The School of Greatness - 31 How to Be Innovative (Plus Turn Ideas Into Profitable Products) with Chris Hawker

Episode Date: September 26, 2013

Have you ever had a bright idea; one that you thought would make you millions, but you didn't know how invent it or bring it to market? Well, in this weeks episode I have world famous inventor Chris Hawker to show you how it's done. Chris is a great friend, and one of my first mentors […]

This is episode number 31 with Chris Hawker. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, all the greats out there?

Hope you're having a fantastic week. And we've got a big episode today on the School of Greatness. It's with one of my early on mentors and now good friends, Chris Hawker. Now for those that know who do not know who Chris Hawker is, he is a famous inventor, kind of behind the scenes type of guy, but in front of the scenes type of products. He's got over 30 products, I believe, on the market to date. He's been in everywhere as in Costco and Walmart and Bed Bath and Beyond and Best Buy and pretty much every type of consumer goods store you can think of. He's got some type of product or some type of influence in those stores. So this episode is all about how does

someone go from idea to landing on the shelves of Walmart? Or how does it what does it take to come up with a great idea and become innovative in business? And we also talk about the importance of design and how this comes into play with your inventions or anything in life. So this is going to be a very interesting episode. I'm super pumped for this, having Chris in the studio here in LA. Very excited to share with you a wealth of his information. One of the smartest guys I've ever met, literally a genius, and couldn't be happier to have

my good friend here in the studio. But before we get into that, I want to give a quick shout out to the fan of the week. And I got a post on Instagram. I keep getting all your guys' pictures and posts of where you're watching the show. So keep it up. Keep tagging me on Instagram and sharing where you're watching, excuse me, where you're listening to the School of Greatness all over the world. And this week is with Natalie Sisson.

And she says, working out, overlooking an incredible view of the Strip of Las Vegas while listening to Lewis Howes' School of Greatness podcast, hashtag hustling, dream big, first million. And it's got a sweet view of the Strip with her on the treadmill going pretty fast. So thanks, Natalie Sisson, for the shout out, pumped that you're listening while you're running. pumped that you're listening while you're running. So without further ado, I am super pumped to introduce you to my mentor and good friend, Chris Hawker. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming on today. I'm with my good friend and early mentor Chris Hawker. What is up Chris?

Hey Lewis. We are in my studio in Los Angeles. Beautiful view today looking out the windows here of Los Angeles, Hollywood Hills, downtown. Looks just like Ohio. Yeah right. Yeah, right. Chris is from Columbus and is, in my mind, a very famous inventor. And we're talking about inventions in general today, but also innovation, design, designing your life, your business, all these good things. So I want to get started and kind of talk about inventions and first ask you a few simple questions. And how many products have you actually invented

well i've helped bring over 70 products to market um probably of my own conception maybe a third of those were my own ideas but i've also then collaborated with other inventors and companies to bring products to market so the total number is a little over 70 right now, though we've got a few more on the way this year. Over 70. And how many are currently being sold, I guess, or on the market? Probably about half that number. Half.

Okay. So about 35. A lot of products have a life cycle. They come and then sell for a while and then go. And where are your products at? Where are they located? All over. Pretty much every major retailer in America.

So we've got products at Walmart, products at Target, products at grocery chains, specialty stores, Bed Bath & Beyond, niche markets, sporting goods, all over the place. And tell me how you first got started. Well, when I was a teenager, I worked in a fish store. And I started an aquarium maintenance business where I would set up fancy aquariums and doctor's offices in the homes of wealthy individuals.

And I specialized in reef tanks, which are like fairly sophisticated saltwater aquariums with invertebrates, corals in particular. And I started having ideas for my own filtration products. So I learned from someone I found in the Yellow Pages who did acrylic fabrication, how to do acrylic fabrication. And then I worked with him to develop some of my filter ideas, which I would sell to my clients. So that was my first experience with doing sort of product development was, was a protein skimming filters for saltwater aquariums.

And then when I went to college, I went to Ohio state university and I started when I went to to college i had to shut down my aquarium maintenance business but i continued to try to manufacture and sell my filters which were called the trident series protein skimmers protein skimmer is a filter that scrubs protein using a column of aerated water from the water in order to purify, purify it for the sensitive invertebrate creatures, which are very sensitive. So I,

I started sort of not mass producing this, but making them and selling them through mail order and did that through college selling filtration components. And then the real breakthrough came as in my senior year of college where I studied, actually got a degree in comparative religion from Ohio State. I was already kind of in business, so I was studying what my passion was, which was understanding humans and why they do what they do. That's what I was trying to figure out with that degree. But during my senior year, I started developing a professional

quality algae scraper. So a tool to remove the algae that grows on the walls of the tank. And that having been a professional algae remover, at the time, the only thing available was a sponge on a stick or a magnet scraper, which is fine if you've got one tank. But if you're cleaning tanks all day long, the magnet's inefficient and doesn't work very well. So I just wanted a high-quality product that was like a carpenter's hammer. It didn't need to be miraculous. It just needed to not be junk. And I figured I wouldn't be the only person who would be interested in that.

