John Teel, microlitetech.com

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Here is Koppers’ testimonial of Don Debelak’s services:

I started out as an inventor with a concept, fishing lures that look more like real fish. I’ve taken that concept into a company with six figure sales, doing all the tasks of an entrepreneur taking on investors, writing a business plan, negotiating contracts with investors, manufactures, manufactures sales representatives and distributors. I’ve created packaging and promotional strategy and a marketing plan to launch the product. I started consulting with Don Debelak when I had just a few prototypes. Don gave me advice and counseling at every step in the process, keeping me on a level keel and explaining what steps I needed to do next and what type of response I was likely to receive. Don played a key role as an advisor and was an valuable asset during the entire introduction process. Even after I launched my product, Don was there to help me trouble shoot all of the new challenges I ran into.

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Debbee Barker was looking for a way to help keep her daughter’s rooms more organized and less cluttered.  She realized that a large part of the mess was caused by laundry left unfolded or folded improperly and started thinking of ways to make folding and organizing clean clothes easier.  The result was Barker’s invention of the FlipFOLD laundry organizer which allows anyone to quickly and uniformly fold clothes.

The FlipFOLD is a simple three sectioned folding device that folds shirts exactly the same way every time so they more easily fit into drawers or closet organizers.  Also, the regularity of the fold prevents clothes from becoming wrinkled in a drawer.  The product comes in a regular size as well as a junior size and has various colors to choose from.  Using the product, even a child can quickly fold clothes nicely every time.

While this idea worked well for its original intended purpose, the real success for the FlipFOLD came when Barker used her experience as a retail buyer to see that her product would be perfect for retail stores that need to quickly fold large amounts of clothing for display and sale.  While useful in the home, the FlipFOLD is ideal for businesses because folding by hand is very time consuming and can prevent salespeople from being effective at actually selling clothing.  By buying this product to speed up the folding process businesses can save money.  Now the FlipFOLD is used by large retail stores as well as professional sports teams and uniform companies.

The lesson here is to always be on the look out for the best uses or markets for your current idea.  Too often inventors only think about using their product for the specific purpose it was invented for and can be missing out on even greater possibilities elsewhere.  A product can fail in one arena and succeed in another and you need to know who will be your best customers.  By looking beyond her daughters’ dressers Debbee Barker was able to turn her idea into a success.

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Michele Kish was a cosmetologist for over 20 years in Ontario Canada and she kept noticing how customers were confused by what shade of make-up to apply.  Kish started to experiment with a variety of makeup with the advent of mineral make-up and saw some encouraging signs that suggested she could make an all in one makeup kit, one that would provide all the functions of a variety of makeup products that would also work with a wide variety of shades of people’s skin.

She started out by finding a cosmetic laboratory that would work with her and she spent two years working on developing the product with the laboratory.  When she was sure she had the right product, she didn’t know how to start selling her product other than through her own store. Cosmetics is a product area that is controlled by big companies who dominate markets like drug stores and mass merchants making it very hard for a small inventor-led one-product company to penetrate.

The other market that was ideal was small salons and day spas where cosmetology services are performed.  Once the spa started to use the product they could then offer it for sale. But those spas are hard to sell to without representatives and they can be very reluctant to take on a new product.

Kish started the ball rolling by displaying her product at bridal, travel and other shows related to women.  Her goal was to demonstrate her product, pick up orders and then hoped the people liked the product enough to reorder from her web site.  Kish then had several milestones that propelled her close to her first million in sales in just three years;

1. She displayed at Toronto’s 11 day One-of-a-Kind Show  where she had to raise the product’s price because it was selling so fast off the floor that she feared she would run out of inventory if she didn’t raised the price to slow down sales.
2. She then found a series of 11 women’s shows run in the SE part of the US, booked all of them and had strong sales.  Now Go-Natural products are displayed at over 100 shows per year and she has picked up most of her salon customers at shows.  Shows have always been a big selling point for the “All-in-One Cosmetic Kit” because the excitement from end users is contagious.
3. Kish product was featured on the Canadian Home Shopping Channel and had great results and generated exposure for her product across Canada.
4. As Kish continued to pick up distribution outlets, she decided to attend a trade show geared toward the Professional Beauty Industry, including licensed beauty salons, spas, esthetician, dermatologists, medical spas and skin care clinics.  That helped expand her distribution network to over 500 outlets.

