This humble object will never make it into the MoMA, but it does solve one of life's minor annoyances. That annoyance is when you're washing bedsheets, and they tightly spiral into a rope inside the machine (occasionally trapping other clothes inside), or a wadded ball that occasionally unbalances the machine and causes it to pause. Both must be unfurled before they can be dried.

Minor as it is, several years ago this annoyance prompted Denver-based Cyndi Bray to devise this doo-hickey that keeps the corners together, preventing wadding.

Apparently by effectively shortening the overall dimensions of the sheet, it also prevents the rope thing from happening, and keeps the sheet loose enough that other clothes don't get trapped inside. Here's how it works:

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Bray, who holds an MBA, wisely assumed there was a market for it and managed to get the Wad-Free, as she named it, into production. It was already for sale in Walmart and Amazon by the time she went on "Shark Tank" a couple years ago to secure additional funding. Since then Bray has reportedly cleared over half a million in sales and has a healthy 38% profit margin.

You may not have an MBA, but a fair amount of you reading this have degrees in ID. So here's a reminder that if you can use your skills to solve a small, humble problem that lots of people experience, there might not be much glory in it, but there's a pathway to success like Bray's.