I thought I'd sell a couple thousand to other professionals. And so I developed this by calling up companies who manufacture things, injection molders, or people who make different types of rods and materials, and just asking questions. I didn't know how to do anything and no one around me to teach me. So in order to learn, I just started calling up factories and saying, hey, I'm trying to make an algae scraper. I did this nice drawing of what I think it should look like and how I think it should work. Can you give me some advice? And I got into a lot of dead ends where people were like, well, I don't know what to tell you. But I found certain people who were extremely willing to talk to me.

And in particular, it turned out I had a family relative, Rex Clark, who had an injection molding company in Vancouver, Washington. He's a distant cousin. And he taught me about injection molding, like top to bottom, explained all the ins and outs of how you can make a plastic part. And so with his tutelage and then instruction from other people who were willing to open up, and I found people were generally very willing, if I called them and asked them questions, to tell me everything. And so I finally sort of figured out all the components of this device, and then I started selling them. And the way I sold them was through a company called Kent Marine. So I didn't want to start a company and try to sell the products into the industry myself.

You licensed them. Well, that particular deal is what we call a private labeling arrangement. I bought the molds with a loan from my parents. labeling arrangement. I bought the molds with a loan from my parents, having blown all my money I had from selling filter components on beer in college and some travel or some road trips. But then, so my parents loaned me some money. I bought the molds and I would sell. I struck a deal with Jack Kent at Kent Marine, who was a guy who I had met because he was buying some of my filter components.

And he said, yeah, let's do an algae scraper. And so he would buy them and sell them and I would get them made. And it was a real cool arrangement. He would place an order with me. I would place an order with the factory. The factory would ship the goods to him and he would pay me and I would pay the factory.

So I never had to come up with the cash. He came up with the cash. You didn't have to warehouse them. I didn't have to warehouse them. I didn't have to do anything. So I was basically acting as a broker. You were drop shipping, basically. Yeah.

And we sold 35,000 units in the first year. Wow. It turned out— More than 2,000. More than 2,000. thousand units in the first year so yeah it turned out more than two thousand more than two thousand this afforded me the great privilege of never having to get a job with my religion degree i was like what am i gonna do so um yeah i uh started selling the algae scraper and i was like it immediately became you know much more successful than i ever imagined. I was like, wow, inventing is easy.

It's an easy way to make money. I'm going to just do this over and over and start a company developing my inventions because I had a lot of ideas. I was, you know, engineers, people always think, oh, you could always tell he was an engineer because he would take the radio apart and fix it and then rebuild it and i was not that kid i was a kid who would buy the radio take it apart and then stare at it and just admire how cool it was looking so i had no idea how it worked i was like not technical in that way but i had a great appreciation for the the parts and like the beauty of these designed components and i mean even as a very little kid like five six years

old my mom would take me to garage sales and what i would do is i'd buy things like old typewriters and radios and i'd bring them home to take them apart that was my hobby taking things apart not to fix them or to understand them but to appreciate them so over the years i just developed a strong appreciation and a palate if you will for what's cool what turns me on and uh so having done this algae scraper and had the success i was like oh i i know what's cool that's what i was telling me i know what's I'm going to start just pumping stuff out. Boom, boom, boom. Cool stuff. Yeah, cool stuff. And that was my sort of dream when I started. So I ended up hiring an industrial designer and then a second industrial designer and developing to sell products. So after my algae scrapers, we expanded on that algae scraper line

and then moved into guitar accessories. I Actually, right after college, immediately after college, I went to guitar building school in Phoenix at the Roberto Van School of Luthiery, which is the only guitar building school in the world because I was a guitar player and kind of fit in with this idea of being an inventor, being a product developer. And so then I branched and I decided not to pursue it as a career. developer and so um then i branched and i decided not to pursue it as a career though i did build a few guitars which was a great experience but i also learned that it's not a great way to make a living it's a lot of hard work months and months to get one guitar or something right yeah and many hours tedious work i'm not i don't have the attention to detail or the patience and it's kind of hard it's it's basically being a cabinet maker, only they pay you way less. Wow. Because people just think, oh, a $2,500 guitar, that's an expensive guitar.

And actually, that guy is making like $10 an hour if he made it himself because of the amount of time, the cost of the materials, et cetera. But what I did do is then we started designing some guitar accessories. And basically, my next five or six products totally flopped i mean just a disastrous we did like guitar string winder and when you thought it was gonna be easy the first one was a hit the first one was i got very lucky and and jack kent who was the the man who owned the company was selling the algae scraper was really uh i was very fortunate to run into this guy because he took me under his wing and even though i was selling him goods he was like well here's how you should do this chris because obviously you're just a young guy but he you seem like a sharp kid i'm gonna just take you under my wing i mean he was very explicit about it and so he's like you

should charge me twice what you get them from the factory for yeah no i was like i was gonna like charge him like way less than that right so and then he he taught me about margins he taught me about all the ins and outs of how you bring a product to market how you get it made and sold though he specialized in chemical stuff so the algae scraper was a hard good and so he didn't know about that i actually knew more about that than he did um so we developed this like great partnership and mentorship where he became my first real you know business mentor other than my father who had always been a businessman and sort of taught me some theories or ideas about business but not didn't he was an insurance agent so he didn't really know anything that would directly help me with product development. So Jack became my first person there.

