What Your Failures Can Teach You

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Inventing A New Tool

Is failure a good thing? I believe it is, if you learn from it.

Since 2001, I have tried to start many businesses. The past 16 years of my life have been littered with failures. But, each failure has taught me something that has moved me closer and closer to success.

In this thread, I’m going to discuss the businesses I’ve tried to start but failed. What is in this post for you? Lessons from failure that you don’t have to make yourself. So, let’s begin.

I graduated from high school in 2001. At the time, I believed that going too college was beyond my financial means. Going to college was a dream of mine. I longed to be the first person in my family to get a college degree. But, I was broke. So, I got a job instead.

During this time I remember learning about green energy production. In particular, I became fascinated with windmills. The idea that a windmill can stand in a field all day, and produce electricity got me thinking. “It must be great to own one,” I thought. “It produces electricity that you sell back to the grid. It works for you, just like an employee, accept you don’t have to hire anyone.”

Oh, I was fascinated by engineering. As a child I was a BIG Star Trek fan. And, I loved dreaming about ideas for new inventions. So, when I was 18 years old I thought the best way to make money, and not have to work for a living, was to invent something. So, I started on my very first idea.

My father was a carpenter and a locksmith. I had helped him on many remodeling jobs in the past. So, I started tinkering with different ideas for tools. I bought a welding machine and started welding together different ideas. The only thing I had to cut the metal with was a hack-saw and an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel.

It was hard cutting metal pieces with an angle grinder. But, on my minimum wage pay, I couldn’t afford additional tools. Then it hit me. Why not make an attachment to the angle grinder. That way I can cut metal pieces far more easily. So, I built a completely new attachment. One that wasn’t even available in stores.

It worked so well, my father still uses the prototype for some of his jobs. So, I began looking into patenting the idea and getting it to a tool manufacturer to license the idea. Maybe a tool company could manufacture the tool under their name, and I would get a small royalty.

I began learning how to patent the idea. Getting a patent was too expensive for me, at the time. But, the patent office did have what was called a provisional patent application.

This was far cheaper than a full application and would offer my invention limited protection, as long as I filed for a full patent within one year.

With the provisional application in hand, I began submitting my idea to large hand tool manufacturers. None of them returned my submissions except for two. These two companies gave me the same response. “We do not currently have a use for your invention at this time. There will be no further action taken.”

Um, just a random question for you folks. Does anyone here like spiral ham? You know, the ham that has the spiral cuts in it? The person who invented the machine that cuts those spirals submitted his idea to EVERY ham company in the United States. They all sent him letters like the ones I received.

So, he decided to manufacture the machine himself. He made a lot of money. When his patent expired, EVERY ham company in the United States started using his machine!

If I had to do it all over again, I would have made a more professional looking prototype. Then, I would have called local contracting companies to validate the idea. If people bought them, I would have had money to pursue the idea further. Then I could have made and sold it myself, just like the spiral cut ham guy.

But, I didn’t have a manufacturing plant to make my tool. Since I thought the idea didn’t have any legs, I never followed up on the full patent. That was my first mistake. Why?

Because, it would turn out that my tool was, and is, a multi-million dollar invention.

But, I wouldn’t realize it for another 15 years, when it was far too late.

More to come in future posts…

First Mistakes: Not validating the product on my own. And, not Getting a Patent (True in my case, but not always true)

 

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Inventing a New Way of Making Plastic Products

Those of you who have had fastlane success can probably recall times when your failures taught you fastlane nuggets. Only, you didn’t realize it at the time. That’s exactly what happened with this next failure.

About two years after my failure with the tool invention, I came across a book on manufacturing methods. The book contained different ways of making products. Some of these products were wood based, some were metal based, and some were plastic based.

Plastic manufacturing is one of the most interesting of these three. We take for granted all the plastic products that are in our lives. Take a look around you right now. You will probably spot at least 10 different plastic products, before your eyes come back to this screen.

So, I started thinking about inventing a new way of making plastic products. In the plastics industry there is a method of making products called thermoforming. I developed a way to take two separate sheets of plastic and mold them together.

These two sheets could be completely different types of plastic. I thought a lot of products could be made by bonding two different types of plastic together. What kind of products? I had no idea. But it sounded great. So, in my youthful vigor, I started making my own machine.

Coincidentally, making this machine took far less time than making my tool two years earlier. Why? Because, I was using my tool to work on my current project. Yup, that tool solved lots of problems. But, at the time, I didn’t realize that was the whole point.

As my new thermoforming machine began to take shape, I searched for plastic manufacturing companies within a 2-hour drive. I found one, in Worcester, Massachusetts.

I sent the owner of the company an email. I stated I had developed a new manufacturing method for thermoforming plastic products, and I would be willing to show him if he was interested.

I wasn’t really expecting a response. But, now that I had applied for a patent on the process, I wasn’t fearful of contacting more companies directly.

To my surprise, the owner of the company responded. He welcomed me to his plant to show him the new process. I was still working on completing the actual machine. So, I responded back to him with a potential date.

