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Guest: Tony Devine, inventor of The Original Profender.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
Testing and Building a Sports Product on a Small Budget
Tony Devine shares how he tested, developed, manufactured, and sold a basketball training invention with limited resources. He also discusses his effort to appear on Shark Tank, the limits of television exposure, and why founders cannot let fear of idea theft stop useful validation.
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Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako Design
Filip Valica: and Invent, and hosted by Filip Valica. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show.
Filip Valica: The Product Startup Podcast, episode 11.
Filip Valica: Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast. helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,
Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the product startup podcast. In the last episode, I talked about the most frequently asked question I get, and that's, I have a great idea, what do I do next? So I covered
Filip Valica: validating product ideas, the value of an idea, and how I think anyone can create a prototype on almost any budget. So if you haven't checked that out, I recommend you going back to episode 10.
Filip Valica: And now on to the show. In today's episode, I'm joined by Tony Devine. He's a teacher who developed the original pro-fender basketball training aid for his son back in 2010.
Filip Valica: The device enables a coach or trainer to simulate a professional defender closing in on his opponent, and it also helps with offensive drills. He sold his product to many university, college, and NBA teams, and he's even appeared on Shark Tank.
Filip Valica: Tony does everything in his business himself, and he's super passionate about sharing his knowledge, as you'll see from the interview. So, let's get started. Hi, Tony. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks. No problem. No problem. Before, do it.
Tony Devine: Can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself and your product? Well,
Tony Devine: right now, I am a full-time teacher, learning sport teacher in Pennsylvania. My product is the original pro-fender, which is it's a mobile basketball training. devices simulates a close-out defender.
Tony Devine: So, for instance, this is, I mean, the spiel that I give, part of my elevator pitch is that, you know, picture if you have a regular shooting drill, any type of drill that you do in practice.
Tony Devine: My goal is to make sure that players become less robotic and more just become natural game player. So any drill that you do, I'm going to give you three reads with the pro fender.
Tony Devine: and my product is the only thing out there and it's a utility patented product that is able to kind of simulate the motion of a close-out defender and have the ability to raise up and down
Tony Devine: to simulate a player that's reaching or jumping to block a shot. So basically that's what we do. We give them three different reads so that way they're able to see
Filip Valica: if it's a close-out that they could shoot over,
Tony Devine: something that they want to use a dribble to get by, or we also have the ability not to close that at all to give them those three reads. So basically, that's it. That's what we do. That's really interesting. How did you stumble on that idea?
Tony Devine: I think it's just like most things. You know, you're out there.
Tony Devine: What started, my son in high school was a good shooter, right? Just like a typical, you know, what you pictured, you know,
Tony Devine: just the spot-up shooter, kick and shoot the lights out, very good shooter. but the problem was in a game is when he played against more athletic quicker players he began to struggle and didn't have any confidence to shoot that jump shot
Tony Devine: because he was going to get a shot blocked or he had to shoot off to dribble and I just wanted as a dad I just wanted something as I'm working out with him I just wanted something you know that I could do without having to run back and forth
Tony Devine: and you know be able to do those things and give him a realistic look would mean, you know, kind of not losing my win. So I just looked on the Internet, just, I mean, hours, just looking for different stuff.
Tony Devine: And I kept coming up with the same types of things. There were some things that were good ideas, but the problem was they were all stationary. So I also coach. So to me, as a coach, I never told a player.
Tony Devine: You know, I want you to find the tallest guy, dribble up to them and shoot it. So the game is so, you know, the game is all about reads and, you know, in different speeds in different directions. It's not something that you could just point.
Tony Devine: And I think, you know, the way it came about is I was just looking for something that would make my son a better game shooter, not just a practice shooter. And that was it. And nothing else was out there and just continued, you know,
Tony Devine: I started with some crazy stuff. And what's funny is I got pictures of all the stuff. You know what I mean? Like the first, my first pro-fender was actually, it was a, It was a five-gallon,
Tony Devine: and I had some wheels just in my backyard for a chair. I knocked the thing off the chair, put this cut a hole in the spackle bucket, stuck there, and I put like 80 pounds of concrete into this, you know,
Tony Devine: and then a wooden, you know, there's toys, them lawn ornaments, like a toy soldier. Yeah. And I stuck that in there, and that was the first one, and it was terrible. But it just kept going. And, you know, most entrepreneurs are something that you, you, You know,
Tony Devine: creators have sick minds that don't stop. So that's what happened. I mean, it was day in, day out. How can I make this better? What can I do?
Filip Valica: And then you get ideas, see, back. Like, my brother is also a group. And he's like, Tom, that's a good idea. But, dude, how are you going to be able to, you're going to roll this at somebody? And then what? You got to go get it.
Tony Devine: And he's like, do, you got to put like some type of pole on. But you can, you know, retract it back. I was like, dang, that's a good actually can do it. Right. So I guess it was an interdive process where you, you're constantly guessing and checking to make sure you're on the right path
Tony Devine: and then kind of modifying the prototype of it and were you making all these prototypes yourself at this point yeah everything i still did everything i mean from the prototype to the phase
Filip Valica: that i'm doing now i'm doing everything except for right now we have a we have a basis like molds that were made so just the base itself is the only thing that we get you know we get
Tony Devine: brought in and then everything else you know i'm doing only one man bang no you know i'm a huge fan of that because it gives you that information that you wouldn't get otherwise if you hired
Tony Devine: somebody to do it you wouldn't learn from some of the mistakes that you make and i think some people spend a lot of money paying other people to do the early on prototyping when they're i think
Tony Devine: they're missing out on a valuable education and i'm gonna say dude you're absolutely right but it's not something the funny thing that you say that is that, to me, you don't realize it except when you're broke, right?
Tony Devine: When you're doing all these things from scratch, and you don't have the capital, you don't have the money to pay, you know, designers and different people, you're doing everything on your own and you find the cheapest way to do it
Tony Devine: and still get, you know, and still be able to create the prototype or create what you need to create. And I've saved thousands of thousands of dollars just to be able to get it to that.
