Andy Kossowsky the Inventor of Doorway Cart, Vertex, and VerPet Toothbrush on Got Invention Show

Meet Andy Kossowsky, the inventor of the Doorway Cart, Vertex Toothbrush, and VerPet Toothbrush. 

Host Brian Fried explores Andy's journey from idea conception to product development, highlighting the challenges and successes along the way. Discover how Andy's inventions are reshaping everyday experiences and bringing practical solutions to life. Tune in for a fascinating discussion on creativity, problem-solving, and the power of invention!

https://www.thedoorwaycart.com/ 
https://www.thevertextoothbrush.com/

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Episode Transcript

(00:16):
Welcome to the Got Invention Show.I'm your host Brian Freed, and today
our guest is Andy Kosowski. Heis the inventor of the doorway cart and
the Vertex toothbrush and the Verpet toothbrush. Welcome to the show. Andy,
Thank you very much. Brian.Thank you. Andy. Very interesting guy.

(00:37):
I've had a chance to get toknow you over the months. So
why don't you tell us who youare and where you're from. Well,
my name is Andy Kosowski and Ilive in Irvington, New York, here
with my wife and my son who'sin college, but I'll be seeing him
tomorrow and I'm just very excited tobe on the show with you. Thank
you. Oh, it's great.What do you do for a living?

(00:57):
So I'm in sales. I workin medical sales, where I basically traverse
all of New York City and inmy travels, I guess if you don't
mind me talking about invention number one, the doorway cart. That's actually where
I came up with the idea forthe doorway cart was when I was in
the Bronx one day. But we'lltalk about that more later. Yeah,

(01:18):
Okay, Well that's great. It'sinteresting because so many people that we interview
here on the show, and justin general. When people are inventing things,
sometimes they're inventing things for problems andthings that annoy them during their daily
life, right particularly for them.But most of the time it's either in

(01:40):
the industry or it's just away fromthe industry. But it's something that you
realize that you need a solution for. And that seemed like that happened to
you, so Andy with the doorwaycart. Why don't you first tell us
what it was that really triggered that, You know what, I think we
need something better here. Okay,I'll get it end up and show you
exactly what happened. So, andone day I was in the Bronx and

(02:07):
I was in my car literally onthe corner of White Plains Road in Pelham
Parkway and in the city of NewYork City especially, these carts are utilized
all over the place so people cantransport their groceries, their laundry, whatever.
These folding carts are everywhere, andI was I was at a red

(02:30):
light, and I was watching thiselderly woman trying to lift something very heavy
out of her cart. And Isaid to myself, why doesn't she just
make the front or why don't peoplemake the front panel of the cart a
door that opens up which allows theuser to reach in and take their items

(02:51):
out instead of hunching over and breakingtheir back. And that was it.
That was the pure simplicity of comingup with the need and the invention for
the doorway car. Very interesting,Andy, So what is the main feature
on that besides having the door cartor the door in the front open to

(03:14):
the cart. Sure, because alot of people might be saying, you
know what, I've seen something likethat before. But why is Andy's different?
Okay, let me explain again.So let me just angle this again.
Thank you, all right, Solet me just pull this out.
Oh gosh, if there was onlya door that could open. So the
folding cart basically folds as you cansee, like all the carts do this,

(03:40):
and people put their items in thecart and they transport it around.
So again, like I said regardingthe doorway cart, when you have the
access to the inside of the cart, again, you could reach in and
pull out your stuff, and ifanything, you could also organize your items
just as easily as well. Butthen I came up with a second idea,

(04:05):
And I said, what if somebodyhad like eggs or like something they
didn't want to smush on the bottomof their cart. Maybe I could use
these side rungs of the cart,if you could see their side rungs here,
and create a shelf. If youcan see this, the shelf attaches

(04:27):
to the back of the cart,and then what you could do is put
it onto the side rungs of thecart like this, and then there's a
heavy item, you put it ontop of the shelf and you can then
move both the item that's on thebottom of the cart and the item that's
on the top of the cart,and nothing's going to get broken or smushed

(04:47):
or whatever. So the shelf becamejust a great utility for the cart.
Lastly, I said to myself,wait a minute. You know I in
my medical my world of medical sales, sometimes I have a lot of boxes
that I have to transport from oneplace to another. And I realized I

(05:08):
had all this open space here,and I could use this open space to
put these big boxes in. AndI said, why not use the shelf
again to attach to the bottom ofthe cart, clip it on, and
now you have your own hand truckif you will. Just here actually for

