right, some interviews some companies eventually came
(12:35):
to a patent lawyer that was ableto assist me to get it to where
it needs to get to. Thatprocess alone was quite difficult because the design
and engineering, you know, itcould be fun, right you come out
and you're like, oh, thatlooks cool, or you know, I
want to add this and that,but the patent lingo. You got to
know what you're writing on there,right, And you have lots of experience
with us, you know how thatworks. So it was just more making
(13:00):
sure everything was where it needed tobe and that the lingo was correct.
Right. Patent lingo is a littlebit different than just a panelet of scale,
right, Jerry, you decided towork with the design house, engineering
and prototype before you knew if youridea was patented or not or protected and
if you had a chance to actuallyget a patent on it. Right,
(13:24):
What was the thought process of that? Because you took a bit of a
risk and you could have made yourdesign and made the prototype and go through
all that and then you did apatent search and all of a sudden it
already exists and then you have anice prototype. What was your thinking on
that or did you not know?You know? So that's actually something that
(13:46):
we did. So part of mylooking for a freelancer and out work,
I was able to find a greatmarked specialist or a slash lawyer who specialized
in that. That was actually thevery first thing that I did, believe
it or not, And I forgotto mention that, and I did that
from the hotel during the Tony Robbinsof that was have somebody do a patent
search for this specific type of productwhere there was a cooking panda had an
(14:07):
integrated scale in it. We feelwe're in a good place with the scale
compliner of the pan. Okay,so you came up with the idea,
you did a patent search. Youhad some peace of mind to know that
if you're working on this that you'regoing to have some sort of intellectual property
protection. Hopefully you'll have an issuedpatent. So you worked with the design
(14:28):
house, engineering prototyping, and youfiled a provisional patent application, right,
so that'll give you the right forone year to say you're patent pending while
you're exploring the market. So youhave a great prototype, you have kind
of the way that you wanted towork and how it should look. You
(14:50):
have a nice looking website. Let'spull up the website. Let's take a
look there it is. Okay,so why don't you give us a quick
rundown of what's your website's about?And you have a great website, Nate,
you have in telepan dot com.Yeah, so yeah, that's our
website at telepan dot com. You'llfind all the information that you need about
the product on there. As soonas you go into the website, the
(15:13):
very first thing you see is ourproduct video, which is very neat.
I highly recommend that you at leasttake the time and watch the video.
It showcases how the product works,and yeah, it chokes how the product
works, which is really neat.And you'll find some images there. You
find a little bit of my storyat the very top, and yeah,
(15:33):
that's that's pretty much. It verynice. Here's the video that you were
saying. So people who are watchingour audience, you can go to in
telepan dot com. Easy enough.Your patent pending. And now you are
at the fork in the road ofsaying, is this something that I want
(15:56):
to manufacture where I'm going to finda factor to make it, sell it
on Amazon and eBay and maybe getinto some major retail stores. What's your
vision or is it something that youare considering to license where you find a
company that already manufactures pens, possiblyand see if they'd be interested in adding
(16:19):
your intellectual property, your pen intotheir product line and they would manufacture it,
distribute it and you would earn aroyalty. That's most of the time
how it works. So where areyou at, Jerry. That's exactly where
I'm at right now. So thegoal from here on out is to license
a product, and that's mainly becauseof the costly part of developing this product.
(16:45):
Once you go into trying to handleyour own manufacturing and going that route,
it gets very, very expensive.So I was able to get the
product to a really good place.I'm a very small fish in this giant
pod of cookware. So I figuredthat it would probably be best to license
the product to a company that hasthe capability to take this to the next
(17:10):
level. Okay, Now, whenyou said that it was very expensive to
manufacture, when you're saying something likethat, because I've had a chance to
work with people and they've had expectationsthat the pricing was exorbitant and it might
be different than what I might findas a price to be able to produce
something like that. So what whatWhy would you say that it's really expensive
(17:34):
to manufacture. Yeah, so you'reyou're cutting out a little bit, But
I got I got the question.So in our research, when we interviewed
a couple of companies out west inChina, we What we found is that
our hiccup was that the being thatthis product does not exist, it made
it very difficult when it came tothe tooling and all that stuff that goes
(17:57):
along with that. And it's mainlybecause of the tech. If you go
look at the China route and youjust say, hey, I want to
tenage frying pan, you can getit for a dollar. It's not a
problem. But once you start addingthe technology to it, that's where it
starts to get a little bit,you know, a little bit on the
constantly side. And it's once again, it's because there's just nothing like it.
