Utah Inventors Hit It Big With A Little Watch

The Salt Lake Tribune:

A Sandy couple is showing that with a little desire, some expertise and a small amount of capital, a home-grown business can be created out of almost anything - even pee and poop.

Alan and Pamela Parkinson started with a yearning to have their own business and did it by making use of the potty-training experiences gleaned from four children and with an idea born one recent Thanksgiving.

Now, the Parkinsons are making a living with a plastic watch, a tool for potty-training toddlers so their parents can more quickly stop changing diapers.

Training the Parkinsons’ own kids sometimes involved setting the timer on their microwave oven to remind themselves and the kids it was time to get to the potty for a little pee-pee attempt, then resetting it each time for the next go-around.

“Trouble is, about the third time something else comes up and you don’t reset it,” said Alan Parkinson.

Then sitting around at a family Thanksgiving, his sister pointed out how her son constantly took his dad’s watch so he would wear it. Thus came the idea to make an inexpensive plastic watch with an alarm.

The regularity of the alarm - at 30-, 60- or 90-minute intervals - reminds a youngster to head to the bathroom to try to go. Once they begin to think about whether it’s time to go potty, children start to recognize on their own when the moment is ripe.

“Consistent reminders are the key,” Parkinson said.

Elizabeth Walbom, of Sandy, has had the watch on her daughter, Rachel, for about a month. It’s helped a great deal at day care, where her busy attendants can’t always supervise each child’s potty needs.

“She [has been] pretty good about wanting to go to the bathroom when [she’s] hearing the music go off,” Walbom said.

Prior to starting his own business, Alan Parkinson had managed other companies’ imports. With that experience and using the couple’s savings as capital, he sought out a manufacturer for the watch in China.

The Potty Watch is the first and so far only product of the Parkinsons’ company, Potty Time Inc., where Pamela Parkinson serves as CEO and Alan as president.

The Potty Watch retails for $10. It fits around little wrists, and when it goes off, lights flash and songs play.

“We’ve found that most kids are potty trained within a month,” Parkinson said. “Some kids really like it. But we’ve also made it big enough so mom can wear it.”