Rainbow Connection! The ForgetSPECS Journey (Part 4)

A lot of time and money had been invested into this project, however, the outbreak of the worst pandemic in history left me feeling like I had nothing to show for it. There wasn’t much I could do to progress ForgetSPECS during Covid-19. The forced shut down of factories and life pushed me in to focusing on a house renovation which then led me to realise it was time for a break to rejuvenate and refocus.

How many setbacks must one overcome to get a world leading product off the ground?

Following the renovation, I heard a quote from not sure where that goes something like this “it’s not where you have been or how long you have been on the entrepreneurial journey, it’s the next step that counts”.

What was my next step?

In early 2021, I contacted the CEO of a Singaporean company that I had previously connected with on my global search. They manufactured screen protectors and were synergistic and possibly a competitor for us. But they had experience in design, manufacturing and distribution. After many discussions, they agreed to help solve the rainbow displaying on the screen. Was this getting into bed with the devil?

We developed a strategy to introduce diffuser particals into the optical resins to deflect the light that was causing the rainbow effect. This has worked for them in the past and when I placed a diffuser film across our films, it eradicated the rainbow, and you could still read the phone. See below.

Worth a chance - and the only way forward. As this was a potential competitor, it took 2 months for our lawyers to sort our acceptable terms, and to protect each others Intellectual Property.

In April 2021, initial hand-made samples indicated it worked so we moved to machanised manufacture. Something went wrong. The initial results couldn’t be replicated. But it’s funny how things work out. While inspecting the new films under a nano microscope, we discovered new information about the phone screen. This was possibly the cause of the rainbow. Was this a breakthrough? The only way of telling was to design and create new moulds to imbed the correction.

I keep hearing that Chumbawamba song “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gunna keep me down”. It’s enough to drive you to a whiskey drink, a vodka drink, a lager drink, a cider drink, you just gotta look forward to the better times ahead.

At this stage my cash reserves has been extinguished.

I had to make a decision. Fold or seek external investors, a decision I had been delaying because I wanted to de-risk the project with a perfect solution, and great customer experience before risking anyone else’s money.

A few very generous, trusting, adventurous, tech savvy, entrepreneurial investors saw the potential and funded our next stage of designs and prototyping.

The re-design took several months to perfect, as there was now 3 million lenses in one screen. We decided to use a later model iPhone for the design, iPhone X and 11Pro, the first iPhone with an OLED screen.

We again took advantage of our Boston moulds manufacturers experience, technical capability, patience, empathy and support for a new series of moulds. In September 2021, our moulds were complete and ready to prototype. Some advance prototypes were in the USA but they were not up to standard. They did however confirm the rainbow was gone!!!! Fantastic!!

We continued to test and measure for months. In early 2022, we found that the moulds (and prototypes) were inaccurate. There were deviations to the size, shape and location of our lenses. They had to be re-produced.

Finally, in February 2022, the most amazing thing happened. We received our PATENT APPROVAL from the Australian Patent Office. This was a 3 year process. We had to convince the APO that we were inventive, unique and novel. They kept throwing up claims of prior art and we had to keep responding that the technology was nothing like anything before. People use terms like “Micro Lens Array” and “Nanotechnology”, “Refraction”, “Vergence” but in the end, they agreed we were INVENTIVE, UNIQUE AND NOVEL - there is nothing like us out there.

Under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, this opened the door for approval of our applications in 8 jurisdictions globally, including USA, Canada, Europe and parts of South-East Asia. ForgetSPECS will be GLOBAL.

In mid 2022, unfortunately I had to shutdown for 12 months due to health reasons.

During shutdown, we received approval of our USA patent in May 2022, China Patent in November 2022 and Hong Kong patent in March 2023. Europe and South Korea are still pending.