The year was 1990, and Dave Samuel had just graduated from high school. His graduation present was a trip with his father to any city in the world, and Dave chose Tokyo. The two Samuel men took off for Japan that summer, and spent their time exploring the magic that is Tokyo – including its futuristic technology and haute cuisine. On the last night of their trip, Dave excused himself from the table at one of Tokyo’s finest restaurants and made his way to the restroom. Inside he found what looked like a toilet crossed with a computer... it lit up and beeped and had buttons all over it. Being a “techie,” (he was headed to MIT in the fall), Dave immediately started trying to figure out how the thing worked... the only problem was that he couldn’t read Japanese. His inability to read what the buttons said, combined with an inability to satisfy his technological curiosity, resulted in him soaking the front of his dress pants with a toilet seat bidet. On the way back to the table he had a soaking wet crotch, a bright red face... and an idea. Over the next few years, Dave and his pal Scott Pinizotto (who lived in Tokyo, coincidentally enough) did a ton of market research. It turned out that electronic bidet toilet seats had a huge market presence in Japan – almost every business had one, and nearly as many households did, too. But a bidet was a totally foreign concept to Americans. Americans had long followed Japanese tech trends, however, and Dave and Scott banked on them continuing to do so. Their main goal became to combine the cutting-edge technology with a sleek design that would complement any bathroom and be easy for the customer to install. With this goal, they set up shop in Scott’s San Francisco apartment, found a manufacturer that would make bidet seats to their exacting specifications, and in 2003 Brondell Inc. was formed. After running into Mark Cuban at a party and pitching him on Brondell’s vision, Dave secured the investment that would put the company on the map. Brondell Inc. is now headquartered at 1159 Howard Street in San Francisco, and has enjoyed a steady growth each year. Our goal has stayed the same: to continue as a developer of innovative, high-quality, healthy home products dedicated to improving daily living one room at a time.