Find Your Million Dollar Idea

Where is the next million-dollar idea hiding, just waiting to be discovered? In many cases, it could be right under your nose–at your place of work, or perhaps as part of your favorite hobby. Inventors who work ideas gathered from jobs or activities they’re familiar with are most likely to find success, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the inventor really understands what target customers want because he or she is also part of the group. Second, because the inventor is already familiar with the products currently on the market, he or she can usually introduce a product that doesn’t have much competition. And finally, when selling the product to customers, potential buyers perceive the inventor not as a salesperson, but rather as “one of us.” It’s a powerful situation that doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, but it’s definitely as good as it gets.

{Don Debelak’s new book, Turning Your Invention into Cash is now available on Amazon for $3.49. Go to Amazon.com and enter inventions Don Debelak to purchase. From the author of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bringing Your Product to Market.}

On-the-Job Training

When you know a particular industry inside and out, you have the opportunity to innovate solutions to major problems. Case in point: Dan Tribastone, 37, who started out with an aerial photography business. After realizing he’d need to supplement this income, Tribastone went to work as a paramedic, and eventually he ended up working as a registered nurse (RN) in an orthopedic operating room.

Tribastone found that opportunity and entrepreneurship collided in those operating rooms. It was there that he realized the serious shortcoming he eventually fixed. Specifically, during orthopedic surgery, the body part undergoing reconstruction is constantly flushed with water. As Tribastone describes it, “The spent fluid was collected in small containers. An operation could produce 75 to 100 liters of fluid, [which required 25 to 35 canisters]. Nurses were constantly having to disconnect and reconnect containers.” The containers were connected to two lines–one to the hospital’s vacuum line, and the other to the drainage tube from the operating table. Nurses typically had to make 150 to 200 new connections to the waste fluid connectors during every single procedure.  After much experimenting, Tribastone created stronger, larger containers made from steel. The containers were a big hit in the operating room, cutting the number of changes required to a fifth of what it had been and Triasone’s company Waterstone Medical went on to gain $5 million in sales with five years.

One of Tribastone’s biggest advantages was that he truly understood how customers would use the product. “Sales were a lot easier when customers realized that I came from the operating room trenches,” he says. According to Tribastone, that experience also paid off at trade shows such as the one held by AORN (Association of Operating Room Nurses): “Nurses immediately recognized I wasn’t a smooth-talking salesman, but instead was really just one of them.”

You Need a Hobby

Tribastone discovered his innovation among the struggles of his work. Vinu Malik had an even more strenuous trial as his inspiration. Malik, had been competing in triathlons for eight years. He had become completely fed up with the large water bottles he needed to carry to stay hydrated. According to Neil Malik, Vinu’s business partner and brother, “The bottles were cumbersome and could easily start bumping against the runner.”

The secret to their success, according to Neil, was that “Vinu knew what triathletes wanted. Once he started using the belt, many of the top runners started using it, too. That made selling our concept to Ironman a snap. And once we were the official hydration belt of Ironman, stores were happy to carry the product.” In other words, the brothers knew exactly how to successfully promote the product, because they understood the market firsthand.
If you’re hoping to find a money-making idea of your own, start by looking at your own job or hobby. If you’re observant, you’ll begin to notice where improvements should be made–and that’s your first step to success.

Looking for Sales Reps?  Check out http://onestopinventionshop.net/books/sales-reps/

Do you need web content?  Don Debelak, who has written 15 books published by major publishers such as McGraw Hill and Entrepreneur Press is currently writing web content.  Check out more information at:

http://onestopinventionshop.net/web-content-writing-services

 Don Debelak offers affordable patent work. Check out http://patentsbydondebelak.com/