How important do you think it is to have a mentor early on? Yeah, I mean, I think there are very few instances of people who achieve any level of greatness without standing on the shoulders of other people who are eager, generally, looking for people who, young whippersnappers, up-and-comers, who they can hitch their wagon to because they can thrive on the energy. And I find myself in that position, too. And I find myself in that position too. Now, for me, having the opportunity to share what I've learned gives me a legacy. I figured all this stuff out kind of the hard way. I had some mentors, but I've also cut my own path.

And having gotten all this hard-won knowledge, I don't want it to stop with me. It's way more fun to share it and get other people right doing what i'm doing so right well it's fun having you on right now and talking about this just because you were one of my first mentors and you helped me in my growth so much and that's something i talk about on the show a lot is the importance of having mentors to reach basically the top or the next level or continue getting the next level. Well, and just to comment on that, I'll say in a really great mentorship relationship, the mentor learns just as much from the mentee as the other way around. So like when you came into my office and started showing up,

Lewis had a… Bugging you. Bugging me you had a desk we gave him a desk in the kitchen of the office and we would just go on walks every day and and brainstorm about what he was doing and he would brainstorm what i was doing but i was teaching you about some basics of business and inventing and product design and marketing and everything all those things and uh but i immediately began learning from you about passion and about focus and drive because you had those things in much greater quantity than i did and so i was feeding off of you right just as you were feeding off of me at the same time and that's really like in a mentorship

relationship i think an important thing to understand is you want to pick students who aren't just taking but they're giving back because it's that's where you get the most value and also it's the most fun and plus if you pick students who are going to go on to great things it makes you look really good so thank you exactly yeah when i first you know i first met chris through my ex-girlfriend uh because i was basically injured i had a you know a huge cast on and broken my wrist just retired from football and i made this like little cast sleeve and i told my ex-girlfriend i was like god i really want to like take this to market or sell it and And I was like, I need to find an inventor. And she was like, oh, I know a famous inventor.

He's done this big power squid and all these other products. And so you had just moved back, I think like two weeks before that. I'd been in Santa Cruz, California for three years, taking a break from the weather. And you just moved back. And I go, I have to meet this guy. Let's meet him. I don't care where he's at i'll stalk him let's go and i show up and i was like this thug like showing up

with a backwards cap you're baggy jeans and like just getting out of playing football and i had this thing on my cast and i have it on right there yeah you were wearing i was wearing this thing that i like sourced from china and uh and then iged you. You were like, I don't have time for you. I'm getting settled back in Columbus. And I was like, I will do whatever. Right. He's like, I'll come in tomorrow and we'll talk. And I was like, all right, come in and we'll talk.

And then the next day he's there too. And I'm like, OK, well, you can come in for an hour a day. Yeah. And then pretty soon it was just five days a week. Yeah. And then pretty soon it was like just five days a week. Yeah. And there was a trade there too. You became my personal trainer. Yes.

Then you kicked my ass. So I added value. I added value. I didn't just take. Right. No, you were adding. And that's a key to finding a good mentor is like adding lots of value if possible. Like if you're going to ask someone for their knowledge and wisdom, if it's a one-way street,

it'll run out of gas real fast. Exactly. Yeah. So I would train you a few days a week at the gym with one arm, right? Try to like do one arm pull-ups with you or whatever. And then we would take walks and you teach me everything that you knew. It was amazing.

Yeah. I taught him everything. He knows people. It was like a year. It was like a year and a half. It was about a year and a half of that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. A year and a half. Yeah. It was a blast. It was so fun. It was really a great thing. So it was about a year and a half of that right yeah yeah a year and a half yeah it was a blast it was so fun it was really a great thing so it was amazing and you're originally like oh we'll do this for like three to six months and then it just was a year and a half yeah well we became great friends yeah yeah it was fun and uh and like i said i mean i was learning i was getting at least as much from it as you were so it was it was a real great thing and i recognized instantly that i mean literally the the minute I met you, I came home and I was like, Summer, that's my wife.

I was like, I just met a guy who's very interesting. And he's going to be much more successful than I will be. He's got a drive that I've never encountered before. And I want to learn something about what he's got. Interesting. Yeah, so it was, you know, I'll say one of the skills that's driven my own success has been recognizing talent, whether it's in a person or if it's an idea or a product,

and to just instantly recognize what you know something about it that like there's something there there's something special which like maybe towards the end of this uh conversation we can talk about noticing which is i think a really we will important skill to develop if you if you want to innovate. Well, I think it's mentioning recognizing talent, but then knowing what to do with it. Because anyone can maybe be like, oh, that's an interesting thing,

but if they don't take action on it or whatever, then it's just an interesting idea. Right, right. And what you told me five years ago is that there are no million-dollar ideas, only million- dollar executions that's right so everyone can be like this is a million dollar idea this is going to make me millions but if you don't execute the right way or leverage the talent or whatever it may be then

you really have nothing right yeah i mean i got stacks and stacks of ideas like million dollar ideas yeah yeah i got stacks but there is you know it does help to start with the right idea sure and the right person so it's it's both it's like starting with the right kind of idea and then knowing what to do with it's the second half of the equation so now how do you find the right idea or become innovative in business or in life how does someone innovate well when it comes to inventing coming up with products all the best ideas that i've experienced come from personal experience so we deal at my company try to, with a lot of inventors. So we invent our own things. And then we also work with companies and inventors who have their own ideas. And so they come to us and,

