A few years ago, Walter Berry got a shock when he opened the water bill for his small vacation home in Arizona. No one had used the home for months—but the bill was more than $500!

Berry, being very environmentally conscientious, undertook a serious investigation. Turns out, because the toilet had not been flushed for a long time, the rubber flapper that holds water in the tank had deteriorated, hardened and cracked, allowing a silent, constant flow of water right out of the tank and down the sewer.

He also discovered that this was a lot more common than one might expect: toilets are responsible for nearly 85 percent of water leakage in residential plumbing systems. Flappers are easily degraded by toilet cleaning materials, and if a low-flow toilet flapper is replaced by a generic after-market flapper, the toilet ceases to be low-flow. The EPA estimates a silent leak in a toilet can waste 500 gallons of water a day and cost $1000 a year.

With the Census Bureau estimating more than 222 million toilets in residential homes, one study estimates more than 11 million gallons of water a day are being wasted through toilet leaks each day. That is equivalent to the volume of water rushing over Niagara Falls in 2.2 hours.

Berry, a born innovator and serial entrepreneur, saw an enormous opportunity he couldn't resist. He'd started half a dozen successful businesses over his long career so he had the required self-confidence. But this challenge was a little different from finding innovative ways to offer commercial insurance. Berry knew he would need some skilled assistance to tackle a problem like this.

That's when he heard about MAGNET and the Cuyahoga County New Product Development Loan Fund. Berry submitted a proposal and quickly won funding that allowed him to bring his raw idea to MAGNET's crack engineering team.