Tony Devine: that state. So if that's something like, if you have somebody who, you know, is listening to this that is creating something,
Tony Devine: do everything on your own until, you know, until it gets to the
Filip Valica: point that you, that you need to get a professional.
Filip Valica: Otherwise, and the other thing I would
Tony Devine: tell people, too, is make sure you have some, before you spend a lot of time and energy
Tony Devine: and money, make sure you have something that can sell. You know what I mean? Make sure you have something that you, you know, that you validated with the community or, you know, the, the population that you think can use your, your stuff.
Tony Devine: So. No, absolutely. And I guess you did that because you also had a brother that was a coach. What other things did you do to make sure that there was a market for this?
Tony Devine: Well, the funny thing about it, it wasn't even, I wasn't even planned on doing it in the sense of selling it. And then, you know, just being around a lot of basketball, It was like the one of the kids that my brother coach
Tony Devine: was actually the point guard now at Villanova who just won the national title kid Ryan, Archie Deaconneau. So he had a bunch of, you know, he had some, a lot of people on attention coming in.
Tony Devine: So there was colleges all the time talking, you know, that were in, you know, at my brother's gym and seeing Ryan and seeing him work out. So, you know, it was just an easy. thing. I mean, my brother was using it,
Tony Devine: and now you have these coaches that are there that are interesting. What the heck is that thing? You know what I mean? They've never seen it before. Like, we had Tony Bennett from Virginia, another great thing. I mean, super, super great guy. And he, and he
Tony Devine: saw it, you know, just when they were doing a workout for Ryan.
Tony Devine: And one thing, that's another exchange phone numbers went down to Virginia, and they use it, I mean, they use it a ton in their shooting, you know, and they're shooting drills and kind of their all-season training.
Tony Devine: So basically what I did is I just went to different, you know, I just went to different universities, different people that were basketball people in my area that I could drive to. And I'm like 15 minutes outside of Philadelphia, so we have the big five schools.
Tony Devine: And in Philadelphia, for people who don't know, is, I mean, it's huge for basketball. I mean, there's some great, great people associated with basketball in Philadelphia. So, I mean, I just connected with all these guys.
Tony Devine: I mean, like former NBA players that were there, Doug Overton, who was a great,
Tony Devine: a big five-all fame with LaSalle, played in the NBA for 13 years, was coaching.
Filip Valica: That's how I connected with him. And then he was with the Brooklyn Nets. So the connection I have with him, he brought me up to the Nets, you know, worked out some of those guys. They loved it. They bought, you know, they bought like six of them.
Tony Devine: So all these things happening, you know, I knew I had something that was valuable, especially for the upper echelon players and programs that are looking for just that edge, you know, any type of edge, you know, just to be better.
Tony Devine: And, you know, at that level, just that small difference of, you know, training and being able to, you know, a 3% increase in shooting is huge, you know, the course of the season.
Tony Devine: So you've just given out a ton of information, and I want to kind of recap a little bit. When you went out to pre-sell this thing, did you already have a prototype and was it already in production? Or were you basically taking pre-orders at this point? No,
Tony Devine: it was just me. Actually, the first couple that were sold were actually prototypes.
Tony Devine: They were, I mean, they were literally things that I took off the shelf, formed fitted, retrofit it, you know, and they worked beautifully. They didn't look as nice, you know, but, I mean, the design and everything, it worked beautifully.
Filip Valica: Then, you know, just different combinations of things. Like I had a guy who is a friend of mine that has a shop with the graphic design.
Filip Valica: So we're able to customize jerseys on them that make it, you know, just every little thing was, you know, just you kept adding on and adding on. And we were basically just showing what we had, you know.
Tony Devine: And then to this day, I mean, it's basically kind of the same operation. You know what I mean? It's basically the same operation except now.
Tony Devine: The molds that I get are for the base. I mean, that was the one thing that I needed to, you know, I knew from the beginning was something that I needed to kind of, I don't want to say fix, but enhance. Right, refine it. Yeah.
Tony Devine: That sounds like a really great journey. I think people get hung up on going straight to production as fast as they can. But this way you were basically able to test the market. Were you worried it all about people?
Tony Devine: stealing your idea? You know, that's the second question I get is, well, I don't want to really tell anybody about it because they're going to take my idea and they're going to run with it. Well, I don't want to show anybody this because I might want to patent it.
Tony Devine: Yeah, well, that's funny. I mean, the thing about that is, it's wrong. Like, when you first had the idea, and I've had other ideas, right? I came up with a board game. I came up with
Tony Devine: another, like a little tool.
Tony Devine: You know, and those things, and, you know, and, you know, You test them out and you play with them, and they're great. And you get, you know, like I said before, you have to have this sick mind that you get in, like, so engrossed in something, you know, where it's every day you're thinking.
Tony Devine: But I also know that I needed to show these that people because I don't want to waste my time if it's something that, you know, people don't like as much as I do or they don't see the benefit of it. So,
Tony Devine: I mean, when you come up with an idea, you feel like the Georgia and only want to steal it. But the reality is, and I know people, you know, they get all. hung up on patent. Now I have a patent for the utility
Tony Devine: patent for my product. So,
Tony Devine: but it was a process and what I would tell entrepreneurs, and I've talked to a lot of people that, you know, Noah's on the shark tank and ask questions is you get you know, you get something patent pending. Once you get something patent pending, then you just feel comfortable going out there and doing it.
Tony Devine: You know what I mean? But the reality is this,
Tony Devine: is somebody really going, you know, is somebody going to steal it?
Tony Devine: They're going to steal it anyway. I mean, just because you have a patent doesn't mean they're not going to steal it. Like, you know what I mean? Like you get a lot of people that talk about while they get, they see it here, they send it to China. There's nothing I can do about it. If China starts making, it's all, what am I going to do?