you know, here's my idea. What do you think? You know, is this, does this have legs? And, and some of those people come to us with ideas that they came up with because they're trying to get rich. You know, I'm going to invent something. And then it's like winning the lotto. I'm going to come up with this great idea and I'm going to be rich. It's going to be awesome. And then other people come up with an invention because they need it desperately. I have been scraping aquariums with a sponge on a stick and it's garbage and i need a high quality

tool why does the carpenter get a nice hammer and i get a sponge on a stick so you know so i needed it it was for me and but turns out there were a lot of people like me who were tired of suffering with the low quality stuff so um you know you could be a surgeon and need a new surgical device. You could be a police officer and need something to help you with your job. You could be a passionate hobbyist of, you know, a winemaker or whatever it is. But then out of your own personal experience, you come up with a problem that needs to be solved. And no one's done the right thing. There isn't a solution yet, or you don't think there is one. So drawing on your personal experience, either your job or your hobby or your passion to identify the ideas is where most of the best invention ideas

come from, because you know the customer. Whereas if you're trying to just make money, who's the customer? You haven't identified a customer. The customer is like some theoretical person that you don't know intimately well. But if you design something that is for someone just like you, and you know that if you saw this thing you would have to buy it because it fulfilled a need that you desperately had then there's a good chance that that product is going to succeed and so that's where that's where product ideas come from and and so i guess that's fulfilling a need is usually the best one. Yeah. For yourself. For yourself.

Yeah. And some people, if you become a professional in an industry of a product company, you develop a skill to know what the market needs, not based on personal experience. Sure. So companies innovate in a different way based on intimate knowledge of a category and what's out there and and seeing holes in the marketplace but inventors independent inventors are people trying to come up with new things not just incremental improvements need to draw on their own experience so it's one thing to innovate and find great ideas but really monetizing those ideas is, you know, I build a business,

I guess. So how does someone go from taking an idea to getting into Walmart? And I know there's many steps, I guess, or phases or assets, but how do you, what's like, you know,

the quick overview. Yeah. Well, so if someone has an idea for a product and they want to get it on the market, basically there are two paths. You can either start a company and make it or you can license it. So starting a company and making it

is kind of the obvious answer, though it's the hard one. And then the easy one is develop it to a certain point, and then typically you get a patent or a patent. You file for patent protection, and then you license the intellectual property protected by that patent to another company who will make it, sell it, and pay you a royalty. So why you would choose one of those paths comes down to a few factors.

So, if you're going to start a company, you have to be able to afford it, both time-wise, emotionally, and financially. So, if you don't have the wherewithal to gather the funds, either because you have them or can raise them, then starting a company is not an option for you yeah and if you want to keep your day job as a police officer because or your night job you either like that might be you like your job you just had an idea and you want to make money from it but you're not prepared to come up with a hundred thousand dollars and start going to trade shows and dealing with china or wherever the thing's being made and having inventory and employees. You can't do it casually. Starting a company, if you look out at the world,

you don't see too many companies that make products that are run as just an on-the-side business. Most of them are run by teams of people, large teams of people who work 70 hours a week. It's not a small task. The biggest factor other than that wherewithal issue then is lifestyle choice like what do you want from your life and like one of the things we uh say at trident is like not every great idea is an economic opportunity for you so like like if you invent the new type of internal combustion engine,

and you're not Ford, you know, like, it's going to be tough to monetize that. So if you come up with an invention idea that is, you know, really, really big, and you're not a really, really big company, then it or really, really ballsy audacious person like elon musk or something like that you're not going to find that to be a productive path so you know it kind of comes back to that first idea uh too about like what's the best idea i guess a point i forgot to mention it's important to invent something or have an idea whose scale is within your reasonable reach. So what type of things do you guys invent in general? We're doing simpler consumer products mostly, but we also do medical devices and things

ranging from consumer electronics, housewares products, hardware products, most famously the PowerSquid, which you mentioned earlier earlier which is a power strip with flexible outlets so it looks like a squid and the outlets are on their end of little extension cords it was that was actually my own invention and has been my most successful product to date it's sold several million units it's licensed to phillips it's now coming out under the ge brand it's out under stanley brand it's in bed bath and beyond costco everything right it's been in those places it's you know it's come and gone in a lot of places right and it's and it's past its heyday but it's uh it's been a lot of knockoffs too and there's been knockoffs and you know like i said every product has its life cycle so it it came and uh had a great show won a bunch

of awards lots and lots of media press and And really that product came out in 2005. I thought of it in 2001. And then I licensed it. So back on the licensing option, quick is relative. People think quick and they think, oh, Tiny Wings app was programmed in a weekend. And then that guy became a millionaire. So people think all the news stories about apps and have people thinking, oh, product is – you can get rich overnight. But an average timeframe from idea to marketplace, if you're starting from scratch as an inventor, is realistically three to six years.

