No Engineering Degree. No Prototype. He Signed Up for CES Anyway | Floyd Freeman
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What does it take to solve a problem that everyone experiences and nobody has fixed?
In this episode of Why Design, Floyd Freeman shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that the most obvious problems are sometimes the hardest to solve not because the technology does not exist, but because no one has connected the pieces. FlushLocks a smart lock and unattended tap payment system for commercial restrooms is the result of one afternoon in Boulder, Colorado, a nappy emergency and a door with a code that said customers only.
Rather than staying in a secure, well-paid career managing 400 people at one of America's most recognisable convenience chains, Floyd walked away to build a hardware product from scratch. No engineering background, no product experience, no prototype when he signed up to exhibit at CES. That decision led to a van journey to Las Vegas, a prototype that arrived three days before the show, and a booth in Eureka Park where strangers kept saying: nobody has thought of that.
This conversation is not about inventing something new. It is about recognising something obvious and refusing to wait for someone else to build it.
It is not about hardware expertise. It is about knowing what you do not know, finding the people who do, and trusting them enough to let them lead where you cannot follow.
It is not about the perfect founding story. It is about making the same decision twenty-five times a week until it sticks.
Don't just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
- 🔒 Why unattended tap payment certification only became legally possible at the end of 2025 - and how FlushLocks was built in almost perfect timing with the infrastructure that makes it work
- 🧾 How Floyd decided to leave a twelve-year career with nothing but an idea on a Word document and a meeting with a patent attorney
- 🛠 Why choosing the right manufacturer is less about technical capability and more about leadership style, pace, and working relationship
- 📍 What it actually costs to build hardware from scratch: not just money, but the trust you place in people you have never worked with before
- 🏪 Why the hardest part of selling a hardware product into restaurants is not the product or the pitch it is finding the person in a 25-location chain who actually makes the decision
- 🧠 How a general manager thinks about building a technical company: learning just enough of each discipline to direct the people who know more
Memorable Quotes
"I would have been happy to just pay for a restroom. I don't need the soda. This was an emergency."
"We asked ourselves twenty five times a week: is this the right thing to do? Can we do this without falling apart?"
"I have no degree in anything I'm doing right now. I am a general manager that's my mindset, that's who I am as a human being."
"I will be the last person to get money. If I have twenty grand, I'm going to make sure five goes to you, five goes to you, five goes to you and then maybe if there's anything left over."
"You can't have lift if you don't invest in the project. The runway is irrelevant if you don't have lift."
Resources & Links
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon -> whydesign.club
👥 Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
📸 Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
🎥 Watch full episodes -> YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
🔗 Follow Chris Whyte -> linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
🔗 Explore FlushLocks -> paidrestrooms.com
🔗 Connect with Floyd Freeman -> floyd@flush-locks.com
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
🔗 Learn more -> teamkodu.com
whydesign.club
whydesign.clubteamkodu.com/whydesign
teamkodu.com@whydesignxkodu
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youtube.comlinkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
linkedin.compaidrestrooms.com
paidrestrooms.comfloyd@flush-locks.com
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- 0:00Introduction
- 0:29Floyd's background: 12 years at Buc-ee's, 400 people, convenience stores since age three
- 1:50The hardest decision he has ever made: leaving a good job for an idea
- 3:53A year into it, and what 'no regrets yet' actually sounds like
- 5:40The Boulder restroom incident: a nappy emergency and a locked door
- 6:53I would have just paid for the restroom' - the founding insight
- 8:21Researching whether it exists - and discovering it really does not
- 10:01Why the payment technology only became certifiable at the end of 2025
- 11:43From idea to patent attorney in three months: the first real decision
- 12:11The original pitch on a Word document, and what the patent attorney said
- 13:41Signing up to CES with no prototype, no manufacturer, nothing
- 14:28How the prototype arrived three days before the show
- 19:36The certification complexity no one warned him about
- 21:30Avid Pro in Loveland: the prototype builders who made it better
- 23:19How to choose between equally good manufacturers
- 25:36Why Floyd's wife was the one who suggested CES
- 26:34Walking into Eureka Park not knowing what he was getting into
- 28:14What they were actually looking for at CES: not sales, partnerships
- 29:39The response in the booth: 'They get it'
- 30:26The toughest critique: Americans might just refuse to pay
- 31:55The pricing question: what is fair value for something that has never had a price?
- 33:11The hardest part of the business right now: finding the actual decision-makers
- 35:25The CES breakfast with Mike from Brooke Stevens and what came out of it
- 41:09Building a team of eight on equity and the trust that requires
- 45:38Bootstrapped so far, angel pre-seed conversations in progress
- 50:52Licensing for international markets: why control is not always the strategy
- 52:40The daily doubt of a founder: have I done enough today?
- 54:12Actions over outcomes: how Floyd thinks about momentum
- 55:38Post-CES momentum and how to rebuild it after the show ends
- 56:31Where to find Floyd and FlushLocks