Business Opportunities Weblog

March 12, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

Stuff.co.nz:

Simon Dyer, a software development manager by day and inventor by night, has spent the past three years developing the 2C, a solar-powered baseball cap that includes two high-powered LED lights controlled by a microprocessor.

The product is aimed at campers, tradesmen, emergency workers or anyone else who needs a rechargeable source of light. The caps, which sell for $50 each, use sunlight to recharge during the day and will provide light all night if used on low power.

On high power they have a two-hour life.

He has spent $250,000 developing the cap, getting patents and trademarks in place, and is now looking at how to fund himself for the next stage. His wife, Vanessa, said the family had been eating, sleeping and dreaming about 2C caps for three years. “I started off in the garage and I’ve taken over three rooms in the house,” Simon Dyer said.

Simon Dyer came up with the idea of developing a personal light 20 years ago while out photographing a sunset in the tropics. “The sun went down and it was suddenly pitch black. I was crawling through the undergrowth thinking I wish I had a light.”

Photo by John Kirk-Anderson/The Press.

In Ideas, Inventions | 2 Comments
Tags: Startup