(18:17):
You have to make different parts.You have electronics within the pan,
which is you know, there's noproduct out there that has electronics on pan.
So that's really you know, thatwas the main reason why. Okay,
so here you are. You haveCAD files done, you have a
great working prototype, you have agreat attitude, you have proof that weighing
(18:40):
food is something that can help peopleto manage their diet and to manage their
food intake. And some people couldbe very into it. Some people are
trying all different ways to be ableto lose weight. And here you are
that you came up with a panthat has an integrated weighing system and also
(19:00):
the temperature. Now, the temperature, there's products and there's pans out there
that already have temperature right correct,Yes, So how we're differentiating ourselves from
from those products is that what we'vefound is any product that has any type
of technology out there, whether it'sa smart cooking pan or not or whatever,
(19:23):
the main hiccup that they have isthat they work through Bluetooth and they
require some type of application in orderto see the data. And let's say
another company has intellipan. The examplethere would be that you would need to
develop the intellipan app, put thefood in, look at the phone and
be like okay, or the iPadand say okay, one hundred grams.
Great. I took that completely outof everything, and all of the data
(19:48):
that you see is all going tobe displayed directly on the handle the pan.
There's no application, there's no otheraccessories needed. It's one and done.
It's it's all right there for you. So if a company did license
it and want to create an app, they wouldn't necessarily have to do it
where they're controlling the food intake,or it's connecting maybe it's something an extension
of or there's probably plenty of appsalready out there that way and track of
(20:12):
your food intake. Well, yeah, absolutely. So the main application that's
holder that tracks your calories. Forexample, it's called the my Fitness pell,
extremely popular, has over three hundredmillion users in it. I could
see sometime in the future where thisproduct connects to that application and once you
wear your food and automatically inputs,you know, the data to the app
(20:33):
student, so you can eliminate thatstep. And yeah, so I mean
that there's you know, there's manypossibilities with this product when you add that
kind of stuff, and even onthe LED screen. There's some other things
that we were looking into as faras like sounds timers. So you know,
let's say you want to you're cookingsomething and you want a twenty minute
(20:55):
timer, we can do that onthere. It can make a beep when
it's done, when it's getting thepants getting Let's say you turn the pen
on high and you walk away,it can start babing when it reaches three
hundred and fifty degrees. You know, there are all kinds of things we
can do. With the tech inthis pan. And one final question about
the pen in tel a pen,Sure what happens with there's a battery built
in? Is that what you proposenow? Again, Jarry, you're you're
(21:18):
considering to license it, So theremight be some other iterations of the way
that they would propose that it workand function, But for now, you've
done enough research to know what thesituation is with the battery or do you
plug it in and recharge it.So we looked at both options. We
looked at the battery option. Wealso look at the rechargeable battery option.
(21:44):
Both options are on the table,so it really depends looking at the at
the user experience what they would like. Right some people would be like,
oh, I don't want to keepreplacing the batteries. And then some people
would be like, I'm not goingto charge a pen in my kitchen,
Like I want to clean it andput it away. I don't want this
thing sitting and sitting on the chargingor whatever. So what we found is
that you go into battery route,batteries could last up to six months from
(22:07):
the testing that we did, Sothat's where we're at right now, but
open to either option. So wecan. It's definitely really what the user
wants here. Either option could work. You're on this journey, Jerry.
I know that you've been attempting toreach out to companies that may consider licensing
the rights to your intellectual property,your patent pending and Telepan the name you
(22:33):
have trademarked, the website, thedomain name, and telepan dot com.
You put your assets together, readyto package it, and the CAD files
are done, so it could bevery attractive to a company that is in
the space or maybe not in thespace, may be involved with tracking calories
or knowing what the food temperature isor a combination of both, or time.
(23:00):
I mean, there's a lot ofvariables and features that you have built
in, but the main one thatyou're proposing is to count the calories.
So hopefully you find a company thatis the right time for them and put
in their pipeline and kind of knowthat they have a good start with where
you are today, with what you'vedone. So congratulations to this point,
(23:22):
Thank you, Thank you, Jerry. There are inventors that are watching and
listening to you. There are peoplethat just came up with an idea.
