Independent Inventors Have Changed Our World

If I explained to you some of the product and invention ideas I've run across in the last year, I'm guessing your reactions to the overwhelming majority of them would be "who would want that?" or "good luck making that."  I have had to train myself to refrain from the impulse judgments that run through my mind when people begin explaining their ideas, because the reality is that it's extremely difficult to predict what is going to do well and why.  We never turn away a project just because we personally don't think it will find a market. 

To emphasize the point, I ran across a list put together by Inventors Digest which lists 264 products created by university or independent inventors.  I've listed a few I found interesting.  Im sure the creators of the following products met considerable resistance when developing these items.

• Airbag (Allen Breed)
  • Can you imagine trying to explain this product?  "So let me get this straight, when your car crashes, a bag blows up in your face...?"

• Apple computer (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak)
  • It's well known that IBM and the Digital Equipment Corporation (the 2nd largest computer manufacturer in the 1980s) missed the boat on this one. In 1977, Ken Olsen, Founder and CEO of the Digital Equipment Corporation, said "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home". 

• Dishwasher (Josephine Garis Cochraine)
  • Thanks Josephine.

• Hula Hoop (Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin, founders of the Wham-O Company)
  • Who knew that gyrating at the waist, alone with your clothes on, could be that much fun?

• Jell-O® (Peter Cooper)
  • If I wasn't told what this was and walked in a room and saw this on the table, eating it would be the last thing on my mind.  Now, I think of Bill Cosby.

• Parking meter (Carlton Magee)
  • This might be one product that if Carlton Magee came to me and asked me to work on, I might have to say "no".

• Safety pin (Walter Hunt)
  • Such a simple and small idea, and ubiquitous in our society.

• Snowboard (Tim Sims)
  • When these guys developed this product, not many people thought an alternative to skiing was necessary or that this one in particular would be it, if there should be an alternative (some still believe this).  In 2004, the National Sporting Goods Association reported that their are 6.6 million snowboarders.  I am one of them.

• Water Skis (Ralph Samuelson)
  • I couldn't find whether the water version or the snow version was invented first.  Either way, one was a derivative application of skis to a new medium.  Placing ideas or products into new contexts can open up a wealth of opportunities.

• World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee)
  • I didn't know a single person was credited with this.  Along with computers, I believe the societal impact will someday rank up there with the wheel and writing. 

Believe in your idea or product as long as you feel is necessary.

Beware the Scams and Dirty Tricks

I always appreciate when other experienced practitioners offer up their wisdom and warnings about the risks of operating overseas.  ChinaLawBlog offers some input on Avoiding the China Buyer Scam.  I hear far too many sob stories from small businesses who threw away money, ideas, and time because they got scammed or chose a poor partner to do business with.

Check out a few warning signs by Dan Harris of ChinaLawBlog.  If these red flags come up when looking for a sourcing partner overseas, become more skeptical and keep investigating.

• Company is just a few months old
• Company is ready to spend several million dollars
• Company has no trade references
• Company is good on technical questions, but lacks market knowledge
• Company is in an odd location
• Company's business scope does not match the current deal
• Company has no website or has a suspicious one
• Company has no online listings promoting its sales
• When you Google the company, questions from other potential suppliers appear on BBs.

 A few examples of what can happen in overseas sourcing:

• After months of product development, sourcing, production, and shipping, a small business owner received his first large shipment of product only to find that when the supplier ran out of the color red for a major piece in the middle of an order, they simply continued on in orange.  No...the order from their customer did not specify half the pieces in orange.  Tough break.

• Many inventors who have tried to go direct through a trading website get a fair way down the pipe with a vendor.  They find a vendor who responds to them in English and tells them they can positively make their product.  The inventor puts down money for tooling.  But, when the tools are finished, all of sudden the minimum order quantity that was agreed upon early on is not sufficient, and the supplier says they will not continue unless the inventor puts up more money for a larger order.  Then, the angry inventor tries to regain their tooling from the manufacturer, and good luck on that.  Or, the supplier delays shipment until the buyer is in a crunch, and then increases the price when the pressure is on.

For those going it alone, be careful and please do your due diligence.

