Wade Armstrong

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American Inventor: Episode 4 Recap

Posted Friday April 7, 2006 in Entrepreneurship

Episode Four brought in the last few inventors, and it was really more of the same. Good laughs at some of their expense, of course — probably more fun for the audience than for the inventor — but I’ll sure be happy to see the real competition start. By and large, the inventors made mistakes that we’d seen before, although many of the inventors were good enough to make more than one mistake at a time. If you’re keeping score at home, we once again learned:

• Don’t invest too much in your product
• Do your research

And, as a new (but very important!) lesson, we also saw:

• Actually have a product

Don’t Overspend

A few of the inventors had sunk a lot of money into their product. Joey Cup O’Coffee put $200,000 into a multi-chambered coffee machine with six reloadable cartridges each of which could be used to quickly make a single cup of hot beverage. Now, I know couples with coffee machines, and they tend to compromise on the beans they get, so that everybody ends up reasonably happy with their morning coffee which is shared from a large pot. Joey’s product would let each partner choose their own coffee flavor and get just what they wanted in the morning. I like the idea, but $200,000?

Another woman had spent $300,000 on a garment to be worn under a bra. Now, it’s great to have a fully-developed product, but how do you get that far without a plan? When developing a product, why not have a plan to test the product as you develop it? Try beta tests with friends or potential customers, to get feedback. Don’t get all the way to the finish line without knowing that it works!

In contrast, a trucker from Colorado had spent just $15,000 on armor plating for cars being towed behind RVs. Still a lot of money, but he’d tested the product, knew it was as tough as he needed, and still hadn’t had to give up a kidney.

Do Your Research

Which brings us to… the guy who gave up his kidney. He apparently did it for good karma, but that karma wasn’t good enough to prevent someone from already having developed and commercialized exactly the same product that he was developing. Folks, it’s important to do your research before jumping off that cliff. This guy gave up his marriage and spent all of his money without looking for a competing product first; the Colorado trucker had a lovely partner, a happy life, and was only out 15k.

Actually Have a Product

In the first episode, we saw no less than two people who were basically selling a stick; this episode brought their successors, the human centerpiece, the repeating tape, and the Quick Cool Coffee & Tea.

I really have no idea what the human centerpiece was, but I think it might go on a table. Alternatively it could be the inventor herself. The repeating tape was a woman who had actually recorded herself telling kids to do things over and over again; her demo was about 30 seconds of taped “it’s time to get up now!” that a parent could conceivably play for their kid, so that the parent didn’t have to tell the kid over and over. Now, the woman had a nice voice, it’s true, but I don’t think that’ll do it. Maybe if they had stars and celebrities record their voices, then kids would dig it?

And the Quick Cool Coffee and Tea — it was unclear quite what this inventor’s product was (always a bad sign), but it was either a cupholder or the concept that one could, somehow, mark one’s cup in a unique way so that one could distinguish one’s cup from others’ cups. There may be the germ of a product there, but the competition is a $0.99 Sharpie. Either way, I’m pretty sure the idea doesn’t count as an invention.

Now, the Toilet Bowl Stink Cleaner, that was a real invention. A nice retired Navy man had invented a toilet seat that actually took the stink out of the air leaving the bowl; I fail to see how that couldn’t be successful, although, as with most poop-related products, there is probably a marketing challenge there. I suggest packaging the seat in a box with lovely fields of wildflowers on it.