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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:
Alison Levine trains employees at Fortune 500 companies on risk-taking, leadership, and team building.
Inspiration:
While finding success in the financial world, Alison continued to pursue her passion for mountain climbing.
About the business:
In 2004 she left her job as an investment manager and launched her consulting firm, Daredevil Strategies. Combining her business acumen and personal history she trains employees at major companies on risk-taking, leadership and team building. Billings top $1 million.
Do something you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. So goes the old saying. Of course, anyone who has ever started a business based on their passion knows that, just because you’re passionate, it doesn’t mean you won’t be working your rear end off.
Last week I received an email from our friend Alison Levine at Daredevil Strategies. Alison emailed me to tell me that she had decided to return to Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, and climb it again.
Alison Levine was born with a life-threatening heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. As a teenager, her health was so unstable, that she couldn’t do many of the things that her peers took for granted. Simple things, like driving a car and climbing stairs. But Alison eventually underwent two heart surgeries. Within 18 months of her second heart surgery, Alison made up for all those lost years of climbing stairs, and she did it all at once; she climbed a mountain.