Maybe they've come up with an idea. In the past, everybody's at some
point come up with an idea.The question is who really stops to take
action with their idea. But forthe people that are listening out there and
(23:42):
watching, Jerry, you're on yourjourney here, give us some words of
wisdom to people that are starting orsomewhere in the middle. Maybe they're at
the same spot where you're at.Yeah, I mean, what I would
say is that, you know,be prepared for the journey. It's definitely
not easy for me. I camefrom a corporate background, not knowing anything
(24:04):
about inventing a product, and boy, you know that I learned on this
journey things that I never would havethought in a million years that I would
learn in this journey. So beyondthat, be prepared that it could be
expensive depending on what you know yourideas. There are some ideas that could
be very simple, not as costlyand all of that stuff. But if
your idea is a little bit moreintricate, it's your nique. It requires
(24:26):
technology and it's something that has neverbeen done before. Well, the research
part of it is going to beprobably a little bit longer because you can't
look at another product to try topiggyback off of that idea and look for
ways to make it better. You'reessentially the one that's creating it from the
very first time, so there wouldbe a lot of time involved in the
research part of it. Be preparedthat it's going to be a bit expensive,
(24:51):
and and if I get stuck,start looking for those experts that are
good in that area. So that'sone thing to help me significantly higher your
weaknesses. You're not going to knoweverything, but there's people that do that
specialize in that area that you're notvery good at. I'm not an electrical
engineer, I am not a productdesigner. And here we are sitting here
(25:11):
with this prototype. They're saying foreverything. Just like Brian, show us
one more time, Jerry, showus the prototype and just show us quickly
push a couple of buttons. Letus see how it works. I don't
let me down. So right now, where you're seeing is the temperature over
here. That's incelsious. And thenwhat are we looking at grams on the
other side. That's a split screenview. So now from split screen it
(25:34):
goes directly to the weight which isdisplayed in grams. Now that is in
our ounces, and here we gotpounds and that's pound announces. So essentially,
if you're a person that has useda digital scale, think of your
digital scale at home that you boughtfrom Amazon, same exact features, but
(25:56):
they're integrated into the pen, soyou eliminate that step of weighing the food
separately to then cook it. It'sall in one, no need to use
an extra plate or any of thatstuff. And let me see if I
could get the temperature. You're anatural pitch man, Jerry. Yeah,
and here's the temperature. I believethat's a temperature. There's real man,
they said. It does say seventyfour on the Thermo stet. But you
(26:17):
can see the temperature here and deathand celso so you have both options.
So, like I said, youhave you can view the temperature on its
own or the weight on its own, or you can see it in the
split screen, which let me seeif I can. There we go and
here's that split screen again. Soif you're interested in b if you can
do that as well. Jerry,we wish you all the best. We
(26:37):
hope that you come back to GotInvention show and the success story. Hopefully
somebody out there me you we canall buy it for the reason that you
came up with it. Thank youso much for being a guest on our
show. Great story, great journey. Hopefully it ends the way that you
want. We wish you all thebest. Jerry. Thank you. Please
(26:59):
once again check the website and telepandot com. Our instagram is at and
tellypan and then my direct instagram.If you have any questions on my journey,
it's at Jerry Rodriguez. Thank youso much. Jerry. Okay,
and if you'd like to be aguest on the Got Invention Show, you
can go to Got Invention show dotcom. Thank you everybody. When you
have your big idea, keep itmoving forward, do your research, do
(27:23):
your due diligence, and make ithappen, just like Jerry did, and
hopefully we'll see success from his andyour invention as well. Thank you so
much, and we'll see you againon the next Got Invention Show.
Welcome to the Got Invention Show.I'm your host Brian Freed, and our
guest today is Jerry Rodriguez. Hehas an invention called the Intelpen. Welcome
to the show, Jerry, thanksfor having me, Brian. How's everybody
doing. Everybody's great, and we'reexcited to hear and learn a little bit
more about you and your invention andwhat the problem was and what the solution
(00:39):
is that you came up with,and your journey and where you are today
and what the future looks like forin Telepen. So to start off with,
Jerry, why don't you tell uswho you are and where you're from
and what do you do for aliving. So, as Brian mentioned,
my name is Jerry Rodriguez, andI'm an entrepreneur and inventor of the product
called the Telling. And I amalso a day trader. Okay, very
(01:03):
nice to again meet you, Jerry. And so here you are. You're
a day trader. I don't knowhow long you've been doing it for,
but you you're just out there makinga living and all of a sudden you
have this aha moment. So whatwas the problem for us that you were
having? Well, to give youa little bit of background. I was
(01:25):
overweighted. I played video games allday, and I found a passion and
fitness, and throughout that whole journey, I realized that the diet part of
it was probably the most important thingin losing weight. Right. So throughout
that process I got into this thingit's called tracking calories or tracking macros,
(01:46):
which involves weigh your food portions inorder to get an accurate account of your
calories. So fast forward. Ijust sat there, I'm like, man,
why is there not a pan thathas this technology we already built in.
