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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:
Manufactures a unique line of hand painted tools for the home, kitchen, and garden, called CuteTools.
Inspiration:
Lisa Knoppe Reed sat at her kitchen table and painted whimsical scenes and colorful flowers on household gadgets and tools. Wanting to make a difference in lives of others, she sold the tools and donated a percentage of all profit to charities. While visiting a school, she saw how excited special needs kids got when helping to create Cute Tools.
About the business:
Manufactures a unique line of hand painted tools. Business helps support charities and special needs schools. In exchange for schools sharing a percentage of her revenue, students work sanding, priming, doing inventory and quality control. Cute Tools are sold in 4,000 stores around the world with sales projections of $2.5 million.
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.
Searching for comfort from the heat, Steven Villegas altered a pair of army surplus pants into a legless skirt, optimized for the working man. He called it the “Utilikilt.” His utilitarian man-skirt quickly became a surprise hit with construction workers, bikers, and other unlikely customers. On the latest episode of The Why Didn’t I Think of That? ® Podcast, we put the spotlight on this up-and-coming entrepreneur.
The Why Guys speak with Villegas about his unique product on this week’s Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast.
It was 1999. Aspiring screenwriter John Brozek was poking around a new website called eBay, and what he found surprised him: Counterfeit Rolex Watches. Lots of them.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some sort of community where artists, tinkerers, geeks, and inventors of all shapes and sizes could pay a small monthly fee and have access to expensive, technical tools, as well as a work space in which to operate?
Well, actually, there is. It’s called TechShop.
