CEO of First Aid Vending Machine Startup Is So Young He Can’t Even Drive Yet

File this under “it’s never too early” or, better yet, “there’s no such thing as a final version” of an idea. Opelika High School freshman Taylor Rosenthal just invented something that’s been done countless times before, but he’s doing it in a way that garnered him a $30 million dollar buyout offer.

Age-old Problem

How many times have you or your kids been out at the park or ball field? Someone gets a minor injury, but nobody thought to bring a bandage or any first aid. Taylor saw the problem over and over again, so he invented something that really should have already been invented — but nobody thought of yet — a vending machine for first aid supplies. Taylor’s company, Alabama based RecMed, is a hit, solving a common problem Taylor experienced first hand.

In an interview with Fox Business, Rosenthal said, “I played baseball for 10 years now and every time a kid got hurt at a travel ball tournament or something, nobody could find a Band-Aid, and I kind of wanted to come up with something to help that.”

Innovative Solution to a Timeless Problem

It’s a simple idea, but brilliant in its simplicity. So far, Rosenthal has brought in $100,000 in investments, and he recently said no to a $30 million buyout offer. Taylor said, “no,” opting instead to take some time to develop the offer and grow the company, hoping it would be worth more soon.

Scale for Success

Taylor has a successful idea, but his hurdle now will be scalability. Can he get into enough parks and ball fields to saturate the market before a copycat horns in on his idea? Superior brand recognition will help. RecMed — a combination of recreation and medicine — is a good name. Easy to remember and it should play well on TV, but will that be enough to help Taylor make his market play before he sells the idea to a company with deeper pockets and wider reach?

Time will tell, but at this point, it looks like the baseball playing inventor just hit one out of the park.

David Milberg is a real estate expert in NYC.