Tony Devine: It's a, you know, it's a
Tony Devine: communist country, but
Tony Devine: they don't have patents anyway, so
Tony Devine: there's really nothing you could do. And then the other thing, too, is I don't think that people on standard, even the patent, when they told about international patents, like, to me, I thought there was this place that you can go to and get an international patent, but you really,
Filip Valica: literally have to go to each country to get the patent from that particular country. Right. So, you know what I mean? So it's just like, it's just more money and more money. It's just crazy. So it's like this.
Filip Valica: Like, I have to have the feeling that I'm protected, right?
Tony Devine: You want to feel protected, but you also got to be, you.
Filip Valica: You've got to be realistic and say, listen, if I get a word about them stealing it, you know, I'm never going to get off the ground. I'm never going to do anything.
Tony Devine: You know, and then it just, to me, it's the idea. You want your idea out there. You want to be able to move on. You want to, it's like you're, you know, it's like your baby. You want people to see it. You know, you're proud of it. You know, you want people to use it.
Tony Devine: So, I mean, that's the delicate balance.
Tony Devine: You know, there's a lot of people. I lay it too because I get friends, you know, and they talk, you know, I've got a great idea, dude. I got a great idea. Let me see. Well, I can't. I go, dude, listen,
Tony Devine: do you know how much time and energy and money I spent doing this? Do you think I have any kind to go freaking steal your idea? Right, right.
Tony Devine: You know what I mean? There's enough time in a day to steal your idea, dude. No, and honestly, I think the value in your idea is not just your idea, but it's that you went and spoke to all those people that said that, yes, there is a need.
Tony Devine: And so slowly that idea had more value because now it's not just an idea, but it's an idea that people want and pay for it exactly not that they want they they pay for it
Tony Devine: congrats on getting all that stuff done what so at what point did you reach out to shark tank the shark tank was I guess it was like the after the second season I saw it come on
Tony Devine: and it was just like obsessed with I was like name it's a freaking great I didn't even think about send it myself until I watched because I didn't know it was going to be a one year and done sure
Tony Devine: And then I just saw how, you know, the excitement that I got myself just watching it.
Filip Valica: You know, you're watching this thing out.
Tony Devine: You know, you kind of get ready for those Friday nights when they're on. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to start sending some stuff. And what I did was it's just basically a harassment. Yeah.
Tony Devine: I would send like blocks of like 50 emails to whatever that address is. do it, and I would do it weekly, right? So I would send a block of 50, and if I didn't hear anything back, then I would get more, like,
Tony Devine: kind of obnoxious in my next block that I would send. So I would send, like, you know, hundreds of emails to different places. And then the funny thing about it is, when I got the phone call back, I thought it was a, I thought it was one of my friends pranking
Tony Devine: me, because I was telling them and said, dude, I'm piranha, I'm putting these in all the And I thought it was them, you know, pranking me, so I'm talking and talking and just kind of acting like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Tony Devine: acting nonchalant because I thought it was somebody, and I thought it was somebody, you know, just pulling your chain. You know, exactly, exactly, pull my chain, so, and then it wound up being, and then I answered, I said,
Tony Devine: I said, did you call me because I was sending, and they only saw one of them. They only saw one of the emails. The one that got through my spam filter.
Tony Devine: Exactly. Exactly, right? And then it just started from there, man. And then it was just like, freaking excitement. And here's the crazy part. This is crazy about the whole process. And I don't know if anybody
Tony Devine: else went through this, because I was running for a local office and politics. It's just a local town council.
Tony Devine: And one of the things that are on there is you couldn't be running for any type of office. And I was like, we can't have got to do it with anything.
Tony Devine: Running for any, I can see, like, president or anything, but there are rules that whoever you're running against is, you know, you have to have equal air time.
Tony Devine: You know what I mean? So if you're, even though it's a local, you know, it's a local race, you know, whoever your competitor is has to have equal air time. And I told her to listen,
Tony Devine: I said, I said,
Tony Devine: I want to, you know, I want to run for counsel, but this right here, this is what I'm about. I'm about,
Tony Devine: you know, getting my product out there and I have, and I, if I have to push, you know, my council run or my council position back a year or two, I'm willing to do that.
Filip Valica: And they didn't want that to happen. They didn't want the shark tank to be the reason that somebody didn't run for office. So we had, I mean, it was, it was crazy. I mean, how much time was,
Tony Devine: I was just sitting there waiting to get their decision because they have all kind of attorneys and, you know, lawyers. And, you know, they're going through And I'm just dying, dude, I'm dying
Filip Valica: Just waiting to get the nod That it's okay that I can do it And, you know, just the frustration
Tony Devine: Of thinking, oh, my God, all this And I'm not going to be able to even get on the show Because it is. You know what I mean? And then they weren't even letting me off the hook. They were basically telling me, like, you know, we wouldn't do that because, you know, it wouldn't be fair
Tony Devine: to, you know, the constituents in the town. I was like, oh, I understand it. I get it. But, dude, I got to get it. on that show. So, you know, everything worked out and, you know, it was, uh, it was something
Tony Devine: that we were able to work through. So, well, and so tell, tell everybody a quick summary. So you went on to the show and I was not able to strike it. I went on to the show.
Tony Devine: And this is the other thing, too. I, I tell a lot of people that asked is that I was naive into thinking that just being on the show was going to be enough to kind of catapult me.
Tony Devine: into the next level of your business. You know what I mean? To go from, you know, working in your garage and doing all these things to being able to, you know, become a real business where you can start hiring people to do the production
Tony Devine: and, you know, doing all those types of things.
Filip Valica: Well, a lot of people just get on Shark Tank just for the publicity because after that they feel like they're just going to get enough orders that they don't really need a deal.
