Sawyer on Shark Tank

If you didn’t watch the program last night, go to about 30 minutes into the 43 minute embedded video below,  and watch Sawyer’s performance under the gun. What do you think of his “deal?” Hank

Toybots: A future toy

At the recent Tech50, a new concept in toys was introduced, Toybots. Here’s their description: Toybots ushers in an "internet of things" that will disrupt the gaming, entertainment and toy industries. We have been building the Toybots Platform for connected toys with full 3G, WiFi, GPS and accelerometer capabilities tied to online and mobile games.

Imagine a physical toy you can tickle online and it giggles in the real world. Imagine a grandmother in Iowa recording a family story and the toy telling the story to her grandchild in Florida. You will be able to download audio books as well to the toys and play full online games with these toys. Toybots will bridge mobile, online and physical gaming worlds together for the first time in an inspirational and unique way. Toybots provides toy manufacturers and hobbyists a ready hardware and software platform to launch connected toys that are wirelessy connected via the Toybots Magic Network. Developers will be able to contribute the Toybots firmware as well as launch new applications and games via an App Store connected to Toybots-powered devices that are wirelessly connected via the Toybots Magic Network. Toybots technology was incubated at SGN, the leading innovator in mobile social games, and is a separate division of the company.

So we have intelligent appliances like refrigerators, and now toys. We’re still working on students. Hank

Zico: Coconut Water Bubbles

The novelty of bottled water is starting to wear off, especially in these hard times. This presents a “problem” for companies involved in this market segment – their sales are on a downward curve dropping 6% in the 52-weeks ending July 12, 2009 to ONLY $7.6 billion. What to do about it? Invent yet another drink that everyone “must have.” And what’s the drink?

Coconut water. Coconut water, different from coconut milk, comes from young green coconuts. It is a popular drink in Brazil, and is being targeted toward athletics and celebrities like Madonna who drink the stuff. How to extend the market to readers of this blog is the compelling question. Zico is leading the charge with a colorful web site extolling the virtues of sucking down its product. A video from a competitor who claims to have had the original idea is embedded below. Are you ready for aqua de coco? Hank

Former ENTR200 Student’s “Story”

This blog is from Beth Carroll who has personal insight into the subject. Thanks Beth!. Hank

ENTR student Sawyer Sparks will be on ABC’s Shark Tank tomorrow evening, Tuesday September 29^th at 8 p.m. to pitch one of his products: Sawyer Dough! http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1573569.html All current (and former) ENTR200 students are invited to view.

Sawyer, a senior in Agriculture at Purdue, was in the first ENTR 200 class I taught in the Fall of 2007. Already an entrepreneur with a couple of products under his belt, at the age of 19, Sawyer had the ability to recognize a problem and figure out a way to solve it. He did that first while in high school with his development of a peanut butter alternative made from sunflower seeds for kids with peanut allergies. Sawyer has also figured out a way to use sunflower oil as an alternative bio-fuel. One day while Sawyer was driving on a slippery winter road he crashed into another vehicle. Thankfully no on was hurt. But, while standing on the roadside waiting for the police to arrive, instead of worrying about what his parents would say and how much his insurance rate was going to increase, Sawyer instead wondered how this accident might have been prevented. As a result, he figured out how to create asphalt using sunflower oil, on which ice doesn’t form. Sawyer’s not a scientist; he’ll be the first to tell you that. But he is a clever guy who sees opportunity in every problem he encounters, and then he figures out a way to create a product solve that problem.

While in my ENTR 200 class I was talking about niche’ markets and how new products are being developed for people like me who have Celiac disease, an intolerance for gluten in wheat, barley, rye and oats. Sawyer heard me say that I couldn’t drink beer or play with Play Doh, my daughter’s favorite thing to play with, because they both contained gluten. This “weak tie” relationship between Sawyer and myself inspired him and another student in the class, Ankit Gupta, to try to create a gluten free beer made from soy. Neither Ankit or Sawyer were 21, but luckily they knew some people who were, so they could taste the beer for them. Apparently it tasted awful. Instead of giving up, tenacious Sawyer instead decided to pursue the play dough problem and Sawyer Dough was born.

