Airline pilot sees invention take off after TV appearance
Idea for TabletHookz came during his first family holiday
AN AIRLINE pilot based at East Midlands Airport has seen an invention of his take off after appearing on a new Channel 4 tv series.
Mike Channon (44) appeared on ‘Buy It Now’ with his product called ‘TabletHookz’ and explained to the Echo how the product was created.
“The idea behind TabletHookz came about when going on our first family holiday, a lot of airlines no longer have in-flight entertainment on short or medium haul flights, so we’d taken iPads to keep the kids entertained on the flight. The problem was they didn’t want to hold their iPads and there just isn’t that much room with the trays down, there had to be a way I could mount their iPads to the back of the seat in-front without the need for the tray to be down.”
TabletHookz is a small pocket sized mounting for travellers that allows them to securely mount their screen device, e.g. tablet, iPad, phone or e-reader to the back of an airline seat, car seat, or on the train, to create your own personal handsfree seatback entertainment at eye level. TabletHookz features securing clips to keep your device secure and variable viewing angles and can also be used as a secure traditional stand.
On the tv show if an audience of 100 shoppers and retailers liked Mike’s 90 second pitch they could turn their light green to express an interest to buy it.
Following a round of questions and answers Mike had several green lights and went on to face the retailers on the show.
Mike said: “Brian Conley asked the question of each retailer, ‘Do you want to place an order for Mike’s TabletHookz ?’ – it seemed like a very long pause before the first retailer, Zak from PrezzyBox.com placed an order for 200 units, Nina from Clas Ohlson, bought 500 units and then Ken from JML placed an initial order for 1000 units saying he wanted to get serious volume going.
“The audience and retailers placed combined orders with a retail value of £34,183 – not bad for a 90 second pitch! What a great way to launch our product after a very humble crowdfunding start, which failed first time around. We’re now selling lots and getting enquires from airlines too with an interest in selling the product on-board, it seems the sky may not be the limit.”