He confirmed the date and said something I will never forget. He said, “If your new manufacturing process can save us money on manufacturing costs, save us money on electricity, or in any other way make our process more efficient, we would love to hear about it.”

I actually thought to myself, “What? That’s not the point to my invention at all. It’s about making new products, not about saving money.” But, then I thought, “Man, it’s too bad my invention doesn’t do that. If it did, I would have a guaranteed sale.”

Several weeks went by. The building process on the machine slowed and I needed more time to work on it. So, I called the owner of the company to request another week. I’m glad I did, because he dropped more fastlane nuggets into my lap. But again, I just didn’t realize it at the time.

In our conversation, he asked me what the point was to the new manufacturing process. I said that you could make products with two different types of plastic bonded together. He said, “O.K. What kind of products?”

I said, “This would be a great way of making armor for military contracts. Or, you could use it to manufacture things as simple as lunch boxes.” He sounded like a very nice guy, and politely asked, “Did you invent a solution and now you searching for problems it could solve?”

I said, “No.” But, when I took a second to think about it, I realized that is exactly what I had done. But I told the owner that the plastics industry had evolved from a single mistake in a lab to a multi-billion dollar industry. Plastic can solve many problems.

The owner responded, “Well that’s certainly true. But, we already have a machine that is similar to yours and we don’t get much use out of it. There just isn’t a lot of demand for the kinds of products that it makes.”

He continued, “Now, it could be that, 6 months from now, we’ll all be scratching our heads wondering how we missed such a great use for it. But, right now, there just doesn’t appear to be a need.”

I hung up the phone with a strange mixture of disbelief and belief. I knew he was right. I had built a solution in search of problem. I had put the cart before the horse.

I knew that starting out with a problem, and then finding a solution, would open up many doors. Who wouldn’t want a solution to their problem? “But how to you find problems,” I thought. “I have no idea.”

All well, on to the next idea…

Second Mistake: Not realizing that solving a problem is the best way to make money. Don’t invent a solution in search of a problem. Search for a problem, then come up with the solution. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t fully grasp this concept for another 13 years!

 

[luniac]

great writing thanks.

 

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Inventing a Way to Prevent Bird Deaths Around Wind Mills

Believing that I now had a better handle on how to make money, I began thinking of other ideas. Towards the end of 2003, I learned that bird deaths were becoming a problem around windmills.

It turns out that small windmills spin more rapidly than larger ones. Because of the speed of these windmills, some birds don’t recognize the danger. They fly to close to the windmills, and get hit by the blades.

Around the early 2000’s, larger windmills were becoming the norm. They produced more electricity. They were quieter. And, they were much slower. But, birds were still flying into them, and dying in droves.

Wind power looked like a great alternative to fossil fuels. And, still does. But, the alarming number of bird deaths had environmentalists concerned. It was estimated that 20,000 to 573,000 bird deaths occurred each year, because of windmills.

One area, which became infamous for bird deaths, was Altamont Pass, in California. This region normally gets a lot of wind. Building windmills in this area seemed only natural. But, the area was filled with older, smaller, and faster windmills.

So, here was a problem. There were a lot of bird deaths on one hand. And, lots of fast rotating windmills on the other. I reasoned that some type of government regulation would eventually compel wind farms to find a solution. But, replacing all those windmills could be cost prohibitive.

So, I began to search for a solution. And, I found one. I thought of a system that would detect the motion of an approaching bird, then sound a “loud” whistle to frighten the bird away. The sound would be ultrasonic. So, humans wouldn’t be bothered by the periodic high pitched shrill. It was simply outside the range of human hearing.

Learning from my first mistake, I applied for a patent in January, 2004. And, I soon began looking for wind farm owners to whom I could market the product.

Putting together a complete folder on the device, I began to look for wind farms. In particular, wind farms in Altamont Pass. I Put together the patent pending information on the device and sent it off to California.

Several months rolled by with no response, except for one phone call from the post office. Apparently, one of my packages had never been picked up from the P.O. Box. It seemed, once again, that no one was interested in my invention.

“But why,” I wondered. It solved a problem. Birds were dying in droves, and it seemed no one was interested in a very affordable solution.

About 6 years later, a writer in Canada, would cite me, and several other inventors, in an article about bird deaths and possible solutions. It definitely was a problem. And, still is a problem – for the birds. It’s just not a problem for wind farm owners.

I personally support wind power. But, in the absence of regulations compelling wind farms to find a solution, wind farm owners will not pay for technology to prevent it. In other words, it’s not a problem for wind farm owners unless the law makes it their problem.

Do you see the difference? I had solved a problem. But, it didn’t make me any money because, once again, I was trying to solve a problem that my potential buyer didn’t have. The difference is subtle, but very important.

At this point, I began to feel like I was wasting my life on pipe dreams. I began to feel that finally going to college would be the best move for me. And, I would go to college. I would get accepted to college of my choice. But, not before giving this entrepreneurship thing another shot…

Third Mistake: Don’t just come up with the solution to a problem. Make sure your potential buyer needs the solution that you have. They have to personally feel the pain that requires your solution, otherwise – no sale.

 

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