Inventor Advocate Daynin Dashefsky Goes to the Mat
The combat martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu demands balance and technique to wrest your opponent into submission.
It’s all about superior position, close-quarter grappling and ground fighting – not for the faint of heart.
It requires hard work, stamina and discipline to perfect. Yet when done correctly, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu allows a smaller participant to subdue a larger foe.
Hmmmm. Sounds a lot like the struggle inventors face bringing new products to market.
Hawaiin native Daynin Dashefsky, who holds a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, has spent years on the sweaty mat of inventing and product development, achieving semi-success with some beauty/hair products, perhaps most notably her 2 Kids and 2 Cool Fashion storage carousels. She says she has personally secured contracts for her products to be sold at Wal-Mart, FAO Schwartz, Sam’s Club, Zany Brainy and Toys-R-Us.
The 48-year-old single mother of two has always been a fighter. She grew up in Nanakuli, Oahu’s version of South Central Los Angeles, where teen pregnancy, drugs and violence were the norm. She’s the third-eldest of seven children in a family that was sustained on welfare.
Yet armed with only a high school diploma, she went on to jobs as a legislative aide, a high-end kitchen and bathroom designer and an executive assistant to the president of one of Hawaii’s largest architectural firms, in addition to launching her own products.
Now the tough-as-nails mompreneur who rocks six-pack abs and a Pepsodent smile has released a DVD to help new inventors avoid takedowns and emerge victorious.
The Inventor’s Starter Tool Kit is making its national debut with an infomercial this year, and the seven-disc set has earned praise from some heavyweights in the inventing world.
The toolkit is definitely not for seasoned product developers. In fact, Dashefsky is the first to tell you she’s not an expert when it comes to all things inventing. But she is an informed advocate. And what she lacks in her own product success, she makes up for in grit, charisma and passion for helping inventors avoid the mistakes she made.
Her DVDs – which begin with a general overview of the inventing process and then walk you through invention analysis, product development and invention protection – are accessible. They demystify the inventing journey. And they do a good job of managing unrealistic expectations – commercializing inventions is hard slogging.
So for the thousands of people every year who have an idea for an invention and ask, “Now what?” this tool kit is for them.
In addition to the upcoming infomercial, Dashefsky augments her tool kit with standing-room-only seminars.
At a daylong Inventor’s Tool Kit Seminar at the Hawaii Convention Center in downtown Honolulu earlier this year, Dashesfsky walked eager inventors and would-be product developers through conceptualizing, tooling, manufacturing, deal negotiating, patenting and commercializing ideas.
Early on she asked the nearly 200 attendees to peel off into small groups and tasked them with finding possible solutions to detecting a pinhole in a kid’s wading pool. She prowled the aisles, checking in on the groups and offering encouragement.
Most of the groups conceived of using a soapy liquid to detect the leak – a fact Dashesfsky used to illustrate a point.
“Aw, you stole my idea!” she says in mock outrage, noting that coming up with original products is easier said than done.
Dashefsky has no shortage of boosters.
Famed artist John Pitre – perhaps best known for his 1965 work A New Dawn – is a fan. The inventor of the successful Range of Motion and Time Works line of exercise equipment says Dashefsky’s DVDs can, “save years of personal research, and save a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of grief for a lot of people.”
The late Bob Rines also endorsed her product. He implores inventors in a video testimonial to, “go to this tool kit and get educated.”
Mai Lieu, a Hawaiian inventor of a hair-trimming product that launched and sold out on QVC, credited Dashesfky with helping guide her through the product-development minefield.
And Brian Kunzler, a patent attorney from Salt Lake City, had this to say: “I see inventors everyday and most of them are clueless about what they need. … I thought all of my inventors could use this.”
At the end of her Honolulu seminar, Dashefsky was at it the next day, hosting inventors in her living room and helping them find ways to fine-tune and commercialize their products.
She says she’s exhausted from the seminar and the ongoing ramp-up of the infomercial. Yet she seems as tireless in her home this day as when she’s competing in Jiu Jitsu, but maybe with a lot less sweating.
“I’m a single mom, a mompreneur, a purple belt in Jiu Jitsu and I’m an inventor,” she says. “You don’t have to give up who you are when you invent – you add it on to your life.”
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Did You Know?
In 2009, Daynin Dashefsky competed in the National American Grappling Association Tournament. More than 800 male and female combatants competed. Here’s how she fared:
First Place – Women’s No Gi
First Place – Women’s Gi
First Place – Women’s Absolute Championship
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