Read Online Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality by Lori Greiner - Free Book Online
Authors: Lori Greiner
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how easy it will be for a customer to assemble it, and whether it even really works. It allows you to fix problems now while it’s cheap, not later on, when you’ve got 20,000 units suffering from a design flaw.
Today my factories and suppliers make my prototypes. We’ve worked together for a long time, so they know me well and have a sense of what I want. I can grab a napkin or piece of paper and sketch out the approximate dimensions of my idea, and their design engineers can draft more sophisticated drawings from that. They send me a first sample, and then we perfect the design along the way. I send them fabric swatches or color ideas, often using Pantone Matching System (PMS) color books (a system that allows you to explain and share the colors you want for anything from packaging to fabrics to book covers; say “PMS 326,” and every designer knows what you mean). We email ideas back and forth. Once I’m satisfied, the design is sent to one of my manufacturers, who uses the drawing and other information to create a perfect sample of my product. So I have a lot of help with my prototypes. But back when I was just starting out, all I had were my own two hands and a set of power tools that I didn’t know how to use.
THE FIRST DRAFT
Many people find inspiration in the shower or other environments where they get a chance to relax and shut out the noise and distractions of the outside world. I often have eureka moments when I’m sitting in an airplane, where there are no phonesringing and no interruptions. It’s one of the only places I get some quiet time to think. However, the first bolt of inspirational lightning that launched my career hit me during a massage. My friend Pam was a massage therapist, and one day while she was working on me, we started commiserating about one of our pet peeves: the annoying fact that there was no good way to store your earrings. You wound up having to throw them all in a heap in your jewelry box if you owned more than a few pair. You’d lose a back or find only one of the two just when you were in a hurry to get out of the house. My head still squashed into the massage table’s face hole, I sighed, “There has to be a better way.”
And that’s when, literally in a flash, like a lightning bolt, a picture appeared in my mind, instantly and fully formed. Sliding earring stands, one behind another, on top of a base. They’d slide to the left and to the right, so you could see everything at a quick glance. It would hold pierced and clip-on earrings and take up a small space. It was different from anything else out there. Like all entrepreneurs, I was certain it was hero and that every woman on earth would want one.
All entrepreneurs think everybody will need and want their products.
This was not the first time I’d had an idea that I thought could be a commercial hit. Not long before that eureka moment, I’d had an idea for a collection of modern, updated fairy tales, which I called Fairy Tales for the Nineties . They were alternatives to the traditional versions that were so sexist and unnecessarily scary. They needed to be updated for our times. I had written several stories when, one day, while checking out purchases at a Barnes & Noble, I happened to look down and see an easel holding a copy of a book called Politically Correct Bedtime Stories .The book’s jacket was prominently displayed, and on it there was a starburst saying, “ New York Times Bestseller!” Well, that was that. Of course, there was no guarantee that my book would have made it big, but if there already was a book of modernized fairy tales on the bestseller list, the idea was on the right track, and I had just missed the boat. The next time I had an idea I thought was a hero, I was going to act on it immediately (and think more about question no. 3 in the previous chapter!).
After my idea hit me on the massage table, I raced home with my mind on fire. It was July. If I wanted to get my product into
Today my factories and suppliers make my prototypes. We’ve worked together for a long time, so they know me well and have a sense of what I want. I can grab a napkin or piece of paper and sketch out the approximate dimensions of my idea, and their design engineers can draft more sophisticated drawings from that. They send me a first sample, and then we perfect the design along the way. I send them fabric swatches or color ideas, often using Pantone Matching System (PMS) color books (a system that allows you to explain and share the colors you want for anything from packaging to fabrics to book covers; say “PMS 326,” and every designer knows what you mean). We email ideas back and forth. Once I’m satisfied, the design is sent to one of my manufacturers, who uses the drawing and other information to create a perfect sample of my product. So I have a lot of help with my prototypes. But back when I was just starting out, all I had were my own two hands and a set of power tools that I didn’t know how to use.
THE FIRST DRAFT
Many people find inspiration in the shower or other environments where they get a chance to relax and shut out the noise and distractions of the outside world. I often have eureka moments when I’m sitting in an airplane, where there are no phonesringing and no interruptions. It’s one of the only places I get some quiet time to think. However, the first bolt of inspirational lightning that launched my career hit me during a massage. My friend Pam was a massage therapist, and one day while she was working on me, we started commiserating about one of our pet peeves: the annoying fact that there was no good way to store your earrings. You wound up having to throw them all in a heap in your jewelry box if you owned more than a few pair. You’d lose a back or find only one of the two just when you were in a hurry to get out of the house. My head still squashed into the massage table’s face hole, I sighed, “There has to be a better way.”
And that’s when, literally in a flash, like a lightning bolt, a picture appeared in my mind, instantly and fully formed. Sliding earring stands, one behind another, on top of a base. They’d slide to the left and to the right, so you could see everything at a quick glance. It would hold pierced and clip-on earrings and take up a small space. It was different from anything else out there. Like all entrepreneurs, I was certain it was hero and that every woman on earth would want one.
All entrepreneurs think everybody will need and want their products.
This was not the first time I’d had an idea that I thought could be a commercial hit. Not long before that eureka moment, I’d had an idea for a collection of modern, updated fairy tales, which I called Fairy Tales for the Nineties . They were alternatives to the traditional versions that were so sexist and unnecessarily scary. They needed to be updated for our times. I had written several stories when, one day, while checking out purchases at a Barnes & Noble, I happened to look down and see an easel holding a copy of a book called Politically Correct Bedtime Stories .The book’s jacket was prominently displayed, and on it there was a starburst saying, “ New York Times Bestseller!” Well, that was that. Of course, there was no guarantee that my book would have made it big, but if there already was a book of modernized fairy tales on the bestseller list, the idea was on the right track, and I had just missed the boat. The next time I had an idea I thought was a hero, I was going to act on it immediately (and think more about question no. 3 in the previous chapter!).
After my idea hit me on the massage table, I raced home with my mind on fire. It was July. If I wanted to get my product into
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