Tony Devine: Well, the thing about that is that may be true for some. but the reality it's all about how it's all about the way that they're perceived you know what I mean like there's some great idea that you might think were great
Tony Devine: ideas until the sharks speed them up
Tony Devine: you know and then yeah and they do it publicly and after that nobody wants to do anything with you yeah exactly and the thing
Tony Devine: about it is I was naive to think that it was going to happen that way but the reality is if I could go back hindsight now you're You're also giving up a percentage of, you know, if you make a deal, number one, if you make a deal.
Tony Devine: You're giving up, I think it was, I don't know if it was 4% or 5% just to the show. You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah, I've seen that 5% of the network.
Tony Devine: Yeah, so you're doing that. Then on top of it, you're giving up. And I had no problem sharing.
Tony Devine: I just thought that there would be enough publicity to turn it, you know, to turn it into its own business. Now, if I could go back,
Tony Devine: I wouldn't have left there without a deal for Mark Cuban. I know I would have been able to have a deal with Mark Cuban.
Filip Valica: If I would have been willing to negotiate and play around, I just, you know, I just thought enough was, you know, just being on show was going to be,
Filip Valica: make me, you know, be able to go to that next level. So for any of you people out there that get on to the Shark Tank and think that there's being on there,
Tony Devine: it's not always the case not even
Tony Devine: not even a little bit of time make sure you're in there and you make the right decision for yourself to be fair to yourself you've continued to grow and you've got sales and I know you've sold to a bunch of teams is that right?
Tony Devine: Oh absolutely the shark tank was without a doubt a great experience for me for my company gave me instant credibility when I'm going and I'm talking to people you know what I mean
Tony Devine: that watch it on the show, it's open doors for me. But the thing about it, what I'm talking about is making it to the next level. See, is like, I'm still basically in the same boat that I've been in since the show.
Tony Devine: I mean, I've been able to sell to some higher-end, kind of, but again, it's still me doing everything. Right.
Tony Devine: Right. It's still me doing. So I'm still growing at the same pace. I had a spike when I was on the show initially,
Tony Devine: but, you know, once that spike hit, you know, then you're back to, you know, you're back to doing what you do.
Tony Devine: Unless you have, unless you have a product that is a simple, just go-get-it product, like the scrub daddy, which that guy did a great job, because I mean, it's one of
Tony Devine: those things, which that's a quick hitter, and, you know, everybody can buy it. for the mass retail where mine is,
Tony Devine: you know, my product is more designed for, you know,
Tony Devine: sports and training and, you know, it's not going to have that mass appeal that, you know,
Filip Valica: a scrub daddy would have or any, you know, or any product like that that you could sell.
Filip Valica: No, that's interesting. I'm looking through your page now and I see that you've got some, you're able to sell products to a lot of major teams. I mean, I see a lot of university teams. called out and Miami Heat and some other NBA teams too
Filip Valica: so you'd think that you'd pick up some traffic from that.
Filip Valica: That's the thing of matter to because in your head, all these things like you're saying is exactly how I felt.
Filip Valica: You know, if you go to the Beth and at that time, when we sold to the heat, they were, you know,
Tony Devine: they were crushing
Tony Devine: and they used it all, I mean, they use it all the time. They use it all the time. And the crazy part about it is, they don't even use it the correct way. They use it more as a stationary type product. You know what I mean?
Tony Devine: Yeah, they just set up drills with it.
Tony Devine: Exactly. So, and the thing about it is, and like anything else, your business changes, you know what I mean? It changes and it, you know, it morphs into something else.
Tony Devine: So, like, right now, I'm at the point now is that I have to understand that what I have needs to be understood, not only needs to, you know, see it, you know, You didn't know how to use it. You know, you've got to see it being used. So it's more of,
Filip Valica: it's an educational process. You know what I mean? It's not just the sale. Right. It's like, you've got to have people that understand how to use it.
Filip Valica: Otherwise, you know, as simple as it may look or as simple as you may think it is, you know, people don't do it. You send them a base with a hole in it.
Filip Valica: You know, you would think that you know that you got to put some sand in it or water.
Tony Devine: And they weren't even put in. I would get two calls were like, oh, this thing's tipping over. I go, tipping over. Why are you? What are you? You don't even tip it over? Well,
Tony Devine: they put the base, the sand base on, but they didn't put no sand or water in it. And I'm just like, so they're not reading the directions.
Tony Devine: And they're not. Right.
Tony Devine: So there's so many different things that people don't even think of. You know, you think it's like common sense, but it, you know, it really isn't. And you got to, everything got to be.
Filip Valica: answer you know it's a package it's an ongoing process a lot of the companies that I
Tony Devine: work for even this small mom-and-pop entrepreneur where we design products for a niche industry customer education was probably half our job because sales guys were out there
Tony Devine: constantly selling and educating and not just this is what the product is about but this is why you need it and this is why there might be a need that you don't even know about that we can help you with and it's just constant work and with one person
Filip Valica: and I could totally see how it just saps all your time. Maybe we can get into that a little bit is how you're able to focus and divide up your time because that would seem challenging for a one-person operation.
Tony Devine: No, it definitely is very challenging. I mean, there are some people that help me. We're added that, but the problem is, is people are helping you because they love you, they care about you. They want to see you succeed.
Tony Devine: But they also know that they're not getting any monetary, significant monetary reward immediately.
Tony Devine: So those types of things where, and I understand it, you know. Sure. I understand that point. You know, I don't begrudge anybody to the help that I've gotten, you know, it was tremendous from friends and family, just, you know, donating time.
Tony Devine: And the weirdest part of that is this is, here's the weird part, is that there are two of my friends that I had a fire from
Tony Devine: volunteer jobs. You know how hard that was?
