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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:
Miles Laboratories manufactures Alka-Seltzer, an over-the-counter remedy for cold and flu.
Inspiration:
When Andrew Beardsley heard that reporters at a local newspaper used a mixture of aspirin and bicarbonate of soda to avoid colds and the flu, he investigated. In true entrepreneurial spirit, he had a chemist mix a concoction for sale.
About the business:
For eighty years, Alka-Seltzer has remained one of the world’s most famous cold remedies. Owned by Miles Laboratories, a subsidiary of Bayer, Alka-Seltzer is sold in more than 100 countries, and generates $90 million a year in sales.
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.
Amazon.com Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says that they’re “the only tech company with low margins.”
Low margins is an understatement. The company is losing money on every single Kindle Fire tablet they sell. But it’s all part of Jeff Bezos plan to conquer the Universe. He may or may not succeed, but one thing’s clear: With the Kindle Fire, he has single-handedly created a low-end tablet market where there was none, and for that reason alone, he’s about to change the tech industry forever.
It’s no secret that businesses and corporations are always looking forward. The next big product, the next big innovation, the next quarterly report. And yet, many businesses have histories as rich and fascinating as anything you’d find in a history book. Is there any money to be made in preserving your company’s legacy?
Sure, it only takes one company or product to revolutionize an industry, but selling people something they’ve never seen before isn’t easy. The general public tends to shy away from cutting edge technologies and trends, waiting for them to become more commonplace before adapting them. Your job is to change their minds. But how? Luckily, many before us have made bold, world-changing moves that have dramatically shifted the courses of industries, and made the people behind the companies filthy rich. One such example is Apple Computers.
