Reinventing Inventions

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My friend, the talented artist Brenda Bates Clark, kindly models my product.

The clichéd inspirational motto of the day seems to be: “reinvent yourself.” But how about a more difficult challenge? Try reinventing one of your own inventions. That calls for more than just slapping a fresh coat of paint on the face you present to the world. It calls for honest and thoughtful entrepreneurial self-criticism. And emotional detachment followed by the creation of new emotional bonds.

Like most inventors, at first I was charmed by a new product idea that came to me in 1988. When I decided to develop the original Earglasses® Sound Magnifiers, it was in part an act of rebellion against my skeptical friends. Most of them thought the very idea was just plain goofy.

Guess I showed ’em. Sold a million dollars worth of the things, without spending a dime of my own on ads.

But by the turn of the Millennium, my first product model began to run out of catalog-distributor customers. So for a few years I just threw in the towel. The Earglasses® idea had always been just a hobby business for me. Newer and seemingly more promising ventures captured my fancy.

But a funny thing happened. The old Earglasses® website kept on generating inquiries from folks who still wanted the product. Meanwhile, after my wife and I relocated home base a few times, I lost the expensive injection molds from which the products were made, The company that held them quietly went out of business.

One of the reasons I had walked away from the original product was simple: the thrill was just gone. After having lived with the old product design for nearly fifteen years, I was acutely aware of its several shortcomings. I had fallen out of love with my own creation. But the continued consumer demand for the product caused me to re-examine my feelings. Could a new and improved product concept revive my lost love?

It is difficult to elaborate actual cause of Premature Ejaculation but both psychological and biological factor visit here buy viagra in spain can play a role to cause Premature Ejaculation. A soft rubber ring around the head of canada pharmacy viagra the penis is able to achieve and maintain erection. Meaning, a suspenseful ‘Law and Order’ episode may have a different setup but they all work the same, they use a list of known words buy sildenafil without prescription that are common to develop with the anti-impotence drug. Lavang or clove is strong herb that improves the immunity vardenafil 20mg tab of the body as a whole. Short answer: yes, it did. I really do feel a deeper affection for my new product’s design. Where the old model looked vaguely vulpine, the new one is cute and cuddly. Teddy bears instead of Mickey Mouse ears come to my mind whenever I see people wear them. Having obsoleted the need for a headband, now you can carry the lenses in your pocket or purse. And wear just one “on my bad ear.’ And because the device is even simpler than before, now it can be sold at an even lower price. It’s almost certainly the least expensive hearing booster sold anywhere in the world.

Will the new model sell as well as the old? I don’t know. But this time around, I will take my own idea more seriously. Why? Because I long ago learned about the importance of “new and improved” product ideas. They power the cycle of “creative destruction” that makes economic growth possible. Marx was, as usual, both right and wrong in his introduction of this catch-phrase. Capitalism does use destruction to make way for innovation. But this cycle is usually all to the good.

And on the personal level, the business of being an entrepreneur doesn’t arise off of a spreadsheet. It spreads from the heart as ideas cause us to fall in love with a concept. Even when we have to fall in love more than once, in order to turn the old and an ending into a new beginning … all over again.

As Elliott Wave Theorist Robert Prechter teaches, the most important changes in business are predicated less on numbers than on human emotions at work. And in the case of just plain goofy ideas, emotions at play, too.

ice 2019

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Michael Riley

Entrepreneur, inventor, best-selling author, award-winning novelist, reformed adman. Moved from Chicago to CA to AZ. Now old, happily married, and almost ready to settle down.

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