Tony Devine: well you know
Tony Devine: typically it ends up I've heard that more often than not just because you know people are well people feel like they're giving their time or free so that you should then you should be grateful for whatever you get you know if it's greater than zero then you should be happy with it and it's
Tony Devine: and it's hard and especially with friends because it's a awkward conversation but
Tony Devine: especially since they're the ones that are readily available to help you like you said You know, yeah, and great, I mean, we're still, I mean, great friends, it's just, that's the idea exactly what you said. I mean,
Tony Devine: you're not getting paid, so whatever you're doing is benefiting, but they don't realize, like, you know, even though it's a volunteer position,
Tony Devine: it still needs to be done a certain way because that, like, I look at it, everything that goes out that door has my name on it. Everything that goes out needs to be, you know,
Tony Devine: it needs to be prepared and everything got to be ready to go to the, the way I need it to be. Otherwise, it's not helpful to me. You're not helpful me anyway, because now I've got to go back. Yeah, now I've got to go backwards.
Tony Devine: Well, so how many years have you been basically working on this from when you started to today?
Tony Devine: I would say 2010 is when we first, I think that was the first year where we actually had a, you know,
Tony Devine: were able to get out and demonstrate it to people. So 2010 and really started showing in probably 2010-20-11. So I would say a good six years. Wow.
Tony Devine: Yeah, I would say a good six years. So to anybody else that's listening that's still working on their product, you know, it could take you six years to continue, you know, selling and still not perhaps make it big
Tony Devine: or whatever your definition of that is, hiring employees and things like that. Right. And the thing about it, too, is me. Like, I love quotes, right? So I look at different people's quotes and what they say in it.
Tony Devine: And the one quote that you'll never fail if you never quit. Like, to me, that's the way I look at. I look at, see, I, to me, it's a catch 22, right? When you have a family,
Tony Devine: you know, I need to make sure my kids, my biggest thing is make sure my kids have insurance, right? So if I didn't have my family, I didn't have to. kids, I would be done teaching. I would be, you know, balls or all in,
Tony Devine: you know, but I'm not willing to, you know, I'm not willing to sacrifice that.
Tony Devine: And that's the problem. The problem is, you know, until you're to that point, so
Filip Valica: with the utility patent that I have and, you know, and I'm still able to pay my bills that don't cost me any money, you know, I'm still able to make that, you know, it's a measly,
Filip Valica: you know, profit at the end, but it don't cause me any money. And eventually, at some point, when it does turn into a full-time business,
Filip Valica: for me,
Filip Valica: I already know the ups and downs, and it would be easier for me to grow organically once I'm in that position.
Tony Devine: So my goal is, like, I have, you know, I've been teaching in 20, 22 years. So I'll be able to, you know, my summers are off. I'll be able to take, you know, sabbatical where you've got to take some, you know,
Tony Devine: some education classes and some different things that will free up time in the basketball area. So I'll have a couple more opportunities to start building before, you know, I'm ready to retire.
Tony Devine: So, and that's kind of the catch-22, is that I don't feel like I have to give in to people. Like, I haven't had people who have all for me from watching the show.
Tony Devine: other investors outside of the short tank that call and and they want to evaluate the company you know for for what it is and they're looking at it just on based on what money is it making right now
Tony Devine: yeah some revenue right exactly exactly so and like to me i understand if i was an investor i would feel the same way and i wouldn't want to do it but to me i i know what it's going to be worth right
Tony Devine: once the time is put into it once the time gets put into it once the time gets put into it. I know what I'll be able to do. And it's, again, it's not about making billions of dollars to make. It really isn't. It's to be able to be around basketball.
Tony Devine: I'll be able to bring things to make the game of basketball, just that little bit better, make it a little bit, you know, add
Tony Devine: something to it. You know, with the training. And if I can make that my business, that I get to go to these games, to these conventions, be around basketball,
Tony Devine: see, you know, these top high school players when they're playing in high school
Filip Valica: and go to these, you know, these, these, these, these, these AAU events where you're having. Like, to me,
Filip Valica: that's, that, to me, that's not working.
Filip Valica: That's fun. Yeah.
Tony Devine: So if I could get, you know, if I can get to a point where I'm making, you know, if I'm able to make, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars selling these things, which,
Tony Devine: You know, which I know that it will be there, you know, it will be there at some point, hopefully in the short term than the long term, but it'll be there.
Tony Devine: And once it's there, I'll be able to create, you know, that market that I need to create with different products. So I have different products that are all based on the same thing. It's just, you know,
Tony Devine: creating products or training.
Tony Devine: that simulate real game scenarios so yeah and i see some of that now so you're talking about that you've got some related products you first came out with the Original Profender that moves
Tony Devine: around it's basically you've got a pole attached to it and you can simulate some some plays and i see that you've got a big man pad as well as a stationary pro fender that's a lot less
Tony Devine: expensive what was the feedback that you got from the Original Profender to, I guess, lead you to design the new products, or was it just something you decided to do? Well, the new products were basically,
Tony Devine: except for the stationary one. The stationary one was just, that was a reaction or a answer to competition that's after right now.
Tony Devine: There's something that's called a D-Man, right, which is a, it's a mesh, just like that. It's a stationary defender that's made out of mesh that's on a base, and it's like 70.
Filip Valica: or 69 bucks, or 69 bucks.
Filip Valica: And it's just one right you can see through it. But what it is, it really is just a glorified, you know, cone or a dummy.
Filip Valica: But it's hard for people to understand. Again, it's about educating, and it's about being out there and being able to educate all these players.
Filip Valica: I mean, all these coaches and trainers or whatever that have, you know, a budget that can buy a D-Man, but it doesn't have the budget they don't think to buy, you know, an original pro-fender. Sure.
Filip Valica: So that was just an answer to, listen, I'm going to sell one that's $100. That's all you want, is something stationary.
Tony Devine: I will sell one for a hundred bucks that will be better than the deed name, because at least mine will have the ability to a jeltsin height, where that only goes to like six, I think it's like six, four. Mine can go to seven foot.
Tony Devine: and that one, you can only see through it. You know what I mean? Like, if you can see through something, you know, I don't know how much of a training aid, right? Yeah, it's not much of a distraction. You know, so,
Tony Devine: like, I wanted to cater to those clients or those customers that really just want, they just want something that they can afford.
Tony Devine: They don't really understand that they're not looking for that, suit that edge, that top program.