I went on Amazon, I searchedpan with scale and there was nothing,
And sure enough, you know,that's really how the product came about.
(02:08):
Essentially, it's solving the problem ofhaving to weigh your food separately before
cooking, combining it all into onedevice. Very interesting. And I know
on top of that you added thetemperature within. That's correct. Yeah,
So in the in the development processthat the main focus was the scale component.
(02:28):
We were trying to figure out whatother you know, technology can we
implement into the PAN to take advantageof the LED screen, What you know,
what else can we add? Sothrough those discussions, we decided to
add the temperature component on the screen, you can see the temperature of the
pan as well, so you cansee the weight of the food or ingredient,
and then you can also see thetemperature of the pan for those enthusiasts
(02:51):
that aren't interested in knowing how hottheir pan is and you know, wanting
to cook their food to a youknow, the perfection. Got it.
Well, we're going to hear moreabout the story of the intelpen and how
it was developed and where it istoday. But you do have your prototype
on you right do It's right hereright here? Yeah, this is it.
(03:12):
So the colonel, let's say helloand hear what you're seeing. You
can't see a whole lot of it, but this is obviously the LED screen,
and what you're seeing is a splitscreen of the temperatures and celsius and
caw. It switches to fahrenheit andthen also the it has an auto shut
off. But and then you cansee the the unit of measurement on the
(03:34):
other side grams, and then youcan let me see we can here we
go. So that's displaying the weightof the food or ingredient in grams,
and it also displays ounces pounds,and like I mentioned on the temperature side,
you have fahrenheit and you also havecelsius. So that's a great looking
pen. That that and the namein telepen makes it sound very intriguing along
(03:58):
with the way that that pen.But again it's a prototype. It's a
well done working prototype which you haven'tused, but you know that it works.
It does work, yes the ledStreet everything is programmed then it does
work excellent. So Jerry, I'mnot sure if everybody actually thinks about measuring
or weighing their food and figuring outthe temperature, which is kind of interesting
(04:24):
in a pan. But maybe youcan give us a little bit more insight
on why people would want to weightheir food. Well, I mean,
like I mentioned earlier, for me, when I went through my fitness journey,
I spent many years just focused onthe exercise part of things. For
people that Jeff get into exercising,they reach a point where you get you
(04:45):
do your weights, but you youplateau. So then you start looking into
well what else can I do tolose weight or to gain weight? It
could be to go go both ways, and for me it was tracking calories,
so tracking what I was eating wasreally it. Once I started tracking
my calories. That's when I sawthe biggest result in myself and it transformed
me. I mean when I wasa teenager, I peeked I think a
(05:06):
two hundred and seventy pounds and atmy lowest weight through diet alone, I
got to I believe one sixty nineand that was over like about a two
year period. So and it wasjust tracking my nutrition, tracking my calories
and you know, waiting of myfood portions and then U seeing that information
and putting it into an application thatallowed me to track what I was eating.
(05:28):
And really, I mean that wasit. And you can tell by
the food that you eat how manycalories. So I would say I'm buying
chicken. I don't necessarily have thecalorie intake of the chicken, but you
know how many calories X amount ofweight of chicken would calculate to be in
calories correct. So if you Idon't know if you've ever paid attention to
(05:51):
the nutritional facts of you know,any type of food you're eating. So
if you have a box of cookiesand you look in the back and you'll
see the nutritional facts, well,if you look within the nutritional facts,
it'll tell you well, one hundredgrams or two cookies equals one hundred calories.
Right. Well, for protein,it's the same if you if you
(06:12):
have a packet of chicken at homeand you turn it over, you'll see
the nutritional facts and it'll say fourounces of chicken equals so let's say one
hundred and twenty calories. Well,now you know that if I have four
ounces of chicken, I put iton your put it on the scale.