Will Sawyer convince these sharks to invest their dough in his dough? Tune in on Tuesday and cheer on your fellow ENTR student. See video below for a ENTR200 class interview with Sawyer. Beth

Late breaking news: Sawyer made today’s Journal & Courier – here. Hank

Hunting Trends

All design, technical, and really, most all entrepreneurs, are trend hunters. So what are ways to track trends ahead of the trend becoming a trend mere mortals will eventually become aware of? Here’s a couple of hints:

1. Social networks although noisy provide arguably the first indication of trends. Twitter is a good example of such a network. What’s being discussed may provide insights into the future. A great real time example of the ability to track such twitter-based trends appropriately named Trend Tracker is available here: http://www.palmtrendtracker.com/

2. TrendHunter.com is one of the most referenced sources of trends by the main stream media. A new book, Exploiting Chaos is quickly rising in the must read charts and is on my bed stand. You can review the first chapter here: See video below for a sample of high tech fashion trends from www.trendhunter.tv:

3. Never pass up an opportunity to talk to someone not in your age group, say a much younger cousin or grandchild. You’ll be surprised at what is floating their boat. Hank

Turn Out The Lights

In response to the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, incandescent light bulbs, the kind around since Edison invented the first commercial viable one, will be phased out in favor of energy-saving alternatives, in today’s market compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Certainly, CFL manufacturers are set to “laugh all the way to the bank” to use one of my favorite expressions. The phase out is set to take place in the 2012-2014 timeframe. Such a shift in lighting has already taken place, starting 1 September 2009 in the EU which resulted in a overwhelming run on incandescent bulbs and black market selling.

There is a high level of disagreement among both users and lighting professionals as to the efficacy of CFLs in particular. Howard Brandston – www.concerninglight.com, a lighting consultant, professor and artist, suggests that CFL lighting sucks and should not be meat for an energy-saving agenda. See this 8/31/09 article in the WSJ for more on this topic. Luminus Maximus, I’m certain a pseudo name,  in a 9/3/09 American Thinker article really lambasts the political “thinking” behind this move.

Closer to home, my wife Linda just doesn’t like the light intensity AND color of CFLs. We have found in actual use CFLs burn out much much more frequently than advertised.

So entrepreneurs, we have a problem. What’s your solution? Hank

Have A Happy Friday: Our fawns are

The Importance of Enthusiasm in Any Product

Today’s blog draws on Apple’s recent announcement of new products and their obvious enthusiasm for what they are about. Techcrunch’s MG Siegler in a blog 9/17/09 titled “The Importance of Enthusiasm In Any Product” drives home this point extremely well. It is well worth a couple minutes of your time to read and learn from his post. Hank

Kid’s Beer by Beth

Beth Carroll is back with this blog – thanks Beth! Hank

A non-alcoholic beverage for kids that looks and foams like beer but tastes like pop is popular in Japan with over 75,000 bottles shipping monthly! This kid’s beer, known as “Kodomo Biiru”, has an ad campaign that reads: “Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink!”

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the company Tomomasu which produces the foaming beverage, said: “Children copy and mimic adults. If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining.”

In 1978, Anheuser-Busch introduced Chelsea “the not so soft drink”, which also foamed like beer but had less then a quarter the alcohol content of regular beer. Outraged politicians, parents and clergy labeled it “baby beer”, and were convinced it would promote underage drinking. The company was strongly encouraged to drop the beverage from their product mix. It seems Anheuser-Busch forgot to do a feasibility analysis!

Kodomo Biiru might soon take off in Europe, but watchdogs of underage drinking in the U.S. say they will never let Tomomasu market their concoction on our turf. Have studies really proved that letting kids have kiddie cocktails and candy cigarettes will increase their chance of abusing alcohol and tobacco later in life?  Or, do parents in the States just need to lighten up? – Beth

Local New Web Design Firm Gets Lucky

Facebook link:

Maximumedia Design is a Lafayette-based web design company started within the last couple of months by Noah Mattern. Startups usually have trouble gaining traction. On 9/1/09 Max Showalter of the Journal & Courier ran an article on the new startup, and came back just a three short weeks later (9/22/09 p. C6) with an article covering how Maximumedia landed a job to create a web site for a real estate firm that is selling the property in Chicago located next to President Obama’s home there. The site, www.5040greenwood.com, has received 100ks of hits and received PR on Time, New  York Times, Bloomberg, and Inside Edition plus international press coverage. See a Google search here: and Alexa data (9/22/09 3:26pm) below.

Moral of this story for entrepreneurs – it pays to be seen [or lucky ]. See video below Hank