Filip Valica: and top players and those things are in it for. So that was just my answer to being able to have an answer to the demands of the world.
Filip Valica: So do you see those same customers that might order a lower-priced product
Tony Devine: than graduating it up to the original pro-fender
Tony Devine: once they see the benefit to it? Are you basically indoctrinating people in your brand? That's what I want to do, right? To me,
Tony Devine: the other plus about the stationary pro funder is that they're able to upgrade it. Now, again, at that level,
Tony Devine: you have a lot of people who have shiny egos, right? So you have trainers, you have people who have facilities, AAU programs that love what they do.
Tony Devine: And they want their own brand. So with my stationary pro funder, they're able to customize it. put their jersey, their logo on it, which the D-Man's not able to do.
Tony Devine: So that will definitely help with branding. I'm not necessarily sure that AAU programs or, you know, the smaller kind of CYO and youth programs
Tony Devine: will get to the point where they will be brought into the pro frender, but it'll, but what it will do is give me more notoriety and more being able to be seen in a lot more
Tony Devine: more venues. And then, you know, and then they go on to the website and they look and they see the different ones. So I'll get the people who, you know, just want the smaller one
Tony Devine: to satisfy their need to, you know, to have a, like a dummy or a stationary one.
Tony Devine: But I'll also get the people who are serious about getting that egg that, you know, they see something. And that's the thing about it. I mean,
Tony Devine: if I can get in front of somebody, if I can get in front of somebody and demonstrate,
Filip Valica: I mean, I am close to 100% sales. I'm close to 100%. If I get in front of somebody and get a chance to show them a 20, 15, 20-minute workout, they get it. They get it.
Filip Valica: It's close to being automatic. Yeah, it's just the first part getting in front of them that's the hardest.
Filip Valica: With just one person. That's the problem.
Tony Devine: I guess what would benefit you the most is just to get in front of as many people as possible just to have that organic marketing effect where people see something and they see hey that's pretty cool i haven't seen that before and you've got it branded so then it can look
Tony Devine: you up and and hopefully it kind of picks up that way yeah that's the goal yeah that's the goal yeah man that's that's tough so i don't want to switch gears too much but now that i'm looking
Tony Devine: at some of your complimentary products i think some people would be interested to see how you went from one to three in terms of maybe the design and manufacturing, do you have a factory here in the U.S. that you work with? Or have you gone abroad for that?
Tony Devine: Yeah, that's just me.
Tony Devine: I mean, the design of, you're talking about the different products, like the pro hand, the big man pad. Yep.
Tony Devine: Yeah, that's just, I have, I have a cousin who is, who also, he's an engineer. So I have a C&C
Tony Devine: table and we do the designs and we cut everything here so those designs have been changed
Tony Devine: upgraded and you know and we continue to make you know uh revisions as as time goes on
Tony Devine: so when you say you do everything you mean literally everything well yeah dude i mean literally everything dude i'm not like when i say everything i wasn't kidding dude i'm talking everything it's everything well that's really great because you know I bet if somebody has a question about
Tony Devine: anything whether it's how to assemble it to you know something broke on it you know exactly uh you know how to fix it or at least it gives you that feedback to say hey you know what I'm getting a lot
Tony Devine: of these types of questions maybe we need to fix this on the next go oh yeah and that's the beauty of it really is that I mean I haven't had a lot of problems but when I do they're fixed I mean
Tony Devine: it's immediate you know what I mean And because the materials that we use, I know exactly how, I mean, I put those things to do the wringer,
Tony Devine: you know, so I know where the weak points in. And if there were weak points, we address them and strengthen them. And, you know,
Tony Devine: in that, you know, in the actual thing, too, I'm just proud to stand behind my product. You know, like when Tony Bennett from Virginia calls him lets me know, listen, Tone, this thing, I said, no problem.
Tony Devine: I'll send another one like we had, when we first started our push pole,
Tony Devine: you know, the one that would push it out and pull it back in, we had a, it was a plastic, it was a hard plastic connector that was on it. And it worked great, you know what I mean, it worked great.
Tony Devine: But what happened was when you started, when people started using it,
Filip Valica: you know, not necessarily the way, you know, we designed it to be used, but people use it that way.
Tony Devine: you know, they would snap.
Tony Devine: So, you know, I had a choice. You know, as an owner of a business, you can say, well, you're not using it right or you're not that. Right. Like, that's not the answer. The answer is, let's get a fix. So people are going to use it the wrong way.
Tony Devine: They can. You know what I mean? Right. We went to the drawing board and we came up with, you know, there's a metal, now we have a metal clip. And we had to do a little fix to the actual. pole itself so we can
Tony Devine: butt aluminum with aluminum instead of plastic
Tony Devine: aluminum. So now we have we fixed all those you know. Right. And
Filip Valica: you know, just a great film. And when you're getting something you know, somebody has a complaint about it and you're there to fix it. That's a great, I mean, I love that part of it. Yeah, and you're able to react really quickly too, especially because you have
Filip Valica: access to your CNC machine. So you make a change in a couple of days. oh yeah absolutely that's amazing so far it looks like everything's gone pretty smoothly i guess many people
Filip Valica: don't talk about some of the stumbling blocks they had along the way maybe you can share some of the issues that maybe set you back did you ever like sit back on your couch and think you know what is this the right direction for me oh yeah you do it so you do it all the time you do it all the time
Filip Valica: like right now like right now like you like i'm a one man being so you look at different avenues, how can I be the most effective with the time that I have now? Am I most effective, you know,
Filip Valica: making these products and putting them out and ship it, because really I have two full-time jobs. Like when I'm done teaching, I'll go put another, you know, six to ten hours in doing my thing. Right.
