Nottingham Spirk originally approached the CEO of Sherwin-Williams with a paint packaging innovation for the growing Do-It-Yourself market. Concepts behind paint containers had gone nowhere for at least 100 years. This left the space ripe for disruptive innovation.

Our thought was straightforward. What if we reinvented the paint can? After all, there had to be a better way. The current metal can needed more tools to open and close than it took to paint a wall itself. Wasn't that a problem? What it really turned out to be was an opportunity. That was the challenge that Sherwin-Williams and NS would take on that resulted in the award-winning Twist & Pour Paint Container.

“We introduced to him to the idea of reinventing the paint can,” John Nottingham says. “We wanted to approach him because it could be something he could bring to the company. He believed in us, supported us and our collaboration ended up with a transformative innovation for paint packaging. Over the years the Twist & Pour System has been granted 23 patents and Sherwin-Williams has grown to become the world’s largest paint company. We feel like this innovation has been one of the sparks that ignited the torch to help the company with its meteoric growth.”