From Soggy Cereal to Patented Invention One Father’s Journey to Solve an Everyday Problem
Frank Giles never set out to become an inventor. But when a phone call ruined a perfectly good bowl of cereal, something clicked.
A Savannah native and proud graduate of Fort Valley State University, Giles built a twenty-year career in the parking and mobility industry, rising to Regional Director for a major parking company managing operations for clients including AT&T and Coca-Cola across Georgia and Alabama. He oversaw valet operations, shuttle services, and facilities management for Class A buildings throughout the region.
After a layoff in early 2026, Giles shifted his focus to what had been a side venture: Giles Innovations LLC, the company behind his patented product, the Cereal Sipper—a handheld device that keeps milk and cereal separate until the moment you eat, eliminating the soggy cereal problem once and for all.
Giles lives in Conyers, Georgia, with his wife Deidre. Their daughter is a senior at Florida A&M University, and their son recently graduated high school. The Cereal Sipper, Giles says, is as much a legacy for them as it is a business.
A Bowl of Cereal and a Phone Call
The origin story of the Cereal Sipper is refreshingly ordinary, which is exactly the point.
“I prepared a bowl of cereal, and the phone rang,” Giles recalls. “When I got off the phone, my cereal was soggy. I had to throw it out pretty much a fresh bowl of cereal I couldn’t use anymore.”
He’d always had an inventive mind, jotting down ideas in a notebook “just for fun” without any intention of following through. But this time, the idea stuck.
“I thought there should be a solution for that. It’s a shame that once you fix a bowl of cereal, you’ve got to eat it now and even then, by the time you get to the last parts, it’s still going to be soggy.”
He remembered his college days at Fort Valley State, eating cereal while playing video games around the fraternity house. The problem was universal: you set the bowl down, you pick it back up, and everything’s mush.
“I thought of a device you could hold in one hand that would keep the milk and cereal separate, so the cereal never goes soggy and when you eat it, they combine.”
From Play-Doh to Patent
Giles drew a rough sketch. The next day, the idea was still nagging at him.
“I went out and bought a pack of Play-Doh one of those four-packs,” he says with a laugh. “Gave two to the kids, took the other two, and crudely molded what I thought the components would be. That was my first prototype.”
He still has it somewhere in storage.
When he brought the concept to his wife Deidre, she didn’t hesitate.
“She said, ‘Do it.’ And I’m explaining to her how these things take all this money, you need backing from a millionaire just to get stuff to market. None of that fazed her. She just said, ‘Do it.'”
So he did piece by piece, out of pocket, with no investors or big backing.
The trademark process hit an early snag when the patent office flagged “Cereal Sipper” as too descriptive. Giles disagreed, hired a lawyer, and successfully appealed.
“And believe it or not,” he says, “that was the easy part.”
The Long Road to Patent
The patent process proved far more challenging. First came the preliminary patent application, which allowed Giles to label the product “patent pending” while he developed the actual device. That meant hiring an engineer to create technical drawings and functional prototypes.
“You describe it to them, you have meetings, they mock it up, send you a prototype. The first one’s not going to look anything like what you think. It’s not going to work right. So you critique it, send it back. This back and forth happens until you get something usable.”
The process took about a year. Then came the actual patent application.
“It’s something you can do as an individual you don’t need a lawyer,” Giles explains. “But it’s so convoluted. The patent office website is difficult to navigate. They make it so tough for an average person.”
He tried on his own, hit walls, and eventually returned to his lawyer.
“End of the day, it finally happened. We secured the patent.”
When the official package arrived a booklet with a certificate and technical sketches Giles felt the weight of the accomplishment.
“That day, getting that package… to me, that was the accomplishment. It would be great to sell a few million, but that was what I wanted to do to actually create something, get a patent, and bring it to market.” Manufacturing Across the Pacific
Like most small inventors, Giles discovered that domestic manufacturing wasn’t feasible for his production volume.
“You can’t produce in the United States unless you’re producing hundreds of thousands of units,” he says. “If you’re anything smaller, the only economical way is to go to China.”
Through a business consultant who helped inventors navigate the process, Giles connected with a Chinese manufacturer. The minimum order was 2,000 units—reasonable compared to the 100,000-unit minimums typical of American factories.
But first, he had to pay for a custom mold. Then colors, packaging, and per-unit costs. Then shipping, tariffs, and waiting.
“I think it was about four or five weeks after they got started,” he recalls. “We were coming up on Chinese New Year at the time apparently everything stops for like a month. But once they got going, it wasn’t bad.”
The first iteration worked but had usability issues. Giles went back to the drawing board.
“The mouthpiece was widened so the cereal flows out better. The shape was redesigned so the lid wasn’t confusing. We added a fill line marker, changed from a slide cover to a click cover, added an air hole.”
The second iteration the Cereal Sipper 2.0 is now available in three color schemes and represents the refined vision Giles had from the beginning.
“Going through the process that second time was easier,” he notes. “The more you do it, the more you know what to avoid.”
The Marketing Puzzle
With product in hand, Giles turned to marketing a challenge that continues to evolve.
“We do a lot of social media marketing Facebook ads, Instagram. We have the website. We’re also on Amazon,” he says. “Most traction we get is from Thanksgiving to Christmas.”
The economics of Amazon advertising proved frustrating. Between platform fees and advertising costs, margins nearly disappeared.
“You’re really not making a whole lot. It’s more like brand awareness.”
He’s also noticed a peculiar consumer behavior: shoppers see his Facebook ads, visit the Cereal Sipper website, then leave without purchasing—only to buy the product on Amazon at a higher price.
“They trust Amazon. They know they can return it if they want. Their credit card’s already in there. It’s one click,” Giles observes. “So they spend the extra money instead of using the website.”
It’s a buying psychology puzzle he hasn’t fully solved but he’s learned to accept it.
The Inventor’s Mindset
When asked about his goals, Giles returns to the accomplishment that started it all.
“I am ecstatic that I created something,” he says. “Something that actually has a patent, that’s not just on paper. People have it in their homes. As a kid, if you told me I’d do that—I mean, I’m technically documented as being an inventor. And my kids can say that.”
He has more ideas waiting in the wings: another cereal-related product, a food innovation in a different category, even a bedside gun holster concept that came to him recently.
“Knowing how much it takes to bring one thing to market, I’m that much wiser now,” he says. “If the company could branch out, get some other products on the line, bring in some other minds and ideas that would be great.” What’s Next
Friends and family have encouraged Giles to apply for Shark Tank, now filming in Georgia.
“People have been saying it. I’ve never even tried,” he admits. “It’s one of those things that seems like a leap kind of surreal.”
But the exposure alone investment or not could provide the brand awareness the Cereal Sipper needs to reach a wider audience.
For now, Giles continues building the business piece by piece, the same way he started: out of pocket, with his wife’s unwavering support, and with the satisfaction of knowing he solved a problem millions of people experience but never thought to fix.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” he reflects. “It just has to address the problem. Look at the guy who invented the paper clip millions and millions. So it just has to work.”
Frank Giles is the founder of Giles Innovations LLC and inventor of the Cereal Sipper. Learn more at www.thecerealsipper.com.