Tony Devine: You know, being at the shop. But, you know, I'm sitting right now going into the summer, what's going to be the most
Tony Devine: effective where I'm still doing the original pro funder but getting the most banged for my book
Tony Devine: time-wise and the thing of that is now it might be more beneficial for me to go into the training
Tony Devine: arm of my business where I'm going and doing training not just for players but also for coaches,
Tony Devine: trainers,
Tony Devine: an evaluation tool for NBA teams. Like right now we have the draft. Now here's the hardest part. I have a great tool, an evaluation tool,
Filip Valica: for NBA coaches and GMs,
Tony Devine: is that before you go spend millions of dollars on a player to find out they can't shoot a jump shot over a closeout defender at 6-9 or 6-10, before you go and spend,
Tony Devine: millions of dollars like they did in Philadelphia when he picked up Evan Turner who had a flat shot. You could see that just by using
Tony Devine: the pro fender
Tony Devine: in your
Filip Valica: evaluation process when you bring these players in and work them out, you'll be able to see this kid can't shoot, this kid can't shoot off the dribble. This kid has a flat shot
Filip Valica: because what they do, if you ever watch an NBA pre-draft workout, They're shooting over air. They're not elevating. They're getting into a nice rhythm with a banging shot. Right.
Tony Devine: But they're not game shots. They are just warm-up shots. That's all they do. And they're just looking at their stroke and they're looking. And the problem with that is you're not, you're not getting a true picture of this guy's ability to shoot.
Tony Devine: Where now if I go in there and you give me the same drills, right? The same drills that they're doing.
Tony Devine: and incorporate the original pro-fender, you will be able to see, number one, if he reads it correctly, right? You got a hard close-out, somebody that I can simulate seven-foot,
Tony Devine: close an ad on you, right? So in Philadelphia, we're picking up Ben Simmons,
Tony Devine: who can't shoot, but he's going to be a freak. That guy's going to be a freak. I think he's going to be an absolute stud player.
Tony Devine: And why not have something like this in your arsenal, train your coaches to use it in the development, you know, in that all-season training. Right. You know, that you're able to.
Tony Devine: So those are the types of things right now when you say you sit back on your talents and think about it, is this the right direction? Here's another direction. Yeah, which direction is the right direction? Right. That's how you get for what you're doing now.
Tony Devine: Like this, again, if I wasn't teaching,
Tony Devine: I wasn't teaching, and I was able to, you know, do this full time, then I would be able to build out what my original idea was,
Tony Devine: right, which is, you know, the production, you know, getting it out there, you know, getting the calls down, getting, you know, get it into some box stores and, you know, those types of things.
Tony Devine: But with my time and the amount of time that's in the day, and this is still something
Tony Devine: that will create my brand, it would give me the validation from top programs, that this is something that works, this is something that we use.
Tony Devine: So that way, when I'm ready to step on and do this full time,
Tony Devine: it won't be as hard. All the groundwork will be laid.
Tony Devine: You know, as you're talking, I was sitting here listening, like, how can you scale when you're one person? Because it's so difficult. And I've talked to a lot of owners that have the same. problems, especially owners that are involved in production,
Tony Devine: because they can't be a salesman at the same time. Oh, yeah. And the other thought that I had, too, was it was interesting that you had this other flip on it where you're talking about pre-qualifying players before they get drafted.
Tony Devine: There must be a huge, like you said, a huge monetary savings in doing that. And so it might be an even easier sell to sell it up front at that point than.
Tony Devine: When you're trying to go against regular training equipment where you're having to compete against all this other gear that people know, now you're talking about qualifying players, which is maybe a less competitive space for products.
Tony Devine: People are in a different mindset. No, this is very interesting.
Filip Valica: I think a lot of owners can take a page out of your book and say, where else can I apply this product that's in a non-traditional sense, especially when it comes to saving money.
Filip Valica: because I think saving time and saving money are the two needs that everyone has.
Tony Devine: Yeah, and the idea, and that's the other thing, too, like, when you talk about the evaluation process, I mean, you're talking multi-millions of dollars, multi-millions of dollars, and they are picking,
Tony Devine: and that's the other thing, too, it's not an exact science. It's not an exact science,
Tony Devine: you know, Greg Oden,
Tony Devine: you know what I mean? Like,
Tony Devine: he was picked before Kevin Durant.
Tony Devine: You know what I mean?
Filip Valica: That's one and two. Right.
Filip Valica: And it's like as much information as you can get, the better off you're going to do.
Tony Devine: And the idea is to get in front and to get in front of the right people. And that's the other thing, too, is to go through, you know, is to try to find who are the right people in these organizations.
Tony Devine: that's a tough it's a tough thing to do yeah who makes the decision to go ahead and buy and who has the money to buy it it is not the same person that actually wants to use it right exactly and that's just buying it
Tony Devine: now I'm talking about just the evaluation process how do you get to the to the owner to the guy who's spending his money you know right many layers of coaches and and and GMs and managers and
Tony Devine: And whoever else you've got to get through, you know, to get in that guy's year, to let them there say, listen, I could save you millions of dollars. I could save you millions of dollars.
Tony Devine: Right. I have to be introduced. Right.
Tony Devine: You know, so. I wonder if you'll have good luck with tending some camps at maybe a smaller level where you can have access to other trainers that they can then sell the product for you, like affiliates, where they have an incentive.
Tony Devine: and maybe you give them a wholesale price or something like that, but then they'll have an incentive to go out and sell that to the teams that they work with.
Filip Valica: And so you'll have many sales team on the ground, so to speak, when you can't be there. Yeah, well, that's what we're doing.
Tony Devine: What you're saying, that is 100% my approach. What we're doing is I go out to different training facilities.
Filip Valica: I'll go after my goal right now, again, when it's one person,
Tony Devine: something that's in a 150-mile radius of Philadelphia.
Tony Devine: Anywhere that there is a trained facility that has basketball, specifically basketball. That's who I reach out to, and I talk to say, listen, this is what I have. I will come out through a free demonstration.
Tony Devine: And what I want to do is I want to connect with you.
Tony Devine: And this is something that you feel that you can use and make your players better, which I know the answer is yes, if they know basketball. The answers, it's like a loaded question. Right. Of course I want to get better. Of course I want something. Right.
