…the essence of elegant design, the stewards of sustainability and masters of efficiency…..we are Tyga!! We’re compelled by efficiency because efficiency compels markets.
“TygaBox was a love child — unplanned!!
We got everything we deserved for having hired the low-price rogue mover some twenty years ago — well before municipal recycling was available.
Nadine — being half-Cuban, half-Italian, and all Latin — burst into a rant saying, “why doesn’t somebody have a business that rents reusable plastic boxes as an ecological alternative to corrugated.” Marty – being half-calm, half-reflective and all Jewish – said, “If you’d just listen to yourself, you actually have a good idea.”
You couldn’t find two people who knew less about the moving industry than we did.
At that time, Nadine was successfully expanding her international fashion design consultancy, and Marty was enjoying his 17 year career at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, being highly regarded for his talent in the esoteric fields of trust and estates and philanthropic grant making.
Our inexperience turned out to be an advantage
We started the business renting a “stand alone” plastic box. In our desire to attract customers, we met them on move jobs so we could learn something about this new, disruptive business we had just launched. Our inexperience turned out to be an advantage.
We noticed that the process of packing a corrugated box and putting it on a dolly were done as two separate steps. We observed that people often strained to lift heavy boxes after packing them. Movers needed a great deal of time to distribute dollies throughout an office, and then load corrugated boxes onto them – one box at a time. Since corrugated boxes are generally too weak to be stacked higher than three, it would typically take two dolly loads to hold the entire contents of a single file cabinet.
Our “aha!!” moment came when, peering into the truck at origin, we saw the greatest inefficiency of all! As dolly-loads were rolled onto trucks in stacks of three corrugated boxes each, they only consumed about three feet of height, while trucks have 8 feet of height available. About 5/8th’s of the truck was being used to move — air!
One small change in the packing process makes on big change in the moving process
We realized that one small change in the packing process would make one big change in the moving process. The key was to “pack the box while aboard the dolly.” That would eliminate both the lifting of heavy boxes and the distribution and loading of dollies. And, if the boxes were made from strong plastic, they could be stacked high enough to both hold the contents of an entire file cabinet in a single stack and utilize 40% more of the space inside the truck.
Those factors struck us as much needed gains in safety and efficiency. On top of that, reusable plastic boxes (with a life of over 20 years) would bring some much needed gains in eco-friendliness over single-use corrugated boxes.
Unintentional inventors of the non-tip bottomless dolly
In order to “pack direct to dolly,” the dolly had to be delivered at the same time as the box, so that it would be on hand at time of packing. And for that, we needed a “low theft appeal dolly,” so that it would not be stolen while waiting to be packed.
That insight lead us to become innovative and unintentional inventors and design and invent the worlds’ first-ever non-tip bottomless dolly which transformed the way weight was supported from a horizontal plane to a vertical one, essentially suspending the weight of the boxes placed upon it. We integrated the fit between box and dolly with a tongue and groove interlock, and finalized the engineering of our innovation, known today as the “TygaBox System.”
We gathered-up almost every penny we had in the world and laid it down as a deposit to have molds made. Marty withdrew the entirety of 17 years of contributions to his pension and profit sharing plan at the law firm and Nadine mortgaged her 5-family Brooklyn home to the hilt.
As we had once chosen a rogue mover, we chose a rogue mold maker
What became obvious, was how little we knew about moldmakers and moldmaking or to be present to the cliche:”the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. As we had once chosen a rogue mover, we chose a rogue mold maker. A well-intentioned one-man machine shop, housed in little more than a garage in Deer Park, Long Island, he took our money and made molds that failed!! For the second time, we were on the verge on bankruptcy!
We spent much of our little remaining cash for Nadine to take a flight to a fashion industry trade show, where she hoped to find new customers. In the last place you would expect it – the classified section at the back of an in-flight magazine — Nadine came upon a tiny, half-inch ad by a mold maker in the Midwest who was not only offering to build molds, but finance them over the cost of production. Running between flights at an airport, Nadine stopped at a phone booth, called Marty, and breathlessly shouted, “Call this mold maker!” Days later, Marty was on a flight to meet the mold maker.