(05:32):
the way, this door swings allthe way to the inside of the cart,
so now you have your own handtruck. So those are the utilities
involved with the cart that because ofthe door being utilized on the cart that
no other cart manufacturer actually is ableto do the doorway cart is able to

(06:01):
do it. That's pretty much it. That's awesome, And you left all
that out when we first saw thefirst demo. So I'm glad that we
had a chance to see that becauseyou would just look at it and be
like, Okay, it's a cart, but it folds, it has shelves,
you can do a lot of differentthings with it, and just turn
it into a dolly, which waspretty interesting too. So I so,

(06:27):
like I told you, I'm insales and I go to doctors' offices and
I'll bring lunch and I use mycart all the time. The staff when
I bring it the cart in goesbenatas they're like, what you could do
this? You could do that.I've never seen a cart like this,
And they own the car, they'dhave their own cart as well, and
they love it. And people whohave the cart absolutely love it as well,

(06:48):
so it's very exciting. That's great, Andy. But it didn't stop
there because he said, you knowwhat, now I'm getting into my hygiene.
And I came up with this inventioncalled the Vertex. So why don't
you tell us about the Vertex toothbrush. Sure, so my second invention is

(07:09):
called the Vertex. Here, letme show you there's the packaging for the
Vertex toothbrush. They hold it thisway. Vertex toothbrush. Anyway, So
one day I was brushing my teethwith a standard toothbrush. As you could
see, this is your standard toothbrush. And I noticed that I brushed my
teeth holding the toothbrush horizontally where Iget both upper and lower teeth at the

(07:33):
same time, and holding it thisway. And I just said to myself,
what if I took the head ofthe toothbrush and I turned it ninety
degrees and basically made it into aT shaped excuse me, T shaped toothbrush
as you could see the difference betweenthe two. So what I did was

(07:56):
I literally took this tooth brush,this toothbrush, and I cut the head
off the toothbrush, and then Imelted it back onto the brush itself.
As you can see, this isactually the first prototype of the Vertex toothbrush
where you could actually let me getthat in there so you could see the

(08:16):
melt that literally in my kitchen.I just burned the head right back onto
the toothbrush, and I realized,wait a minute, actually is this kind
of a nice feeling using this Tshaped toothbrush. But I realized that the
bristles were not falling flat on myteeth. So what I then did was,

(08:37):
if you notice see how there's anangle, how it angles back.
Excuse me, it angles back.That's because it got it to fall flat
on my teeth. And then Irealized, oh my gosh, what I
truly invented with that angle back?What else in the dentist's office also angles
back like this? The pick,the drill, the mirror, all the

(09:00):
dentist tool, the dental tools thatthe dentist use is to basically get to
every little area in your mouth.The toothbrush now is that same way.
And I said to myself, whyhas nobody thought of this before? But
as you can see, with theT shape, with the angle back,
you now are using a dental toolto help brush your teeth. That's it.

(09:22):
And if we take a look atyour website, yeah, you have
the vertextoothbrush dot com and you couldsee it very clearly here, So why
don't you tell us what we're lookingat. So again, these are just
some pictures. As you can seethe T shape in the green toothbrush,
and you can see the angle backin the in the bluetoothbrush as well,

(09:46):
which allows the user to you know, to get to olt we're about to
see the video of Tasha demonstrate usingthe toothbrush. So as you can see,
they're your standard toothbrushes, which bythe way, we'll talk about that
in a second. Toothbrush comes inblue, white, pink and also green
as well. So as you couldsee the toothbrush because of the angle,
it really allows the user to getall the way back behind their molars and

(10:09):
people love that aspect of the Vertextoothbrush. Now here you can see because
the T shape, upper and lowerteeth are getting brushed at the same time,
or both tooth and gumb at thesame time as well. Now here's
the rounded handle which shows that youcan manipulate the head to get to every
little area in your mouth. Andas you can see Tasha right there.
She loves her Vertex toothbrush. That'sit. That's great. I mean,

(10:31):
it sounds very simple, and itis very simple, but I took it
a step further and I actually hada study conducted comparing the Vertex toothbrush to
your standard toothbrush, a bona fidehead to head study which I could have
published in a medical journal. Andthe long story short is statistically significantly better.