   

Material Changes and Tooling

Who likes chemistry?  Did your hand shoot up?  Mine didn't.  Except when people throw away lots of money on manufacturing because no one bothered to explain to them that when it comes to your materials and tooling, generally speaking, there's no going back!  You've got to nail down your product's materials before you tool for injection molding.  (Check out this Wikipedia article for a great description of injection molding and tooling)  You might be able to haggle with your manufacturer, but there's no haggling with mother nature.  The size of the cavities in your molds, where the molten plastic is injected into to form the shape of your product parts, depends on the cooling rate of the material.  As the material cools, it expands into the cavity.  The mold is built to account for that.  Trying to change to a material with a different cooling rate just isn't going to work.

On certain projects, we like to ask a lot of questions in regards to materials.  Usually, we're trying to reduce costs for clients by throwing out suitable alternatives.  We want to understand what qualities they like about the materials they want.  If there's a cheaper option that accomplishes the same goals--your company Christmas party might be a little bit nicer this year (we're accepting invitations). 

Occasionally, we'll get design packages from U.S. designers that call for very expensive materials to be used in products that are meant to retail at a competitive low price.  The designer was undoubtedly trying to design the best product for their client--materials included.  But this can be expensive when you go to mass production--yes, even overseas!  If you're going to have parts that are injection molded (which a vast amount of products taken to market do), you have to be certain about the materials you want before you build the tooling.

My high school chem. teacher would be proud of me for this post.

Products That Went Astray and Products That Saved The Day

Steven Blank is a retired entrepreneur, and teaches both Entrepreneurship and Customer Development at Berkeley’s Haas Business School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Engineering.  He has been involved in 8 startups over the course of his career.  His book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Succesful Strategies for Products that Win"  is a great presentation about rethinking the product development process and is certainly worth checking out if you are looking to fall in the second group presented here, rather than the first.  Consider the following products:

Segway:  Thought their market was everyone in the world who walked and confused world class public relations with customers with checkbooks.  Still searching for their real markets.  Cost to date: $200 Million

Apple’s Newton:  They were right about the Personal Digital Assistant market but five years too soon.  Yet they spent like they were in an existing market.  Cost: $100 Million

Sony’s MiniDisc players:  A smaller version of the CD wildly popular in Japan.  The US isn’t Japan.  Cost to date: $500 million after 10 years of marketing.

R.J. Reynolds’ Premier and Eclipse smokeless cigarettes:  Understood what the general public (nonsmokers) wanted, but did not understand that their customers didn’t care.  Cost:  $450 Million

Motorola’s Iridium satellite-based phone system:  Engineering triumph and built to support a customer base of millions.  No one asked the customer if they wanted it.  Cost:  $5 Billion.  Yes, billion.  Satellites are awfully expensive.

And, there are many more in the Products that never were column…

A few in the Winners’ Column:

Proctor & Gamble’s Swiffer:  A swiveling, disposable mop-on-a-stick.  Sophisticated planning and consumer research have resulted in a $2.1 billion market in 2003 that could double by 2008.

Toyota’s Prius:  They’ve found a profitable niche for their electric hybrid car.  As a classic disruptive innovation, sales will grow and Toyota will continue to eat the existing US car companies for lunch.  In its first five years, sales grew to $5 billion.  By 2015, hybrids could make up 35% of the US car market.

General Mills’ Yoplait Gogurt:  Yogurt in a tube.  The goal was to keep their yogurt consumer base of toddlers and little kids for as long as possible.  Research led to the tube packaging, making yogurt easier to consume on the go. 

Google's Patent Search

Google's ever-expanding wings brings us their patent search engine, making an initial patent search a few clicks away.  For those who are the kind to sprout forth new ideas with every new activity, challenge, or chore, and also have internet access via a cell phone, you can now run a few quick, initial patent searches to see if anything like your idea is already patented.

No, Really! Cross Cultural Communication is Important

There are several 'hurdles' one will face when building and operating an overseas sourcing strategy.  One of the most formidable challenges that lies at the crux of many other issues, which I believe requires more people to stop and think a bit, is cross-cultural communication. 