Now you know that you're within therange of one hundred and twenty calories.
So some food does you know,food does lose its cooking weight. So
(06:33):
there's a little bit of like enaglingwith the with the calories, but that's
that's essentially what is it. So, if let's say you you were making
pancakes and you follow the instructions onyour pancakee packet, you can see on
the back it will say two hundredgrams of this mixture equals two hundred and
fifty calories. So when you're usingthe pan, you set the scale two
(06:55):
grams, you pour in your pancakemixture, stick to the to the two
hundred fifty grams, and now youknow you're getting about roughly that amount of
calories when you are eating the food. So, like I said, you
get to a point where you doplateau and then once you get a little
bit meriticulous on tracking calories, that'swhen individuals see the you know, the
most results. And for those peoplethat see those you know, bodybuilders and
(07:18):
fitness enthusiasm and all that, they'reyou know, they do the shows and
all that stuff, that's what theydo. They get to a point where
they track everything that they eat toachieve a certain look. And that's essentially
you know what we're doing here.So Jerry, when you came up with
this idea of saying, you knowwhat, I need to measure my food
(07:38):
and I want to do it ina pen, when you had that aha
moment? What did you do atthat point? I actually went to a
Tony Robbins event in California, oneof his big, big time events.
I am, like I said,I am making my egg whites. I
start weighing the stuff out. ThenI have that moment of like, well,
why is there not a pen thathas this stuff in? It has
(08:00):
to be I'm like this, there'sno way in you know, twenty nineteen.
At that point that there's not apan that has like some technology in
it. The very first thing thatI did was I actually had I finished,
you know, cooking my food,and I sat on my island,
pulled up my iPad and went onAmazon and started looking for smart cooking pans
and found nothing. Then I wenton Google did the same thing and found
(08:24):
nothing. So I was like,okay, maybe onto something here. So
I on a napkin. I thinkI still have it at home. I
drew what I thought the pan wouldlook like, and it has changed designs
multiple times. And the very nextday I looked up for I looked up
companies who specialized in helping start upto get up the ground, that specialized
(08:46):
in electrical engineering, product design andall that stuff. I called a few
of them and found one that couldhelp me get the design off the ground.
And yeah, once I started thatpath, it was off to the
races. And you pretty much knewthe features that you wanted to have built
in. I'm not sure exactly whatyou were thinking and what it is today.
(09:09):
Like you said, I mean,I have plenty of napkins that have
all yeah whatever on it that Ican't even take. You know, it
starts off one way and it kindof veers. But look that prototype that
you have, if you can holdit up one more time, it's well
done. It looks almost like ceramic. Yeah, yeah, this is this
(09:31):
is a ceramic coating. Uh.That was also part of what we were
trying to do was to go asfree of popsins and and and you know,
paravans and all that stuff off thecoating as possible. So that was
also very important to this to makeit as as we'll call it in quotes,
as healthy as possible healthy in telepanSo, Jerry, now you've gone
(09:56):
through, you had that moment,you drew it, you found a company
to help you with designing and gettingthis prototype. I'm sure there was a
little bit of a journey in thatpart of it. It seems like it,
you know, magically shows up.But tell us about your experience of
developing or designing or inventing your firstproduct like this. Yeah. So for
(10:20):
me, I came from a corporatebackground, which made it very difficult.
My backgrounds in business and corporate training, so absolutely have no experience in this.
It was just an idea I thoughtof and I was like, oh,
well, what I do now?And essentially I just focused on hiring
my weakness. Right, I'm nota product designer, I'm not an electrical
engineer. So what do I dois, you know, look for a
company that specializes in all of that. So that's what it did. So
(10:43):
first I started the small route Iwent through. I believe it was this
company called up work, and theessentially have freelancers. I found some people
there too. I found a productdesigner and an engineer that could help me.
I didn't really work out how Iwanted, So then I started going
up and up to like a biggercompany, a bigger firm that handles this
(11:03):
kind of stuff, and we weworked together for about I believe it was
six to nine months. And thedesign that they assisted me with and the
engineering that they assist me with,this wasn't what I was looking for.