(10:52):
That's good old science talk, whichmeans that it proved to be better
than a standard toothbrush. Is faris brushing your teeth and for your oral
hygiene as well, which made mevery excited because it really proved to me
that the Vertex toothbrush is a bettertoothbrush to use. And I was,
well, I appreciate the studies thatyou did and you've done and what they

(11:16):
say, but I could tell youbecause you sent a couple to me,
and I tried it, and Ialso gave one to my wife and we
love it. It's actually there's onlyso much that you can see and actually
understand the difference of a standard toothbrushto this. It really makes a difference.
It feels better, you can getin the back, it cleans very

(11:39):
good, and it seems like it'svery durable. The angle is definitely great,
and it seems like it's made withvery good quality, which we'll talk
about also because here you are,you're a salesperson. You never invented a
toothbrush or manufactured a toothbrush or acart before, and look at all these
things that you So we're going toget to that. But sure, I

(12:01):
just wanted to talk about seeing theneed to say, you know what,
this toothbrush, it might not onlyjust be for us, but it could
be for pex. That's and thenall of a sudden you came up with
the Verpet, the Verpet toothbrush.Yes, so I one of my part

(12:22):
times yet well a part time jobof mine is I actually teach tennis and
I would sometimes give toothbrushes to studentsof mine. And by the way,
in my town where I live inIrvington, Vertext and Verpet toothbrushes are sold
in one of the local stores hereand I have to replenish every so often.
You know, they're inventory. Anyway, regarding the Verpet, as you
could see in that little picture,that's Ashley. She's one of my tennis

(12:43):
students. She came to me oneday and said, you know, I
really like your toothbrush very much,but you know who really likes it Summer,
our dog. And I said,I'm sorry, what did you say?
And as you can see, Ashleyis now brushing Summer's teeth and I
and it hit me. I waslike, wait a minute. The pet
market is an absolutely humongous market asfar as you know products are concerned.

(13:07):
Why not enter the pet market withthe Vertex toothbrush because as you can see,
it works very well for dogs.And well, if you could get
a cat to brush your teeth,god bless you. But but for dogs,
as you can see, it worksvery very well. And I have
a lot of users who use itfor their dogs, and that's very exciting
for me. Unbelievable. Andy,here you are. You have three products

(13:30):
that you've invented, well that onethat you found another purpose for and it
just makes total sense. So let'stalk about the journey now. Sure,
inventors sometimes come up with things,or people come up with things and they
say, eh, maybe I'll leaveit for somebody else, or I don't
know what to do. But yousaid, I have some problems here.

(13:52):
There's some things that I feel likecan be done better. I watch the
old lady cross the street. I'mbrushing my teeth this way, and now
it's that. But you stopped.You captured your idea, and then you
figured out I guess you went throughsome prototyping stage. So tell us about
that, just to kind of getit to where you wanted it to be.

(14:13):
Right, So we'll start with thedoorway cart. What I did was
I would go back to the bronxwhere where you find these carts sold at
local bodegas and other stores as well, and I would bot look again.
People always ask me, are youan engineer. No I'm not, you

(14:33):
know, I'm just I was justsomebody and this is something, and this
is something that I tell everybody,like, if you have time and you
have an idea, go for it, you know, just sit down and
see where the see where the ideatakes you. So, because I knew
that I needed wanted to make acart with a door, I literally bought

(14:54):
a couple of carts, would cutoff the front panel somehow, reattach it
to the front and make a swingingdoor, even made a cardboard door.
Whatever it took for me to kindof see if this idea would work.
And when I realized that it wouldwork and it does make sense with even
my homemade prototypes, that's when Iyou know, went the next step as

(15:18):
far as you know, making thereal bona fide prototype. You know,
so you did it. You didit on your own. You didn't have
to hire engineers or mechanical people orprototype I mean, you just made a
homemade version of what you envisioned yourproduct to be correct. But once that
happened, the truth is, youknow, regarding the next step, you

(15:41):
do have to make a CAD design, you know, computer assistant design.
And I found a company in Pennsylvaniawhich is very very good as far as
making that you know, that CADwork which could then be sent to the
manufacturing house where they could then makereal prototype. So again, and what's

(16:06):
amazing about you know, people thatare CAD designers, They know how they
can look at what you have doneor what I did and add extra to
it which I didn't even think aboutmyself, which only makes it a better
product. And that was very helpfulas well. Well, what you did
was you got it to a pointwhere you felt good, and then you

(16:27):
perfected it by having an engineer kindof finish it up and put it into
the CAD file. This way youcan take those CAD files and you can
bring it to a manufacturer, andthose CAD files talk to the manufacture of
what you're looking to make exactly right, exactly right. So let's continue with

(16:48):
the doorway cart for a moment,because it seems like it's a substantial item
with a lot of parts and pieces, and it looks like it's made very
well. So tell us, afteryou made the prototype and you had the
CAD file done, what did youdo after that? Well, this is
where the patent came into play.So when I came up with the door