It's not a fast thing because of all the steps from a to z that that have to happen like you have to have the idea you have to develop the product you have to develop a presentation you have to file for a patent now you have to find someone to license it to which is a huge task and can take a very long time because you're like identifying targets trying to chase down meetings then you get the the meetings, then you've got to present the product. You've got to get them interested. And if you're just an independent solo inventor, it's very challenging. Because a lot of companies have what I call an immune response to inventors.

They have been burned in the past by crazy inventors. I know inventors, and some of them are indeed quite crazy. Well, by crazy, I mean they have far more passion than perspective. So they're not like literally crazy, though there are some of those too. But there's just a lot of people who have unrealistic expectations based on things that they've seen in the media that aren't real or that are like the one in a million story that made the news because it was the one in a million story but the vast majority of products are not grand slam home

runs that made someone rich overnight they were base hits or doubles that occurred after years and years of effort and so yeah the but the power squid came out in 2005 after I licensed it to a company called Power Century, which was owned by Fiskars, the office products company. And then it launched, and it took off very fast. It was like an overnight success made in four or five years. So it wasn't 20 years, but it was several years in the making. And then it came out, and it took off and ultimately sold several million units, brought in over a million dollars in royalties. And so that's the licensing side. So you can make the product or you can license it.

And the great thing about licensing is you stop your efforts when the entrepreneur is just beginning. You get to keep your day job. You collect a check, usually on a quarterly basis based on the sales of the product that someone else is taking all the effort to do. To promote, to manufacture, to ship, to whatever. To insure. Yeah. Warehouse. Everything.

It's a very complicated number of things to do. And I don't want to discourage people from starting companies that make and sell products. Because people start companies and make and sell products and get rich all the time doing that but you have to go in with your eyes open knowing that it's it's going to be a lifestyle right you're starting a company yeah and you need to do that with your eyes open and i see many lives ruined by people un blindly going into like oh i'm going to start a company and do this thing. And they don't get sound advice. And pretty soon they've got a warehouse full of inventory.

You can't sell. Yeah, because everyone's like, oh, I'll just get some inventory and then I'll sell it. It'll be easy. I'm here to say the hardest part in the equation is selling the goods. Developing and inventing stuff is fun and easy and you've done both you've started side companies of products like the thirsty light was one where you manufactured you did everything you try to sell it all and that's one that i was involved in you know doing pr for like in the kitchen right for you know weeks and weeks but yeah i i have

i've i've manufactured quite a few things, and today I manufacture nothing. I focus exclusively on licensing. We help other people to make things. But for my own interest, making and selling things smacks of work, and I have an allergy to work. I like to play all day,

and inventing stuff, talking to people, cutting deals, this to me feels like and inventing stuff, talking to people, cutting deals. This, to me, feels like play. Or fun, yeah. Yeah. So you're solely focusing on licensing but creating as well. You have a whole design team of designers, industrial designers, right? Mm-hmm.

But basically, it's all about licensing now. That's for my own ideas. Right, for you. Yeah. So inventors come to you as well and they say, hey, I've got this idea. How does it work? If you like the idea, then you say, okay, I can make this for you for a certain price. Right.

And then I can help you take it and license it for you. Yeah. So Trident does, you know, we're basically two things. We're product development and commercialization. And then all the things involved with both of those fields. So we have a team of industrial designers and engineers and graphic designers and marketers and video producers who can put all the pieces together to help someone develop and then launch a product, whether they want to license it

or whether or not they want to sell themselves. And then we have licensing agents. So if they want to license it, that's something we do. If they want to sell it themselves, then obviously they're building a company and just pass it off to them yeah then they're just like a company who hires us to do industrial design which we do quite a bit of as well where corporations will hire our team to develop new products for them in particular inventions so like people come to us if they need an inventive new solution or a new angle on something because our specialty is not styling.

It's inventing, coming up with new ways to do old things. And so we've sort of developed this skill set where we know how to look at things from a fresh perspective and come up with ideas that are new know, are new, but usually not that complicated. It's not like they're complicated. They're like things that are hidden in plain sight, but everyone else is blinded by the past. So, you know, this is how a stapler has always been made. You know, this is what it looks like. This is what a stapler is. You know, this is what it looks like.

This is what a stapler is. And so, you know, one of the secrets to transforming a product and innovating is to not look at a stapler as a stapler, but to look at a stapler as a paper connecting system. So you're like, okay, we're trying to connect paper. Are there other options and what would be the best way given all the possibilities that exist today both in materials and technology and mechanisms and manufacturing capabilities because so often people see what's been done before they decide that's what the thing is and then if they're going to improve on a stapler they just try to make a slightly looking one a cooler looking one or they add a little feature to it right and i haven't worked

on a stapler that's just a case in point but you know the power squid's a great example where everyone was making strips strips and then as the transformer plugs the charger plugs started proliferate as cell phones gave rise pretty soon everyone had all these plugs and if you're trying to plug them into a normal power strip you'd cover up three outlets with one plug and it'd be very frustrating and then so you'd have six outlets but you could only use two or three at the most and even to use those you were like doing what i call the plug juggle like trying to figure out what's the puzzle that allows you to fit them all in there so it's kind of annoying and then like then like once you had, you know, two things plugged in,

now you like to get the third thing there. You can't pull it to where you're at. So it had all these constraints. And the way people were trying to solve that at the time was making the strips bigger and bigger and spreading out the outlets more. And so the strips were just getting like really huge. And so the PowerSquid, you know, was just a fresh take.