So at that point I ended upending our partnership and I look for another
company. And that company is theone that you know pretty much got assisted
(11:28):
me in getting the product to thispoint. And things changed, as you
know, significant amount, right,because you know, there are times where
I'm like, I have these ideasof things I want to add to the
pen, and we couldn't do it, right. The thing about it telling
pen is that it doesn't exist.There's we can't really piggyback off of any
product and just improve it. Thisis like, this is a first time
product. So that alone made itvery difficult to work on in the development
(11:52):
process. So here you are.You're an inventor now right out of the
corporate world. Yeah, inventor goingthrough iterations of your PEN talking to designers
and engineers and prototypers. Can youshare your experience of going through actually is
it patent? It's patent pending.Patent pending, correct, right, yeah,
(12:13):
patent pending. So tell us aboutthe experience of going through that part
of the journey and protecting your intellectualproperty. Absolutely, So that that was
the second part of having the ideaand working with the company on the engineering
and design was the patent side,right, some interviews some companies eventually came
(12:35):
to a patent lawyer that was ableto assist me to get it to where
it needs to get to. Thatprocess alone was quite difficult because the design
and engineering, you know, itcould be fun, right you come out
and you're like, oh, thatlooks cool, or you know, I
want to add this and that,but the patent lingo. You got to
know what you're writing on there,right, And you have lots of experience
with us, you know how thatworks. So it was just more making
(13:00):
sure everything was where it needed tobe and that the lingo was correct.
Right. Patent lingo is a littlebit different than just a panelet of scale,
right, Jerry, you decided towork with the design house, engineering
and prototype before you knew if youridea was patented or not or protected and
if you had a chance to actuallyget a patent on it. Right,
(13:24):
What was the thought process of that? Because you took a bit of a
risk and you could have made yourdesign and made the prototype and go through
all that and then you did apatent search and all of a sudden it
already exists and then you have anice prototype. What was your thinking on
that or did you not know?You know? So that's actually something that
(13:46):
we did. So part of mylooking for a freelancer and out work,
I was able to find a greatmarked specialist or a slash lawyer who specialized
in that. That was actually thevery first thing that I did, believe
it or not, And I forgotto mention that, and I did that
from the hotel during the Tony Robbinsof that was have somebody do a patent
search for this specific type of productwhere there was a cooking panda had an
(14:07):
integrated scale in it. We feelwe're in a good place with the scale
compliner of the pan. Okay,so you came up with the idea,
you did a patent search. Youhad some peace of mind to know that
if you're working on this that you'regoing to have some sort of intellectual property
protection. Hopefully you'll have an issuedpatent. So you worked with the design
(14:28):
house, engineering prototyping, and youfiled a provisional patent application, right,
so that'll give you the right forone year to say you're patent pending while
you're exploring the market. So youhave a great prototype, you have kind
of the way that you wanted towork and how it should look. You
(14:50):
have a nice looking website. Let'spull up the website. Let's take a
look there it is. Okay,so why don't you give us a quick
rundown of what's your website's about?And you have a great website, Nate,
you have in telepan dot com.Yeah, so yeah, that's our
website at telepan dot com. You'llfind all the information that you need about
the product on there. As soonas you go into the website, the
(15:13):
very first thing you see is ourproduct video, which is very neat.
I highly recommend that you at leasttake the time and watch the video.
It showcases how the product works,and yeah, it chokes how the product
works, which is really neat.And you'll find some images there. You
find a little bit of my storyat the very top, and yeah,
(15:33):
that's that's pretty much. It verynice. Here's the video that you were
saying. So people who are watchingour audience, you can go to in
telepan dot com. Easy enough.Your patent pending. And now you are
at the fork in the road ofsaying, is this something that I want
(15:56):
to manufacture where I'm going to finda factor to make it, sell it
on Amazon and eBay and maybe getinto some major retail stores. What's your
vision or is it something that youare considering to license where you find a
company that already manufactures pens, possiblyand see if they'd be interested in adding
(16:19):
your intellectual property, your pen intotheir product line and they would manufacture it,
distribute it and you would earn aroyalty. That's most of the time
how it works. So where areyou at, Jerry. That's exactly where
I'm at right now. So thegoal from here on out is to license
a product, and that's mainly becauseof the costly part of developing this product.