(17:12):
idea, and I came up with, you know, the door itself,
the problem was when you lifted upon the door to fold the cart.
As you can see, the dooris kind of swinging about like this,
And the real you know thought involvedwas how do you get the door to

(17:32):
stay attached to the cart when you'refolding the cart. So what I actually
did was, if it's hard tosee, but what I used to connect
the cart together from the back ofthe cart to the front. It's this
little flippy thing. We'll call itand I said, why not try to

(17:56):
attach one of those flippy things,if you will, to this to kind
of slide into this space here tothen kind of attach the door to this
side wrung and then try to liftup on it. And what was amazing
there was enough space in between thisarea. It's hard to see, but

(18:17):
that's where the patent is that theclip is able to fit underneath the side
wrung here when you're lifting up onthe door, which then allows you to
properly fold a cart. And again, it was trial and error, because
without that idea, I would stillbe having a door that would be flopping

(18:37):
about like this. But because ofjust again trial and error, I was
able to use the flippy thing.But regarding what I said, having a
CAD designer an engineer be helpful asfar as being able to design something better
for you than the flippy thing.He actually designed on his own the door

(19:00):
a cart clip through his CAD work, which then brought the doorway carts to
what it is now. Thank you, Andy. So now let's go sideways
to the toothbrush. Tell us.Now, okay, you're brushing one way.
You see that vision of the Tshape head there? Yeah, tell

(19:22):
us what you did at that point, all of a sudden, now you're
thinking about manufacturing toothbrushes. So tellus that experience. Well, what was
interesting about that experience was I wasthe doorway cart was I guess you could
call it my first real substantial,you know, product invention, because before

(19:45):
that, I invented a golf swing, a golf putter, just golf stuff,
which was great, but the worldof golf is a very difficult world
to get into, and that's awhole other story. But regarding the cart,
I was so f stated on bringingthe car to market that even after
I invented the Vertex toothbrush, Ijust kind of was like, Eh,

(20:06):
it's just a toothbrush. It's nobig deal. And then one day I
gave my toothbrush, the Vertex toothbrushto a dentist that I that I would
regularly meet at a local bagel store, believe it or not, And one
day he came into the bagel storeand he said to me, Andy,
do you realize how large a marketthe toothbrush market is? And it was

(20:26):
almost like this slow motion like,uh, what were you thinking this old
time that kart is it's a bigmarket. But the toothbrush market is a
five billion dollar a year market,and in my brain said what I'm like,
Okay, it's time for me tofocus a little more attention to the

(20:47):
to the toothbrush. So regarding youknow that CAD designer that I was telling
about in Pennsylvania, I went backto him with my prototypes and we talked
about By the way, this isthe second, one of the second prototypes
that I made. Excuse me,so you can see the T shape.
This is a rounded handle. Irealized you need a rounded handle because it
really helps you manipulate the head ofthe toothbrush and just a very easy fashion.

(21:11):
Went back to my CAD designer.He was he's a genius and he
helped, you know, make thebest for a text toothbrush, for for
me and for you and for everybody. You have the CAD files. And
now you went to get intellectual propertyprotection through a patent. Yes, right,
So briefly tell us about that experience. Okay, Well, let's start

(21:37):
with a doorway cart. First.I went for the utility card utility pattern
on the doorway cart because my patentattorney, who's in New Orleans and he's
just a wonderful, wonderful person.He's he he said, do you did
you do your search? Always doyour search. Make sure that there is

(21:59):
no other product like this out there. Go onto Google, patents whatever,
make sure there's no other patent likethis as well. And I was convinced
that there that no other company,person whatever came up with that idea to
have something that clips underneath a sidebarof something that allows you to pull up
on a door. I was convinced. And he's like, okay, I'll

(22:21):
write the pattern and let's you know, good luck. And a year and
a half later we got the utilitypattern for the door we cart, which
was fantastic. So no other personor a company can make a folding cart
with a door using that mechanism ofaction, which is great. Unfortunately,
the toothbrush, it's very, verydifficult to get a utility pattern on a

(22:45):
toothbrush because, as we know,if you don't know, it's all about
claims, and if you can makea claim that says that your toothbrush does
something different compared to any other toothbrush, then you could probably get the utility
pattern. But you know, toothbrusheshave been around for a very long time,
and you know, he said,it's probably easier to get the design

(23:07):
patent. And I have the designpattern on the on the Vertex and the
Vertet toothbrush. I also own thethe the trademark on the name Verpet and
Vertex TOOTHBRUSHAI, where are you nowwith both the doorway cart and the Vertex
and Verpet. I have enough moneyto develop the product, but to bring
it to market myself. And youknow, I'm not a company. I'm

