NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business Magazine) - Some researchers devote their lives to, say, curing the common cold or predicting earthquakes. St. Paul toy designer Tim Kehoe spent 11 years on a more esoteric riddle: How do you make colored soap bubbles that don't stain when they pop?

After surviving mishaps such as staining a potential customer's floor while demonstrating an early prototype, Kehoe recently signed a deal with a Toronto toy company to manufacture, distribute, and market his Zubbles worldwide. Kehoe's firm, Ascadia, has raised almost $2 million for the project, and its future possibilities include everything from colored floor soap that shows where you've cleaned to a toothpaste that stains kids' teeth blue and disappears when they brush--that is, unless they're too busy admiring their blue teeth.

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