When someone announces "I'm an inventor" on your first meeting, your brain immediately clicks into cliché mode.
 First impressions are of an egg-headed scientist in white lab coat and thick glasses, or a frizzy-haired nutcase beavering away at all hours in a garden shed with only a 40-watt light bulb and several spiders for company. However, you can't apply that narrow vision to the man who has developed the most efficient corkscrew you're likely to get to grips with and the ultimate in easy-to-use bicycle pumps. Julian Peck (pictured) is an ordinary guy - the type you'd call a "bloke" - who has ordinary habits and an ordinary life and works in an ordinary office (albeit an office with a drill and a hacksaw lying in front of a small vice), but he happily refers to himself as an inventor rather than the engineer and commercial innovator that he is. His revolutionary Cyclaire bicycle pump, designed to take the strain out of inflating bike tyres, has recently been launched on the internet (www.cyclaire.com). It is just six inches long and breaks the mould of traditional bicycle pumps. Users stand up to inflate their tyres by simply pulling on a handle attached to a pull-cord system - a bit like starting a lawnmower - and is ideal for leisure and commuter cyclists of all ages. No bike shaking, overheated valves or cursing inefficient push-pull physics. "You have to work hard to get any sort of pressure with a conventional pump," says Julian. "The Cyclaire pump targets commuters, students, touring cyclists, serious cyclists, families and children. "Anything for the elderly is a growth market - and it's surprising how many elderly cyclists there are - and when you think blowing up a tyre is actually bad for your back, we had to make a product that was more ergonomic. "The unique way in which the pump works means that cyclists can get a really long stroke from a very compact pump. This allows the Cyclaire to pump more air per stroke than any mini-pump, whilst still inflating easily to pressures as high as 120psi." Julian won the coveted Spirit of Innovation award in 2001 with his idea and has been working on it ever since, giving up "the day job" (which goes against the advice he gives fellow innovators). Following under-graduate and post-graduate engineering courses at Cambridge, Julian began his career with Lucas Engineering & Systems as a manufacturing and management consultant. He joined automotive company Linread with responsibility for planning and purchasing, then ran its factory in Peterlee, County Durham, with £4m sales and 70 staff. He undertook a year in corporate finance, working on mergers and acquisitions, before leaving in July 1995 to set up Innoverce, a company that bridges the gap between product concept and commercial realisation - and, hopefully, success. The company's first two products are the VacuVin WineMaster Corkscrew and this latest technological advancement in bicycle pumps. Innoverce takes on a small number of projects and pursues them relentlessly, with an extraordinarily high success rate. Julian also offers a consultancy service to private inventors and businesses with innovative ideas to protect and commercialise. This can take the form of idea protection, finance raising, prototyping and marketing strategy development. "I look for three things in a new project," he says. "First, something that's technically feasible and that's not as obvious as it seems. Then I look for something that's protectable - patentable - plus I look for something with a big enough market. Almost all my ideas will satisfy these three criteria. The hardest is the fourth one - doing all three at the same time. "Only one per cent of UK patent applications become money-making products because a lot of inventors don't have the business skills. I set up Innoverce to supply business skills for people who don't have business skills. I'm always on the look-out for good ideas that I can take on for inventors and I'm not short of ideas myself." This is an approach endorsed by Kane Kramer of the British Inventors Society. "Inventors don't get the support they need," he says "It's invention that drives our progress." Often, years of hard graft have gone into developing ideas with little money or recognition at the end of it and the toughest part of being an inventor is the lack of credibility, says Brian Flynn, who was awarded Invention of the Year last month for designing automatic traffic cone dispenser. He entered into a partnership with David Nicholas, a technology transfer specialist at Kingston University, and arranged to build his prototype at the Southampton Institute. It is a strategy that he strongly recommends for fellow inventors. "You don't want to be building things in garden sheds," he says. "You get no credibility that way. It's much better if you can get linked to a university or institution - it's less likely you'll end up blowing up the whole neighbourhood." Julian Peck is quick to point out that you don't make any money being an inventor. You need help with licensing and manufacturing agreements, potential partners and intellectual property. "The WineMaster is doing very well now and has sold more than quarter of a million," he says. "It was three years' work, going through numerous prototypes. "I enjoy having ideas and working on ideas. Design is really important, but is has got to go hand in hand with functionality. A lot of highly-stylised products basically aren't that good. Colour is important, too, and I've done a lot of research into it. Bike owners are very conservative, for example, black, grey and silver is about their lot. "Another thing - don't use your own money. If it's a really good idea and you've got the business skills to develop it, you'll have the business skills to raise money from a third party. For me, NEL has been an excellent support. "The Cyclaire has used up £250,000 in development costs. I thought initially it would be between £30,000 and £50,000, then upped that to £100,000, but not quarter of a million... "Lots of stuff can go wrong along the way, so get grants, loans and offer equity. Keeping costs down, that's tough. "I've suffered a two-year delay caused by my Taiwanese manufacturer, but I've had to go along with it as I can't get out of the original agreement. It looked right at the time, and going to Taiwan and China was a question of costs. Shipping costs are low and the wage structure in the UK is high. "Most of the prototypes are made in this country, however. ARRK on Teesside does most of ours. The cogs on the corkscrew were made in the UK, as are the strap and rubber trimmings on the bike pump. Life would be much easier using UK manufacturers, but production costs are so high I wouldn't be able to sell the product." Some of what we now regard as everyday products began their life-cycle in Julian's head - for instance, he had the idea for a small fridge to use in another room at home or in the office. "I chose not to develop it, mainly because it wasn't patentable," he says. "It was my decision not to do it, but I'm glad to see it came into being; it gave me the reassurance that my gut feeling is right." Just at that point, a huge spider scuttled across the carpet. Julian popped a small container over it, to be disposed of later. It's exactly that sort of thing that sparks off ideas in inventors' brains. So, it's back to the garden shed. * For further information, visit www.cyclaire.com or www.innoverce.com | 
