Radio Stations |
When Seth Berkowitz was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, he started baking cookies for friends out of his dorm. Soon, he noticed a trend: students got hungry late at night and there wasn’t any delivery alternative to greasy and heavy food. Berkowitz wondered, “Why not hot cookies and milk – delivered to your door after midnight?”
When inventor Doug Vick got up in the middle of the night and bumped into the bedpost, he wondered, “How many other people do this every night?”
So he invented high-quality double-lined fleece slippers with a weight sensor in the sole, a light sensor on the side, and an LED light in the toe.
In the latest episode of the Why Didn’t I Think of That? ® Podcast, Bob Smith and Greg Anastos sit down with thinkofthat.net blogger Benjamin Christopher and discuss the first of their Axioms For Entrepreneurs, “Re-think Your Industry.”
The Why Guys explore how companies like Netflix, Apple, Xerox, and General Motors were able to look at their industries, and their companies, in a new light.
Richard James was working at a Philadelphia shipyard and was looking for a way to keep nautical instruments stable in rough seas. That’s when a torsion spring fell off the shelf. Richard watched the spring crawl down shelves, stacks of books and tabletops, and land upright on the floor. Suddenly, he had a great idea…
Why do candles all have such “girly smells,” 14-year-old Hart Main asked his younger sister, who was selling the candles for a school fundraiser. Main thought why not have smells that guys would like, like fresh cut grass, bacon, sawdust and leather. So, with a $100 investment, and his heart set on buying a brand new bike, this young man invented a whole new kind of candle: the ManCan.
What they do:
To stimulate the local economy, Holly and Todd Petitt taught people in African villages in Malawi to design and sew reusable cloth shopping bags for sale in the US.
Inspiration:
A documentary about Malawi’s poverty, disease and disasters inspired the Pettis of Loveland CO to make a difference.
About the business:
Learning that Malawi produces cotton, the Petitt's formed a non-profit corporation, purchased local cloth, and brought foot powered sewing machines into the villages. More than 4,000 bags were sold the first year, mostly through africabags.org. 100% of the profit returns to the villages.
This past April, 1,000 young entrepreneurs, including a list of who’s who in the world of Gen-Y innovators, boarded a lavish cruise ship bound for international waters. Each guest paid $3,500 to attend the invite-only “Summit at Sea,” where they spent three days doing yoga sessions, drinking, dancing, tagging sharks, taking survival courses, sun-tanning, and playing beach volleyball. Oh yeah, there were some workshops and lectures too.
While the Summit at Sea is the company’s most recent event, they’ve been building up their credibility for the last 3 years. According to Forbes, “Past Summit Series planted the seeds for multimedia search engine Qwiki (which got an $8 million investment, led by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin), connected [Napster founder] Sean Parker with music site Spotify and introduced business owners to philanthropists, spurring $2 million in donations.”
Selena Cuffe recognized an injustice, and decided to do something that many of us forget is even an option: help people AND make money.
