One expert, Rachel Elnaugh, called the Stabletable device “the most ridiculous idea” she had ever seen.
Its Surrey inventor Andrew Gordon had the idea after drinking five pints with friends at a wobbly pub table.
He woke up with a hangover the next day and designed the gadget by cutting up a cereal box. “The table in the pub was wobbly and someone suggested moving to a stable table,” he said. And he added that his “incredibly simple idea” was meant to be “a bit of fun”.
The gadget has eight thin plastic strips which swivel out to the required thickness to stop a table wobbling.
Mr Gordon has since sold just under 500,000 Stabletables, selling three for £3.99.
Speaking about his appearance on Dragons’ Den, which offers ordinary people a chance to pitch their business ideas to rich but ruthless investors, he said: “It is not even good to have proved them wrong, it’s just quite satisfying that it’s kicked off.”
Photo by Stabletable.
Aaronontheweb (AjaxNinja) on August 27th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ideas. I think Stabletable sounds like a GREAT product; it’s about time we replaced the artificial sweetner packet as standard table stabilizer.
Mario on August 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I agree with Aaron - the simplest ideas are the best; and often the hardest to have… the inventor is a genius :)
UKpreneur on August 29th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
He is about to launch this in the USA as WobbleWizard. Although he has good PR in the media, he is still working full time and it has taken him 3 years to break the supposedly £1 million pound t/o mark, so Dragoms Den where right not to invest as this would not have been a decent return in 3 years for them as an investor.
See my article http://www.ukpreneur.co.uk/499/staletable-goes-wobblewizard-in-the-us/