Kish benefited greatly that virtually all women can use her product so that she could build an entire business by first going to trade shows.  The success of her product at the shows built real buyer momentum that was noticed by buyers and owners of salons and spas.  Don’t think that Kish is alone; many entrepreneurs start out at shows, including Max Appel who invented the $100 million per year Orange Glow line of cleaning products that sell at grocery stores and mass merchandisers throughout the country.

Since her fast start, Kish has continued to fine tune the trade shows she attends, continue to add retailers and this year she has made more of a push to sell direct to consumers, through a direct response TV programs and through Don Debelak’s Catalog Marketing Program. To give you some idea of her product’s appeal, Solutions catalog put the product in for the first time in a late October catalog, and then reordered, with the second reorder twice as big as the first order, and the third order three times as large.  That’s the type of pull you can only get if your product effectively meets a real customer need.

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She talked to friends who thought it was a great idea and then visited stores to see if any thing like footless panty hose existed.  The clerks all thought it was a great idea, but no one had ever heard about a product like that.  So Blakely got to work.

It took her two years to perfect the design, write her own patent and trademark her name before she was ready to start production.  She cold called hosiery mills and finally found a manufacturer to produce her product.  He thought the idea was crazy, like the other plant managers Blakely called, but he had two daughters who thought the idea was great.

Blakely was determined to stay self-funded, and only had $5,000 to invest in her product.  So instead of advertising, which she thought isn’t effective anyway, she used the media to launch her product.  She sent out press releases to news services and samples to celebrities and other trend setters.  This approached worked well.  Oprah declared Blakely’s footless panty hose as her product of the year and sales started booming.

One secret to Blakely’s success with the media is her brand name: Spanx.  She wanted an edgy name that would get people talking, and that’s exactly the kind of name Spanx is.  DJ’s and talk show hosts liked the name and thought is was funny, winning Blakely a lot more free exposure.

Her packaging is in the same vein, with the company’s slogan being: “We’ve got your butt covered”.  In a sea of neutral colored panty hose packaging, Blakely went with bright red, defying industry convention, but grabbing consumers’ attention.

During her media campaign, Blakely has already landed major department stores across the country and now buyers were calling her to get Spanx in their stores.

Finally to support her in-store sales, Blakely personally went to stores to talk up her product and show it off to every woman passing by.  She also called all her friends across the country to talk up the product and go and buy some.  Even as the company has grown, they still use this tactic to raise awareness of the products.

So what can we learn from Blakely?  We can learn the importance of branding and packaging your product.  Many inventors make these only after thoughts, but these can be the difference between a blah product and a trendy, must-have product.  Also, clearly media can be an inexpensive and effective way to reach the masses.  And I think that overall we see how creativity and hard work can make up for a lack of funding and industry experience.

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Let’s look at an example of how this works.

Inventor Story: Bud Fraze

Bud Fraze was an aerospace engineer who designed action toys on the side. When a mother of a year-and-a-half old blind child found out he designed toys, she wouldn’t leave him alone. She was unhappy with current blind balls that would bounce and roll away. She said her son needed a ball that wouldn’t roll away, was easy to grab and wouldn’t hurt anyone. The mother kept on calling him until he finally decided to make the ball.

Combining some things he knew about weather balloons and sailing, Fraze created the Rib-It Ball, a soft, lightweight ball that makes noise so children can find it and with ribs that make it easy to grab, but that keep it from rolling very far. He set up production with a Chinese manufacturer and got the first shipment, which to his amazement sold out in just a few days.

Soon Fraze was getting orders from therapists working not only with the blind, but also with cerebral palsy, plus he got an order for $40,000 worth of balls from a catalog of special products for the blind.

His next big break was getting a call from the Helen Keller Center for the Blind. They loved the ball, but they said it needed different coloring. Many children are visually impaired, but can still make out highly contrasting colors, so he started making balls with red, white and black contrasting designs.

Since then, special-needs teachers and therapists have been suggesting ideas to him, some of which he designed and refined. These ideas became a growing line of special needs toys carried by PlayAbility Toys, the company Fraze founded.

