Do you have a great idea for a new product? Good for you, but taking a product from the mind to the marketplace isn’t easy, and it’s fraught with peril. There are numerous scammers out there waiting to play on your inexperience and enthusiasm. You may have seen infomercials on TV. These companies often cost a significant amount of money and they leave you with nothing in return.
I’m sharing this story to help everyone with great ideas understand taking a product from the mind to the marketplace isn’t easy, and it’s fraught with peril. There are many scammers out there waiting to play on your inexperience and enthusiasm often costing you a significant amount of money and leaving you with nothing in return.
When you think of the great inventors, you probably think of people such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell and even Steve Jobs — people who have brought entirely new concepts to the market. But great ideas and innovations don’t have to change the world. Sometimes the best new product opportunities start with small improvements in existing concepts. For example, Pam Moore improved on the standard ice tray after trying to get ice cubes into narrow openings of sport bottles for her son’s soccer games. So Moore enhanced ice trays with a cylinder design creating “Ice Tubes” to fit perfectly into most bottles! Millions of Ice Tubes are now in kitchens around the world.
For Catherine Brooks, necessity truly was the “mother” of invention. Surprised when her first child had to be delivered by Cesarean in 2004, Brooks, a rehabilitation therapy specialist and her orthopedic surgeon husband were even more shocked with the poor post-surgical care provided to C-section mothers. So Catherine and her husband combined their medical knowledge and personal experience to create a product to address both the postpartum and post-surgical factors relating to a Cesarean delivery.