Like, well, why can't we have those little extension cords? And the way that happened was one night I was looking at my stereo. I was up late one night having a little insomnia. And I looked over at the stereo and saw the power strip with all the cords, the mess of cords. And for some brief moment, I saw the cords coming out of it instead of into it. And then I was like, wait a second. That's cool.

So I quickly did this little drawing, labeled it the Power Blossom. And then I brought it into my office the next day. And this is kind of in the early days of Trident. And by the end of the day, it had become a squid. it into my office the next day and this is kind of in the early days of trident and uh you know by the end of the day it become a squid and then that started a whole series of events that eventually led to that product coming out so that comes back to that noticing thing i mentioned earlier so a lot of people probably saw that same thing or had this similar idea sort of the skill i've tried to develop over the years is is noticing when i have an idea that might have legs so how do you so how do you notice something

by trying to by developing attention to wanting to notice when something crosses your mind. And instead of letting it come in and go out and never to be seen again, when you hear something or you see something. A lot of times I'll come up with an invention because I'll be flipping through a magazine and I'll think I see something and I'm just flipping through it

and then it's like, wait a second, what did I just see? That was a cool idea. But it wasn't actually what was there it was a i missaw it kind of like when i missaw the power strip and saw like this the cords coming out of it i'll just like have seen something it'll i all i thought i saw something that was really cool i'll flip back and it wasn't there that's not what it was it was something else but the thing that I thought it was, was something cool, something with potential. And so then I like write it down. And then the next step. So getting back to the process, the next step after having that idea that either comes from your personal experience or from or noticing,

it's usually a combination of those having that personal experience and noticing that there's something missing, is then to do research. Just because, so you think, well, I've never seen that before. It must not exist. But there might be a patent on it already. Or it might exist, and you weren't looking for it before. You're like, oh, I had an idea, and I've never seen this before. But then people just assume it doesn't exist, rather than thinking that.

They start making it without. It's amazing what I've seen people do. Like spend hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing something without ever doing research. And they do research, but they don't look for it in detail. They see what they want to see, right? Well, there's what they call the confirmation bias. So people are looking to find what they want to find. So if I was looking at the power squid and I was like, oh, great idea.

Now let's do some research and make sure it's not actually out there. And I just missed it. And just because I hadn't seen it before didn't mean it's not out there. And I just hadn't noticed it. And so then, you know, you look around, and if you look at the first page and you search tentacled power strip, right? And then it's not there. You're like, woohoo, I'm home free, you know? And you're like, well, did you search power strip with extension cords, or did you search power strip flexible?

cords or did you search power strip flexible flexible power you know then you and but usually when because of confirmation bias people like prove to themselves on the first page that it doesn't exist and then they stop because they don't want to find bad news so they're looking actually to not find it rather than looking to find it so that you got to get real serious it's very helpful to get a third party a a patent attorney or a research firm. That's what you guys do too, right? We do do that. It's the first step of any process. We have a research staff that we look into the patents, the market landscape thoroughly.

And we spend 20 hours digging on any project because it would be horrible to invest thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in a product. And I have done this only to find out that, you know, it was out there already, you know, like some of those early mistakes. I mean, some of those early flops, bad decisions were me, you know, making the mistake of thinking that I knew what was out there because I hadn't seen it. And so the fortunate success of that algae scraper early on afforded me a lot of mistakes. And so I was able to make a lot of products and have them fail and learn lessons from those. And I was very clear that I needed to learn. I i mean i knew i didn't know what i was doing right you know i knew that one product didn't make me an expert

but i knew that i wasn't committed to this career path because it was fun yeah like the first time i went into a store and saw my product hanging on the shelves, I was hooked. Because for me, that was like, look, I'm anonymously famous. It's like anonymous fame. I made that. Yeah, I made that. There's someone looking at it. Oh, oh, oh, they're buying it. Oh, my God, I just made $2.

And that's now going to be in their home. And a little piece of me is in that house. And now there's little pieces of me in millions of households. So it's, you know, it's an interesting feeling. Often I will walk into someone's house and see a product that I invented or helped bring to market.

Yeah. There's, Oh, hi, squiddy. So, and, uh,

and so it, it, it, that was what for me made it really exciting was just to realize that in a little way i was impacting people's lives and so my personal bent you know some of our clients invent our surgeons who invent orthopedic surgical devices that are incredibly complex and you know over my head but my but not over the head of the brilliant engineers and designers that i've got and so we figure these

things out and help them to get them to market. But my own inventions tend to be these, like, I think, humble, humble items, things like power strips or recently I... Onion goggles. Yeah, onion goggles, so you don't cry when you chop onions. Famous product, very successful product.