Teachers are ecstatic about Fraze’s toys and that finally someone is listening to them and creating the toys they need. But it is Fraze who feels like he is really getting the help. He is using their years of experience and research to create great products that really sell. All of these teachers and parents were a great untapped resource of ideas and Fraze is developing these ideas into products and building a successful business out of it. Everyone is happy with this great win-win situation.

How to Tap into Your Customers’ Knowledge

There are lots of ways to get connected with your customers. The internet has made it extremely easy to connect with different interest groups either on websites, forums or social media sites. Also trade shows or conferences can be invaluable for connecting with customers and other industry experts. But not all markets have groups of customers are willing to go out of their way to help you. Of course you can organize focus groups in any market, but only in certain markets you will get the kind of expert help that Fraze got.

The markets that will help you the most are markets with few products, meaning they are generally overlooked, but with lots of expertise. For instance, Fraze’s market had some products, but people were unhappy with them and always looking and hoping for something better. Also those people had lots of experience and much research has been done in their field. So Fraze’s customers could tell him exactly what they needed and he used his engineering background to make it for them. Of course, you don’t need an engineering background to serve markets like these. You can learn what your market wants and hire someone to design the product for you or try to do it yourself.

These overlooked markets are everywhere. They are generally pretty small and so for big corporations it often doesn’t make sense to enter these markets. But if you set up a smaller operation, like Fraze did, these markets can be very profitable.

Once you have found your market, start talking to people in that market about the problems they have or what is wrong with the products currently sold. If you tell them you are looking to develop a product for their market, they will probably tell you what you’d like to know. Then use their input to start developing the product.

Once you have a prototype, show it to them and ask for more input. The more input you get the better. You don’t need to follow all their advice, but listen and see what you do to meet their needs.

The great thing about getting input from people in the market is that when you develop the product according to their specifications, they are ready-to-go customers. For instance, when the Helen Keller Center told Fraze to make balls with contrasting colors, he did. Then we he let them know the balls were ready, how could they not buy?

Once you develop one good product for that market, keep on talking to people in the market. Use their expertise and listen to their problems and you may be able to develop one product after another, creating a great business. It may even go beyond just creating a great business. In Fraze’s case, he is genuinely helping children with vision impairment. In situations like this, everybody wins.

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Art Fry, a 3M employee, was singing in his church choir when he came up with his world famous invention: the Post-It Note.  Under Fry’s direction, 3M developed and manufactured Post-It Notes.  We have not yet discussed an invention that was developed by or in a corporation, but I think Fry’s story is a good one for all inventors to learn from.

Fry was looking for a bookmark that would not fall out of his church hymnal in between Wednesday night practice and Sunday morning.  He thought an adhesive bookmark strong enough to hold its place but weak enough not to tear the pages when it was removed was the ideal solution.  Luckily, he remembered that six years previous someone at 3M had developed an adhesive in the form of microscopic balls.  Depending on the density of the balls, the amount of adhesion would vary.  If he could find the right density, a fairly simple undertaking, he would succeed.

Little did Fry know that the difficulty with the Post-It Notes would be in how to manufacture them.  He spent the next six years creating equipment to make the notes commercially.  By 1980 Post-It Notes started selling and have been a huge success.

So what can we learn from Fry?  I think the most important lesson is the importance of manufacturing.  Many inventors don’t think much of manufacturing, or they start to think about it pretty late.  But, as we have seen in Fry’s example, manufacturing can be a huge problem to tackle for new products.  I have been involved in a venture with a new product where all of the manufacturing had to be invented or improvised.  It has been a long and difficult road.  So what, should we not even try?  No, of course not.  What I suggest is take manufacturing into account as you design the product, or at least its final design.  Instead of only thinking about what would be best for the product, think about the best way to make this product that is also easy to manufacture.  If you need to invent any manufacturing processes you will be doing twice the inventing work.  This may be worth your while, as it was with Post-It Notes, but it may not be.  Try to find someone who you can talk with about manufacturing as you are designing your idea.  He or she may have many ideas to help you decide how to proceed with your product.

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Chris Grenner’s woods were being invaded by an invasive plant called the bush honeysuckle.  He tried traditional methods of removing the plants, but all methods were deficient.

As a tool-maker by trade, he thought that he could probably invent a better tool for removing the bushes that can reach 15’ in height and 6’ in diameter.  He began to study the honeysuckle so he could devise the best tool.

