I'm confused as to what he invented. Here's an advert from a year before he even formed the company advertising the exact same product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpNLD3TrdE
IMO, if you want to succeed with QVC, you should market a widget to the elderly/uneducated?
Basically the equivalent of todays "Gimme your content and I shall provide EXPOSURE via my instagram followers"
https://vendorportal.qvc.com/documents/10184/0/QVC-Vendor+Qu...
The only thing I saw that sorta was related to the comment you were replying to was "Our customers are affluent, educated, digitally savvy — and loyal. Over 90% of our sales come from repeat customers" other than the 90% sales figure, that's just meaningless marketing fluff, no data/figures was given to back it up. The rest was just about the logistics of selling on QVC.
I was more surprised by how QVC requires vendors to pay thousands for QVC's own prep, like makeup and hair, among other things. Seems like a scam all around...except unfortunately the junk they vend seems to be selling.
But its nice to see how far a little engineering development and solid (but not genius) marketing can take somebody.
When I heard the phrase "stair climbing dolly" I immedietly thought of the three wheels on an axle design.
My first search found this from 2007, but 1906 is just as good.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221786654_Climbing_...
The vast, vast majority of startups aren't inventing anything new that didn't exist before, either. You don't need to come up with a novel invention to have a successful business; it's usually sufficient just to do something at lower cost, or do marketing better.
Lying matters. We're not talking about some kind of white lie to make someone feel better either. It's lying to make money, which we should all agree is bad.
They certainly make it appear that way, but it's a lie.
I've seen very similar dollies more than a decade ago, as did others in this thread. Their patents are either invalid or cover some minor aspect to make an impression that they invented the three wheeled stair-climbing mechanism.
What they're claiming to have invented is a specific folding dolly that uses the 3-wheel mechanism.
> The UpCart ® line of products solve this problem with a unique line of all-terrain folding carts and hand trucks that have been engineered to reduce effort while going up and down stairs and over irregular terrain
A casual reading of this sentence leaves the reader with the impression that their carts are unique because of how they reduce the effort of going up and down stairs and over irregular terrain. This is corroborated further by other messaging such as their logo.
However, that is a lie. There have been similar other carts with exact same wheel setup.
The only unique part of their product is the folding mechanism, and they are clearly trying to project that uniqueness onto the wheel mechanism. And it will definitely work on people who have never seen such wheel setup before.
Just because you'd prefer others be more stringent with it doesn't mean that everyone else is lying.
A cable package or car loan does not magically become a GREAT DEAL just because a billboard said so. We're just used to constant lies and aggrandizement in advertising, so all that bullshit looks normal, entirely expected now. It's still bullshit though.
The message is, whether or not it is original (looks to be a no), is how he and his partner managed to succeed in launching the product and earning millions in revenue.
I take it that most people here aren't developing, launching, and marketing their own products and creating a company out of it, and don't really care about learning anything from the article.
People in general, but especially anonymous people on the internet are more interested in calling fraud, and telling you why you have no right to success.
I see the same thing on /r/entrepreneurs, MMA forums, YouTube comments, and here. Doesn't matter how hard you worked or how successful you are, even if you're the top fighter in the world who trained for a decade taking hundreds of blows to the head - people will make sideways excuses for themselves by shitting on you.
Meanwhile reality asserts itself and this guy and his partner has made millions by themselves and have established their own independence.
And the takeaway from HN is "My grandma used this 3 decades ago," and "I don't like the text and phrasing on his website."
This is empty marketing not invention.
Mullets were OK
Mid-rift bearing shirts for MALES were OK (even in Net Fabric)
Computers were cool
Phreaking was 1337
Captain Crunch
Movies were fantastic (minus the pedos who were tormenting the great kid actors of the day)
Transformers
Space Lego
NES
etc...
> Captain Crunch
> Movies were fantastic (minus the pedos who were tormenting the great kid actors of the day)
You might want to read up on what Captain Crunch has been up to the last decade or so
More often than not the idea itself isn't really what makes or breaks a company, it is the people executing that idea that gets it out in front of people.
> The UpCart Deluxe combines an all-terrain three-wheel chassis with a folding hand cart, with unique engineering that makes it easy to bring home the groceries or haul a cabinet up to your fifth floor apartment. UpCart improves stability, is capable of “walking” over irregular terrain and always folds flat for compact storage.
There are pictures too.
Is it a radically new invention. No, it's an improvement or variation on an existing product.
At best they re-invented the thing, but they certainly did not invented it.
Ah! you can still buy them; here's one you can fold: https://www.google.com/search?q=carro+dela+compra+con+tres+r...: