About Us
Our story? It’s a God story— How a carpenter’s prayer for help changed a billion-dollar medical industry.
I’ll never forget the first night my wife tried to sleep with her new CPAP mask…
We didn’t know it then, but that night would change our lives forever. After a few hours, she ripped that thing off and threw it on the floor, in tears! Sound familiar?
Sleep Apnea isn’t an easy diagnosis. In fact, most of us don’t even realize all the ways we took “sleeping” for granted before starting CPAP. And don’t get me wrong, we were grateful for the newfound therapy, but let’s be honest about it—it’s not terribly therapeutic.
Not only that, but the squealing balloon sounds coming from her mask felt like a party clown setting up shop in our bedroom. And so, that initial excitement of finding a cure to her sleep problems quickly began to feel like a curse instead. We felt trapped. And we didn’t know what to do.
For many years previous, I’d heard my wife gasp for air in the night. It was terrifying. When she finally completed her sleep study we were shocked to learn she stopped breathing over 80 times every hour! I didn’t know what to do, but I knew we needed an answer fast!
So we went back to the doctor and I asked him, “Where’s the thing that stops it from leaking?!”
His answer was simple. “We don’t have anything for that.” “You’re kidding me,” I thought— “Nothing!?” And before I really knew what was happening, I just blurted out, “Well, I’m gonna fix it!”
Actually, I had no clue what I was saying. The words just came out of my mouth. It was torturous watching my wife suffer with her mask every night. And I couldn’t bear the thought of her having a stroke or something worse if she couldn’t wear it! But what could I do?
So I did the only thing that felt natural in my time of need— I prayed.
Literally, for the next two weeks I just began to ask God for help. “God help me. Give me an idea to fix this.” Truth be told, I felt like a small fish in a big pond of doctors and engineers. “Who am I?” I thought. “I’m just a carpenter.” But more than that, I was determined to help my wife… And I dared to believe God would help me do it.
And then one night, a simple thought went through my mind: “Cut up your t-shirt and put it on the mask.” … So I did.
When I showed it to my wife, she of course looked at me with tearful eyes of joy for the revelatory nugget of wisdom I was handing her… Well, actually… what she really said was, “Bob, that’ll never work.” She then threw her mask on the floor (again!), rolled over and closed her eyes. It wasn’t glamorous, but that’s the truth!
The next night, I was more persistent— “I really think you should try it!” I said. And eventually, she did… Seven and half hours later, I woke up and realized she hadn’t moved all night! For a moment there, I actually thought she was dead… “DEBBIE!” I shook her in a panic before she jolted awake and blurted, “What is it!? … I was dreaming!”
The next morning she felt like a million bucks. And I did too— It was simply incredible!
For the next 3 weeks we used our make-shift liners and couldn’t believe the difference it made! It felt like we’d been given a second chance at life… Until the chore (and soreness) of cutting out our own “t-shirt liners” set in. We knew we couldn’t keep that up for long, and not only that, we were running out of shirts!
Shortly thereafter, we went back to the sleep doctor for our checkup. He asked Debbie, “So, how’s it going?” To which she replied, “I’m doing great! Bob fixed it!” I kid you not—He just about dropped his clipboard on the floor, looked over at me, and said, “What did you do!?” I said, “I can’t talk about it! I’m getting a patent… I think this could help a lot of people.”
…Now… If I’ve learned anything since that day about how “the experts” tend to think, it’s that—even with all their training and expert knowledge—the simple things seem to confound the wise. Isn’t that a Bible verse? But regardless, that’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way in life. So it’s really no surprise what the patent attorney said when I showed him my cute little invention…
Talking with the patent attorney, he actually told me, “Don’t waste your money, you’ll never get a patent on that.”
That was hard to hear, but it wasn’t my first rodeo. Growing up, my life was full of people telling me I’d never succeed. After a while, I even told it to myself. But I guess you could say, I was finally ready to stop listening to that advice. “Maybe it’s not so dumb after all?” I thought. And with that, we pushed on and my wife even wrote our [first] patent herself! No experience, no idea really what we were doing… just lots of help, faith, sweat and prayers!
Well, we got our patent! Shortly after that, we started calling our new product RemZzzs® CPAP mask liners. Mask liners didn’t even exist then.
And “RemZzzs” had a nice ring to it! We wanted to convey the same experience my wife had that very first night when she hit “REM sleep” and started dreaming again. And just like that, our name and tagline were born—RemZzzs® “Let yourself dream again!™” But for Debbie and I, this wasn’t just about sleep… it was about letting ourselves dare to believe we could actually succeed. Could we dream again for something beyond the difficulties of our situation? Well, the rest as they say, is history… Sort of.
The truth is, building this company has been the hardest thing we’ve ever done— more than anyone could truly imagine! But isn’t that the same in life for anything worth doing? What we’ve discovered on this journey is that new ideas that challenge the status-quo aren’t always welcomed, at least not at first. But that’s another story for another time! It would probably make for a great movie someday… a real-life David & Goliath story! Hollywood, if you’re listening, give us a call.
For everyone else… let yourself dream again tonight for only $1!
Wishing you sweet dreams and success,
Robert Rutan
CEO, Inventor