After reading and studying the plants that he already removed from the ground, he realized that using a level and fulcrum would be the best way to remove the plant and after making a few prototypes, he had a high quality product that worked wonders.

He now self-manufacturers and the products out of his home and sells them through his website, www.misterhoneysuckle.com.

Grenner has continued to study this problem and has made his website a treasure chest of information about honeysuckles and how to remove them, by all methods, even ones that don’t include his tool, the Honeysuckle Popper.  He has become an expert in honeysuckles and their removal and his website is a genuine service for all who have problems with honeysuckle invasion, which is a problem for the entire Eastern half of theU.S.

While he only has a niche market, he started making a profit after less than two years in business.  He also says if everyone who needed a Honeysuckle Popper bought one, he’d be a millionaire.

I wanted to share this story with you because it is a great example of establishing yourself as an expert.  If you are looking for respect as an inventor, hoping the media will seek you out for interviews on your invention or hoping that people will come to your website, your best chance of all this happening is to establish yourself as an expert.  You, of course, need to become an expert, but there are plenty of experts out there that no one knows about.  Often starting a website with free information, in addition to selling your products, is a great way to become recognized as an expert.  Writing a book is even better.  You can also contact radio shows or write to newspapers about certain topics and be open for interviews.  When you become an expert, people trust you and trust the product you sell them.

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He created the AeroPress, a device that brews the coffee or espresso directly over a mug and then pushes the coffee through a paper filter using a small plunger.  All you need to do is add hot water and grounds and you will have a drinkable cup of coffee in about a minute.  Clearly the AeroPress has great potential as a quick and uncomplicated way to make brewed coffee.  With a retail price of only $30 it is also at a good price compared to other coffee makers.

Adler knew that the ability to make coffee quickly was not enough, however.  The coffee made with the AeroPress also needed to be of high quality if it was to compete with instant coffee and drip coffee makers.  Adler did some investigation and found that water should be 175 degrees for ideal flavor, about 25 degrees less than most drip makers.  Also, the way the water and coffee grounds are mixed in the AeroPress results in considerably less acid content than coffee brewed by conventional methods.  These advantages make the AeroPress not just faster, but better than other products currently on the market.

The lesson here is to remember that just one advance over other products is rarely enough.  You have to give consumers a clear advantage over the products they currently own or they will be reluctant to switch.  By offering several advances at once, Adler greatly increases the AeroPress’s chance for success.

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Al Youngwerth, an amateur off-road motorcyclist, purchased an aftermarket automatic clutch for his bike, but every time he rode, it broke and after repairing it a number of times, he realized it was designed wrong.

After he came up with his own design, and filed for a patent, he quit his job and started his own company: Rekluse Motor Sports.

He knew he would face major resistance from the professional biking industry because automatic clutches were considered for beginners or girls.  But Youngwerth worked out a plan to overcome this obstacle.

First, he knew he needed to have the lowest cost possible, so he decided not to take a salary for the first two years.  Then to create demand he sold the clutches for a loss, which is something that the Japanese did with VCRs.  For the first six months, every clutch sold represented a loss for the company.  Finally, he worked on getting racers to use his clutch.

So did it work?  You bet it did.  The low cost helped reluctant buyers make the purchase and try it out.  Also as the demand increased, the production costs dropped and the company started making a profit on each item sold.  Finally, when racers who were using the clutch started beating those who used a manual clutch, the professional bikers started thinking again about the benefits of an automatic clutch.  Now Rekluse Motor Sports in a big success.

So what can we learn from Youngwerth’s example?  Youngwerth really proved himself to be the true entrepreneur — taking big risks in hope to put his company at the top.  This may not be for everyone but we can still look at some of the low risk methods Youngwerth used to get started.  First, if you can afford not to take a salary for a year or two, this will really help your company get started.  When you start to draw a big salary before sales come in, it can kill the momentum of your company.  Second, if you want to change the image of your type of product, you will probably need to start from the top down.  Hobbyists or enthusiasts usually look up to someone in the industry and if he or she starts using your product, then so will those who look up to him or her.  A mere endorsement usually isn’t enough, the person needs to use your product in a public and visable way.  This can be key to changing people’s perception of your product.

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