Worn on TV all the time by celebrity chefs. And if you go on Fl flickr and search onion goggles there are literally hundreds and hundreds of selfies of people wearing onion goggles it's like a thing to do just randomly and they and uh phil on the modern family wore the onion goggles that's right and i have a picture of myself next to the TV. I'm wearing the onion goggles. And so is Al Bundy. I forget his actor's name, but he's Al Bundy to me anyway. So that's just cool. And anyway, so just to get back to the process. So after you've done the research and you've determined that, in fact, there does appear

to be an opening, then you've got to develop the product. And this is, you know, the onion goggles segues way nicely into this because when you execute your product, the thing is you're turning your idea now into a product. You've got to turn it into a great product because that's what succeeds. You know, that's why Apple rose to the top. And there was a lot of execution side to it. And a lot of the execution was in creating relentless pursuit of great products like so many people think well apple can do that because they're apple but we can't do that because we're not you know and and all these companies say

well you know we want to be great but you know, we just can't afford to, to take the kind of, you know, attention to detail that Apple does because, you know, we don't have, but that's the, that's how Apple got there.

They weren't always that way. They weren't always that way. Lewis Howes was not always, you know, the famous social network entrepreneur that he is today. And he didn't wait until he became that to become powerful he started powerful and then it happened for him because of that and so it's the same way with products like you got to create a great product great products if you make a great

product that works very well has great design and is based on a great idea, it will succeed. I guarantee it. If the product is great, it will succeed. If the product fails, then there was something about it that was not great. I guess the other piece of that equation is, and the value is great, meaning how much you get for your dollar. So if you create the world's greatest product, and you've got a $1,000 vegetable peeler, it's not.

So part of greatness is value density, a term I've developed, which means like you're getting more for your money. So if you create the onion goggles, you could use shop goggles. You could use chemistry goggles. They're just glasses that protect your eyes from the fumes but we and they could have been five dollar gimmicky silly things and a lot of people thought it was a silly idea and there's a lot of haters on the internet for the goggles oh there's a monotasker silly product though they're also comfortable and they're hundreds of thousands of extremely passionate fans of the onion goggles

because they work and they were made very nice they're 20 they have antifog coating they're made very nicely they come in a case nice design yeah they they look cool we designed them so they look very distinctive they don't look like any other type of goggle they are onion goggles they've become what onion goggles are. Now when people knock off onion goggles, which has happened several times, they look just like ours because everyone just is blinded by the past. They're like, oh, onion goggles look like this. We established that benchmark now that other people are copying. That's what we call a knockoff.

Any successful product is going to be knocked off. A knockoff, by definition definition is just a cheaper version. That's lower quality. And it's not a bad thing. It's an inevitable thing. They're going to happen. If you make some, if you knock something off,

but you make it better, that's not called a knockoff. It's called an innovation. That's what an innovation is. Interesting. Interesting. So the onion goggles succeeded because we executed so well on the product. And then they became a sensation and

have sold extremely well and again that was a product that was licensed so we collect a royalty on the back end and the royalty and the typical product is five five percent five percent yeah i mean the range is like three to eight for a typical product of five is normal that's on wholesale sales the price that the manufacturer sells it to the retail store for and a lot of people hear that number they're like five percent it's nothing that's terrible this is my idea well a well-run manufacturer based on almost infinite data from hundreds of years and makes 10 to 12 bottom line so. So you sell something for $20 retail, well, it wholesales for $10 typically because people are doubling their money.

But then you've got material costs. So if you're selling it for $10, that means usually that you paid somewhere like $5 or $6 for it. So you're actually only getting $4 in margin. Now you've got to pay a sales commission. Now you've got returns and defect allowances from the retailer. Now you've got secretaries and warehouse people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And after all those costs, you're making 10%.

The inventor is getting five. The person who's taking all the risk, taking all the effort, doing all the hard labor of bringing that product. This is why it sounds like work to me. It's like getting double of what you're getting for doing nothing. Right. It's an amazing deal for the inventor. Yeah. Amazing.

It's actually, at some level, it's like overly fair to the inventor, except for the fact that that's the person who had the idea, and they created value around it and then they protected it and then they and they took the the biggest risk so they're getting the biggest proportional reward of anyone in the equation bigger than the retailer is like the retailers doubling their money they're getting 50% margins yeah but they've got to pay for a store and employees and where I mean it's insurance and all yeah I mean it's not like most retailers are making they're making 10% too yeah so all these for a store and employees and warehouse i mean it's insurance and all that yeah i mean it's not

like most retailers are making they're making 10 too yeah so all these things because of the efficiencies of the marketplace have been driven down where like everyone's making 10 in the normal value chain on their money and so it's a uh very fair deal yeah for the inventor and you had a pretty recent success with the hot dog slicer, right? Yeah. What's it called? The hot dog? Hot dog slicer.

Hot dog slicer. And so an inventor came. Cleverly named hot dog slicer. We wanted to call it the safety dog, but an inventor came to us with the idea of doing a cute hot dog cutter that would cut up your hot dog into little chunks that were not choking hazards. Hot dog is the number one choking hazard for children kills quite a few kids each year because the hot dog shaped just like a cork and so the uh guy comes to us with this idea and this is this is how our business works if someone's going to license their product he paid his fee to develop his idea to do a hot

dog cutter into a product we we came up with the idea that it should look like a wiener dog and then figured out how it would work you have a little tray put the hot dog on it you press the wiener dog over it and you know viola you got a bunch of little hot dog chunks and then there's a little bowl in front of the dog that holds the ketchup so it's super cute and uh the reason we chose that is like back to that you know great design is like well part of a lot of people think the design is just the aesthetics it's just making something pretty after you've designed it but really the aesthetics is part of the function we call it the human function so that's how you cause a product to engage with the end user and successful products today especially are

really engaging the human not just getting the job done but appealing to the person helping them understand what the product does and what the value of that product is to them and then with the hot dog slicer we realize well who's buying this why are they buying it is it moms afraid of their kids choking to death safety products are like that generally you know the data says they don't sell well but a cute little dog for eating your hot dogs is adorable and cost 350 at walmart sells like crazy yeah i mean we're it'll ship well over a million units this year. And so we developed it, prototyped it, filed for a patent, and then shopped it around. And then we found a person, a company to license it after considerable effort. And that company then manufactured it and sold it to Walmart.

