The Invention Machine: Cleveland Duo Churns Out Ideas Worth Billions | Hacker News Reader

The Invention Machine: Cleveland Duo Churns Out Ideas Worth Billions

forbes.com

126 pointsprostoalex32 comments

Whatever your views on the patent system, I think its worth thinking about companies like this, that just have engineers who do R&D without being backed by big sales and marketing teams. There is a lot of value to business models like this one (and ARM, etc). They don't need to think about users, scaling, marketing, etc, just the technology. Its not good for innovation if the only companies that can make money off R&D are ones that build end-user products to put it into, because ultimately the optimal conditions for many kinds of R&D aren't all that compatible with the conditions in product-focused organizations.

> They don't need to think about users, scaling, marketing, etc, just the technology.

While I don't disagree with the sentiment of your post as a whole, this statement seems to state the opposite of what the article describes. All of their greatest hits were a result of thinking about users, scaling, and marketing. A few excerpts from the article show...

...that they're thinking about users: The process starts in a research lab in the church’s basement. Designers, engineers and prototype builders crowd into a small room on one side of a two-way mirror and watch through the glass as consumers use products like, say, a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. They take notes on potential problems, such as how sick people usually take two teaspoons instead of the suggested two tablespoons, underdosing themselves.

...that they're thinking about scaling: Clients walk away with a patent plus a prototype they can send straight to a manufacturer.

...that they're thinking about marketing: GOJO had developed a goo that would clean hands, but it wouldn't sell. Nottingham Spirk added air bubbles and clear packaging, helping turn GOJO's Purell brand into America's hand sanitizer.

In fact, article describes that they got their first big break when they took a company's (Rotodyne) existing manufacturing technology (rotational molding for bedpans), and figured out how that company could use their technology on a large-scale with an entirely new market (Little Tikes).

The introduction even states that they don't just think about technology:

Rather than invent products and then figure out how to sell them, à la Edison, the Nottingham Spirk Innovation Center invites corporate behemoths–from Procter & Gamble PG -1.07% to Mars –to come to it with its product quandaries.

I don't mean to say that you can design technology without studying how users will use it, or thinking about how it will be manufactured. But I think there is a benefit to the engineers being under a different roof from the guys who are worried that user growth was only 4% this quarter or that the product isn't trending in the 18-25 demographic or that factory workers in China are demanding a raise.

Not that those guys aren't useful too, but they tend to create an environment that inhospitable to certain kinds of R&D.

There is a difference between thinking about users, scaling, marketing vs successfully carrying it out. Without needing to carry out the users, scaling, marketing they were able to focus on the technology and innovating.

This matters because often a small startup or individual does not have the resources (not just simply $money, but also things like distribution channels, enterprise relationships, etc..) to not only carry out bringing the finished and refined product to market - let alone recouping costs sunk in.

Let the small guys do what they do best (dreaming and tinkering in their garage) and the large corporations do what they do best (reduce manufacturing costs). Patents provide another avenue for startups or individuals to do this.

What if they just sit on the patents though?

I'm still waiting for my Mosquito Laser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser).

I get your point and agree to some extent, however I still think the externalities of the patent system are so bad/terrible that it should be abolished. This company does not make me think otherwise (in a meaningful way). If it took the world a few years longer to have a spinning toothbrush or paint can that pours, I'm okay with that. So yes, abolishing patents would have negatives but I'd look at the system on the aggregate.

At first I was worried this was going to be another patent troll story, but was pleasantly surprised. An actual company doing freelance product development, using the patent system as it was intended. No mention of whether they abuse the system too, but overall quite interesting.

How do they reach the right people in these mega corporations to get all these contracts? Wouldn't they need a large, world-class sales team?

I think that's what the article is leaving out. You can't just open for business and have giant corporations beat down your door.

The article breezes over how they got their foot in the door, but I would imagine it happened gradually (bigger and bigger customers) and then...

"Their big break came when they approached Rotodyne..."

Have to be careful not to compare how they do business now, with how they did business when they were operating from a "garage". I would assume that they (the co-founders) were essentially their own world-class sales team in the beginning and their reputation now replaces that function entirely.

It's a lot of networking. A lot of IDs are people that have spun away from large companies (like Nottingham from GM), or have worked in an ID shop and then gone out on their own.

Like any other consulting, you develop a reputation working on smaller projects and then you start getting approached by larger firms. And if you have a contact on the inside it's also easy to design something on your own and then get a chance to present it to the megacorp.

I've known a fair number of people in the toy design business and it works pretty much the same way. It's just industrial design with a different audience.

For product development, they could focus on a few companies and cover many brands... Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, etc.

Also, once you have their reputation, I bet companies come to them.

SPI had a good episode on exactly that:

http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/how-to-get-paid-for-your-i...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/patflynn/SPI126-How_to_Get_Paid_fo...

No, just show them how they can make money and management will listen. Next get a demo/prototype in their hands and go from there.

>‘It’s amazing that the most innovative ideas that General Motors has come up with have come from the outside, small companies.’

Many corporations have an 'idea submission' form buried somewhere on their website - even Google: http://www.google.com/intl/en/patents/opportunitysubmission/...

Nottingham anticipates bigger results from the firm’s latest play: HealthSpot, a kiosk that comes with pull-out medical instruments and a high-definition screen that allows for remote, yet face-to-face, medical appointments.

Interesting video here: http://www.healthspot.net/solutions/healthspot-station/

...however this feels way too close to the idiocracy medical scanning machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIktqjfsB_0

There have been companies working on the Tricoder XPrize[1] who are trying to replicate the infamous Star Trek tricoder. I personally think it will beat out on cost versus something like the HealthSpot, but I know nothing about what the market wants/will use/will pay for in the future. I do know one thing though, these guys seem well connected with some of the Old Guard and possibly Government to potentially have influence on rolling out pilot programs. [1]http://tricorder.xprize.org/

I like the success stories they gave but would be really curious at how many times they have hit the proverbial brick wall. The lesson being, that while they may hit a large number of brick walls there is always another success to be had. Too many just give up when the dream isn't realized immediately.

The article mentions that they have over 1000 patents, but it only lists a dozen or so success stories.

The inventions don't really seem like much to me?

Yeah, that was my impression too. My take on it is that based on their reputation they can add a bit of creativity to product design that either is not present, or ignored, in their large corporate customer's own internal design departments.

I can be cynical and say that the invention of the wheel did not look like much to the cavemen either..

Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, the fact that some great inventions were laughed at does not imply that all which are laughed at are great inventions.

But it shows there is a real possibility for a laughed at invention to be great.

It doesn't have to be groundbreaking to make a boatload of cash. Think Purell.

Inventions like the Easy-Open pull tab [1] didn't seem like much at the time either, but the simplicity in the invention helping increase it's adoption. If an invention makes things easier for people, it's definitely worth investigating and potentially roll out to production.

[1]https://www.google.com/patents/US3391820

But we should all repeat the mantra: " ideas don't matter -- only execution ! "

I don't believe this people are great inventors. They could be great designers but not inventors.

The inventor of the "Dirt Devil vacuum" was Dyson who was the one who invented the system this vacuum uses.

The same could be said about "Crest Spinbrush". They added another brush. Wow, so hard to imagine!

Great inventors revolutionize a product:

Dyson completely changed the concept of a vacuum cleaner.

Tesla revolutionized the concept of a car.

Apple revolutionized the concept of a personal computer and telephone.

Igor Reizerson revolutionized the concept of cleaning your teeth.

Those Cleveland guys hold a thousand patents over little improvements here and there. Good for them, but don't call yourself inventor. You are not, at least a good one.

> Great inventors revolutionize a product

Then those "great inventors" are simply designers, are they not? The revolutionary improvements you list are exactly that -- improvements on an existing product. Even Edison was not the first to create electric light.

These guys from the article are taking existing products and making improvements that drastically increase functionality / sales of those products.

For some context on one of your comments:

> Tesla revolutionized the concept of a car.

Third sentence on the Wikipedia article for electric car says, "The first electric cars appeared in the 1880s."

I think these guys are doing great work, and whether you call them inventors or designers doesn't matter. They are performing a vital function that not only increases profits for their clients but also improves the user experience for the consumer.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car

I think several of those "great inventors" are more pop cultural references than actually important their respective fields, at least if you look at it world wide.

> Dyson completely changed the concept of a vacuum cleaner.

Never heard of. Western european hemisphere here.

> Igor Reizerson revolutionized the concept of cleaning your teeth.

Not only haven't heard of, doesn't exist on Google.

Your other examples I have heard of. But I have yet to see a Tesla on the road. And Apple, while having been very influential in the smartphone market, are hardly revolutionaries in the computer market.

If you wanted to critise who is an inventor I think you could do much better. Surely you must have either made some groundbreaking discovery or at least made a dent in your field. Preferrably both.

> Never heard of. Western european hemisphere here.

You've never heard of Dyson vacuum cleaners and Dyson "fanless" fans and Dyson handdryers? (Dyson is English).

No, no, and yes. The hand dryers are not uncommon in restaurants and the like.

I had to check the Wikipedia article to see the vacuum in question. It looks like it's one of those "upright" types, and they are pretty much unheard of outside the UK, US and Australia I believe (which is pretty much in line with what the article says). I would have trouble calling what is world wide a niche model revolutionary, unless it is good enough to spread them internationally.

It's remarkably interesting to see how such a common house product is so different across cultures which are so similar in other aspects.

Dyson took 100 year old design of industrial saw dust vacuum cleaner and just changed target demographic of a product.

He basically went "this 100 year old thing, but on a MOBILE DEVICE!11"

Well, I hadn't heard of those two guys, but I will say they are now my heroes. :).

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