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Layton Roe is your typical toddler, averse to washing his hands and sleeping through the night.
His habits turned his mother, Tarah, into a promising entrepreneur.
Tarah Roe won the fourth annual Savannah FastPitch entrepreneurial competition Thursday at the Savannah Morning News Auditorium.
Roe’s innovative toddler hand-washing tool, scRIBBIT and Friends, was judged the best of 20 concepts presented to a 12-member jury by local entrepreneurs during the day-long event.
FastPitch is designed to give local entrepreneurs exposure and match them with potential investors who readily share coaching, advice and guidance in obtaining financing, developing the venture and bringing the product to market.
The event is sponsored by the Creative Coast, Georgia Southern University and Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center.
“This all started from the battle that goes with keeping a toddler’s hands clean,” said Roe, who pocketed FastPitch’s $6,000 first prize. “And he doesn’t sleep much, so I had plenty of free time to think up ways to win that battle.”
Her combat strategy: Make hand washing fun.
Propping Layton up on the sink is unsafe. Using baby wipes is inefficient.
So the stay-at-home mom and National Guard medic rigged up a soapy water-filled bowl onto the side of the child’s high chair.
The bubbles held his attention for a while. Once the novelty wore off, Tarah added a couple of rubber bouncy balls to the liquid.
Layton liked playing in the water and would leave his hands in long enough to get them clean.
From there, she devised the scRIBBIT device. It is shaped like a frog’s head, and the child puts his hand into the open mouth, which includes soap and water dispensers with a collection basin in the bottom. The interior includes rubber and spongy materials Layton loves to play with.
“He’ll finish eating now and say, ‘Hands, hands,’” she said. “And with scRIBBIT, he’s like, ‘Frog, frog.’”
Roe introduced it to her son two weeks ago. The prototype is made from modeling clay and pieces she’s cannibalized from other products. She’s secured a trademark and has a patent pending on the device.
Count one of the event’s three panelists, Kate Strain, among mothers who will want to “scrub it with scRIBBIT and Friends.”
“I can’t wait to get one of these,” Strain told Roe.
Competitive field
Roe edged her competition in what co-organizer Charisse Bennett characterized as an event full of “good ideas” presented by “well prepared” pitchers.
Presentations included concepts for mobile applications, web and software development tools, pet products, fashion and makeup goods, games and landscape planters.
The event’s runner-up came from the student division. Soon-to-be Georgia Southern grad Jason Roe (no relation to the winner) pitched his UNav mobile app, a navigational tool.
UNav was born out of Jason Roe’s inability to find his way around GSU’s campus.
“The mission is simple: To help freshmen not look like freshmen,” he said during his three-minute pitch.
UNav incorporates maps, virtual tours and points of interest. While it was developed with college campuses in mind, the platform is applicable to other destinations, such as shopping malls and theme parks.
He is working with Georgia Southern to pilot UNav in conjunction with freshmen orientation this fall.
“There’s plenty of potential,” he said. “We’re ready to get it out there.”
ABOUT FASTPITCH
FastPitch is a matchmaking event for entrepreneurs and investors disguised as a competition. Each presenter had three minutes to pitch his or her concept, three minutes to answer questions posed by a panel about the idea and a separate opportunity to demonstrate the product or service.
ON THE WEB
Go to www.scribbitandfriends.com for more information on Savannah FastPitch 2013 winner scRIBBIT and Friends.