Skoon

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Hope you had a great Halloween with the kids, and you aren't eating all their candy...so sad! You still have time to submit entries to Jimmy Kimmel though ☺️

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Skoon - a toothbrush holder?

Skoon is pretty cool, we (the Skooners) think.  It’s been difficult to explain in one sentence exactly how cool it is or what it does for people.  Okay, so Skoon uses UV light to sanitize your toothbrush.  Skoon also plays music and other content for 2-3 minutes while you brush.  Skoon looks cool on your countertop.  Skoon helps teach kids the healthy habit of brushing.  Skoon has an app and website where you can customize the content that is played for yourself and/or kids.  Skoon does A LOT, but it’s really not that complex.

As we’ve continued to develop the idea, we’ve realized that Skoon is simply a toothbrush holder...really?  That’s it?  Yeah, but it’s like the Lebron James, the Tesla, the Apple (or Samsung?) of toothbrush holders.  Maybe that’s stretching it a little far, but basically Skoon is the best of the best toothbrush holders.  Something that doesn’t really exist yet.  

To sum it up in a sentence, Skoon is a toothbrush holder that is CLEAN and FUN, because toothbrushes (and toothbrush holders) are NASTY and brushing teeth is BORING for kids and adults.  And this short experience actually has more of an impact on your health than you think.

The Skooners just want to make your life a little better, one solution at a time.  Be CLEAN.  Be FUN.  Start and end your day a little better, with a toothbrush holder that is much more than a toothbrush holder.

-The Skooners    

Check out Skoon on our recently launched website, Facebook page, and sign-up here for early-bird specials.

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Our DOPE Designer

One of our first tasks for Skoon was finding Skooner #3 (we were the first two Skooners, of course) who would help us design our techie toothbrush sanitizer.  Just imagine us business dudes trying to sketch and put together objects that represented what was in our minds for Skoon...it was laughable, frustrating, and quite tantalizing, to say the least.  So with little $’s in our pockets, we turned to the local university to look for talent.

Little did we know, this lower cost option would end up having some of the best talent that you can find in our area.  The university has an Industrial Design program that only takes about 15 students a year.  And these students are darn smart characters (they made us want to go back to university and work 24/7 to get into the program).  We had found the jackpot.  A low-cost option, but some of the best talent around.  Plus, we thought we could help them get some experience and potentially develop connections with them that could turn into great working relationships down the road.  

We began meeting with the students to get Skooner #3 on board.  We felt like we had met the entire Industrial Design program after a couple weeks, and we were sure they would all be talking about these weird toothbrush sanitizer guys.  Finally after a couple weeks, we found our guy, and there is one word that fully describes him - DOPE.  

Our DOPE designer is Carson Jardine.  He had recently returned from an internship in Hong Kong.  He previously lived in Taiwan for two years teaching people about his religion, serving the people, and learning the language.  He’s from the US but learned fluent Mandarin.  He is a mad sketcher, once sketching 500 pages in about 5 weeks.  When you see him, he just exudes confidence, creativity, smarts, and everything else you want in a designer.   We could go on and on...but for more, check him out on Behance and LinkedIn. 

Thanks to Carson, our concept is now closer to reality.  His sketches, foam models, and CAD’s of Skoon have turned us into giddy school children on our first day of school.  We’re happy to be working with him and can’t wait to see what the future holds for such DOPE talent.     

Stay tuned for more about the story of Skoon as we prepare to launch in the next month or so.  Learn more here.

Thanks for being a Skooner.

-The Skooners

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Helping kids develop the healthy habit of brushing teeth

We began developing the Skoon product and realized that moms seemed to really connect with Skoon.  Moms are connected with it because they are connected to little kids.  Kids have a hard time developing good habits.  And when kids have a hard time developing good habits, moms and dads go crazy.

With this understanding, Skoon became more than sanitizing nasty toothbrushes and listening to cool content while brushing.  Skoon was a product to help kids develop a healthy habit - the healthy habit of brushing teeth for 2-3 minutes twice a day.  

We could get into the research about how important clean teeth is to our health, but that’ll take too much time so we’ll save it for later.  For now, just ask the people paying big dental bills years later because they didn’t develop the healthy habit of brushing teeth well and long enough as a kid.  But Skooners’ kids don’t have to worry as much.  

When kids pull their sanitized toothbrush from the Skoon device, Skoon automatically plays music or other chosen content for 2-3 minutes.  This ensures they brush long enough, plus there will be positive reinforcement...they will have a good feeling while brushing their teeth, and parents won’t have to pester or worry as much.

Helping kids develop healthy habits is important to us, so we decided to focus our first product, along with its message, on kids.  Clean is good.  Clean lives are important.  Clean lives are a result of healthy habits.  And Skoon helps kids develop a healthy habit that will make their lives (and their parents’ lives) better.

-The Skooners              

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Combo of Africa and Clean

Our (Blake and Preston) worlds collided halfway across the world from our home country, in 2010.  We were both in Africa serving church missions that would change the way we viewed the world and our lives.  Not a week goes by that we don’t mention something or someone from Africa.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get rid of each other upon returning to the states.  We ended up studying at the same university, in the same major, in the same emphasis...

When we were trying to decide on a name for our techie toothbrush sanitizer (it took weeks), we wanted a clean, simple name that meant something to us.  Africa meant something to both of us and our friendship.  We needed to connect the name to Africa.

In addition to our African connection, we kept coming back to clean.  Clean is always good.  We like clean houses, clean offices, clean cars, clean design, clean lives.  After all, we are clean freaks!  Our product is even about clean toothbrushes and clean teeth.    

So, we looked up clean In Afrikaans.  The translation - “skoon”.  BOOM.  Skoon was a combo of clean and Africa...we had our name.  We loved it.  And still do.

And so we call ourselves the Skooners.  But we want more Skooners than just us.  To be a Skooner, keep following our story and tell your friends about our story.  By the time we launch and you have a Skoon product in your home, you’ll actually be skooning with our skoon, which will make you an official skooner!

-The Skooners          

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The Skooners - our beginning

In August of 2016, we (Preston and Blake - the Skooners) began the process that eventually became Skoon.  We’re young business dudes that always have “lots of irons in the fire”, and Skoon has become a fun iron that we’ve learned a lot from...that’s why we want to tell the story.

Being the clean freaks that we are, we were researching the dirtiest items in homes.  Turns out toothbrushes are pretty gnarly nasty.  In fact, they have more bacteria than public bathrooms!  If you want to be grossed out, just start Googling how gross toothbrushes actually are.  So, we set out to come up with a cool product that not only keeps toothbrushes clean but also has an element of entertainment or fun, because life is just better that way.

We spent some time brainstorming, tearing apart products (engineers certainly would have been laughing at us), and doing lots of research.  Eventually we decided to combine (1) a UV toothbrush sanitizer with (2) speakers, to create a device that not only sanitizes your nasty toothbrush but also automatically plays content while you brush your teeth!  This would ensure you brush your teeth for the recommended 2 minutes while you listen to music, get the daily news, or while kids listen to Elmo.  This was the beginning of Skoon that has kept us busy the last couple months.

If this brief intro is at all interesting, stay tuned and tune-in others.  There’s much more to the story of Skoon...we’ll tell you about “dope” designers, where the name “Skoon” came from, why we first want to focus on a kid’s device, and about some learning experiences we’ve had the past couple months.  Plus, Skoon is actually part of a much bigger vision that we HAVE to share.

-The Skooners