Tony Devine: So once I get out there and show them, then I make them partner. So now I give them an extra way that they can make money on their building. You know what I mean?
Filip Valica: So they're always trying to, you know, they're always trying to generate revenue. Yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? So I have a handful of them. And that's the other thing too. It's like just next week alone, I have two more. point.
Filip Valica: There's a place in Jersey and another one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that I'll be going up to, you know, to go, you know, do much feel.
Filip Valica: And then actually this weekend,
Filip Valica: there's a thing that's called Eyeball United. It's a combine for overseas players, people who kind of went under the radar, small
Filip Valica: division one guy that they get a lot of looks, you know, very good athletic division two, with Division 3 players that really just don't get the notoriety and they have
Filip Valica: GM from overseas they got coaches from overseas and you know there's different parts of it
Tony Devine: I do the
Filip Valica: the drill simulations they're
Tony Devine: actually going through drills using the pro fender and there's a chart that they chart them using the pro fender to give them, like I said before it's like to give them more information so they're reading it so the first
Tony Devine: part of it that they'll do is it'll picture a shooting drill where they're sliding down into the corner catching the ball going into their shot right so now we're going to have that so each
Tony Devine: part of that is going to be is going to be qualified so are they sliding or they low are they
Tony Devine: catching it cocked and ready to go into their shot and now you have the pro fender read is it a hard close out. Is it a close out that they can still shoot over? Is it a close out that they need to
Tony Devine: dribble, take one dribble, pull up? So now there's another. So now they're qualifying all these different things. And it's something that, you know, it's great. You know, it's twofold. It's
Tony Devine: great for the eyeball, you know, for them to get more information. But it's great for me because it gives me, you know, it gives me more credibility when you talk to numbers, guys, people who love stats.
Tony Devine: And, you know, look, this is, this is what I think, this is what the profender can do for your, for your team. And it's something that you could, you know, you can quantify. And it's a consistent tool.
Tony Devine: It's basically, you set it to a certain height, and now you can apply that to everybody that's qualifying.
Tony Devine: Yes. No, that's great. well you know i really wish you all the vest on your product i think it's pretty amazing i'm surprised that it hasn't sold more and that you're not sitting on the couch now enjoying uh your favorite
Tony Devine: beverage yeah you know what the funny thing about it though i know i say that a lot the funny thing about it i just put myself saying it but it's that i don't want to do it on the cast i love
Tony Devine: to be up and doing so that's the beauty of it like even when i retire i'm not going to retire this is this is what I'm holding on for, you know what I mean, to get the right people involved. And when I retire from teaching,
Tony Devine: I want to have this set up. So that way, boom, I got my business.
Tony Devine: Well, it certainly, yeah, it certainly comes through in your voice, Tony. Do you have any parting thoughts for would-be product owners and one-man operators? Do you have any
Tony Devine: advice to give them? Yeah. The one-man owners, it's very tough, right? You get so much, you know, you get stress from, you know, your wife.
Tony Devine: Sure. You get stress from, you know, the people who aren't like you, right? They're not doers, they're not go out,
Tony Devine: get it done type of people. They are the people that rather just sit on accounts and watch TV and just have everything, you know. But people who are true entrepreneurs,
Tony Devine: you know, go-getters,
Tony Devine: that's not anything that they look forward to doing. So if you have something that you believe in, right, that you believe in that you have seen that there is, you know, there is a need and there is, you know, there is a,
Tony Devine: it's the word I'm looking for.
Tony Devine: There's a light at the end of the tunnel. You always stay with it. If you feel it's something that, you know, that your heart's not in and you're giving up and you feel like it's a loss bar, and that's when you cut your loss and you move on to something else.
Tony Devine: but when you feel the way that I do and you're able to continue to pay your bills and you might not be making a ton of money but it's still there and the passion there you got to go for it you continue to go for it
Tony Devine: and the only way that you do fail is when you quit and I mean that's a simple that I think about that every time you know something negative happens I can always quit it's not in me wow well that's really great advice appreciate your thoughts Tony
Tony Devine: where can people get the pro-fender or get more information about it? Just go to www.
Tony Devine: The Original ProFender.com where you can Google original pro-fender.
Tony Devine: Right. And are you up for answering questions if people suit you an email or something like that or need to know? Absolutely. Listen,
Tony Devine: there's nothing better to me than giving back. I'm a teacher. So
Tony Devine: the only thing that's more important than other, like I said, I love quotes. I think this was a Jackie Robinson quote,
Tony Devine: and it goes something like it. I know I'm going to butcher it, but it's like it goes something like the only value that you have in life. The only value of our lives is the effect that you have on other lives.
Tony Devine: That's another one that I go by every day.
Tony Devine: The only importance of your life that you have is the effect you have on others.
Tony Devine: And I live that every day.
Tony Devine: the answer to your question is anybody that has any question I'm open for emails you know you got some ideas that you want to run by me or whatever I'm open well you know you certainly live up
Tony Devine: to that quote today speaking with us thank you for being super candid about your experience and for coming on the show it's really hard getting guests on the show actually because as you know
Tony Devine: as you said before we started the interview you guys get a lot of requests from the media and other places. And so I really appreciate your time. So thanks again for being so candid and for
Tony Devine: helping everybody out, Tony. And that concludes today's episode. Thanks for listening. I put all the links that we've covered under the show notes posted on the product startup.com slash episode 11.
Tony Devine: Have you brought your own physical product to market or do you know someone that has? Let me know. Drop me a note by going to the product startup.com and clicking on Ask Philip. I'd love to have you on the show.
Tony Devine: So if you like this episode, you want to see others like it or you want to see something that you haven't seen before, please leave me a review on iTunes by going to the product startup.com slash review. I really appreciate your support and I'll see you in two weeks.
Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series
Filip Valica: is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to macawdesign.com.
Filip Valica: That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-Design's four design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
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