Established in 2020, SiphonDaddy LLC grew out of a personal need to fuel our boat quickly, effortlessly, and without dripping or spilling gas into the lake. During the pandemic, our family spent a ton of time together, skiing up to 3 times a day and consequently burning through 20 gallons of gas.
I made a deal with my kids that I would pay for gas and drive the boat, but they had to fill the boat. Since the marina was not open at convenient times, this involved filling cans at the gas station then transporting those cans down to the lake, then balancing on the boat, dock, or gunnels, all while managing a 30-pound can! The safety nozzles on the cans were a complete disaster; not only were they hard to use, requiring three hands, but we spilled a lot of gas into the lake, and onto the boat and our hands. This launched our quest to find a better solution.
I reached out to the boating community on Facebook for suggestions. I purchased and tested most of their recommendations but was unsatisfied. The solutions were either too heavy for my kids to transport (can on wheels), too unpredictable (Jiggle siphon), or too slow (all of them). When visiting a ski school in Florida we found they used a method requiring a simple hose and an adult size hand. It was unbelievably fast and used existing 5-gallon cans. The only problem was it required some practice to get it right and my kids just could not master the technique. I developed a prototype plug/vent system that eliminated the mastery of this technique, and I was no longer filling the boat.
We made a few prototypes and gave them to friends to try, and those were then passed on to their friends. A few more posts to Facebook groups and interviews with various people, and we decided to productize the system. This project was a true team and family effort, and taught us all a lot about entrepreneurship. Customer interviews, design, sourcing, supply chain, marketing, logistics, sales, and advertising.
One of our guiding principles was to source everything from American companies, even if it drove up the cost. Over the next year we worked with a tubing manufacture in Upstate New York to get the tube material just right, so it stayed flexible and was durable in all temperatures. We worked with companies in New Jersey and Tennessee for the vent, and our packaging comes from Massachusetts and South Carolina. We perform final assembly ourselves in New Jersey.
For more information or to purchase a SiphonDaddy please visit us at SiphonDaddy.com or email us at: info@SiphonDaddy.com