Unfortunately, "cross-cultural communication" is also somewhat of a buzzword that Americans have been inundated with since who knows when, and by now, it's something that sounds like a 'wouldn't-that-be-nice-and-fluffy-kind-of-concept'.  To me, it's not something that you really ever get past (unless, perhaps, you've lived in another culture for decades).  It's something that you are constantly working through.  Just last night, on the phone with an HP phone technician located in India, I caught myself interpreting a statement incorrectly.  I performed an operation on the computer as dictated by the technician.  Then, I asked him to repeat his next statement because I thought he was implying that I had lied about performing the previous directive in the amount of time I did it.  Then I turned my brain back on and realized there was no reason for this guy to imply that--just a communication mixup. 

Anywho, I often run into people who have tried to communicate directly overseas and grossly underestimate the importance of effective cross-cultural communication.  If I had a dollar for everytime I heard "They said everything was fine and there'd be no problems, but...", or , "she shook her head and nodded to my question, so I assumed...".  One of the problems with the many trading web sites and portals out there is that people believe that just because they can now search and email someone in another country who claims they can produce something, there isn't much more to it.

A recent study by Accenture found that a lack of cross-cultural understanding is hindering effective global sourcing.  Based on a survey of 200 U.S. business executives:

• 66% of the respondents had experienced miscommunication issues with their global sourcing partners
• Offering cross-cultural training to their employees reduced the number of instances of miscommunications
• Executives believe adopting cross-cultural communication training programs can increase productivity by 26 percent, on average.

Main factors causing problems between onshore and offshore workers are:

• Different communications styles (76 percent)
• Different approaches to completing tasks (53 percent)
• Different attitudes toward conflict (44 percent)
• Different decision-making styles (44 percent).

I wouldn't be surprised if more than 66% experienced miscommunication issues.  The nuances and subtleties of understanding words, body language, behaviors, and more, are numerous and challenging.   Throw in the factors of working by phone (cannot see a person's body language) or email (cannot see or hear someone) on top of the cross-cultural factor, and you have many chances for something to be misunderstood.  For those embarking, or already working with overseas sourcing partners, it might be worth stopping and taking a second to educate yourself a little more about what might come up with a given culture.  You will probably find very boilerplate resources on the net or in books that will help, but will only go so far.  It's probably better to try and find someone who has been operating in that country for a long time and can share some personal stories and insights.  You might not care to try and fully wrap your mind around the intricacies, but there are things to take heed of that could impact your business. 

EdgeCraft: Take Brainstorming to New...Edges

Seth Godin writes one of the most consistently insightful blogs on marketing and the way ideas spread.  I am continually impressed by his ability to take my thinking in new directions.  An excerpt from his book, "Free Prize Inside" was published on Fast Company's website. 

In it, he describes a process called "EdgeCraft", a method of overcoming brainstorming sessions which yield little.  The process involves taking your product through small innovations to the edges of what exists out in the marketplace. 

The free prize is the element that transcends the utility of the original idea and adds a special, unique element worthy of more money and notice.

The way to find these ideas is what I call "edgecraft." It is a methodical, measurable process that allows individuals and teams to identify inexorably the soft innovations that live on the edges. It can be done quickly or over long periods of time. And you can even do it by yourself (I do my edgecraft in the shower. It has the added benefit of dramatically increasing personal hygiene).

Edgecraft is a straightforward process:

1. Find an edge--a free prize that has been shown to make a product or service (in someone else's industry) remarkable.
2. Go all the way to that edge--as far from the center as the consumers you are trying to reach dare you to go.

Moving a little is expensive and useless. Moving a lot is actually cheaper in the long run and loaded with wonderful possibilities. It's easy (but pointless) to open your store another 30 minutes a day. It's more difficult (but possibly a fantastic strategy) to open your store 24 hours a day. Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.

Brainstorming might create the occasional breakthrough, but edgecraft can inexpensively and quickly churn out lots of ideas--good ideas and sometimes great ideas. Ideas you can rapidly implement. If people aren't blown away, they won't talk about it. If they don't talk about it, then it doesn't spread fast enough to help you grow.

There are hundreds of available edges--things you can add to, subtract from, or do to your product or service.

