The best products often solve a problem the founder has personally become sufficiently irritated by.

There’s a saying that the best products solve a problem.

I’d add something: the best products often solve a problem the founder has personally become sufficiently irritated by.

This race takes me back to a very different stage of my life.

I came to athletics relatively late and was trying to compete seriously while managing an existing business and developing what would eventually become ShakeSphere in the background.

It was relentless. I’d travel around Europe racing alongside training partners earning considerably more prize money than me. They were thinking about the next race. I was thinking about the next race, the next invoice, and whether the last prize cheque had covered the flight.

But those years gave me something more valuable than prize money: a genuine problem worth solving.

Like most athletes, I carried protein powder everywhere. After racing or training, we needed nutrition quickly before travelling to the next meeting or preparing to go again.

The shaker bottles were terrible.

Powder stuck in the corners. Old protein made them stink. Cleaning them properly was a chore. And flip caps had an unfortunate habit of opening inside kit bags.

Nothing improves pre-race preparation quite like discovering your sprint spikes marinating in chocolate protein.

I kept thinking:

Why does a shaker need corners in the first place?

Fortunately, I had an unusual advantage. I’d completed a four-year degree in product design and spent a year designing for a leading design firm in Milan.

So I wasn’t just an irritated athlete with wet spikes. I was an irritated athlete with wet spikes who knew how to design products.

I knew I could solve it.

Rather than adding another mixing ball, mesh or gadget, I went back to first principles.

If powder gets trapped in corners, remove the corners.

That thinking became ShakeSphere's capsule shape — designed to mix without a ball or mesh, while being easier to clean.

I secured our first patent in 2014. Since then, we’ve built a substantial global patent portfolio, notably protecting the capsule-shaped mixing technology at the heart of ShakeSphere.

Building a company while competing seriously hasn't been easy. But entrepreneurship and athletics have more in common than you might think: consistency, resilience and a willingness to keep working when the immediate results don't justify the effort.

Looking back, I probably wouldn't have one without the other.

Athletics exposed the problem.
Design gave me the ability to rethink it.
Entrepreneurship gave me the opportunity to build it.

And years of hard work turned an idea into ShakeSphere.

Innovation doesn't always start with “What can we invent?”

Sometimes the better question is:

“What problem has everyone simply become accustomed to putting up with?”

Then do the work to solve it.