In June 2008 I took my first prototype of the CardShark, I wrapped duct tape around my regular phone skin. I slid my credit cards into that. The idea had come from when I used to peel down the skin and stick credit cards behind phone, something most folks do still today.

I am a grab and go person, I ride a motorcycle and do not like to carry a “purse”. I hated not having things at my immediately handy so I made this CardShark.

We received patent pending status after a year.

https://usinventor.org/kip-azzoni-doyle/

Let's be real clear: inventing something either comes from being super smart and using your multiple degrees to cure cancer or COVID or some terrible, incurable childhood disease…. Or it comes from being the laziest person on earth. For me, it happened out on the road.

I’m cruising along on my motorcycle when I look down and see that I'm low on fuel. I roll up to the pump at the next station. Sitting there on my bike and tripping on some high-octane gasolina I'm rocked by a thunderous "a-ha"moment. The prospect of having to remove the ignition key, get up off my ass, strip off my gloves and gear, and insert the key into my seat compartment to get out my wallet all so I can swipe my credit card at the pump to get my gas was blowin' my road high and just generally annoying the shit out of me. Why couldn't I just sit, fat-assed, on my bike, keep my gloves 'n gear on, effortlessly retrieve my credit card from my phone case, slide it in at the ol' Texaco, do the zip-code-digit-dance over the keypad, and be done?

It was late fall, 2007. The smartphone wars were just ramping, but users were already stowing credit cards behind phone skins, peeling back the case and tucking them in.

Still, this was an imperfect solution. Why, I thought, couldn't the phone skin have a credit card slot built in?

Remember what I said about multiple degrees? Yeah, that. I hadn't cured cancer, but I had stumbled on the first principle in a good invention: it meets a need you didn't quite realize you had.

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