In 1993, eight-year-old Abbey Fleck and her dad, Jon, invented Makin Bacon, a microwaveable bacon cooking plate. The story of how them came up with this idea was very fun to read. When they ran out of paper towels to sop up the grease, Abbey suggested they hang the bacon strips up like laundry and let the grease collect below in a plate. It worked well. Jon took really serious of their innovation. After researching on microwave-safe plastic and materials collecting, he found a factory that would make the dish. The Makin Bacon business was officially started. It went on a hot sale. It’s very amazing that even though a tiny creation in daily life may become a business. And we should never easily let any creative idea go. Moreover, their story taught me that to successfully turn a small idea into a business, you need to have a good partner who specializes in different domains. Take the father and daughter example. Abbey came up with the idea with her imagination, and her dad did the whole planning of the business.Moreover, different people would bring the team different angles when addressing the same thing. This is very helpful for an entrepreneurial team to make rational decision when coming to important turning points.
How to Make a Fortune from Dogs
As a crazy animal lover especially crazy dog person, I couldn’t help myself digging in entrepreneurship in dog (or pet) industry. Here’s something I found really interested me! Been in love with German Shepherd for more than ten year, this guy is definitely doing my dream job. As an entrepreneur, he breeds Rottweiler and German Shepherd, and trained them into working dogs. There are a few aspects that he bases his business on. For one thing, he knows it’s very important to feed the puppies well, give them vaccination, and lead them to exercise every day. Selection goes on during this early stage because not every puppy is suitable to be a working dog. According to him, a dog has to have prey drive (the instinct to chase things) and fight drive (the bravery to fight) to be qualified. The cost is definitely the biggest challenging of running this business. He also mentioned that the cost of vet care is very high. Sometimes even he has done his best, he still loses his puppies. In the very end of the video, he said he really like being self-employed because of the recession and other unstable economic reasons. More importantly, it motivates people to work extra hard. This is a very new idea to me. Now that I realize that I may work harder if it’s for my own business, I want to start my own business more than ever. I remembered my dad once told me why he quitted his stable and well-paid job and started his own business. He said it felt really good when you know you were fighting for your own thing. Now I could better understand it. I’m not sure what kind of business I want to run now, but I will work hard and learn hard. I believe I will be ready when the opportunity comes.
Baby Pram Meets Landing Gear
It’s very amazing to know how foldable baby pram was invented.A retired engineer and test pilot called Own Maclaren thought of this idea with his life experience of designing Supermarine Spitfire. As we all known, an airplane has retractable landing gear, which is very helpful in the way of decreasing flight resistance. When Maclaren saw his daughter struggled with her cumbersome pram when getting in and out of airplanes, he came up with the idea—-why can’t a buggy be lighter and foldable? Then, the first foldable lightweight baby buggy was invented. Maclaren was more an inventor, designer than a businessman.After invented the buggy, he applied for a patent but didn’t start a business on it. He spent his whole life designing different things. I really appreciated how much beautiful ideas he came up and actually brought them to the world.Sometimes I also have some ideas popped up when I notice the imperfections of the things around us (could be a tool or a system.) But I never actually thought about working on them. Maclaren inspired me a lot to get my hands dirty—-to actually try bringing my thoughts to reality. Maybe It would light the world in a special way. You will never know until you try.
Link: http://www.crossindustryinnovation.com/examples/baby-pram-meets-landing-gear/
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