Today we’d like to introduce you to Ruth Young-Loaeza.
Hi Ruth, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
It is hard to pinpoint a specific time, everything has been slowly happening without me even noticing where I was heading to. But I’ll start from what I think is the beginning. In 1996, after leaving an extreme domestic violence relationship; I settled with my 3 beautiful children in a little apartment after hiding for 3 months in a shelter for abused women, shortly after I started cleaning houses, that was the beginning of my journey as a single mom.
Throughout the years working as a housekeeper, I kept identifying many household products that needed to be improve (at least in my opinion many were obsolete).
As a single mom, I couldn’t afford to pay for things to get fix or replace, so in most cases, I’ll try to fix them myself. I even did that at many of my client’s homes! That’s why many times I would do some need it upgrading on some household stuff.
Fastforward, I remember in 2004 I made my first attempt to bring one of my ideas to market by calling one of those late commercials that started with: “inventors IF you have an idea”… I do not regret doing it, but definitely I would do it differently today. I ended up losing the rights by “abandoning” my idea… the truth is that I didn’t have the money that this company was asking me for.
Nevertheless, I should mention that the upgraded cleaning brush idea I submitted was in the market not too long after I presented it to that company (coincidence? I will never know!).
About two years after in 2006, I married my now-husband, I kind of put aside my creative talents to focus in other important things happening in my life at the time, and it was like that for about six years.
One beautiful sunny day I was giving a ride to one of my young adult children to school, but the unexpected happened.
We were at a complete stop waiting for the light to turn green when this car impacted us from the back, smashing us with the truck in front of us. I’ll spare you the details but long story short I chose to do physical therapy instead of having back surgery.
We lost my income, and since my husband had to assist me while recuperating, this put a lot stress on him and eventually he lost his job too resulting on us becoming homeless after exhausting our savings.
It was during this time of homelessness that I continued recuperating, but since I am by nature a very active person, I need it to keep myself sane and busy, so I started creating drawings of ideas (to me this was just a distraction). Later on, I started to do very simple paper prototypes.
It was three long years of homelessness, and in the last year of it I was already working back cleaning houses, and my husband went back to continued his studies at SDSU and he also went back to working.
Shortly after we moved into a little beautiful house where the garage became my escape room from the stress of daily life.
Around that time, one of my husband’s classes offered extra credit by submitting an idea (he was studying Electrical Engineering). I remember he asked me late at night if I had any of my ideas or inventions that I could share with him and he asked if I could do the prototype for him, I was a bit upset because it was late and I had to go clean houses the next morning, but I end up doing the prototype for him that night until early morning.
That morning when he got up, after I showed him the prototype and how it worked, he was relieved that I helped him with that so he could get extra credit in his class.
Later on, when he came back home, he told me that his professor holds 8 patents under his belt and that the professor asked him to consider patenting that idea. Lol!!! I was just happy because to me it was validating the fact that it is something that can definitely be used by many, and I say many households.
If you wonder what it is, it was a telescopic type mechanical fence, of course, I used cardboard, thread, drying sheets to simulate the fence, different straws sizes to create the telescopic effect, and whatever else I need it just to give life to my idea… Oh yeah! he got the extra points and the advice to patent the idea.
A few days after that, another day around 4 am. my husband woke me up complaining about the bed sheet that kept coming off the corner of the mattress, I was so upset because I need it to get up early to go clean houses in the morning.
But the event got me thinking on the fact that I knew exactly how to solve the bedsheet problem and I couldn’t go back to sleep. The next day I went to my friend’s house and she helped me create my first prototype just so I didn’t hear my husband complain about it.
My husband noticed the unique design of the bedsheet, and asked me where I bought it, I responded: “I didn’t buy it, I created it” he picked me up and said: “we are going to be rich” I remember replying; “We” know we speak French? Lol!
I started looking into the intellectual protection of the idea, so we flew to Washington DC to Invention-Con 2017 We actually slept in the rental car because we were still recuperating financially and we were in a tight budget.
Once at the conference, I got invited to an invention competition that was going to take place in the New York area in a few weeks after that conference.
I decided to attend the New York event at the very last minute. My daughter and her now-husband paid for the airplane ticket and the rental car, I flew to NY with only $50 dollars in my pocket and slept in the rental car as well.
When I arrive to the competition, I asked myself: “what the heck am I doing here?” There was a couple of engineers and app developers competing… I didn’t even have a name for the bedsheets, I was embarrassed and I asked the organizers to place me at the end of the presenters (I was participant #7 out of 8 my lucky number since I was little) long story short I won 1st Place for my innovative bed linen design.
Since that event my confidence really got rooted, I learned that day that truly the simples’ ideas can possibly change the world
Little that I know I was onto something that I never thought I was going to be doing and became an inventor.
