If you’ve ever wrestled with a so-called “blister pack” of medication, you know it’s named that because getting into it can cause blisters on your fingers. There must be a simpler way, right? Join us as we chat with Nathan Lamaster, a certified therapeutic recreation specialist and the creative mind behind a new device called the “Pill Puncher.”
Lamaster’s invention, inspired by a challenge from a nurse, promises to ease the struggle of pill extraction from those irksome packs. He steps us through his inventive process, from the initial idea to prototyping, patenting and launching his product.
Beyond the creative process, Lamaster opens up about the setbacks he faced on his entrepreneurial journey, including a regrettable business deal that resulted in an FBI investigation. Despite the odds, he rebounded with the help of local investors and managed to make and launch his product.
MIKE LANDESS: Have you ever struggled with getting pills out of those blister packages that you get in over the counter and prescription medicines? There’s a solution for that. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio. Nathan Lamaster of Tyler is a nationally certified therapeutic recreation specialist, and he’s the inventor of the Pill Puncher. He’s our guest today. Welcome.
NATHAN LAMASTER: Hey, thank you for having me.
LANDESS: Good to have you here. How in the world did you branch out from your work as a certified therapeutic recreation specialist to becoming an inventor?
LAMASTER: Well, actually, I was working in psych. That was the area that I was in, and I was working at UT Health hospital (UT Health North Campus Tyler) on the floor with the psych patients. The nurses open a lot of pill packages, yet they can’t have sharp objects, for obvious reasons. One of the nurses who had been a nurse there for 20 years, her name is Sharon Black. She had challenged me to create something because I had already started another business, and she knew that I was that type of guy. She’s like, “If you could create something like this for us, that would make our jobs a lot easier. My fingers wouldn’t hurt. We get done with our jobs a lot quicker.” And so, that’s when I started prototyping. When I started prototyping, there was a place downtown that’s called the Innovation Pipeline. The Innovation Pipeline had 3D printers and laser engravers, etc. That’s actually how I got hooked up with Phil Burks, who’s one of the owners. In 26 prototypes…
LANDESS: You got a bag of them here.
LAMASTER: Yes, I have a bag of all the prototypes.
LANDESS: One of them looks like a soap dish, and then you worked your way up to a very fine, finely crafted piece of machinery.
LAMASTER: Each one that I would do, I’d take it to the nurses and have them try it out. They’d tell me what they liked, what they didn’t like. Once we figured out one that they really did like, that’s when I decided to patent it. Then, I knew nothing. I was like, OK, now, what do I do? I’m like, I’ve never built a product before and got it patented. So there’s kind of a journey there as well. I reached out online, looking online for Shark Tank and other things like that, because I was like OK, well, what do you do when you have a product, and you want to get it out there? People pay for Google ads. They use the keyword “Shark Tank,” and there was a company out of California, which I cannot say their name because of legal reasons. We had a bad relationship at the end, unfortunately. They took 25 grand from me and 20% equity. They said, “We’re going to take your invention from A to Z. We’re going to market it. We’re going to manufacture it; we’re going to do all of the stuff that goes into business.” They said they’d have it done in 9 months. Well, a year and a half later, they still didn’t have it done. You know, kind of started ghosting me. And I was like, hey, I gave you all this money, you know, I expect some stuff in return, right?
LANDESS: Right. Right.
LAMASTER: And so turned out that company, you know, is being investigated by the FBI. So that was pretty crazy to find out. But they didn’t give me my money back, and they did give me my equity back, which is great, but then that kind of knocked the wind out of my sails.
LANDESS: Sure. So how long ago was this?
LAMASTER: This is like 5 years ago.
LANDESS: OK. And so this is not an overnight success. This is something you’ve been working on.
LAMASTER: Yes, there’s a big journey, and after that happened, I got kind of like scared, and I was like, all right, well, maybe I’ll just focus on my other business while I’m doing this. And like 2 years that process went by. That’s when the FBI contacted me and asked for my testimony about the company.
LANDESS: Yeah.
LAMASTER: And so I gave that, and I was kind of like, OK, what’s going to happen there? But then the Innovation Pipeline reached out, and the Innovation Pipeline was going for money from the city. They get grants to operate, and so they needed a success story, they called it. And so they asked me to come to city hall, and then they had the meeting there. And like I thought I was just going to be standing there with my prototypes. And I didn’t think I was —
LANDESS: Which, by the way, this is a brown paper bag sitting on the desk here — yes, full of all these little items in there, but you’ve got the finished product right there. I’m sorry I interrupted your story, please go ahead.
LAMASTER: Yes, I got a brown paper bag with a bunch of plastic stuff in it. Yeah, so, when I was there, they actually asked me to talk, and I was not ready for that. And so, I came up, and one of the council people asked me, said hey, how do you feel about brown paper bags?
LANDESS: This brown paper bag has been around.
LAMASTER: It’s an old brown paper bag. Yes, it’s probably 5, 6 years old now. But so, they asked me to talk about it. So, I talked about it, and then they said, “So have you thought about Shark Tank?” And so, I was like, yes, that’s actually the story that got me here. And so, one of the council people, Don Warren, the mayor actually, he’s an investor as well, so he’s another owner.
LANDESS: Oh, no kidding?
LAMASTER: Yeah. So I got hooked up with him, and then right after that, the CBS19 and KETK did interviews, and then everybody was asking for them, and people were asking to invest and I had no finished product. I still didn’t have a finished product, and so I was like, OK now I got to figure out what to do. I don’t have anything to give them. And so, after Phil and Don invested, I was able to use that money to get the mold made, manufacture the first 2,000 parts. And then there it was selling and marketing, all of those things. So, we’ve actually only been open officially for 6 months, so it hasn’t even been a full year yet.
LANDESS: So, when you say “open,” are they available, the products available online or in stores, or how does it work?
LAMASTER: So, we actually have a few places. We have two local places. One is the Drug Emporium, and so they just recently purchased 200 of them. And then Chandler Pharmacy, over in, Copeland Chandler Pharmacy. They have some as well, and then it’s sold mainly on Amazon, as well as the website, which is at pillpuncher.com.
LANDESS: Comes out of the item itself. So, what does this product cost?
LAMASTER: We actually sell it for $14.99 online. We also do white labeling for companies, and right now our biggest target is home health care companies, because they work with a lot of clients. This is a great marketing tool where they can put their logo and colors on the device. And so, our biggest order so far to this date was a thousand, so that was pretty cool. But yeah, that’s, yeah, we’re just kind of making it out there now and trying to build a brand, and since there’s no such thing as a Pill Puncher besides this, I’m on the first, first one. It’s an uphill battle but going actually pretty well.
LANDESS: Our guest has been Nathan Lamaster, Tyler inventor of the Pill Puncher. To hear this conversation again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)