Climate of Awesomeness
By Nick Such
Inventors, idea people, and entrepreneurs converged in Lexington this evening for the 5th annual Inventors Conference hosted by the Central Kentucky Inventors Council (CKIC.org). The team from Awesome Labs stopped by to talk to gather feedback on the Interactive Touch Screen and our upcoming Engineering Entrepreneurship program. The folks from the CKIC did an excellent job of bringing together a host of local innovators. They showcased products ranging from innovative pet housing, to solar powered jackets, our friend Ken’s novel air purification system, Bill Cloyd’s increasingly popular Newton’s Attic program, and even the pre-collegiate stars of PLD Robotics.
The day began with an early morning at the Lexington Central Library. At 5:15am, about 15 exhibitors and CKIC members talked with Lee Cruse from LEX18 to promote the evening’s event. Everyone reconvened at 6pm, when Don Skaggs, President of the CKIC, kicked off the evening’s festivities with a video showcasing inventors and an introduction to the theme “Climate of Innovation”. This led into presentations from Nick with the Lexington Public Library and Gordon Garrett from the Small Business Development Center, culminating in the keynote address from Louis Foreman, renowned inventor and entrepreneur.
The conference’s common thread, as eluded to by “Climate of Innovation”, is that the recession environment is a great time to start a technology-based business. While this bodes well for Awesome Labs on the surface level, this assertion comes with a few cautionary notes:
1. Problem before solution. If there is no need for your product, you won’t succeed. Utilize free resources (like libraries, biz dev centers) for this research.
2. Revenue must exceed expenses. You will not survive if this fails.
3. Tailor your product to your customers. This means you must take the time to get to know your customers, and that you need to find a way for your customers to get to know your product.
While these are undoubtedly not original thoughts on the innovation commercialization process, it was helpful to have them laid out again. We inventors tend to fall in love with our ideas, while ignoring all the free resources we have available. The best (read: my favorite) advice of the night came via a video featuring the innovation manager from WD-40: failure is good. Accepting that one idea has failed means that you have gotten one step closer to success. It is far worse to deny failure, and attempt to follow through with a lousy idea.
So, here’s to failure, early and often, in the pursuit of Awesomeness.