Eventually, I quit cleaning houses after more that 23 years as a housekeeper, so I could focus and devote my full time to give life to my inventive ideas, and bringing to the market Neet Sheets.
Btw, it was one of the hardest decisions in my life, I didn’t know how I was going to make it financially, so I left it in God’s hands.
Neet Sheets is innovative and patented bed linen that addresses the stressful and difficult task of making the beds.
With Neet Sheets, the bed-making time gets reduce by 50% and mattress lifting by 75%, possibly and potentially reducing workers’ compensation claims in the hospitality industry. This is according to a recent study conducted by Cal State San Marcos University.
The accolades are incredibly unique and too many that I don’t think I can describe each because each one of them are simply a miracle.
As of today, I have two patents granted, one trademark issued, two non-provisional patent filings, and intellectual property protection in other countries.
Also, we are already selling in the hospitality industry. Neet Sheets are in a few hotels in the San Diego area, and in several Airbnb’s in the Silicon Valley Area.
The San Diego Mayor has officially declared it Innovation Day, and there will be a big celebration at Petco Park on February 28th, 2022. We are honored and humbled to share that Neet Sheets have been invited and sponsored to participate at this amazing event.
When I started this journey, I had no clue why I was going through so much struggle, now I know God was answering my prayers.
I constantly asked God: “if we all have gifts, which one is mine?” The problem is that for years I never pay attention to his answer, but during the period of homelessness, I had all the time in the word to hear him speak to me.
Now I know that I can innovate, but now I know that I can help a lot of people too, I mean a lot; How? by decreasing the time and effort that each one of them invest when making the beds, which is one very important aspect in the room, and one that takes to pay attention to detail.
To the dreamers like me out there I say: “Seriously, Do not give up, Si Se Puede”, and I praise my Lord and Savior for allowing to come this far.
-Ruth Young-Loaeza
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not having the financial means to do things in a timelier manner had been at times the key factor to stand still or move along. But I must say that always there is a miracle that makes way to keep things moving forward.
Another challenge was my English, it inhibited me at first not to be so knowledgeable of the business language.
Although my husband only speaks English, I just kept learning the language at my pace. But when I started attending networking events and then having to present or share about my ideas and inventions it wasn’t easy at all.
I can say that I have improve a lot but I’m still working on it.
Another evident challenge is that the opportunities given to women in my field are not the same, even though it is greatly improving in the last years, the reality is that we still have a lot room for improvement in this area.
Now, in my case add to all of that, that English is my second language and my background isn’t what people consider something glamorous, so for the longest I was overlooked, but I didn’t give up, and God had put some amazing people that looked beyond the status quo and looked at my ideas, innovations, or inventions as something worthy of attention, to those a billion thanks for the opportunity, help, and assistance. Neet Sheets wouldn’t be where it is now without you!!!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well, nowadays I am what is considered to be an inventor, for all the qualifications by people in this field. I have granted patents, I have product that it is selling, and I continue innovating and creating new things.
I am focus on improving household products of all kinds. For now, I am 100% focused on Neet Sheets targeting the hospitality industry, but we are starting to look at the retail market and e-commerce, so pretty soon Neet Sheets will be available for other consumer markets.
Well, I’m not sure what exactly to say what I am known for… I keep been told that my resilience and grit is something that has inspire some to not give up (I humbly share), I am happy and blessed to know that I can be of help to others and whatever I’m known for, my goal and desire is that it is for something good.
I am proud to know that I am capable of fulfilling my purpose in life. I am happy and humble to realized my dreams, and to be able to help the many people that works really hard every day… just as I did for half of my life!
I believe my knowledge in this field differentiates me from others (meaning in the linen industry) since I had made the beds more than 22 thousand times.
So, it is safe for me to say that what sets me apart is my experience in this field, I know it extremely well.
What do you think about luck?
I believe that each of us create their own “luck”, many times even when doing the right thing something comes wrong, but the key for me has been not to respond with negativity (trust me I know it’s hard) but by staying focus in my goals is that I continue moving forward.
I try my best constantly to be at the “right place” at the “right time” It never fails! How do I know where is the right place and right time to be? Easy, I don’t stay home and sleep or do nothing when I know I can be at church, or networking event, or in an online class, or a workshop, or anything that can edify and help my growth as a person or as a business woman.
I always tell myself: “Just do it, Life is good!!!” I constantly remind myself that I don’t want to come to the end of my life, look back, and think: “Why did I waste my life?”
So, I rather see if it works, than wonder if!!!
Contact Info:
- Email: ruth.young.loaeza@geniusondevelopment.com —I have a business email, but I rather share this one—
- Website: www.makeitneet.com
- Instagram: NEET_SHEETS
- Facebook: NEET SHEETS
- Other: linktr.ee/RuthYoungLoaeza