(23:32):
not I'm an inventor. I'm apart time tennis teacher. I'm a I
mean, I have a job insales. I wish I had a gazillion
dollars that I could start my owncompany and and do this, you know,
the right way. I'm looking fora royalty deal is what I am.
I know that my products are amazing. It's you know, proof of

(23:52):
concept is there. People love thedoorway car, people use you use and
love the Vertex toothbrush, and soI actually with the Verpet as well.
I wish that I had, youknow, the financial resources to do it
on my own, but I don't. And that's okay. I have to
you know, it's okay, andmost of us don't have those financial resources.
But again, what I'm looking foris a royalty deal. Okay.

(24:17):
Yeah, And what's interesting, Andy, is when you say that you're an
inventor and you're not really into thebusiness part of it, you've actually sold
your cart and your toothbrushes. Soto me, people are using your toothbrush
and the cart for the same reasonyou came up with it. You might
not have sold your gazillion units,but congratulations because you've brought something in your

(24:40):
head to life and that's a hugeaccomplishment. That means money and the success
and everything else will continue in adifferent way, maybe a different journey.
But we wish you all the bestwith your inventions. Thank you, Brian,
and I'm so glad that I connectedwith you. And let's hope for
the best with us. Tell us, Andy, there are people that are

(25:02):
just watching this and love innovation andinventors. There's people that are in the
process. Maybe they're stuck, theydidn't get as far as you, or
maybe they have an idea in thefuture that they're going to come up with.
Why don't you give us some wordsof wisdom to the people that do
come up with ideas out there?Okay, First of all, I forgot
to show you the vert pet toothbrushpackaging that you see right there, little

(25:27):
dog on top there. It is. So anyway, my suggestion is,
what's what's funny about people who comeup with ideas is that they and even
before I decided to do something withan idea, I was always like,

(25:48):
nah, I can't and that's notme. I'm not gonna come up you
know, I'm not going to workat that. I'm you know, I'm
going to be that person that youknow, a couple of years from now,
somebody's gonna, you know, comeup with it, you know,
say that that that was their ideafirst, when I know that it was
mine. My suggestion to you is, again as I said earlier, if
you have the time and you havethe idea, go for it. What

(26:11):
I mean, what are you doingright now that wouldn't allow you to start
a process of creating something that maybenobody on the planet has ever done before.
Just do it. I mean Ihate to sound like, you know,
the Nike commercial, but it's true. Just do it. There's nothing
that you have nothing to lose otherthan a little time out of your day.

(26:33):
And I mean, you look atI mean, I'm looking at the
websites right now as Ryan is showingthem. I did that, you know,
and I did it with help ofcourse. Look again. And here's
the other thing is that a lotof people, when they do come up
with an idea and they know somebodythat's already you know, has invented something
or is in the industry or whatever, they're always so quick to push it

(26:56):
off to somebody else. You know, what you do, what you do
yourself, it's almost like a fearfactor. What do you have to be
afraid of? Nothing? Nothing atall, you know. And and you
know, two summers ago, Iactually had an idea for like a cell
phone caddy or cell phone holder thatyou could be used at restaurants or whatever.

(27:17):
And I just sat home and Ikind of took some products that I
made my own thing. And acouple of people said, no, this
one's self. It's not a greatidea. I still think it is a
great idea, but I went forit. I had my little homemade produce
ide right in my you know,by dining them over there. But at
least I went for it. Andit's still an idea that's in my mind

(27:40):
awesome. Just Andy. Congratulations AndyKosowski, the inventor of the Vertex toothbrush.
You could go to the vertextoothbrush dotcom and then there's the verpet on
the website, and then you cantake a look at the doorwaycart dot com.
The toothbrushes are available for sale.The cart is not unless you live

(28:03):
local to where Andy is in NewYork and in Brooklyn right well, I
live in Westchester County, Westchester,so you can pick one up there.
But for the most part he's lookingfor licensing to earn royalties for these items.
Andy, thank you so much forbeing on the Got Invention Show,
sharing your journey and experience with usand your success to this point and more

(28:29):
to come. We wish you allthe best. Brian, I can't thank
you enough. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, if you'd
like to be a guest on theGot Invention Show, go to gott inventionshow
dot com. Keep making your ideashappen. They come up at any time
and the question is what are yougoing to do with it? So you

(28:49):
can listen to Andy and all theinventors that have been on the Got Invention
Show and be inspired. Until nexttime. Thank you we'll see you again
on The gottenvent Chin Show.