(16:45):
Once you go into trying to handleyour own manufacturing and going that route,
it gets very, very expensive.So I was able to get the
product to a really good place.I'm a very small fish in this giant
pod of cookware. So I figuredthat it would probably be best to license
the product to a company that hasthe capability to take this to the next
(17:10):
level. Okay, Now, whenyou said that it was very expensive to
manufacture, when you're saying something likethat, because I've had a chance to
work with people and they've had expectationsthat the pricing was exorbitant and it might
be different than what I might findas a price to be able to produce
something like that. So what whatWhy would you say that it's really expensive
(17:34):
to manufacture. Yeah, so you'reyou're cutting out a little bit, But
I got I got the question.So in our research, when we interviewed
a couple of companies out west inChina, we What we found is that
our hiccup was that the being thatthis product does not exist, it made
it very difficult when it came tothe tooling and all that stuff that goes
(17:57):
along with that. And it's mainlybecause of the tech. If you go
look at the China route and youjust say, hey, I want to
tenage frying pan, you can getit for a dollar. It's not a
problem. But once you start addingthe technology to it, that's where it
starts to get a little bit,you know, a little bit on the
constantly side. And it's once again, it's because there's just nothing like it.
(18:17):
You have to make different parts.You have electronics within the pan,
which is you know, there's noproduct out there that has electronics on pan.
So that's really you know, thatwas the main reason why. Okay,
so here you are. You haveCAD files done, you have a
great working prototype, you have agreat attitude, you have proof that weighing
(18:40):
food is something that can help peopleto manage their diet and to manage their
food intake. And some people couldbe very into it. Some people are
trying all different ways to be ableto lose weight. And here you are
that you came up with a panthat has an integrated weighing system and also
(19:00):
the temperature. Now, the temperature, there's products and there's pans out there
that already have temperature right correct,Yes, So how we're differentiating ourselves from
from those products is that what we'vefound is any product that has any type
of technology out there, whether it'sa smart cooking pan or not or whatever,
(19:23):
the main hiccup that they have isthat they work through Bluetooth and they
require some type of application in orderto see the data. And let's say
another company has intellipan. The examplethere would be that you would need to
develop the intellipan app, put thefood in, look at the phone and
be like okay, or the iPadand say okay, one hundred grams.
Great. I took that completely outof everything, and all of the data
(19:48):
that you see is all going tobe displayed directly on the handle the pan.
There's no application, there's no otheraccessories needed. It's one and done.
It's it's all right there for you. So if a company did license
it and want to create an app, they wouldn't necessarily have to do it
where they're controlling the food intake,or it's connecting maybe it's something an extension
of or there's probably plenty of appsalready out there that way and track of
(20:12):
your food intake. Well, yeah, absolutely. So the main application that's
holder that tracks your calories. Forexample, it's called the my Fitness pell,
extremely popular, has over three hundredmillion users in it. I could
see sometime in the future where thisproduct connects to that application and once you
wear your food and automatically inputs,you know, the data to the app
(20:33):
student, so you can eliminate thatstep. And yeah, so I mean
that there's you know, there's manypossibilities with this product when you add that
kind of stuff, and even onthe LED screen. There's some other things
that we were looking into as faras like sounds timers. So you know,
let's say you want to you're cookingsomething and you want a twenty minute
(20:55):
timer, we can do that onthere. It can make a beep when
it's done, when it's getting thepants getting Let's say you turn the pen
on high and you walk away,it can start babing when it reaches three
hundred and fifty degrees. You know, there are all kinds of things we
can do. With the tech inthis pan. And one final question about
the pen in tel a pen,Sure what happens with there's a battery built
in? Is that what you proposenow? Again, Jarry, you're you're
(21:18):
considering to license it, So theremight be some other iterations of the way
that they would propose that it workand function, But for now, you've
done enough research to know what thesituation is with the battery or do you
plug it in and recharge it.So we looked at both options. We
looked at the battery option. Wealso look at the rechargeable battery option.
(21:44):
Both options are on the table,so it really depends looking at the at
the user experience what they would like. Right some people would be like,
oh, I don't want to keepreplacing the batteries. And then some people
would be like, I'm not goingto charge a pen in my kitchen,
Like I want to clean it andput it away. I don't want this
thing sitting and sitting on the chargingor whatever. So what we found is
that you go into battery route,batteries could last up to six months from
(22:07):
the testing that we did, Sothat's where we're at right now, but
open to either option. So wecan. It's definitely really what the user
wants here. Either option could work. You're on this journey, Jerry.