No more “one-man machine shop.” This was a “real” mold making company with a big factory and a large staff of professional engineers onboard. We finally got it right. The owner of the company was intrigued by our vision for an “integrated box and dolly system for office moving”, and he agreed to finance most of the cost of the molds, and required a deposit. Nadine’s dad gave her the deposit, letting her know that this was her inheritance which he wanted her to have while he was alive so he could see how things turned out. We were underway – again!!
AT&T gave us our first order – which was for a rental of 8,000 TygaBoxes
While the molds were being made, Nadine kept designing fashions to bring in money and Marty kept renting our inventory of stand alone plastic boxes. Then, one day, Nadine and Marty joined together, on a sales call to AT&T in New Jersey. Their Lucent Technology division was moving to a new location, and they wanted to be the first company to use our new “TygaBox System.” They gave us our first order – which was for a rental of 8,000 TygaBoxes – for a product which had never been field tested before!
The molds were completed and the first production of TygaBoxes came off the press just in time to fulfill the AT&T order. We both personally participated in rolling the first delivery of empty stacks of TygaBoxes off our trucks and into Lucent Technology offices. We both watched in breathless amazement as the first TygaBoxes were packed and stacked by Lucent employees. And we held each other’s hand tightly, as the first stacks of TygaBoxes and TygaDollies were rolled out of the origin building and onto trucks bound for destination.
And the promise of our “aha!!” moment came to fruition, when, peering once again into the truck at origin, we saw the greatest efficiency of all! TygaBoxes uniformly stacked five-high, filling 40% more of the capacity of each truck, and reducing the total number of truckloads by 40%!
TygaBox Metrics — reduced AT&T’s cost of moving from $209,000 to $143,000
The move was a total success. And AT&T wrote us a letter of recommendation, citing that the TygaBox System had not only made the move easier, safer and more efficient, but had reduced their cost of moving from $209,000 to $143,000, or 32%!.
Shortly after that, we moved into a “real” office in Midtown Manhattan; we rented a “real” warehouse in Long Island City and filled it with “real” TygaBoxes. We hired our first “real” employee to manage our office. Nadine closed shop on her fashion design studio, and the two of us set out on a year-long series of two-week road trips. From city to city, across the U.S.A, we did “dog and pony” shows of our new TygaBox System to any company that would listen. We’d spend two weeks on the road and then two weeks back at our office, closing deals and setting up appointments for our next road trip. By the end of that year, the TygaBox System was being used by “companies moving” and “moving companies” throughout the United States.
Other companies copied us and brought “knock-offs” to market
As is the case for many successful inventions, other companies that would copy our ”integrated box and dolly” concept soon cropped up, and brought “knock-offs” to market that designed around our patent. First one, then another. But even when we see competitive products in the market today – and sometimes bristle — we also feel gratified that our original concept was good enough to be copied and TygaBox remains the absolute safest, most cost-effective moving system available nationwide.
And we are awed by the realization of the power of a “napkin-sketch idea”, unsuspectingly born from a “Latina rant”, to invent a solution to a problem which has been “hiding in plain sight” for decades, and how that realization transformed both our lives and the way that office moving is done throughout America.
Sometimes, we like to think that, perhaps, somewhere, we have seen a tree that wouldn’t be there if not for TygaBox.
Since inception, we have generated 1,000,000,000 TygaBox reuses, reduced Carbon Footprint by 150,000 tons, eliminated 400,000 tons of cardboard from clogging landfills and saved 20,000,00 million trees from being destroyed. Those 20,000,000 trees provide the air supply to 40,000,000 million adult Americans every year.
Breathe Easy – Put a Tyga on Your Team!!
Nadine Cino & Marty Spindel
Partners In Life, Love & Story”