I found this approach to be a wonderful break from the traditional product development step of "brainstorming" ideas.  Typically, analyses of possible product features consist of small feature developments in different directions.  This is very common with an inventor or small company building a business off of one product, as they want their 'product benefits' list to be as long as possible.  I've witnessed companies try to add features to their products with the hope that the product will serve a different, useful purpose after it breaks.  While this is interesting from a recycling perspective, if it's not the top one or two selling points of your product, it will probably only serve to detract from the top selling points.  Why not make a more lasting impression by taking the top 1 or 2 selling points all the way to edge with the hopes of giving people something that truly stands out?

Engineers in China: Reality vs. Sensationalism

Despite my experiences overseas, I have fallen prey to China-mania factoids on occasion.  I thought the media had moved on from the competition issues between Chinese and US engineers, but I still hear questions and comments whenever China comes up in conversation and continue to explain that

1. the swelling stats of new Chinese engineers are misleading
2. foreign companies operating in China are likely to have very different experiences depending on a number of factors, R&D included. 

China Law Blog wrote a post about an article published in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled "Innovation, China Style".  The author, Thomas Hout of Boston Consulting Group's HK office, writes about the challenges China faces in trying to build an innovation economy based on world-class R&D.  It's nice to see the mainstream media work to rein in a big, China-mania factoid that has been haunting policymakers, businesses, engineers, and your average American (maybe this last one is too optimistic) for the last few years.  It has been reported by both Chinese and US organizations that anywhere from 250,000 to 600,000 engineers are graduating from China’s universities per year.  This number compares to our graduation of approximately 70,000 to 130,000 per year.  Business publications, newspapers, and books have highlighted this six-digit number repeatedly for several years as evidence of China’s emerging capabilities and imminent surge onto the world stage as a leading engineering and R&D resource.

As usual, there is more to the story behind the stats of new engineers in China.  A few observations:

• the grand sum of 250,000+ graduates accounts for engineers of all kinds—civil, software, mechanical, electrical, and so on.  Many of them are civil and mechanical engineers who will spend a great deal of time in China’s interior and western regions building infrastructure. 

• Although multinational corporations have been able to attract and retain the best in a one billion population—making for world-class talent, in my experience, the same cannot be assumed of the vast majority of Chinese firms.  From a ground level perspective, I've witnessed many Chinese firms hurting from an inability to find and keep good engineering talent.

• I am not alone.  I recently listened to a panel of speakers at the Asia America Multi-Technology Association's China Connect Conference, and listened to similar human resources woes of middle-sized US firms setting up shop and operating in China.

One particular example that comes to mind is my experience with a trade company in Shenzhen this year.  The company spent months advertising for new engineers with no results.  They had serious difficulties finding solid engineers, and had even more difficulty keeping them in the organization for an extended period of time.  The engineers we did work with were typically young and were often lured away by other companies offering more 'lucrative' opportunities.  Some projects proceeded smoothly.  With others, it seemed that progress was impossible without routine supervision.  We might spend three hours in one sitting, communicating the details of a project, after which we felt confident about the progress that should result.  Upon following up the next day, we'd find our project stood in line behind three others.  In the end, we found that it was very difficult to predict how quickly progress on a given project could be made, particularly if we weren't there in person to prod people along.  Having this kind of transparency into a company's HR situation is very helpful in situations like this, because we can always pull and go to another vendor if we know what we're up against beforehand.  But it's also very time intensive for the already-stretched smaller organization.

The simple fact is that even though hundreds of thousands of engineers are graduating every year, attracting and retaining solid engineering talent somehow continues to be a challenge for many US and Chinese firms in China.  This reality-check isn’t meant to dissuade you from enlisting the help of Chinese engineers, as the benefits of working with the right organizations that manage to keep a sufficient number of qualified engineers in their ranks are many.  Instead, this sobering dose of reality is meant to illuminate and pull back into focus some of the fear, protectionism, and irrational exuberance that big, hairy, six-digit numbers can evoke.  Smaller companies are advised to get a handle on the engineering department of their overseas partners.  And, if you’re an engineer in the U.S. and you’re worried, don’t be too alarmed by all the hype.  Do continue your education, job responsibilities, and growing sense of innovation.