What started as a single school project could become a home-run commercial product for Austin Meggitt, an unintentional inventor.
Meggitt was 9 when he invented a rack to carry baseball gear on the handlebars of his bike about a decade ago. His teacher had told the class to find a solution to a problem - any problem. Meggitt hit on the idea when he kept dropping his bat while riding his bike to the ball field. "It was dangerous," he recalls.
He and his dad rigged the first Battie Caddie from PVC pipe and other hardware store materials.
It worked.
Meggitt decided to enter his invention in the Discovery Network and MediaOne Broadcasting's Ultimate Invention Contest. He earned the national grand prize and was inducted into the National Gallery for America's Young Inventors (Hall of Fame) in 1999.
That got the attention of By Kids For Kids, then just a startup company that hoped to help young inventors get their products to store shelves.
"We had a bad experience with an invention-promotion company," says Meggitt, now 20 and a pre-med student at Ohio State University. "We were a little wary."
But By Kids For Kids charged no up-front fees. Any money would be collected on a share of the royalties. In 2000, Meggitt got patent #6,029,874 for his invention.
And soon, Meggitt says, "everything took off," including appearances on the Dennis Miller Show and ABC World News, as well as write-ups in Fortune Small Business and other magazines.
Dallas-based retail vendor Base 4 plans to roll out the Battie Caddie by September, says product development director Joe Thompson. Base 4 did the design and arranged the manufacturing.
"I've been a lifelong baseball fan," he says. "We thought (the Battie Caddie) would be a nice mix" for our company.
Meggitt is pleased, noting his invention "would be just sitting in my basement were it not for By Kids For Kids."
Despite the accolades and media attention, Meggitt says he has no plans to make a career out of inventing.