And it's sold on a clip strip next to the hot dog buns. Amazing. sold on a clip strip next to the hot dog buns so amazing yeah and then dan the inventor makes you know a share his percentage his percentage 60 of that's our deal and uh then we get 40 you know it'll generate on for him what was like a ten thousand dollar investment probably over half a million dollars in revenue by the time it's done based on the success it's had. Now, the other side of that coin is that we've developed a lot of products that don't succeed.

I mean, we're very good, but we don't have a crystal ball and you just can't always win. I mean, you get the products out there and then ultimately the consumer has to respond. And so we've had our share of successes, and we've had our share of failures. We've had our share of products we've developed which have never made it to market. So we try very, very hard with every one of them, but it's just, you know,

obviously you can't bet $1,000. You can't even bet $500. I think we bet around $300. So we feel pretty good about that. Right. Well, I feel like we could talk for hours on this stuff. And there's a lot that I want to cover, probably in the next one, on FIP,

which is one of your philosophies. And I won't spoil it for everyone now. We'll have you come back on again and talk about that and a lot of other things on inventions and innovation and designing your life. Because I think that's what's really cool for me to learn about. But until the next time, let's have you answer the question. What's your definition of greatness?

So I'll say I'll define greatness for myself. Not how I define greatness for other people, but what I'm trying to do in myself to be great. I think greatness for me, Chris Hawker, is what I call being integral. So trying to be great in every aspect of my life. So living up to my potential, embracing life in all of its aspects. So in my career, in my family, in my body, I'm not an athlete like you are, but I practice Tai Chi and Kung Fu and try to stay fit, eat healthy. I try to have a great relationship with my family

and my friends, like really great, deep connections with my family and friends, as well as being well-read, as well as traveled, as well as being an inventor and an idea thought leader. So for me, that's my path is trying to really be great in all these different areas. Be great at everything. Well, as great as I can be. Right. For you.

I'm not measuring myself against other people, just against myself. Right, right. Gotcha. Am I living up to my potential, or trying to, at least? Love it. Well, where can people find you online, Chris? I'm at trident-design.com, or you can get me on Twitter at inventorchris. And we've got a Facebook page as well.

Nice. Feel free. If you've got ideas, we want to hear them. We'd love to talk to you. It's free to talk to us and get some feedback on whether your idea has legs, whether it is an economic opportunity for you. And it's fun. I mean, inventing is like kite surfing. you know, an op, an economic opportunity for you. And, uh, and it's fun. I mean,

I inventing is like kite surfing. It's like, it's a hard thing. Challenging, but fun, challenging, but fun. And if you can master it, you'll be the coolest guy in the block.

It's cool. It's fun. And, uh, it's, it's exciting. I love it. Thanks,

Chris. And, uh, we'll have to have you come back on sometime soon and talk about everything else. It'd be my pleasure. Awesome. Thanks, Louis. that we'll have to have you come back on sometime soon and talk about everything else. It'd be my pleasure. Awesome. Thanks, Lewis.

And there you have it, greats. There are no such thing as a million-dollar idea, only million-dollar executions. So pumped that I could finally get Chris on the show, as he's been a mentor and a friend for a long time. Make sure to check out his site, trident-design.com and look at all the cool stuff that he's been up to lately, all the different inventions that he's created and put out there in the market. If you've got an idea for a product or an invention, feel free to go to his site. There's a form. You can call their office and check it out.

And I highly recommend it as they're extremely successful at taking ideas that inventors have, bringing them to market, licensing them, and all that other good stuff. So make sure to check Chris out. Also, I want to give a quick shout-out to the Review of the Week. And this is over on iTunes. Customer Review of the Week goes out to Alex Designs. And Alex said on the headline, listen and follow greatness dash repeat. He said the best way to have true wealth in life is to model greatness. Lewis brings great interviews to his show. I just addicted and I can't stop listening. So thanks so much, Alex, for the review.

And there are a lot of other reviews out here. But please, if you have not sent us a review or written us a review, go ahead over to iTunes and just leave a quick comment. Click on the ratings and leave your rating. I'd love to hear your feedback, good or bad. I would love to hear whatever you have to say, but just please leave us a review so I know how to improve it for you in the future.

And with that, guys, we've got a few killer episodes coming up in the coming weeks. I'm gonna start posting these a couple times a week and see how that works for the next month. So get ready for greatness coming out at you twice a week. With that, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and make sure to do something great. ស្រូវាប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ Outro Music សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� Thank you.