Source: FreshCup Magazine
With Stix To Go, Tom Burns went from rocket science to simplicity. His invention is a plastic device that plugs the sipping hole in a hot beverage lid, preventing spills and reducing heat loss by up to 40 percent, he says. The item also features a tab that enables the user to move it in and out of the hole in the top of the cup's lid. That oval hole has been a problem, Burns says. You pay $4 for a cup of joe, you kind of expect it to come in a container that would satisfy your requirement. Burns' device is so simple that it might be surprising to some that the inventor was once a corporate executive at aeronautical company Boeing in Seattle.
In July 2004 while working for Boeing, Burns went to Vietnam to attend an aerospace symposium. When getting up from his seat to give a speech, he spilled his cup of coffee, and an idea was born. I said, 'One of these days, I'm going to quit my day job and plug that hole, Burns says. He told one of his companions of the idea, and the next morning the man showed Burns a prototype he had created. I thought, you know, there might be something to this, Burns says.
Upon returning to Seattle, he started researching the lid market to see whether there was a place there for his invention. What he found was that Americans use 58 million disposable lids every day. It was then that he decided to move forward with his invention. In February 2005, Burns left Boeing to pursue Stix to Go full time, working on the patent process, trademark issues and the formation of the company.
Burns debuted Stix to Go in February 2006 at Coffee Fest in Washington, D.C., where the product won a prize in the New Products category for innovation. Burns says the simplicity of the product is part of what makes it attractive to consumers. What we get from 90 percent of the people who see the product is: 'Why didn't I think of that?' or 'Congratulations, you've come up with the next straw.'