I know that you've been attempting toreach out to companies that may consider licensing
the rights to your intellectual property,your patent pending and Telepan the name you
(22:33):
have trademarked, the website, thedomain name, and telepan dot com.
You put your assets together, readyto package it, and the CAD files
are done, so it could bevery attractive to a company that is in
the space or maybe not in thespace, may be involved with tracking calories
or knowing what the food temperature isor a combination of both, or time.
(23:00):
I mean, there's a lot ofvariables and features that you have built
in, but the main one thatyou're proposing is to count the calories.
So hopefully you find a company thatis the right time for them and put
in their pipeline and kind of knowthat they have a good start with where
you are today, with what you'vedone. So congratulations to this point,
(23:22):
Thank you, Thank you, Jerry. There are inventors that are watching and
listening to you. There are peoplethat just came up with an idea.
Maybe they've come up with an idea. In the past, everybody's at some
point come up with an idea.The question is who really stops to take
action with their idea. But forthe people that are listening out there and
(23:42):
watching, Jerry, you're on yourjourney here, give us some words of
wisdom to people that are starting orsomewhere in the middle. Maybe they're at
the same spot where you're at.Yeah, I mean, what I would
say is that, you know,be prepared for the journey. It's definitely
not easy for me. I camefrom a corporate background, not knowing anything
(24:04):
about inventing a product, and boy, you know that I learned on this
journey things that I never would havethought in a million years that I would
learn in this journey. So beyondthat, be prepared that it could be
expensive depending on what you know yourideas. There are some ideas that could
be very simple, not as costlyand all of that stuff. But if
your idea is a little bit moreintricate, it's your nique. It requires
(24:26):
technology and it's something that has neverbeen done before. Well, the research
part of it is going to beprobably a little bit longer because you can't
look at another product to try topiggyback off of that idea and look for
ways to make it better. You'reessentially the one that's creating it from the
very first time, so there wouldbe a lot of time involved in the
research part of it. Be preparedthat it's going to be a bit expensive,
(24:51):
and and if I get stuck,start looking for those experts that are
good in that area. So that'sone thing to help me significantly higher your
weaknesses. You're not going to knoweverything, but there's people that do that
specialize in that area that you're notvery good at. I'm not an electrical
engineer, I am not a productdesigner. And here we are sitting here
(25:11):
with this prototype. They're saying foreverything. Just like Brian, show us
one more time, Jerry, showus the prototype and just show us quickly
push a couple of buttons. Letus see how it works. I don't
let me down. So right now, where you're seeing is the temperature over
here. That's incelsious. And thenwhat are we looking at grams on the
other side. That's a split screenview. So now from split screen it
(25:34):
goes directly to the weight which isdisplayed in grams. Now that is in
our ounces, and here we gotpounds and that's pound announces. So essentially,
if you're a person that has useda digital scale, think of your
digital scale at home that you boughtfrom Amazon, same exact features, but
(25:56):
they're integrated into the pen, soyou eliminate that step of weighing the food
separately to then cook it. It'sall in one, no need to use
an extra plate or any of thatstuff. And let me see if I
could get the temperature. You're anatural pitch man, Jerry. Yeah,
and here's the temperature. I believethat's a temperature. There's real man,
they said. It does say seventyfour on the Thermo stet. But you
(26:17):
can see the temperature here and deathand celso so you have both options.
So, like I said, youhave you can view the temperature on its
own or the weight on its own, or you can see it in the
split screen, which let me seeif I can. There we go and
here's that split screen again. Soif you're interested in b if you can
do that as well. Jerry,we wish you all the best. We
(26:37):
hope that you come back to GotInvention show and the success story. Hopefully
somebody out there me you we canall buy it for the reason that you
came up with it. Thank youso much for being a guest on our
show. Great story, great journey. Hopefully it ends the way that you
want. We wish you all thebest. Jerry. Thank you. Please
(26:59):
once again check the website and telepandot com. Our instagram is at and
tellypan and then my direct instagram.If you have any questions on my journey,
it's at Jerry Rodriguez. Thank youso much. Jerry. Okay,
and if you'd like to be aguest on the Got Invention Show, you
can go to Got Invention show dotcom. Thank you everybody. When you
have your big idea, keep itmoving forward, do your research, do
(27:23):
your due diligence, and make ithappen, just like Jerry did, and
hopefully we'll see success from his andyour invention as well. Thank you so
much, and we'll see you againon the next Got Invention Show.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.