Back when I was in undergrad, five of my male classmates started a company that they named “Lucid Minds”. The whole enterprise was started so that they could eventually manufacture and distribute a single product that they believed would be revolutionary and could potentially grow into a worldwide phenomenon. Before releasing the product, they needed to come up with the money to patent it. I guess the rationale was that the product was so good that if it were to be released without a patent, someone surely would have stolen their invention. They went to great lengths to ensure that their secret never got out, and they refused to tell anyone outside the group, including myself, what the invention was. This fueled my curiosity as I began to wonder what could possibly be so good as to warrant such overzealous guardianship of their intellectual property?
In order to raise the money for the patent, they started a line of urban-inspired long- and short-sleeved T-shirts, which, of course, also required an overhead investment, although this time it was a manageable $600 each. The plan was working well at first, as friends and classmates jumped at the opportunity to support this bold entrepreneurial endeavour undertaken by their peers. But then things started to slow down. By the time I thought to inquire about the company again, almost a year had passed. To my surprise, I was told that the group had abandoned its policy of keeping their invention a secret until the patent was in place, and had posted photos of prototypes on the company webpage. When I got home that evening, the first thing I did was to visit the Lucid Minds website to finally learn about this genius invention I had been so curious about.
When I saw it, I immediately understood why the product had been unveiled months earlier in such an unceremonious fashion. The invention was nothing more than a detachable rubber cuff, to be fastened to the hems of pant legs in order to prevent them from fraying when dragged on the floor. It was essentially a pocket protector for the bottom of your jeans. Needless to say, the invention didn’t take off as expected, but I still have a great deal of admiration for the effort that those guys put forth.
It seems nowadays all the major, game-changing inventions have already taken place. Fire and the wheel were probably among the first to go. Airplanes, radios, and telephones have also been covered. Most recent inventions, it seems, are just improvements on existing technologies and all of them are so specialized that they require a level of expertise that makes it almost impossible for a layperson to have a chance at making any significant contribution.
However, that being said, there are still countless creative entrepreneurs whose ingenuity harkens back to the days of the old-school inventors. Take for example, the Gigimo company of China. The company produces a device used by women to create the illusion of virginity during intercourse. It does this by releasing a blood-like substance when inserted and breached. The Artificial Virginity Hymen Kits as they’re called, are sold mostly to customers in the Middle East, where many would-be husbands expect their wives to be virgins on their wedding day. The kit sells for $30 (US), which makes it a practical alternative to extreme measure of hymen reconstruction surgery.
In Egypt the device has become popular enough that the ultraconservative opposition party, The Muslim Brotherhood, has tried to have the product banned from the country on the grounds that it allows women to give in to their impure desires without penalty. This is precisely what makes the invention so brilliant. This is where Gigimo got it right and Lucid Minds got it wrong. The hallmark of a great invention is that it improves people’s overall quality of life, usually by making life easier. Not only does the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit make it easier for a sexually repressed woman to find and keep a husband after an adolescence spent freely exploring her sexuality, but in the long run it will also make it easier for adolescent men to find adolescent women, who are looking to freely explore their sexuality. Just like the invention of the wheel or the radio, everybody wins!
And most of the time, a product does not sell itself. You can have the most awesome invention ever, but you really need someone to market it to get it to the early adapters, then the late adapters, then the non-adapters.
a patent lawyer told me that 98% of the time when a client comes in all excited with a product that will 'change the world' its already been invented, and was wildly unsuccessful.