The idea didn’t come from a design studio.
It came from my crooked stove.
I live in an old house – the kind with character, which is another way of saying nothing is quite level. One evening, I noticed my frying pan tilting slightly to one side. Oil pooled where it wasn’t supposed to. Food cooked unevenly.
At first, it was just annoying.
Then I noticed something else.
The food on the lower side cooked faster. The food on the higher side cooked slower. Same pan. Same burner. Different results.
That’s when the thought landed – not gently, but clearly:
Why Are All Frying Pans Flat If Heat Never Really Is?
I was standing there in gym shorts, trying to get dinner on the table without turning it into a production, when I realized the crooked stove had accidentally solved a problem I’d been fighting for years.
Chicken wants high heat.
Vegetables don’t.
Fat splatters everywhere.
Every frying pan assumes everything cooks the same way – and it doesn’t. So instead of fixing the stove, I started sketching the pan.
What if the pan was tilted by design? What if angle – not just material or size – determined how food cooked?
That crooked stove changed everything.
What began as a personal annoyance turned into the iLean-Pan – a sloped frying pan designed to create multiple heat zones in one pan, allowing food to cook at different speeds with less mess and less stress.
I didn’t set out to become an inventor.
I just wanted dinner to work.
So here are the lessons I learned from this whole ordeal.
1. If You Have an Idea – Act
Ideas don’t get better with time. They get quieter. We talk ourselves out of them. We say things like:
- Someone else probably already did this.
- I’m too old to start now.
- I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
But most real ideas don’t arrive fully formed. They show up as irritation. If something keeps bothering you, chances are it’s not just your problem.
When I started talking about my tilted pan idea, people said:
- “That happens to me all the time.”
- “I hate juggling multiple pans.”
- “I just want cooking to be easier.”
That’s when I realized something important. I didn’t solve a problem for the market. I solved a problem for myself – and the market recognized it.
You don’t need a perfect plan to begin. You need motion.
One sketch led to another. One conversation led to a prototype. One decision led to filing a patent.
None of it happened because I waited until I felt ready. It happened because I started.
2. Put Your Idea Out in the World
Acting didn’t mean quitting my life or suddenly knowing what I was doing. It meant taking one concrete step – and then another.
Those steps eventually led me to an appearance on season 21 of the Blox, not yet released. Filing a patent and learning all about metallurgy and welding and molds.
To a big step in January 2026 when I launched the iLean-Pan to the world, on Kickstarter, a platform designed specifically for ideas that don’t yet have a proven path. It’s where founders test real demand, not opinions.
If you’ve never backed a Kickstarter before, here’s what it really is: you’re not buying something off a shelf. You’re backing a founder. Kickstarter allows creators to produce small batches, test demand, and bring an idea to life with the support of early believers. Backers help fund the first production run and, in return, receive the product once it’s made. It’s not retail – it’s partnership. It’s how ideas move from “almost” to “real.”
Once I committed to that step, the real work began.
3. Be Prepared to Be Challenged
I coach and mentor entrepreneurs for both fun and for payment for services. And, actually, being the entrepreneur that created a physical prototype took more than I expected.
Let’s be honest about entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur isn’t someone with a logo and a laptop at a café. An entrepreneur is someone building something that doesn’t yet work – publicly.
By definition, entrepreneurship involves risk. No proven model. No guaranteed customers. No roadmap. Until revenue exists, you are a one-person band. And you have to decide how to get there.
I didn’t just invent a pan – I had to learn everything around it.
- I learned CAD (Computer Assisted Design) to communicate with engineers, designers and fabricators.
- I learned how to do 3-D printing to make my first model.
- I learned basic metallurgy so I could understand heat conductivity and how to slope the pan.
- I built my own website.
- I learned manufacturing language, packaging, patents, and crowdfunding economics.
None of this was familiar territory.
But here’s the advantage of being older: we’re no longer afraid of being beginners. We’ve already rebuilt our lives more than once. Learning something new doesn’t threaten who we are – it expands it.
Still, the challenges are real.
You’ll get conflicting advice. You’ll be questioned. You’ll be underestimated. And there will be long stretches where no one is clapping.
That’s often where people stop – not because they failed, but because encouragement didn’t arrive when expected.
4. The Toughest Lesson: The People You Expect to Help Usually Don’t
This was the hardest lesson for me. We assume the people closest to us – or the ones cheering the loudest – will be the ones who show up. They usually aren’t.
Some don’t understand what you’re building. Some are uncomfortable with change. Some simply can’t see you in a new role.
That doesn’t make them bad people. But it does mean you can’t build your courage around their approval. Support often comes from unexpected places – strangers, fellow entrepreneurs, people you meet halfway through the journey.
I learned to stop waiting for validation and start trusting momentum. Entrepreneurship later in life isn’t about proving anything. It’s about answering something inside that refuses to go quiet.
For me, that voice said: I’m not done yet.
Not with learning. Not with creating. Not with contributing.
Sometimes a crooked stove isn’t a flaw. It’s a clue.
What’s Next
If you’d like to follow this chapter – or support it – you can find the iLean-Pan on Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ilean-pan/sloped-frying-pan-tilted-by-design.
However this unfolds, I know one thing for certain: I’m still walking forward.
And at this stage of life, that feels like exactly the point.
Let’s Start a Conversation:
What causes have you supported? Do you think entrepreneurship in later life should be pursued? What inventions have made your life better?
