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- Feb 15, 2022
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Our neighborhood bear has been visiting pretty frequently over the past few months. We live in a fairly rural area and she enjoys pulling everything out of the garbage bins, ripping all the sacks open and strewing the leftover garbage all around the woods. Last week was the third time in the past three months. While my wife cleaned up this round, I started thinking about how to bear-proof the bin while still leaving it possible for the garbage truck to empty it easily. Since it took about two hours for her to pick up all the garbage, there was plenty of time for experimenting.
After a week of playing with various solutions, I came up with the following which works extremely well. The bin is secured to a sturdy tree with ratchet straps and a non-slippable clamp strap for keeping the lid down. It only takes about thirty seconds to remove the tree straps and two minutes to attach everything after the bin has been emptied.
@SteveO
Pretty slick, right? Read on.
I like doing this kind of stuff and enjoyed the challenge of figuring out a way to outsmart the average bear without buying anything special. All that's required was a little creativity and effort. After finishing, it crossed my mind that solving this problem is an excellent example of Kaizen.
It's easy to copy a successful competitor's online ad for a particular widget. It's far more difficult to understand why they chose a particular image, the exact wording, the landing page, the target demographic, the autoresponder sequence, etc. It's impossible to know how the product itself is being sourced, manufactured, design decisions, profit margins and so on. Blindly copying what a competitor does gets you nothing useful, but is great for wasting time and money.
Every founder of an extraordinarily successful business (aka "Fastlane Business") is well familiar with the concept of Kaizen. They might call it Total Quality Management, Six Sigma or simply "Making shit work better to make more money." It can only happen over time. No one can launch a new business that works flawlessly. It's not possible.
Big results come from many small changes over time. After finishing the project, I starting thinking through all the iterations that had gone into the seemingly simple solution pictured above. There were many. You can disagree with the specific steps and might choose to stop sooner or continue improving my solution and stop later. However, anyone who believes the process itself is unnecessary, stupid, wasted time, wasted effort - you name it - will NEVER build a successful business.
After a week of playing with various solutions, I came up with the following which works extremely well. The bin is secured to a sturdy tree with ratchet straps and a non-slippable clamp strap for keeping the lid down. It only takes about thirty seconds to remove the tree straps and two minutes to attach everything after the bin has been emptied.
@SteveO
Pretty slick, right? Read on.
I like doing this kind of stuff and enjoyed the challenge of figuring out a way to outsmart the average bear without buying anything special. All that's required was a little creativity and effort. After finishing, it crossed my mind that solving this problem is an excellent example of Kaizen.
The first lesson is that seeing the final result gives you no insight into the process required to find a particular solution.
That's what happens when you attempt to copy a successful competitor by mimicking what they're doing from the outside. All you can see is the final results. You have no insight into how many things were tried earlier, what failed, what succeeded. You've no idea what processes are required to deliver the product, service or experience that you're attempting to copy.It's easy to copy a successful competitor's online ad for a particular widget. It's far more difficult to understand why they chose a particular image, the exact wording, the landing page, the target demographic, the autoresponder sequence, etc. It's impossible to know how the product itself is being sourced, manufactured, design decisions, profit margins and so on. Blindly copying what a competitor does gets you nothing useful, but is great for wasting time and money.
The second lesson is about the concept of Kaizen itself.
Kaizen is a Japanese concept that can be translated as "change for the better". It's one of the core values of my latest startup and everyone hired is expected to take it to heart or they can work somewhere else. Doing something a particular way because "We've always done it that way" is a guarantee your business will be mediocre for its entire existence.Every founder of an extraordinarily successful business (aka "Fastlane Business") is well familiar with the concept of Kaizen. They might call it Total Quality Management, Six Sigma or simply "Making shit work better to make more money." It can only happen over time. No one can launch a new business that works flawlessly. It's not possible.
Big results come from many small changes over time. After finishing the project, I starting thinking through all the iterations that had gone into the seemingly simple solution pictured above. There were many. You can disagree with the specific steps and might choose to stop sooner or continue improving my solution and stop later. However, anyone who believes the process itself is unnecessary, stupid, wasted time, wasted effort - you name it - will NEVER build a successful business.
Store Garbage Bin
- store bin in the garage (it stinks)
- store bin in the driveway (bear rips into it)
- place bin out immediately before pickup (guess how often we'd forget entirely)
- use bungee cord to secure lid (bear pulled up the lid and emptied the bin on the driveway)
- consider storing bin the tool shed (too far away and caused lawn damage)
- consider securing bin to the house (no place convenient and caused siding damage)
Anchor Garbage Bin
- strap bin to tree in the driveway using ratchet clamps (works great)
- strap top down with friction strap (works great)
- takes 45 minutes to attach both straps w/one person (way too slow and annoying)
Optimize Efficiency
- cut off pointless hooks that keep falling apart (big improvement)
- stitch the strap end directly to the ratchet clamp (big improvement)
- use landscape staples to support the straps (huge improvement)
- cut straps to correct size and seal ends (minor improvement)
- takes 2 minutes each week to attach all three straps w/one person (perfectly acceptable)
- DONE (works great!!!)
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Last edited:
. An electric fence charger does the trick!
