The SALISBURY business that started in a spare room before expanding with now offices in France and the US has been featured on BBC’s The Apprentice.
Candidates had to create a new electric toothbrush aimed at children between the ages of six and eight, along with a corresponding app that encouraged brushing.
They came up with design concepts and the company helped them deliver the final prototypes.
Alistair Swanwick, founder of Innovate Design, said it was “a great privilege” to be featured on the show and that the company was “delighted” to be involved.
The challenge itself was a “stressful 24 hours” from taking the brief from the contestants to getting the job done to produce two prototypes and making sure they were a success.
“Overall it was very stressful but exhilarating and a huge adrenaline rush for all of us,” added Alastair, who said “planning was key” to the smooth running of the challenge.
“It was another thing, you could never imagine that you would find yourself in this kind of situation. Failure is very possible and yet it is simply not an answer. It can’t happen no matter what.”
Putting the very narrow time frame of this challenge into context, the process typically takes about six months.
On what it means for the business to appear on the show, he said, “It gives us an endorsement but also recognizes the skills from the team we got at Innovate.
“I am very fortunate, we have some of the most talented fellows in the country. They are not like everyone else.
“We are fortunate and grateful to have them all under one roof in Salisbury.”
In addition to product design, app development, logo design, and packaging, the Innovate Design team has also developed the smart technology inside the toothbrush.
The team created a custom brush that not only monitors brushing time but also the exact direction the toothbrush is held, whether the user is brushing too fast or slow and how much force is being applied to the brush head.
Bluetooth connectivity has been added to enable real-time sensor reading.
Appearing on the TV show and meeting Lord Sugar was also of special significance to Alastair.
“Twenty years ago, when I founded the company, Lord Sugar wrote an article he recommended in his press column. This article gave us the credibility we needed to start a successful business and with our participation in the latest series of The Apprentice, it feels like we have completed the cycle.”
Alistair added: “It’s been so wonderful all these years to meet him and we thank him for this great article that helped us so much to gain respect.”
“You see him on TV and he’s quite a scary guy but when you meet him in person he’s very polite and very charming and has a strong, dry wit towards him.”
Alistair and his wife, Barbara Bouvard, “fell in love” with Salisbury when they visited the area and ended up moving and setting up businesses in town.
Filming took place in Salisbury and the couple were thrilled to have their city on national television.
The company’s humble beginnings began in a spare bedroom on Davis Road before renting a backroom office at 21st Century Antics on Brown Street and later moved to Pennyfarthing Street, which it ended up crossing, and as a result is now Endless Street.
Offices have also been opened in London, France, Florida and Bristol. In Salisbury, it has a team of 25 people.
Innovate Design helps people with new product ideas and guides them through the process from patent searches to prototyping.
Alistair says they never know what ideas will appear through their doors.
“This process is weird because sometimes you don’t know what works and what doesn’t and whether we, as experts, have been doing it for 20 years in the field but with the total number of years my colleagues have all gotten together, you can’t just look at an idea and say ‘This is going to work’ And it won’t work,” he explained.
In the future, Innovate Design hopes to develop prototyping facilities and interact more with companies looking for new product ideas to build a national and international network.
The latest series from The Apprentice features female entrepreneur from Swindon – Kathryn Burn. She set up an online pajamas store called My Christmas Pajamas in 2018.
Episode 16 of the series is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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