Untangling a production conundrum

>Few of us have foresight but lots of us have perfect hindsight. When Shaun Pulfrey contacted Data Plastics about producing what is now an international sales phenomenon he showed great foresight. When he famously contacted Dragons' Den only to be turned down by the Dragons, their foresight had clearly failed them - as they have said in numerous follow- up programmes. This was the one that got away.

>The design brief was a tough one. Whilst Shaun knew that Tangle Teezer was needed in every hair salon in the world it also had to be marketed at a very keen price that every consumer could afford, too. In a sense this was the least of the design problems. Whilst the first hairbrushes appeared in the Ancient World centuries ago, it seems that very little has been written about how to design one for the last 500 years, and since plastics were only invented 80 years ago the designs were useless anyway. In short, Data Plastics had to start from first principles.

>The key problem was to design a brush that would take the tangles out of long, wet, hair. At an initial meeting, Shaun produced a suitcase full of other hairbrushes that were on the market and not one of them detangled hair successfully, so the solution was to start from scratch. There were many other design parameters to include of course. The brush had to be suitable for left and right handed users, be lightweight, durable and great looking. It also had to be able to be produced in great colours.

>The initial design cue came from a computer mouse, having a pleasing and familiar feel. Then started the biggest challenge of all: to evolve the now registered design of the teeth arrangement. Everything to do with the teeth design turned out to be critical - their size, distribution, length, number and plastic material selection. The latter is still a closely guarded trade secret. The whole project took over a year and involved literally dozens of prototype designs before the right combination was arrived at. Shaun reckons it represents arguably the most significant brush advance since the Mesopotamians.

>Naturally, anyone familiar with tooling issues will appreciate how tricky it is to make good quality durable tools capable of overcoming the numerous production issues that moulding fine teeth creates, and Data Plastics was able to provide these first complex tools at a very keen price that made the whole project possible. In order to be able to supply the finished products to Tangle Teezer at a competitive price, Data Plastics needed to manufacture these in some quantity and this is where Shaun's belief in his product showed itself immediately. He bought them in and, incredibly, without placing a single advertisement, sold them out to an industry that had a crying need for them. Word of mouth was the key and the sales figures have been on an upward trajectory from day one.